the big issue. tonight on r t one delaware based tech company is quietly leading the way in surveillance infrastructure and serving as the middleman between law enforcement officials and your most personal information coming up will expose the secrets of the company that already knows all of yours. and speaking of secret surveillance one government agency is actually spying on its own employees head of the f.d.a. have been monitoring scores of e-mail correspondences between scientists and members of congress is this latest incident in the war on whistleblowers we won't question more. plus ron paul might have lost the battle for nebraska's delegates but he's certainly not ready to concede the war to rival mitt romney we'll tell you what his next step is in his quest for speaking spot at the r. and b.

. it is monday july sixteenth seven pm in washington d.c. i'm christine and you're watching our team. well there's a vast movement taking place right now it's actually been in the works for twenty years basically certain companies with one in particular developing the most high tech systems in order to be able to serve as a connector of dots you could say with those dots being communication entities from cell phones to e-mail to online shopping habits one of the most successful of these companies is called new star it's got more than four hundred telecommunication companies it works for dell deal with data requests from law enforcement agencies so we're talking cell phone surveillance requests text messages cell phone locations wiretaps and last year just last year there were more than one point five

million of these requests new star even as several commercials out and we wanted to play a part of one for you. we can it's believe day to lead you to the right person on the right device at the right time. so with your customers scan the barcode on your . takes to donation to a charity called blue shield media with their friends and family know how he they making connections. so how exactly does this all work well are to correspondent lives while breaks this down to give us a look at what's really going on here and why it may well be effecting you. well neustar is a massive telecommunications company the delaware based company was founded back in one thousand nine hundred eighty as part of lockheed martin one of the world's largest defense contractors now the company has grown to provide a wide range of services providing information for internet and marketing industries now what alarmed security experts is just how much information this

company has about consumers anyone that uses the internet or cell phones that is news starr has info on just about every cell phone in the country in its database they also manage telephone area codes and numbers and with this vast amount of data hundreds of companies turn to neustar to handle law enforcement surveillance requests now since new star is in a wireless carrier they've been able to work under the radar their role is to provide this invisible networks store and streamline communications information now let's take a look now at how this network operates so you set out to get a cell phone you had on over to a wireless carrier team mobile risin wireless cricket whatever it is that you decide on and they have course they assign you an area code and a telephone number and it's actually new star that decides on this information and since a new star was there from the very beginning they can claim to have the responsibility of providing you with cyber protection now let's take

a look at the flip side here of the government wants to get information about you they can go directly to neustar since they have this vast database or they can head on over to the cellular provider and which case that provider will outsource that government surveillance of request to neustar so as you can see neustar is the middleman in all of this and when the government or a company requests this information neustar is likely to have it now if you take a look at new stars website it goes that the government is one of its biggest partners the site status quo. over three thousand government agencies major industry associations regulatory bodies and others rely on a new star to help navigate the complex world of cyber security now new stars coziness with the government could be alarming to internet privacy advocates especially in the wake of a recent new york times article the times reports that cell phone surveillance

requests from law enforcement has skyrocketed they're reportedly one point five million requests for text messages cell phone locations and wire taps and washington. again this is a company which has in many ways laid the foundation for the surveillance infrastructure in this country it connects people with companies that want to market to them aggressively and it does this neither with their knowledge nor their consent and very few people are talking about it but there was a pretty in-depth article recently in buzz feed breaking down what new star is right on our munchy the writer of that article joined us a little earlier today to talk about her findings and you start the very large. and that cell phones are down to your question only one small part of what they do is you guys showed they provide. the numbering system for united states and the phone book landline and mobile. but and i think two thousand and three they bought

a company that only did so phone surveillance or less from the government so when they acquired that company becoming a place for companies to other smaller mobile companies who are saying we're overwhelmed with requests we don't know what to do let's outsource our now this is a company which has in many ways layman foundation for the surveillance infrastructure in this country and really tell your article nobody has been talking about this i know you called it one of the most important companies that you've never heard of why is that. well i mean they do infrastructure and i think that you know they they don't provide many consumers facing businesses inside their giant business so i think that people pick up the phone you're not really thinking about who who is routing your call how did you get your number who's making it possible to have portable phone numbers and you're definitely not thinking about the surveillance possibilities. i mean is new start doing anything wrong here are they

breaking any laws you know there's no suggestion they have i think what the experts i talked to really wanted to know. more about how many requests they're getting and how they deal with them and you know there's been a lot of. good things written lately about how a lot of the law enforcement quests don't always come. channels are with the peanuts and be nice to know what you start doing to make sure that the model horses request their information they're doing it the right way yeah i mean or even if they have any interest in making sure that those channels are being you know those rules are are being followed if there's simply just the umbrella company that all the law enforcement agencies sort of end up going to now i mean i wondered is anyone regulating them or making sure that they're following the rules but you know the. security i mean i have to keep her. privacy expert and in a statement to me she said that they were patiently well no she didn't characterize

how often but they do what they do reject law enforcement so they are vetting for. propriety and legal protocol but again we don't know the volume they're dealing with so there's a lot of unanswered questions it's really interesting here in washington there are tons of congressional hearings and conferences about cyber security and something that's always interesting to me when i attend these things is how many sort of the same faces you see i know that i was at a cybersecurity conference and michael chertoff was there so a lot of these people sort of come in and out i know in your article you talk about the company for dushan net and how it was founded by an f.b.i. veteran back in two thousand and two and you know soon after it started businesses grew and profits skyrocketed skyrocketed i'm wondering i mean are you suggesting that surveillance by law enforcement has sort of become its own industry. i think that i think it i think it was you know i think that there's always been

a revolving door between government and private industry and surveillance is no different you know i again there's been no no one has accused edition or star of doing anything improperly but again just the sense of their large databases combined with their business of handling surveillance requests i mean that people call for accountability and transparency but you talk about this revolving door i mean do you think that people are aware of it and do you think people should be concerned about it i think that people should be aware of it i mean i think people concern. grows in proportion to their lack of understanding so i feel very concerned when i just see the same names faces you know if there was more transparency i might feel less concern let's talk about how this kind of activity is perceived by americans i mean have you know these people in washington these

elected lawmakers working together in the name of cyber security. oftentimes they're coming up with legislation to deal with this but it turns out they're not exactly representing the desires of their constituents there was a recent poll done this was done i think by united technologies in the national journal congressional connection and basically found that two thirds of people said that government and businesses should not be allowed to share information they're concerned rightfully so i think about privacy and civil liberties so what about this sort of this connection i guess between the people and their elected officials when it comes to cyber security and some of this action being taken to deal with this. i mean i think that is. one of the roles of our elected leaders pressure on these companies to tell us their requests to more accountability and transparency i think you saw that with the cell phone surveillance so the only reason we know anything about the volume of surveillance

requests that cell phone companies they're getting is because of one congressional inquiry that yielded i think there are nine companies that are asked to write letters to talk about the volume of their surveillance requests so that was a very positive thing and i think would be excited to see more of that for instance neustar has not been asked close. their call you my first question the number that they've rejected why so that could be a step yeah absolutely and i think it's interesting to. her you're talking about here some of the things that new start other companies like it too is they deal with. cell phone location so this makes sense to me when you're talking about trying to find you know somebody that's missing you know let's get these companies involved to try to find out you know the best i can most accurate location of their cell phone the most the last conversation they had this is a little more easy to swallow then you know if the government wants information for

a person who's done nothing wrong and wants to know more about their text messages i mean and i mean how how is how do we move forward i guess as journalists and as concerned citizens to try to find out if this is actually happening. i mean i think by asking questions and by telling our elected leaders to ask questions or request more regulation around this. news there is a big company we don't understand all of what they do but i think that i'm glad that more people are interested. you know in terms of more stuff that pro publica recently authored a kind of that in the new york times that talked about how you know your cell phone they call it basically a tracking device and i think that you know whenever you turn on location. aware you should know that you're opening yourself up to tracking of all kinds i mean to go down like. that or below here but you know that's the

reality of it absolutely for those of us who have an i phone just about every app we open or free ask siri to help us find someone shoot something she's got to know where we are and to enable it in order to be able to help us really interesting article appreciate all the information that you sort of put together for it on her mind she west coast editor for buzz feed f.w.d. thanks so much. so companies like this no doubt are part of a future that is already on track to include more cameras more action taken in the name of cyber security and more surveillance overall well over the week of the new york times and veils and pretty astonishing findings involving a major surveillance operation by the food and drug administration the f.d.a. of its own employees the times paints an in-depth pictures of the lengths the f.d.a. officials went to to monitor its employees on pretty much every level now the f.d.a. says this was in response to employees suspected of leaking confidential

information about the safety and design of medical devices employees and filed a lawsuit over the issue and just to give you an idea of the extent of this the f.d.a. used quote software which tracked their keystrokes intercepted their personal e-mails copied the documents on their personal fund drive even followed their followed their messages line by line as they were being drafted the documents show so i want to talk more about this and was joined earlier by just one rate actor director of national security and human rights for the government accountability project jesselyn also wrote the book traitor the whistleblower and the american taliban i asked her what she made of all this cyber tracking take a listen. but it is definitely a blockbuster article that stood out to me for three different reasons first we're not talking about surveillance of national security or intelligence agencies which do handle classified information this time we're talking about mass surveillance of the f.d.a.

second the surveillance itself cover such a wide range including journalists including members of congress including president obama. so that was striking to me that we should mention some of the e-mails that were sent from petion within the f.d.a. sent people like chuck grassley people you know democrats republicans everyone involved here a lot of people who work for the f.d.a. simply concerned about some things that were taking place in their jobs in their agency and felt that if they spoke up it they would be terminated so they wanted to sort of bring light of this right to members of congress and they do it which is exactly right the first amendment provides that you can petition congress for redress of grievances and as it was they were doing exactly that going through a proper channel by going to congress and strangely congressman van

hollen ends up on an enemy's list of sort of yeah they created and i mean he was number fourteen i think and his staff or was thirteen and then a bunch of grassley staffers are on the enemy's list so these people are doing nothing wrong by going to congress about concerns they have about a danger of a substantial and specific danger to public health and safety and medical imaging devices that we use for mammograms and colonoscopies and the idea that these devices are emitting too much radiation. we should say i mean i think it's fair to point out that you know any job that i've ever taken when you first begin a job and i can imagine this is not the case for government workers your employer tells you that you know the work you do on work computers the emails you sent through your work e-mail your work has the right to from time to time perhaps check in on you and monitor this that when you sign on you sort of agree to this so i

mean is this simply what was going on the f.d.a. says you know the people who were doing the surveillance say they were concerned about secrets being leaked you know yes you're you have a limited expectation of privacy at work and they can monitor your e-mails but they can't pick five scientists who happen to be complaining about the safety of medical devices and monitor them and only them and outsource it to some company where. which is how this whole thing became public in the first place is that they outsourced it to a group that accidentally put it on a public website and that sal they were doing a little research he had one a very mean i would say is being monitored was googling his own name to find out if there was anything bad about him and came across the information in this way wow so it's really outrageous on so many different levels i mean it's bad enough when you

have the n.s.a. monitoring its own people but here they are that's a little more you know easier to swallow i think people it's expected expected exactly but the f.d.a. and especially when it's concerns about safety that will affect people and these people are sort of trying to be quieted down talk about the bigger picture here i mean critics of this say this is you know get another example of the government waging a war on whistleblowers well it's very interesting because suddenly this suddenly it's funny how congress gets very. upset when they're the ones that get surveilled or when information they've bait think is in their purview gets leaked and then they can i have a grassley said as a fed this was like the gestapo that's exactly what grassley said and so i hope this will sensitize congress to the fact that this information that this happened

they were being surveilled which is completely outrageous but this is happening on a vast scale to employees in particular those who more often than not are whistleblowers and it's to tamp down any kind of criticism or dissent now if an employer wants to brand only monitor employee emails to see how many people are playing facebook or on facebook or playing games fine but not drilling down on five people who specifically have complaints and here i should mention the complaints are not about national security they're about industry they're about g.e. which is enjoyed a very favorable relationship with the f.d.a. and that's why we've seen so many lawsuits over faulty devices stints. at their other. other items that i gave as you know you make i want to talk also

about some other stuff just little i have you here this is also speaking whistleblowers of course the court martial proceedings for private first class bradley manning resume today i guess i'm wondering you know he is of course for people that don't know i think most people who watch us know that he is accused of leaking classified information to the web site wiki leaks but how are you feeling about the way these proceedings are going i mean are you optimistic at all that manning and his lawyer are making any headway here i have confidence in manning's lawyers but i'm not optimistic about the outcome i'd like to see more outrage from people about what happened here and what is being done to this twenty four year old that could put him away for the rest of his life because as he said at legibly said in his own words i felt like i was watching war crimes. and the proceedings themselves again but the court has refused to release any kind of

transcript so one time to move the detainees have more transparency in the proceedings in the kangaroo commission military commissions we have set up down there and then private manning is getting even his lawyer wrote about that and said you know even if it was a terrorist in custody you don't use need to prove you know that you know the government we need to show that you know that terrorist was aiding the enemy or causing harm to the security of the united states this is not happening with an american soldier exactly and jeffrey dahmer at a cannibal cannibal got more due process and fair treatment wasn't torture and you know bradley manning is been already subjected to torture and already declared without having a trial first declared by so many people to be guilty reversing the usual prose. of innocent until proven guilty well just when you said you expect to see and hoped

that you would see more outrage hard for that to happen when so few media outlets are even covering it are making it a story hopefully this will pick up as the trial continues appreciate having you on the show just thank you very much christiane just lose the director of national security and human rights for the government accountability project all right let's switch gears now and talk some politics over the weekend results of the final statewide presidential primary were made official in nebraska now even though ron paul finished third during the primary there back in may quite a few people expected the official results to show delegates throwing their support behind congressman ron paul and paul did have the majority of the delegates support from four other states iowa louisiana maine and minnesota and ron paul would have won a graphic of that would have made it five state primaries and that would have guaranteed him fifteen minutes to address the republican national convention in tampa next month are in several state the winning five states makes you a nominee for a party candidacy but that didn't happen so was this is last chance or is hope

still alive for ron paul i asked austin peterson director of production for freedom works what he thought take a look. real actually there's a little bit of light at the end of tunnel for ron paul supporters delegate counts and totals and that's a really complex topic and it's really hard for people understand even the mainstream media and i work for fox news for a couple of years and i was one of the only people who was able to really understand this because i had worked in politics before but a lot of people who work in the media haven't done politics before so they don't understand how fluid some of these delegate counts can be and everybody's forgetting the big elephant in the room everyone nobody said nevada everybody forgot the fact that nevada was one of the states where he did take the plurality of delegates so there was no there was maine minnesota louisiana which is a little bit questionable and also iowa but there were three other states that were maybes as well which was massachusetts colorado and i'm also getting reports that are unconfirmed today about virginia so there's a chance that he has a plurality in more than five states and that he'll have his speaking convention and speaking slot of the convention but these safe that you just mentioned

minnesota i mean sorry virginia colorado analogized massachusetts i mean weren't these results already official going to mitt romney well there was the there is a lawsuit going on in massachusetts right now we had reported on this last week where they were forced to sign an affidavit which is technically illegal that makes someone notarized a form to do something in the future right now there is a lawsuit against the massachusetts g.o.p. if that lawsuit goes through then there would be a plurality of delegates from from ron paul's camp that would be going instead of the romneys that's a little bit in dispute but there's also colorado and virginia as well that sort of entered into the territory so there really is a lot going on right now that a lot of people are reporting on just because it's so if you so it's hard to talk about because people don't want to report misreport something but a lot of my sources are showing that there are some of these states where ron paul actually has taken a majority delegation and he has five states so that he'll be able to have a speaking slot and not just if he austin but i think if anything this time around this election cycle has showed just how complex is

a nice word. screwed up and i don't know if you know where i mean our system here i mean i was. very complex to say ok there's a primary in may but the results are going to be official intelligence why i mean why can't we just you know check the box and have it counted and that's that's not i mean this whole fact is delegate factor has really really changed things and frankly i think in a lot of cases it's made the romney campaign pretty nervous because in so many cases as we saw you know romney or santorum or gingrich or whomever you know took this the first time around that when the delegates actually make their choices known it goes to paul what does romney have to be nervous about i mean they're not it's not like they're firing on all barrels on ron paul anymore they're now focused totally on the obama campaign and ron paul has come out and conceded that he will likely not be the nominee you know worst case scenario happens with mitt romney between now and then i think it made romney nervous a few months ago when conventions and statewide conventions and primaries he expected it right which is why we saw the police state locked down in the last

weekend because they wanted to make sure that there was not going to be any disruptions and you know that everything would go smoothly that they hired the bush lawyer to come in and oversee everything to make sure that nothing was going to happen i think it's funny that you think it was the police say because the head of the g.o.p. there in iraq if at all we're just going to do things the nasty way yeah we're going to do things and i swear we're going to do we're going to send in the cops and with tasers and make sure they're standing at the entrances and if anything gets out of control then we'll start shutting it down just like they do another caucus states which are winning but you know romney doesn't really have any cause to be nervous as long as he's following the rules and as long as they give ron paul his do you know if mitt romney wants to beat obama he's going to need these ron paul voters not every ron paul supporters going to vote for mitt romney but if mitt romney between now and the convention actually sticks his hand out and says you know there are some certain concessions that i could make to a libertarian platform then there might be a chance that he's going to pick up some of these voters the last thing that mitt romney has needs to be doing right now is angering his base and real limited

government conservatives and libertarians those are the base of the g.o.p. he needs those people because in the last few days going out coming up to. election the most important thing that can happen is have your troops the ground game out on the streets now romney is not the type of person to inspire passion amongst young for that's what i was going to say it's not just the voters that romney could use it's some of this energy that we see that is pretty unprecedented absolutely door to door campaigning is the most crucial aspect of the campaign in those final few weeks before election you send your troops the you know the storm troopers to go out across the united states and go door to door and knock on knock on doors and to win a few votes and or to take people to the polls now obama inspires this sort of activism amongst the youth they will go out and do whatever they want for him mitt romney has to work a lot harder for that knowing that ron paul supporters are mostly youth oriented why would romney want to alienate this young group of supporters when he's going to need them a few weeks before the election so you're saying he could appease them or make them happy at least by by just saying you know ron paul you've got you've got a slot on the stage at our n.c.r.

would go a long way obsolete because what's going to happen i mean you know that there he's going to make them angry if he denies them a ten minute speaking slot let me ask you that something that was very surprising i think even to the paul family itself was when ron paul's son rand has a senator from kentucky went ahead and indorsed that romney i think this is something he was being pressured to do but even i think that his mother on the whole is wife is a little surprised a few days or maybe a week later ron paul was asked and i want to play his response and he was asked if he too would support mitt romney. your son senator rand paul has endorsed romney i take it you're not ready yourself to endorse romney or you know. i'm not ready you're not ready no way. did i stutter i apologize basically saying i mean do you think that's going to happen anytime soon you know i don't really see that happening and i think a lot of on paul supporters don't want to see that happen and i don't know if ron paul is putting himself in jeopardy for that speaking slot by saying that he might

not endorse mitt romney. and that was austin peterson director of production for freedom works and that's going to do it for us for now but for more on the stories we covered go to you tube dot com slash r t america and for the latest information on the stories and a few that we didn't do today go to our web site r t dot com slash usa you can also find me on twitter i'm at christine we'll be back here in thirty minutes. we just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old and she told the truth. i have a confession i am a total get a friend that i love robyn hitchcock music video and pretty. much it was kind of yesterday. i'm very aware of the.