>> warner: and the secret hospitals. tell us about that. >> this was one of the most upsetting and depressing parts of the story we covered actually. we really realized that you're not safe anywhere if you're a protestor, not even in hospital. a doctor told us he had seen with his own eyes dozens of injured protestors dragged out of the hospital beds by the security forces who raid hospitals looking for anyone who had been at a protest. and this doctor said it's a really familiar pattern that he saw. a protestor would be dragged out of his bed even if they have superficial injuries. a few weeks later their dead body would be delivered to their families. >> warner: so you went to makeshift clinics? in other words, people don't go to the real hospitals anymore. >> exactly. people are too scared. so they go to they call them secret hospitals. they're usually in people's back rooms, in safe houses, and they're kept hidden there. fear of rape, of being caught.

and the doctor what we spoke to was terrified treating these patients. he said over ten of his colleagues were in prison simply because they treated injured protestors. >> warner: since you left the military and the security forces are assaulting homes. they're doing this house to house just as you see in your film. what are you hearing from... i know you still stay in touch with some of these activists. is this crackdown more intense than it was even a month or two ago? >> in homs it's extremely intense because they're shelling the city. so it fooels like a war zone. and part of syria felt like a war zone when we were there and there was no shelling in the town. at the moment the situation is really bad. people are terrified. the economy in these towns have ground to a standstill. people are just cowering in their homes. >> warner: you got to know some of these activists well. do you sense... and i know i'm asking for a judgment here. but did they have the will and

also the means to withstand this kind of crackdown, this kind of assault? >> they didn't have the means. they still don't have the means. that's why i think that this uprising is going to take a bloody turn because the activists i've been speaking to have said that they want to arm themselves. they say they think that's the only way that they can survive. that's the only way they can protect themselves. i think we're going to see a real shift in what's happening. >> warner: a really fine piece of work. thank you. >> thank you so much. >> woodruff: now we turn to the high-profile case before the supreme court today where the justices questioned if the government can track a suspect using a gps device without a warrant. at the heart of the case is an individual's constitutionally protected privacy in today's

high-tech world of real-0time surveillance. here now to bring us the highlights from today's oral arguments is marcia coyle of the "national law journal." welcome back, marcia. >> thanks, judy. >> woodruff: tell us first the facts of the case. >> okay. the police and the f.b.i. attached a g.p.s. tracking device to the undercarriage of antoine jones's car. jones was a suspected drug dealer. they didn't have a warrant. they monitored the movement of the car 24 hours per day for 28 days. some of the information gathered was used to convict him of conspiracy to deal drugs. a federal appellate court later reversed his conviction finding that the use of the g.p.s. device without a warrant violated the fourth amendment. >> woodruff: what is then the question before the justices? >> judy, as you know, the fourth amendment protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures. the supreme court has said in determining whether a search or seizure was unreasonable you have to look at the

individual's expectation of privacy. was that expectation reasonable in itself? so the question here is,... was there a reasonable expectation of privacy on the part of jones that the police could not use the g.p.s. tracking device. >> woodruff: how is new technology-- gaps... g.p.s. has been and for a while. it's not one of the newest of the new-- but how is new technology playing into this? >> the court actually faced the new technology a bit last year when it took up a case involving text messages on a pager. the lower courts are struggling with police use of information from cell phones, smart phones, computers. it's a very unsettled area of the law. the g.p.s. tracking device has troubled lower courts as well. so lower courts in particular and police are looking for some guidance from the supreme

court in this particular case. >> woodruff: it sounds like today from what i read the justices were asking a lot of question. >> very active argument. it was the government that brought the appeal to the supreme court since they lost below. deputy solicitor general michael dreben representing the government told the justices that earlier supreme court cases have said there is no reasonable expectation of privacy when you travel on public roads. the g.p.s. device, he said, exposed nothing that wasn't already exposed to anyone who cared to look at this car. he also said it was no different than if the police had assigned ten agents to tail jones's car for 24 hours a day for a month. >> woodruff: how did the justices response to this line.... >> a number of the justices seemed very uncomfortable with how far the golf's argument went. justice breyer, for example, said if you win you would be able to monitor the movements of every citizen in the united

states. that suggests sort of an orwellian 1984 scenario. so he pressed and so did the other justices press the government on what protection is there here from something like that happening? and mr. dreden said there are other constitutional principles that can come into play if there are abuses or if the court is afraid that something is chilled here. there's the first amendment. there's equal protection. but he said we're not talking about monitoring every citizen. this is a case where police were monitoring a suspected drug dealer. >> woodruff: it almost sounded as if from what i was reading that when the attorney for the plaintiff came before... for the man who had been convicted came before the justice they were almost helping his attorney make his argument. >> i think they actually gave him an equally hard time in some respects. the lawyer representing mr. jones disagrees with the government. he said no one expects the

government to surreptitiously without a warn attach a tracking device to your car and monitor you. justice ginsburg said, well, you know,lo÷ many cities have cameras attached to traffic lights. they monitor the movement of cars to look for traffic violations. but the attorney insisted that what's different here is this is a physical invasion of property. it's a greater intrusion on your privacy than cameras or video observation. >> woodruff: finally, marcia, the sense is what? that the justices could draw a line, privacy, high tech device, that they could choose to draw that narrowly, broadly? >> they could. there is a narrow way to resolve the case. and that is just to look at the attachment of the g.p.s. device. was that a seizure? and not deal with the more complicated issue of search and reasonable expectations of privacy in the world today.

i thought justice alito had a really... really hit the nail on the head when he said before the internet age, much of our privacy resulted from difficulty in traveling and gathering information. but with computers you can now amass a huge amount of information. he said so what now? is everything fair game? or where are the limbs? that's what the justices have to juggle. is there a limit? is there a line to draw? >> woodruff: fascinating. marcia coyle, thank you. >> my pleasure, judy. >> ifill: in 16 states, marijuana use is legal for medical purposes. but authorities say state laws do not protect growers from federal prosecution. special correspondent michael montgomery of kqed-san francisco looks at how that conflict is playing out in one california community. his story is part of an ongoing investigation by the center for investigative reporting, "frontline," and kqed.

>> reporter: matthew cohen cultivates medicinal marijuana on a ten-acre farm set amid vineyards in california. for the past year he's been operating legally at least in the eyes of local law enforcement. his marijuana plants are protected by these tags. >> this one is up sidedown. >> reporter: this program is unique in california and has allowed cohen's nonprofit cooperative to expand around the state. >> we're about 1700 members now. >> reporter: a county ordinance allows cohen to legally grow up to 99 plants, provided he submits to inspections by sheriff's deputies and complys with state law. it's enough marijuana to keep his co-op members supplied for many months. >> we weren't just getting ready to start harvesting. we figured we were compliant with state law and compliant with local regulations and that that's nothat the deoral gvernment was interested in. e>> rlporter: but cohen was wrong. on october 13, heavily armed federal agents stormed his>>

compound. >> dogs started barking. i looked out the window and saw four or five, you know, federal agent vehicles. you could tell with the blacked-out windows, ce cruising in here. everybodyopped out of the dr very quickly. i told my wife we're being raided. open up. federal agents. awe hve a warrant. i said i'm openinwe the door right now. i opened the door to, you know, they had thehe battering ram ready to go through the door. they grabbed me, slammed me up against t wheall enre. cuffed me. >> repoerhe: as tll agents searched other buildings on the property, cohen's state-of-the-art security system recorded their moves. >> there's a machine gun right there. >> reporter: under the controlled substances act marijuana remains illegal in the eyes of the federal government and drug agents are stepping up raid across the state to curtail california's pot industry. >> you can see they tore through all our camping stuff. these are just, this is recycling that theyas went through. >> reporter: before the agents discovered most of cohen's surveillance gear cameras caught them searching through

hhis business files, meticulous record keeping is required by county law but there's a twist. the same documents that allow cohen to operate legally can be used against him as edence in a federal criminal prosecution.e it was only after the raid was underway thatheff sheri learned that one of the farmers in his inspection program was the target. >> that afternoon after i assumed that everything had cleared, i called. i asked him how he was treated. he said he was treated fair. he said he wasn't arrested. he said that they cut down marijuana plants. 99. i believe that's their records show also. i assured him that in my opinion, as far as local and state laws were concerned, he was abiding by those laws. >> reporter: days before the raid on cohen's farm, california's four u.s. attorneys announced a major offensive against the state's marijuana industry.

>> one of the reasons we are making these announcements today is to try to put t rest the notion that large marijuana businesses can shelter themselves under state law and operate without fear of federal enforcement. >> reporter: targets also include property owners who lease land to growers and distributors. even newspapers and magazines that carry ads for medical marijuana are under scrutiny. >> the folks who say they're out there and here i am and i dare you, they make themselves prime tarring hes by their audacity and by the size of their operation. >> reporter: joseph served as the u.s. attorney under four presidents. he says advertising is just one indication that most medical marijuana outfits in california are legitimate tarring hes for the fed. >> i think that the u.s. attorneys would probably agree that about 96 to 97% of all of the operators, all of the dispensarys certainly in the state were out of compliance with the state guidelines because they were commercial

enterprises because, you know, they were not limiting themselves to people who lived within their jurisdiction. as soon as you start crossing the county lines and start packaging it in sort of suggesting that your client base or your patients or your members really are all over the state, you're basically in a commercial enterprise for profit. >> reporter: the crackdown triggered protests and a lawsuit for medical marijuana supporters. they accuse the obama administration of backtracking on what they say were earlier promises to leave states alone when it comes to medical marijuana. in the county, officials worry that the raid on matt cohen's farm undercuts their effort to strictly regulate marijuana growing. >> people are really wondering what is behind this, what happens next. am i personally at risk? we had an individual who is doing everything they can possibly do to be as legal as they could with local and state law, adhering strictly

to the letter of the law all the way down the line. so if the federal authorities are going to raid him, then no one is safe. >> county commissioner john macoun didn't start out as a medical marijuana advocate. in fact he supported bans on outdoor growing but he says the county's modest permitting program has helped bring order out of chaos. >> by bringing the production of medical marijuana above ground into a strictly regulated program where it's inspected by the sheriff, arguably tremendously increases public safety and environmental protection. the raid, if it has the impact of driving people out of the program and back underground, will have the opposite effect. >> here's what's left. right there. >> it certainly sends the message that the federal

government would prefer that collectives and co-ops operate underground unregulated. it's appalling to me that illegal farms are existing all around this county and they're going to come after us. >> reporter: local law enforcement continues to target large-scale illegal pot farms. they're using fees collected from permitted growers to help pay for raids and officer training. justice department officials declined to comment on the ordinance. while the feds have yet to directly challenge the program in court, the recent raids leave the sheriff's department squeezed between local and federal law. >> if the county ordinance is in vilgses of federal law i want to be told that by the highest court in the land. but if it's not in violation of federal law i want to be told that too. >> look, we have consequences. there are things we have to do to enforce federal law, whether you're in the way of our doing it or you're

half-heartedly cooperating with us or you're indifferent to it. the fact of the matter is we have federal mandates. we will follow those laws. >> reporter: he says federal prosecutors in 15 other states and in the district of columbia which also have medical marijuana lawsill be following the crackdown in california closely.he >> ifill: and finally tonight, we turn to our ongoing series on the high school dropout problem. over the next 18 months, the newshour is joining with other public media to examine consequences and solutions. the series is called the american graduate project. last night, we invited more than 100 teachers to a town hall at nine news network, our pbs station in st. louis, to talk about the challenges they face in the classroom. here's a small sample. >> we have to look at our students differently now. classical or traditional

education is dead. it's failing our students. >> if you taught concentrated phonics to everyone in first grade they're dying to read. they would stand on their heads. but the problem is they don't drop out in high school. they drop out in second grade, and they hang around for eight years. >> reporter: these children are coming from homes where nobody understands what is positive. no one is educated. we have a cycle of ignorance. one, two, three, four generations where people don't have the ability to read. >> so it sounds to me like your focus is on the teachers a much as the students. >> absolutely. i think that experience and stories would tell us that you can take an extraordinary teacher who is deeply committed to getting to know the community where they serve and place them just about anywhere and with the proper support and accountability and training, they can show great academic gains in their

students and authentic relationships with those kids and their families. >> i think teachers play an integral part in the education of kids. but i think teachers get a bad rap in the news. the teachers that i work with at metro high school and at roosevelt high school work hard every day to educate these kids. i think the parents have to educate their kids. >> ifill: in your own experience as a teacher,ul wdo y that the level of community support and involvement in yourchoo ,lis high, medium or low? 21% of you said high. 24% said medium. 55% said low. ouch. was that your sense that there is not enough community engagement in our schools? >> well i think there isn't. and certainly we can influence both the kids and the community if we're given that opportunity. and in this country today, what we're focusing on instead is, can you answer a multiple

choice test instead of how do we make you love education? how do we get you to feel that this is something that is meaningful to you? if we don't do that, the rest of this is a waste of time. >> ifill: throughout our hour- long conversation >> ifill: throughout our hour long conversation, those st. louis teachers repeatedly touched on concerns that resonate nationally. john bridgeland has written widely about it, and his organization, civic enterprises, is a partner in the american graduate project. he joins us now. a sense of the scope, the magnitude of this problem. >> gwen, more than a million young people in this country fail to graduate from high school every year. with huge costs to themselves, society and the economy. just for context, the young person who drops out of high school will earn a million dollars less than a college graduate over his or her lifetime. but the cost to our economy must prompt action. if we were to cut the dropout rate in half we would save our

economy $45 billion every year. as a result of productive work force, increased revenues and a decrease in social services like incarceration costs, public assistance and unemployment. >> ifill: i was struck by the teacher who said last night this really begins in second grade. they just hang around until the 8th grade or eight more years before they drop out. >> i found that one of the more powerful statements. >> everybody in the room went, hmmmm. >> happens to be true. when we surveyed teachers they said again and again we could identify young people who were on a track to drop out. the research shows that you can predict with great certainty based on a student's attendance, behavior and course performance in reading and math as early as elementary school certainly by middle school. if that's true, we can put in place early warning systems in schools and give data to teachers and counselors and parents to help keep these young people on track. >> ifill: i was also interested in the teacher at the very beginning of our

excerpt who said that classical traditional education is dead. several other teachers said we should go to where they are whee by testing or other methods. >> it's so interesting. we discovered know after years of research, no one had ever talked to the customer, to the dropouts themselves so we did a survey and we discovered that these young people wanted to see a connection between what they wanted to be, what they saw in the real world and what they were learning in the classroom. we know that our traditional school system is failing a million kids a year. if that's true, we have a systemic problem. we need to be much more intelligent about providing multiple pathways of education. >> ifill: the elephant in that room last night with 100-plus teachers is the fact that teachers are often the ones who are blamed for this. we have to fix teachers and fix teachers by testing them more rigorously. how much is that true? >> well we do know that a knowledgeable engaged teacher is the single most important

factor in boosting student academic achievement in the schools but we also know that we can't expect teachers to be parents and social workers and counselors a and teach. we know that young people coming into the classroom some of them are not able to read at the fourth grade level while others are ready for a.p.courses so i think teachers can't do it alone. we need to surround teachers with supportive parents from communities, counselors and others who can help students stay on track. >> ifill: are any best practices out there? there are some cities, some urban areas in particular where this happens most often who have actually seen their graduation rates rise in recent years. what are they doing right? >> this is not always depressing news. we've seen increases across 29 states. the state of tennessee said we need 269,000 college degree holders by 2025. we have a skills gap in the state of ten city. ... tennessee. they focused like a laser on the five urban school

districts that were disproportionately dropping out the most students. they provided support through educators and administrators. they doubled the capacity of community-based supports in a lot of these schools. they were effective in using data to target the 10 to 15% of young people who have sort of the gathering storm of trouble who need the most support. >> ifill: does it seem like we're moving past the blame and moving towards solutions. >> there's a marshal plan that has a goal of 90% high school graduation rates by the class of 2020 taking that seriously looking at the students who are in fourth grade today and then being driven by good research but an approach that not only involves schools but communities, government, business leaders and helping to tackle it. >> ifill: john bridgeland ceo of civic enterprises we'll be talking to you a lot about this over the next 18 months. thanks for being with us. >> nice to be with you. >> woodruff: tomorrow night, we look at parents and educators facing tough desions about school choice in anderson,

indiana. "american graduate" is a public media initiative funded by the corporation for public broadcasting. >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day. herman cain denied again that he ever sexually harassed anyone, and he assailed a chicago woman who's publicly accused him. for the first time, the u.n. nuclear agency reported iran is conducting experiments designed to develop nuclear weapons. and an air force investigation found body parts were lost at dover air force base in delaware, where the remains of america's war dead are received. online, you can get a look in advance at stories coming up from our health unit. hari sreenivasan has the details. hari? >> sreenivasan: we report on efforts to improve access to basic dental care in remote regions of alaska. there's more from the center for investigative reporting and kqed on the marijuana industry in california. that's on the rundown blog. plus paul solman reflects on the debt crisis gripping greece and the fear of so-called contagion in the euro zone. find that on our making sense page. all that and more is on our web

site, newshour.pbs.org. gwen? >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, we'll look at the results of today's elections, including a union bargaining initiative in ohio, and an abortion rights measure in mississippi. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. thank you, and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> computing surrounds us. sometimes it's obvious and sometimes it's very surprising where you find it. soon, computing intelligence in unexpected places will change ys.try profound ways. technology can provide customized experiences, tailored to individual consumer preferences, igniting a world of possibilities from the inside out. sponsoring tomorrow starts today.

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