In the first half, space historian Robert Zimmerman contended that fraud and dishonesty have permeated the sciences of climate and environmental studies, including scientists at NASA and NOAA manipulating the temperature records. "Global warming scientists/activists within the climate science field too often are frauds," faking data, and working to destroy the careers of scientists who disagree with them," he remarked. For instance, both NASA and NOAA have claimed that 2013 was one of the hottest years on record, but they arrived at these conclusions by manipulating the temperatures from earlier in the 20th century, consistently estimating them at cooler numbers. While some of their temperature re-adjustments of the past may be accurate, the fact that they are always colder indicates they are manipulating the data to validate the global warming theory, he argued.
Some climate scientists have admitted that there's been a "pause" in global warming for the last 18 years, but they have no explanation for this as it goes against their models which predict warming based on increased CO2 in the atmosphere, he noted. When it comes to claims of extreme weather increasing, we're not actually seeing evidence for this-- for example, last year the US had its lowest recorded tornado count in 50 years, and a very weak hurricane season, Zimmerman detailed. He also talked about the lull in solar activity, as well as developments in space exploration.
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In the latter half, private investigator specializing in electronic counter-measures, Roger Tolces, suggested that the massive NSA surveillance of American citizens, as well as in other countries, is a form of electronic harassment. This is a demonstration of when a great empire goes into decline, in this case, using surveillance to retain its power, he remarked. The NSA's new million-square-foot data center in Utah will process "metadata" from such sources as emails and cell phones, including locations, phone numbers and other details. While they claim not to be listening to the content of calls or reading emails, Tolces believes it's still a violation of 4th amendment rights.
"It would be as if the government back in 1777 kept an ongoing list of everyone you communicated with in case later on they wanted to form a charge of conspiracy...just based on linking their associations," Tolces commented. The NSA's mission was only to deal with foreign intelligence, but they have expanded to the point where they are like a 4th wing of government that was not ever put into place by the Founding Fathers, he continued. He also cited privacy concerns around planned black boxes for new cars that will have an Android platform which will share GPS data with the government. He speculated that the ultimate plan may be to charge drivers a mileage-related fee.
News segment guests: Lauren Weinstein, Capt. Kelly Sweeney