10/06/2013 Newsnight

No-one has broken the law, says the Foreign Secretary, and in America

they say no laws have been broken too.

Yet a massive eaves dropping operation has been laid bare. What

kind of legal structure requires a whistleblower before the worlds

knows what's happening. And we ask, "Do you know how much

you are disclosing each time you go into cyberspace"?

As more and more children grow up in a house with no man in it, are

fathers really necessary? As long as we keep saying it doesn't really

matter what kind of family you are in, and ignore the outcomes we are

doing children and lone parents themselves a disservice.

And in Syria, as Government forces take the offensive, what chance for

the people on the sidelines trying to influence the task of rebuilding

when the civil war is finally over. Many now would say the conflict can

only end either with a victory on the battlefield, or a settlement

imposed by outer powers, and activists like these are just

irrelevant. The Foreign Secretary was

"unambiguous", British intelligence has not tried to get around the law

by taking manufactures from United States' surveillance programmes

that it would not have been able to get authorisation for in this

country. He didn't give any details though, but how could he, we shall

have to take his word for it. What has been revealed about the extent

of American Government snooping has astonished some people millions and

millions of phone call and internet records have been looked at,

according to a young man who has gone public.

The legal and policy framework for surveillance is about as complex a

suggest as you could imagine. But Edward Snowden came to the view

that mass harvesting of communications constitutes an

unacceptable invasion of people's privacy. The NSA specifically

targets the communications of everyone, it digests them by

default. It collects it in its system and filters them and

analyses and it stores them for periods of time. Simply because

that is the easiest most efficient and most valuable way to achieve

these ends. But the passage of a few days since

the first revelations has also given us a clearer idea of the

official justification for the National Security Agency's

operations. That's especially true of gathering met at that data. The

who contacted whom for how long and where they were. Intelligence

professionals defend this as a vital tool. This kind of trawling

of massive data has to go on all the time any way, because that's

where the intelligence is. It is concealed within the data. But the

point about this is that, or they are looking for needles in

haystacks, in order to find that they have to be alooked to look at

the haystack. For decades phone companies and other service

providers have been required by law to keep what used to be called

"billing information". Met at that data, and to make that a-- metadata

and make it available to the Government. That is not the same

under other countries' laws. To intercept communications, the

content of a phone call, e-mail or an old fashioned letter requires a

specific warrant. It just just that the law makes met -- just that the

law makes metadata easier to record, looking at the content needs an

exponeings power. And storing all of this would be a mind-boggling

challenge. Even storing the metadata is a costly and complex

operation for the NSA. It has opened $2 billion centre in Utahh

to do that. Doing it on this scale poses many questions. The metadata

collection programme seems to be problematic. And the the

Governments and courts will have to look at this with a fresh pair of

eyes to see in the National Security Agency has been following

the rules. The UK doesn't do intelligence on anything like the

same level. It can rely on the NSA, of course, but even leaked figures

of 197 reports sent to GCHQ by that organisation suggest Britain is

doing things on a much smaller scale. That makes it easier to

regulate and for ministers to insist they are acting legally.

has been suggested that GCHQ uses our partnership with the United

States to get around UK law, obtaining information that they

cannot legally obtain in the United Kingdom. I wish to be absolutely

clear that this accusation is baseless. Any data obtained by us

from the United States involving UK nationals is subject to proper UK

statutory controls and safeguards. The US Government says also that

its requests for content from going google or AOL, under the project

code named Prism, are subject to legal warrants. For many in the US

Congress the key question is whether these operations involved

routine large-scale surveillance of US citizens. As for the rest of the

world well they are not quite so bothered about that. So if there

are to be changes to the law as a result of these disclosures it is

most likely to be in tightening up the rules for surveillance of US

citizens much but surveillance of the rest of the world is likely to

be carried on by the NSA on a massive scale.

We have we haven't had a leak about surveillance programmes of this

magnitude in some time. The story seems to have lags and the leaks

just keep coming. So it is my hope that Congress does take a look at

this, that they hold hearings and if the law has been broken that

people are held accountable for breaking the law.

As for the man who made this public, he said that he expects the data

empires and intelligence organisations that he has betrayed

will not forgive him and that he accepts that life as he knew it is

effectively over. This is something that's not our

place to decide. The public needs to decide whether these programmes

and policies are right or wrong. I'm willing to go on the record to

defend the authenticity of them and say I didn't change these, I didn't

modify the story, this is the truth, this is what's happening, you

should decide whether we need to be doing this.

Well now to discuss this we have Major General Jonathan Shaw, a

retired army general, until last year in charge of the Ministry of

Defence cyber security programme. And Richard Aldridge, who has

written a book on the US intelligence agency, GCHQ, he's

currently leading a research project into what the public knows

about the CIA. Were you surprised about the scale

of disclosures in the revelations? I wasn't surprised it happened, but

the sheer scale of it when I think about it doesn't surprise me. The

whole area is one of big data. Every corporation in the world is

struggling to cope with this massive data. And you need to take

a lot of data in if you are going to analyse it. Thinking about it,

it shouldn't have taken us by surprise at all. What do you think?

It shows us the intelligence agencies no longer own intelligence,

the people who own intelligence now are the supermarket, the banks and

the airlines. That is a problem because Government needs access to

that information. It is interesting that people are prepared to share

all sorts of bits of information about themselves with these

companies, but they are some how alarmed if the Government's keeping

track of them? A former senior GCHQ officer said there is something

strange about a keyboard, if you put a human being in front of a

keyboard and a screen they will do all sorts of weird things which

they won't normally do in ordinary life. There is a whole research

project there. We didn't know this programme existed, do you think we

should have known, General? Or the Americans perhaps? What should be

in the public dough nain and what shouldn't is the question. I'm

quite comfortable, but I suppose you could say I should be, that we

didn't know about it. I think we should be comfortable that it

exists. The real surprise would have been if there wasn't co-

operation between the QCHQ and the NSA. That would have been a

surprise. When you have a programme of this scale, much bigger even

than you knew, you say if you thought about it you would have

recognised it, but you can't possibly be regularly scrutinised

by due legal oversight, can it? Well you will have to wait for the

inquiry on that, I'm not quite sure how that was done. You will have to

wait to see on that. I don't know what the task mechanism is, I don't

know the detail, we will have to wait for that. That scale, millions

of phone records alone, vast numbers of internet pieces of

information, you would have to have somebody in a court just stamping,

stamping all day long in order to look at it? The record we were

hearing was the 190 reports. Those are the requests from this country?

So the American system, I'm not capable of talking about that at

all. Do you worry about the implications at the British end of

things? I worry about the connections between Britain and the

United States. The British system as shown is smaller and therefore

easier to regulate. The American system is much, much larger. They

not only harvest a lot of data but they keep a lot of that data.

Exactly as you have said, much more difficult to oversee all that stuff.

I strongly suspect that British politicians don't know everything

that the United States is doing. Does that matter? Yes, I think it

does. So many intelligence agencies around the world share intelligence

now. But the relationship between GCHQ and NSA is special. They

effectively work in certainly in some areas as effectively one

organisation. Do you believe the Foreign Secretary? Yes I do. I

think when he says that nothing has been done that's unlawful, that's

correct. The problem is the law is not very transparent in the UK, and

in the United States it is put into operation by secret courts. We

can't even read their judgments. So we're told it is lawful but we know

very little more than that. Let's talk about what should happen to

this whistleblower, Mr Snowden. What do you think should happen to

him General? I think if you serve your country, if you sign up and

work for people who you must have known who you are working for and

the sort of business you are in. He knew what the rules were and he

broke them, he should have the book thrown at him absolutely. He has

committed a legal crime. Whether he has committed a moral crime is an

entirely separate question. My own view is he should be pursued by the

Americans. He certainly thinks he should be. What do you think should

happen to him? I think it shows the way that privacy isies appearing

for everybody. Part of this issue - - privacy is disappearing for

everything. Privacy is also disappearing for corporations and

Government. It is difficult to do secret stuff because people will

blow the whistle. I don't think you are answering the question. What

penalty, what should befall this young man, has he done us all a

service for disclosing what has gone on, or should he be punished?

He says ethically I have done the right thing, but I have broken the

law and I expect to be punished. Thank you very much. The usual

argument used about why we don't need to worry about the state

snooping upon what we are up to on lon is if we have done nothing

questionable we have nothing to worry about.

Yet it is surprising how even the most innocent of forays into

cyberspace can disclose all sorts of things about you that you

weren't necessarily aware you were revealing. Tom Chatfield is a

digital and technology writer, we asked him to explain.

In the few decades since the birth of the web, we have moved from e-

mail to social networking to a gamit of on-line services. Scoring

more and more of our lives in the called "cloud". The amount of data

out there is growing at an exponential rate.

In a typical day last year people sent more than 144 billion e-mails.

Shared more than 684,000 items of content on Facebook alone. And

uploaded 72 hours of video to YouTube every single minute. 90% of

the world's data has been created in the last two years.

With so much data out there, and so much more coming every day, is it

realistic to expect to keep it under our own control.

The word "cloud" is deceptive when it comes to technology. It sounds

fluffy and weightless, but what it really describes is a bunker-like

room full of computers running physically the data owned by a

company and located in a particular country and subject to its

Government's laws and requests for data. Search centres can also be

the subject of digital assaults, although companies will try to keep

them safe. On top of this there is the fact that all the seemingly

trivial details we reveal about ourselves on-line every day can be

cross-referenced and co-related often to startling effect. A

database of trivial details is not a trivial database. I will go now

and do a little bit of self- googleing on-line and see what I

can snoop out. If I have a look on my Twitter profile, I can see I'm

here filming now. If I scroll down I can see a few days ago I was out

having a coffee near my house. I'm just going to pop in the details of

that common near my house and I can find the postcode for that. Armed

with that postcode I'm going to cross-reference the first half of

that with my own name and rather disturbingly it very quickly brings

up the registration details that have been scraped off my website

registration that will tell you my home address and my personal mobile

phone number as well as my e-mail. A quick glance on Facebook will

give you some details about who I'm married to. You can look at some

photos, you can find out something about my cats, if you are

interested in things like that. And glancing now at my public profile

in linkedin, that fills in all the university and education details

and most of the other stuff, as well as the feed pulling off all my

Twitter information. Now you are pretty much well on your way to

knowing far more about me than frankly I feel comfortable about

you getting in five minutes of tapping on a keyboard. According to

research published earlier this year, even details as trivial as

Facebook "likes" can be analysed to predict 80% accurately very private

details like ethnicity, political preference, religious beliefs and

sexuality. So with all the risks, why are people still so willing to

upload so much of their lives. Perhaps we have been niave, perhaps

web historians of the future will laugh at us and our reDell Lynx for

cease lesson line attention. It is not too late to change our ways. If

you want to protect yourself on- line, one of the joys of technology

is find out all the things you can do, using anonymous browsers or

virtual private networks or incrypting your files. Or you can

stop telling everywhere you are going, who you are seeing and what

you are doing, and shut up instead! Professor Richard Aldridge is still

with us, we are joined from San Francisco by the technology writer.

Do you think loss of privacy is the price we pay inevitably for using

technology? I think that is something that has been said by

President Obama as well. You have to weigh up the balance of whether

you want security and privacy. I would say that the whole idea of

the loss of privacy is something people have been talking about for

a very long time. I noticed back in 1970 Newsweek Magazine had a cover

core that said "The End of Privacy". Governments around the world are

struggling to keep up with the amount of data put out there. It is

difficult to reconcile whether there is an increase in the amount

of surveillance as compared to what there was 30 or 40 years ago.

you think that the, that our standards are changing, that older

people are obviously much less willing to share things than young

people who very often have disclosed everything that's

happened in their lives since they were early teenagers? Very much so.

I think much of the debate is about the trade-off between liberty and

security. But actually I would argue we have traded both liberty

and security for something which we might call convience, even shopping.

That's a cultural trend that we notice very much amongst the

younger demographic. You suggest it is notness low really an issue

then? I don't think it is quite so much an issue for the younger

generation. I think to some extent they have been out for a good night

out. It hasn't actually happened unless someone has instantly put

167 photographs on Facebook. your notions of privacy the same of

that of your parents' generation say? I think you are absolutely

right what you were discussing earlier, there is a very big

generational shift in attitudes towards privacy. I think there is a

bit of a myth around this idea that young people don't value privacy. I

think they do. I think they just view the Internet in a very

different way to older generations, with less paranoia and less of a

deferential view towards the Internet. With more of a sense of

control of the way they share information. Where as perhaps older

generations may primarily rely on Facebook as a social networking

tool, more and more young people are actually veering towards many

different types of social networks like Instagramfor mobile, Snapchat,

and Whasup. Snapshot is sharing photographs, the person sees it and

it is deleted after ten seconds. There is a different aim for

content that the younger generation has.

Do you think consumer behaviour will change after this consumer

revelationry episode? I don't think so, people generally want convience,

there is this saying that if the service is free you become the

product. This is what we have seen with Facebook, what we have seen

with very popular mobile services like Waves, the navigation map. If

we have free services we will have ads targeted to us. There are big

companies in Silicon Valley who are very good at targeting the data out

there and targeting us with advertising. That is part and

parcel technology and using services that are convenient for us.

The word "paranoia" was used earlier, an unfounded fear, this

isn't an unfounded fear is it? it isn't. The future is coming fast,

in ten years time anything we buy in a shop that costs more than �20

will have an IP address, a kettle, a toaster, a handbag. Those things

will gather data all the time. We will have almost continuous

surveillance. Certainly in urban areas. Yes everything that happens

will be recorded all the time. That will be convenient and people will

sign up to it. And maybe people won't worry too much about it?

Absolutely. It will be a very different world. Is there any way

to avoid it? You could throw away your mobile phone and your laptop

and your credit cards, but life would be very inconvenient. If you

are on-line is there any way to avoid people snooping and knowing

about you? You can certainly just avoid all these different social

networks that are out there. I would a add, with the proliferation

of so many different types of networks that new generations are

using. It is not even just Facebook or the carrier companies any more,

AT&T or Vodaphone, people are now calling through Skype. I know Skype

was one of the programmes that was part of the Prism project, but

there are many, many more adviceover Internet Protocol

services people use for free calls and messages. How is any one agency

going to keep track of that huge proliferation of information with

only more services coming on board and offering those same kinds of

communication tools. So widespread publicity or disclosure will mean

that it is impossible for people to be snooping on you, you think?

just think it will become you know, as the channels of communication

increase it becomes ever more difficult for any one agency to

track and make sense of all that data. So they outsource to these

intelligence companies like Palenteer, and the company that the

whistleblower came from, who have very smart code-crackers and people

who create all georhythms to sieve through the data. It is the

constant sifting through the data and making sense of it. It is no

easy task for any Government to do that. Have we passed the high water

mark of this type of disclosure? think it is just beginning. That is

partly because of the technology itself. If we look at wicky leeks,

it is easier -- Wikileaks, it is easier to bring out this

information. They are not doing this to disclose to tech companies

and the like? It has only just begun, it is the merchants of

shopping and people like shopping. Great numbers of children are

growing up without an adult male in their lives. A report by a right-

leaning think-tank claimed today that some parts of England and

Wales have become man-deserts, there isn't even a single male

teacher in a quarter of primary schools, for example. Does it

matter though? Is it anyone else's business outside the families

concerned? The group behind the report claims it is and costs the

country billions a year. How come? Why does it matter if these

children have a male role model in their lives? What does it mean for

their development? For society at large? According to the Centre for

Social Justice report one million children have no meaningful contact

with their father. They say that family breakdown can cause

everything from educational failure to worklessness, crime, debt and

poverty. Fixing that, they claim, costs the taxpayer �46 billion a

year. The sense that fathers don't matter, that family structure

doesn't matter and that just being on your own with children you can

do just as well. If only it were true. It takes two people to bring

a child into the world, and unsurprisingly if at all possible

children tend to do best when there are two parents throughout their

childhood. In this North London neighbourhood, they have the

fourth-highest number of single mother households in all of England

and Wales. Yet parents we spoke to at this local primary school were

convinced that children need a father figure. I just think it is a

good balance to have both parents. Some people are fortunate, some

unfortunate, that is my personal opinion. I just think it helps the

child's upbringing and development. Many of those we spoke to struggled

to explain why a father's role is different from that of a mother's.

The fact that there is two around is more important than the fact I'm

male. I think that's the thing. It is probably not my sex but the fact

that there is two of us. This part of London could well be what the

Centre for Social Justice calls a "man desert". Not just because of

the high number of single mother households, but because so few of

the teachers at this school are men. The staff wish there were more.

They bring in different social skills to women, that plays a huge

role in having male teachers in schools. What do you mean by social

skills, what do they bring to the equation? Etiquette and how they

treat girls, for example. How they have manners and respect towards

each other. They see a staff, men and women liaising with each other,

working together, they might not necessarily see that at home.

wards with the highest percentages of single mother households are

found in Birmingham, Liverpool, the whirl, and King's Cross in London.

Jordan's father was not involved in his upbringing, he was raised by

his mother, grandmother and an uncle. I think yes there is no

doubt about it having a father there it completes the package

really. If a father was there it wouldn't necessarily add anything

to it significantly, it wouldn't give really an advantage, maybe a

financial advantage you have two parents you can go dad get me this,

and mum would disagree. But in terms of that I think yes there is

an advantage but not a major one. It is not really a game-changer.

Jordan isn't alone in any thinking there are many -- in thinking there

are many factors that determine a child's upbringing and the presence

of a father isn't the most important. All the demographics

show what matters for children's life chances is poverty first and

foremost and the level of conflict in a family. Looking at what is

going on within the family rather than a family structure. We know

poverty is rising. The Institute for Fiscal studios is predicting

child poverty will rise to a million children between 2010-2020.

We need to focus there. The Centre for Social Justice says that

politicians have responded feeblely to what it call Britain's family

breakdown emergency. It is the Government's business to meddle

into family life, they say, because the country can't afford for them

not to. Shaun Bailey is here, the

Government community and social engagment representative who was

brought up in a single parent home. And we have our other guest who

writes about her experiences as a single parent, raising her daughter

herself. What was the experience of having

an absence of a father and male figure? Male figures are very

important for boys and their behaviour, there is issues around

violence and how you conduct yourself. It is hard to take those

lessons from your mother because she doesn't have that experience.

We have a proliferation of gang and anti-social behaviour, a male

figure has a different response mechanism and different emotional

development path that you lead a child down when talking about those

issues. For me in particular I was lucky in the army cadets I had male

role models different to the boys on my street that helped me

regulate my own behaviour. Why that regulation is important is it

determines how well you do at school and learning the social

skills that enable you to be successful. Without that you are

sunk before the start. You have a daughter. Do you think she's

deprived by not having a father figure around? Absolutely not. I

think there are two issues there. The idea that a family structure

has to include two parents of a different gender. I think family

structure is very important to children but there is no kind of

rule as to what genders should be involved. I don't think the

addition of a male gender role model would have made any

significant difference to the way my daughter is being brought up. I

think also there is the idea that a male role model for a child has to

be their father. As a society and family and as a community we can

introduce lots of male role models into children's lives. It doesn't

necessarily have to be their father and it won't be available to all

children. Would you like to explain to Sally what it is that

specifically a male figure in these sorts of situations brings that

isn't going to be brought by a woman? Most girls, ladies have

never had a fight, excuse me, they have never been threatened in the

same way that boys threaten each other. There is no doubt that there

is a gender difference between how boys and girls communicate. It is

nice to have someone lead you through that. More importantly this

isn't so much a discussion only about family structure, you are

right one of the major role models in my life are uncles, I had two

uncles who led me through life. That is great. There is a point

where there is a wider implication, this will definitely touch on

poverty, et cetera. My two uncles have children of their own, they

couldn't support my mother once they started their own families. If

you want to talk about family structure male role model, one of

the most important thing is the direct correlation with poverty. If

you want to bring children out of poverty, which is the single

biggest determinate of your future, to add a second parent and male

role model is vitally important. You are nodding? There is a

distinction between correlation and causation. I think certainly

bringing working mums out of poverty is really important. And as

a working mum it can be incredibly hard to find high-quality, flexible

childcare, to find flexible work opportunities and access education

and training when you are solely responsible for a child. Arguing

that the solution to poverty is for women to be in relationships with a

husband or partner of the opposite gender slightly misses the point.

We need to look at offering women greater opportunities to support

their families if they do find themselves in a single parent

situation. The thing I would add to that though, no Government is in

the business or can be in the business of keeping people together.

That's just simply not going to happen. What you could do, the

policy instrument here is you could make it a lot harder for you to

financially separate yourself from your children. If I ran the

universe any children you brought into the world, the first port of

call for resources for those children would be you, not the

Government. What we are building here, and what the CSJ are talking

about is how we are trying to wedge our whole society inbetween into

that role. What we should be really saying to fathers is you stay at

least financially, that is beyond discussion and there is no doubt in

my mind that a male role model has a significant role to play. Why I

concentrate on fathers is because they have a vested interest and a

moral duty to stay involved with any children they father. I think

you are confusing the father's duty to provide for their children, you

can talk about a moral duty, in practice and I can tell you as a

single mother who has been through the system, if a father doesn't

want to contribute to their child financially that will not happen.

There are no current policies in place to make that happen if there

is an unwilling parent. You are talking about role models. What the

report from the Centre for Social Justice is talking about is if you

are a single mother then the outcome for your child is

necessarily worse because you are a single mother. I think actually we

need to be looking at completely different issues. This isn't a

debate about two-parent families versus single-parent families. It

is a fact if you are a single parent, woman or man the outcomes

for your children are sttically worse, it will be tougher for you.

-- Statistic ically worse for you. Let's look at what causes the

problems. Children from two-parent families statistically work out

better. We are not just talking about that. We are talking about

where does the burden lie and where do you ask people to step up. The

emotional development of your children is definitely supported by

having a role model and a man. my perspective as a single mum and

talking to other mums I know. It is great if you have male role models

within the family. I'm lucky my daughter has a good relationship

with her dad, she has uncles, cousins, lots of men in her life.

But I think that broader, as a society, we need to look at getting

more men involved. Not every single mum has that opportunity, not every

single mum has brothers or a good relationship with her ex. It may

not be helpful to have that involvement. It is policy in its

very nature is general. You have to try to make things as good as you

can generally. Part of that is about the message you send. If you

complain about deathbeat dads they will talk about their deadbeat dad,

if you break that cycle you need to say to people through policy. There

is no policy to make people to pay up. If I ran the universe, believe

me there would be. I would take the money, it wouldn't be a debate. I

would take the money and give it to the chiel. I think that send a

message. -- the child. I think that send a message. If you were running

the universe would you have more men in primary schools for example?

Those things become more complicated. Yes it would be nice

to do that, but we have a legal thing that you can't discriminate.

Talking to the teaching profession. That discrimination happens all the

time. I know talking to dad bloggers, in our community, that

they are not welcome. We certainly had a dad blogger that I spoke to

this week on Twitter, who said he had volunteered to help with an

activity at his daughter's school and was told that it wasn't

appropriate because he's a man. And the parents wouldn't feel

comfortable. There is broader issues about welcoming more men

into becoming involved with children. And let's not have the

suspicious viewpoint of why does a man want to work with children and

support children. I think actually that may show that this issue of

the outcomes of children of single mothers being worse is not to do

with the lack of male role models, it is to do with the lack of

support for single women raising children. There is some truth in

that but I add to it. You say it is a correlation between being a

single parent and poor financial outcomes and poverty, it is a

direct result of that. I don't think there is sufficient evidence

to say that. One of the ways of getting around that would be to

make sure that the father involved was financially connected to that

child forever. I would take that stance. I will cut you off there,

thank you both very much. There are reports tonight that the Syrian

Government is readying itself for an attack on rebel held parts of

Aleppo in the north of the country. The regime's resurgence is said to

have much to do with support from Iran and Russia, while the rebels

are funded by states in the gulf. What began as an internal uprising

is turning into a proxy war between outside powers. Are the views of

ordinary Syrians being forgotten in the process. Some within the

country reject both the ray genome and the armed rebels and fear the

intensification of the war will destroy any future hope of

democracy in the country whoever wins.

It is a short but misty road that winds down through Lebanon through

Syria. An hour away across the border a civil war is raging. But

here on Mount Lebanon, an old hill resort, offers security and calm

for a group of Syrians from many backgrounds, who have gathered to

talk about ending the conflict. We can only show a few of them,

some think their discussions are too sensitive to be filmed. There

are activists from Government and rebel-held areas and many religious

sects, opposition supporters and Government loyalists. They haven't

been brought together by outside powers, as diplomats are trying to

do at Geneva. They have organised this meeting themselves. Above all,

what they want is a Syrian solution to a Syrian crisis. We don't need

any help. We go in this revolution, at 15th of March 2011 alone. We

will continue alone. We will get our freedom and build our

democratic state alone. We don't need any help from anybody. Just we

have to stop the war now and to build a new state.

They are discussing many scenarios, but they are agreed that Syrians

shouldn't become pawns in other countries' games.

Extraordinarily when Syria appears to have descended into a vortex of

death and destruction, with outside powers competing to arm opposite

sides, activists like this believe there is still enough political

space, within their country, for a home-grown solution. The Syrians to

persuade one another to stop fighting. This man was a law

student until the law forced him to abandon his studies. He was

somewhere in the crowd in this anti-Government demonstration in

the spring of 2011 when Syrians like him still hoped for a peaceful

revolution. But later instead of taking up arms as some of his

friends did, he began organising workshops to bring citizens

together. One a month ago included a fighter from the Shabiha, the

pro-Assad militia, blamed for many atrocities. He came to the workshop,

he just listened and he was active in the workshop. The second day he

changed his mind and there is many, many exercises in this workshop. He

has changed in it completely. After the workshop he just said that he

will, through his weapon, he don't want -- I want to throw my weapon,

I don't want my weapon any more. The war won't be stopped by a few

individual changes of heart. But grass roots activists have brokered

local ceasefires. Above all they are trying to keep institutions

running amid the chaos and to prevent society breaking up.

They are mixed schools, boys and girls together?

But social activists run big risks. This young graduate from Aleppo

dare not show her face on television. She moves back and

forth from her home in a Government-held area. Braving a

sniper's alley where people are shot every day. She has helped open

schools for children who have had no education since the fighting

began on the other side, schools that have to be protected from

Government bombardment. TRANSLATION: We choose buildings

away from the frontline, surrounded by higher buildings that shells

can't reach. We don't use existing school buildings, we find other

buildings and put desks in the basements. We block the roads

leading to them and sandbag them. 1,000 children study at the new

schools, some as young as these and some old enough to join the

militias. TRANSLATION: Some children are whipped up with

violent ideas and give up lessons. Our schools attract some children

who would otherwise lose some of their chood childhood. This

activist from the Turkish border is describing how she and other

volunteers successfully took over the administration of her mixed

Arab-Kurdish-Christian-Muslim town after Government forces withdrew.

But things went wrong when rebel militias arrived. TRANSLATION:

the revolution started women played a big role. For example we found

food and shelter for internal refugees, we helped protect

people's rights and freedoms. When armed groups arrived it led to

divisions in society. And everything collapsed. This

participant has heard that Islamist militia wanted to stone women for

adultery. She wants to know how civil society responded? But what

can civil society do against guns? The aim here is to try to keep

alive the spirit of the early days of the Syrian revolution. But

perhaps that is just too idealistic. Many would say now the conflict can

only end with a victory on the battlefield, or with a settlement

imposed by outside powers. And that activists like these are just

irrelevant. We are relevant, we are the Syrians. This is Syria, it is

all about Syria. It is our will, afterall. But no-one is listening

to you, you have no power or leverage? The fight be will stop.

The fighting appears to be intensifying? Yes, but every war

ends eventually. When it ends then the real players will appear. The

players who are able to act in the society and to lead the society.

They are not going to be necessarily the warlords.

Today is the activists press conference. There were signs from

the UN that one of their representatives may get invited to

Geneva, if the peace talks go ahead. But the west's dealing mainly with

the exiled politicians of the Syrian National Congress. And

Britain and France are considering arming the rebels if talks fail.

If they want to arm the Syrian rebels, did they ask the Syrian

people? I don't think the people who have access to Mr Cameron are

necessarily the people like you met here in this meeting. Most of the

Syrians I know, they don't want their children to be killed in the

civil war. Mohammed, like others who reject

both the regime and the armed rebels has been intimidated by both

sides. But he thinks only a third way will produce a country he can

live in afterwards. Everyone will be living in a ghetto

or a small camp, we want to have a modern society now. We want to

build a stable society but we can't on the basis of such a split

society. We are trying to preserve the society from collapsing.

The activists relaxing after the workshops in their Lebanese

hideaway have seen death all around them. They may be idealists, but

they are not niave. They are thinking further ahead than the end

of the war. They know a victory over a broken society is no victory

at all. Workshops and democracy may seem a

luxury now, but no-one will think that afterwards.

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 85 seconds

Hello there. Most parts of the UK have seen very little rain over the

past week. But the dry spell is coming to an end. Rain arriving in

the west overnight. Spreading slowly eastwards during the course

of Tuesday, a very different day across Northern Ireland after some

very warm sunshine of late. A wet morning, maybe a touch brighter in

the afternoon. The rain also spreading its way across most of

Scotland. Perhaps not reaching the far north-east. Here we should hang

on to some sunshine. The bulk of Scotland and northern England a

grey and damp day. The rain not particularly heavy. Iran many parts

of eastern England will get away with a spit of drizzley rain.

Brighter skies in the east until later on. A dull and damp start in

the west Midland, good parts of Wales will brighten up nice low. A

wet morning but the afternoon bringing sunshine. Also a bit of

warmth. Temperatures climbing to 18, Quite a bit of uncertainty about

Wednesday's forecast. We are reasonably confident there will be

a weather system across parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland,