Urine poured on your head do you that. Reporter lbgt russians who say it wasnt safe to stay home. And the end of the road. The community that had its heart pulled right out from under it. Now says its last goodbyes as a Hometown Hero tells america tonight why buying corn is going away. Deal. They got the shaft. They really got the shaft. Reporter and good evening and thanks for being with us im joie chan and its the blessing or the curse of digital age and track our every move and the government thinks it makes us secure and stepping up an intelligence Domestic Program scanning millions of license tags to tack drivers and to stop trouble. But that huge net raises troubling concerns especially to those who will seen government monitors spin out of control. The rewards and risks of tracking america from america tonights adam may. Reporter hillary has been a licensed private investigator for more than 15 years. Digging up information on other people is part of her job. But nearly two years ago a shocking discovery, when the tables turned on her. Came out of the blue in the mail one day and john and i received separate letters saying a dnr accessed drivers information and terminated from his position. Reporter john hunt a former employee at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is accused of making 19,000 queries of protected drivers license records. Mostly women and saving some of their photos on his computer. It was creepy and got a lot worms. Pandora box and in shock. Reporter she and her husband a private eye of an audit who looked at the private data and got stacks of records. The cities who looked up our information, the city we live in, the amount of times that our accessed. Out . We had numerous. Queries. Queries. Reporter how many . I think total with both of us 1400 i think. Reporter 1400. They looked up your information why . Thats what we want to know. Reporter they discovered a spike in activity when hillary was featured on the local papers front page, the focus of the article busting a cheating spouse. In a matter of days dozens of Law Enforcement agents, even someone at the post office looked up her dmv data. A pretty girl. Want to know where i live and that is what scares me. I have kids now and. Reporter is it uncomfortable living here . I think that we dont know how far its going to go. Reporter you feel like youre being monitored. They were unwilling victims of one of the most widespread cases of data abuse in the States History and they werent alone. An expolice officer a lawyer and local news anchor had hundreds of unusual inquiries. We have paid out tens of millions of dollars in the last five years because of representatives of government that have illegally searched data. Reporter john is a representative and a state legislature and in the wake of these stories a state audit found half of the Law Enforcement employees were likely accessing state database fore questionable reasons. And what worries him even more is new Surveillance Technology called alpr or automated license plate readers. This technology allowed Law Enforcement to do something completely different which is population. Reporter mounted in Public Places or Law Enforcement vehicles alpr devices scan the license plate of every car that passes. Each device can scan thousands of plates per minute, check each plate against a hot list of stolen cars or wanted persons and data from alpr devices which includes photos, a time stamp and location is also retained and thousands of databases across the country and shared by various agencies, even sold to private companies with little or no regulation. He says its unconstitutional. If you dont have any independent probable cause against a citizen or an individual why are you keeping their data . There is no reason to do it. Use of alpr increased in the last few years. Reporter Jennifer Lynch a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier says with alpr mass surveillance became affordable. It really has potential to collect data on a scale we have not seen so far. For example in los angeles the lapd has about 250 squad cars equipped with cameras and about 35 stationary cameras, each of the cameras can record up to 1800 plates a minute with the capacity to collect so much data so quickly, these databases are very, very large. Reporter large and invasive. If a license plate camera picks up your license plate many times during a week, then it can pinpoint your location and chart your pathway through your life. Now that can reveal some very sensitive information. It can tell who you associate with, which doctor youre going to, whether you are sleeping in a different house every night and i could not think of another Surveillance Technology that had tif. Reporter just north of st. Paul the Ramsey Sheriff Office had the first mobile alpr last year and since then they purchased two more and we went along for a test spin. So its picking up these license plates in this parking lot, right . So we will do one more row here. There we go. So we just got an alert. So i have to run the plate, okay. This time it turned out to be a false alarm but inspector rob allen says he saw alpr work when he was the deputy chief of police in minneapolis. Give me a list of some crimes technology. Auto shelves and homicide, it provided proof. Reporter did you show the stalker had been by the victims homes tons of times. Reporter is this keeping people safe . It helps keep communities safer. Allows go back on serial criminal actors and where were they and potential victims which is a capacity we never had before. Reporter director of the Northern CaliforniaRegional Intelligence Center and department has been aggressive in using al pchl rpr data and can tract crime. What this does is potentially allows us in the future to geo fence and areas where folks are not supposed to be at and you can imagine the person who is a registered sex offender whose vehicle is parked at your childs elementary school, now previously the officer would drive right by but now you have the ability once that alert goes off let me go and make contact with the person. Reporter but in the wrong hands a tool to fight crime can reveal intimate secrets, even about the police themselves. People can access it for different reasons. They can be accessing it against activists or people they dont like politically. Reporter a blogger and privacy activist in minneapolis, she wanted to give the police a taste of their own medicine. As you can see its an ice vehicle from Homeland Security and they would park in these areas, i made sure that the vehicles that i was running their data on had some sort of police signature on it. Reporter the city alpr database used to be public so hill searched for unmarked Law Enforcement cars near official buildings, ran their plates and posted what she found on her website. According to this internal document Minneapolis Police worried she would reveal under cover operations. And i found out that they were mentioning my blog and myself by name saying be careful about parking your vehicles in public areas because i was going around and taking photos of them and taking alpr data, i kinds of got the sense the city as you not comfortable using the data they were tracking us with. Reporter soon they made alpr data private. Turns out the trackers dont like being tracked but that doesnt stop them from tracking the rest of us. Adam may with al jazeera. Then there are the tracking systems we all actively participate in. Al jazeera science and Technology Correspondent jacob ward joins us and the first thing that comes to our mine is waze and the traffic app and it doesnt give you just map and it points out detours and speed traps and now some Police Organizations are coming out against it, why is that . What is the issue . Well, really joie it has to do with the fact that its a twoway communication system. Users are not just plugging into some sort of database, they are also looking at actually what is going on and marking them and police are concerned they may make an identification of a police car up ahead, one is parked here, trying to tell people about speed traps and that kind of Identification Police officers are worried future. Reporter the report we saw from adam may and indeed this indication we have, the government is going to expand the use of license tag watching technology, scanning more license tags and millions as it were, how is that different from Something Like the waze situation . Well, when youre talking about mobile technology, Digital Technology we have the option of turning off our phone and tossing out our laptop and enabling Privacy Protection on browsers and disengage tomorrow the mechanism used to track us but this license Plate Program you are talking about not being able to do that, your physical self and vehicle is being grabbed not just passive and it used to be you had to be an offender of some sort and be parked in a certain place and get unlucky for the police to get your tag and pulled over and run your case and that is not the collection and its a collection of every ones tags at one time and its a real time Identification System for all of us. And its one joie its important for people to understand, you cannot unplug from, if you drive a car in america you will get picked up by the system no matter what you do, there are no options for everyday citizens like you and i. No opting out, i do have to note there are other ways in which we are going to get tracked all the time anyway even if we were able to turn off our phones lets say we use our atm and logging of that and through the metro station and swipe a card and a sense we are followed all the time anyway. I think that the distinction of the privacy advocates are encountering here is there is truly a contrast between ourselves and surveillance apparatus at large, entering a subway you are agreeing to be pick up, use your atm you agree to have that location done but going on a sunday drive used to be in america an expression of freedom and wander where you want to go and that is itself going to be the subject of surveillance. We definitely reached a turning point when it comes to privacy in the United States. Reporter that is al jazeera, and science and tech correspondence den jake ward, thanks. When we return what is behind a growing movement of russians leaving russia . When i see this movie, i imagine scared. Reporter americaamerica tonight on fears of lbgt russians and afraid and coming to america and later the draining away the shocking image that brought the nation attention to the Small Community and how it everything. That is a new sign right here and over here. These signs were put in after the sinkhole. Yes, as a matter of fact a year after the sinkhole. Gas. Reporter america tonight on the last days of buoy corn. Because i was African American i was trying to fit in misty coplelands journey wasnt easy dancing gave me the opportunity to grow into the person. I dont think i could be without it now, this trailblazer is opening the door for others i wanna give back to ballet what its done for me. Every sunday, join us for exclusive. Revealing. And surprising talks with the most interesting people of our time. Talk to al jazeera only on Al Jazeera America russians on the run, even moscow tally shows a huge spike in number of russians moving out and five times as many immigrating than in the early 2000, why is that . Tune and political environment and one key issue in the Winter Olympics after president putin signed a law and sanctions opened discrimination against lbgt people and why so many are leave and where they are going. Reporter how many times do you think he hit you in the head with a wooden baseball bait . Bat . Two times. Reporter the pain has never gone away. On the face and shoulders. Reporter she recently arrived in the United States from russia, afraid for her safety she doesnt want to use her last name. This one and this one. Reporter the attack more than a decade ago still gives her headaches and has been a target several times since because she is gay. What is it like to be a lesbian in russia . Terrible. And if you are gay or lesbian lives. Reporter getting help from the police is not likely. They said they would rape me many times until when i be normal normal. Reporter videos like these are easy to find on russian social media sites, many posted with derogatory and hateful again . Faggots like faggots should go away. Reporter they know them well, the two friends now living in washington d. C. Cringe at the thought the gay men being harassed and doused in urine in these types of videos could have been one of them. When i see this movie i imagine scared. Reporter and they didnt know each other when they lived in russia and grew up in different cities but both know what its like to be a target of antigay violence there, and he says he was once attacked by a group of men as he left a gay club with his friends. They just start to beat us up and yet just for fun. Reporter many victims like him never go to the hospital. If you go to hospital, they will call the police and you have to tell the police what happened. And Russian Police is actually homophobic. Reporter the story is similar and also beaten outside a gay club, what did you think was going to happen . I could be killed. Reporter according to a resent report by Human Rights Watch, violence against gays intensified in russia after a 2013 law went into effect, the law bans gays from public displays of affection and talking about sexuality in the presence of minors calling it propaganda and Human Rights Watch says the law effectively legalizes discrimination against gays, in the past two Years Research says attacks by vigilante groups have increased. For me its like one extra fine and it could happen with me any day. To be gay in russia i would say, i would characterize like its like a nightmare. Reporter and they are part of a growing population leaving everything be hand in behind in russia and seek a new life in the United States. I think we got maybe 50, 60 requests for assistance in 2011, requests. Reporter specializes in gay rights and says the russian client load sky rocketed in the last year. Felt unsafe in russia and once the laws began to pass it was the last straw and couldnt take it any more and saw in very resent past a huge top down effort by the russian government to disenfranchise lbg temperature people and from that we also saw sort of a condoning of violence against that community. Almost anything that happens in russia is magnified like 100 fold here in the United States for domestic consumption, i question almost all of it. Reporter austin is the president of the conservative group cfam center for family and human rights which signed a public declaration in support of russias law. He has traveled in russia spreading his message that marriage can only be between a man and a women. Its perfectly acceptable to say not everybody has a right to children. Reporter do you think that violates directly a persons themselves . There is no human right in any international treaty, any accepted International Norm that anybody has a right to tell their story to school children. Reporter that is not part of freedom of expression . No. Reporter the media accelerates the persecution of gays in russia and he doesnt believe the 2013 law increased violence there. Its not like this is an underground community afraid for their lives and live openly. Reporter we heard the opposite from people who have come here, the people seeking asylum saying there are places we can go for a short period of time but we have to moved and moved this place to this place. I dont believe that. Asylum is a very serious thing for people who are being killed. And this is not happening in russia. This is not happening in russia. Reporter you are nearfearing you are humiliated and attacked on a daily basis. Because of that. Reporter with urine poured on their head do you think everyday . If this was a widespread thing accepted by the government then perhaps but, again, that is just not happening on any kind of a wide scale. Reporter but erin morris sister the fear among russian gays is real. I went to russia in november 2014 and spoke to dozens or hundreds in the lbgt movement looking to leave. Reporter and u. S. Judges think its legitimate. Read this to me. As of september 20th, 2014, they granted asylum in the United States. Reporter although the United States does not keep track of gay Asylum Seekers he knows a growing number accepted here and his friend is hoping his chance will come too. Im excited and nervous and emotions. Reporter what will you do if you dont get asylum . I will get it. Reporter for nadia and Partner Leaving her home and family has not been easy. You can give a hug, hugs and you can touch and its terrible because you want this. So so. Reporter but the pain is a price she is willing to pay to russia. I think i have a future. I believe it. And its amazing feeling to have a future. Reporter did you think you had a future in russia . Oh, no. No. Future. No way. Reporter the future for these new arrivals is full of uncertainty but at least they have a future, something they say they couldnt count on in russia. America tonight can lori and its almost puzzling to see this America President and campaigning in russia for this particular issue. He will say he doesnt believe he had specific enfluns flunsfluns influencing the law there but the definition of marriage has expanded and we see this with conservative groups going outside of the country to go influence or express support for antigay laws or laws that propose gay marriage and happening in russia and other countries as well. Reporter do we know exactly how many people are exiled or seek asylum in this country because they say they were issues . I tried to get to the heart of this information, there are two government entityiesthat keep track of numbers but the case can last different amounts of times and months and years and five reasons to get it that is race, religion, gender, politics or whether you are a member of a social group and its hard to pinpoint how many people identify as being gay so to quantify most of the numbers we have are coming from Immigration Attorneys and the information is anecdotal but said the numbers have gone up. And multiple issues and this is lori on america tonight. Another approach to gay america next week on america tonight, sexuality. Im not gay no more, i am delivered i dont like men no more women. Reporter we will take an indepth look at a radical effort in the black church aimed at curing homosexuality pray away the gay next week on america tonight and ahead in the hour the crisis that pulled the earth from under a small buoy and the future of louisiana aes corn. Now a snapshot of stories making headquarters on america tonight, a deadline pass an International Prisoner swap i. S. I. L. Had threatened to kill a japanese journalist and a pilot and jordan release a wouldbe suicide bomber who admitted the role of a bombing in iman and tensions in a brawl in st. Louis, Community Members clashed with police at a meeting on wednesday about a proposed civilian review board to over see police and mistrusts that exists after an officer shot and killed Michael Brown in neighboring ferguson, missouri. A gas truck explosion estimated part of a hospital in mexico city killing at least two people and they dug through rubble trying to find dozens of missing people and it was fueling the hospitals gas tanks and its likely that a leak in the hose caused that explosion. Now to another crisis that threatens to wipe out a town, an ecological disaster and a small amount of corn in louisiana parts of that town are slowly disappearing right in the ground, the result of a sinkhole created when an under ground mine collapsed and many residents are leaving for good believing the situation has gotten too dangerous to stay. And a followup to his original report and michael revisits buoy corn and people say their last goodbyes. I decided a couple years after i moved here i was going to die here. Reporter you were planning stop. This is it, this is it and texas took care of that. Reporter texas brine and it will quickly turn friendly smiles into scowls and mike shaft and many neighbors blamed the houston based mining, company for destroying the local environment uninhabitable. Here. Reporter . Sinkhole. A year after the sinkhole. Reporter danger keep out highly flammable gas. Reporter what brought them here was a massive column of salt in the ground covering an area one mile wide and three miles across and in the 80s they began es began excavating for chemicals and i was risky and caused an enormous under grounds cavern and 2012 the unthinkable happened part of this collapsed and then it began swallowing the surrounding countryside the sinkhole continues to grow today. Its not just the growing sinkhole that threatens the corn, deep within it a brew of crude oil, rotting debris and explosive methane gas has been slowly rising to the surface. Looks like bubbles there. Some spots looked like it was a coffee pot and boiling and the water was boiling so bad. See the green pipe right there is where they used to have a bubbling spot and still do but they shoved it down to make the bubbles go through the pipe so its not as obvious, to me its a public relakess gimmick and looks harmless until you strike a match on the pipe. Reporter he was met in 2013, under orders from the state he and neighbors had evaluated buoy corn and at the temporary. We were supposed to be at moment but we are not. Reporter what was temporary has become forever. The situation in buoy corn has gotten so hazardous shaft and 90 homeowners recently agreed to a settlement with texas brine and includes the buyout of their homes and its moving week. How long have you been here . 25 years this coming april. Reporter lots of memories. Lots of memories. Reporter what does this feel like the house you have lived in for two decades is full of boxes . Feels like you are , feels like you lost a good friend. A friend that has protected you for 25 years and there is nothing you can do about it. Reporter on our first visit to the buoy we caught up with general russell, and he was the commander of joint Task Force Katrina responsible for relief efforts for the hurricanebattered gulf coast, a local her hero and an advocate for communities like this. General. I wanted to see it. A relaxing spot there. Reporter and a team of environmentalists have been tracking the sinkhole and began as a small depression now covers 40 acres and once more its slowly inching its way to the twolane road which connects buoy corn to the outside world. How has the place changed . Its almost accepted because there is a devil brewing because none of the scientists or engineers can say dont worry about it and cant tell you dont worry about it because they dont know. Reporter general its really clear there are not a lot of People Living here anymore. Yeah, it was a buzz with life and people and kids and families to now its literally looks like a ghost town. Reporter your view is these people here got a raw deal. Oh, yeah, they got the shaft. Reporter they really got the shaft. They got the shaft and got the bum end of an industry doing what it wants out here playing wild, wild west cow boys and put the hole here and the hell with it and when it goes bad stand behind their lawyers. Reporter the spokesperson for texas brine, when we met with him in 2013 he defended the companys record. Do you believe there should be more regulations or at the very least that the regulations should be much more tightly adhered to . Regulations are pretty strong and certainly the local regulators or the state regulators were watching this operation and were aware of everything and again we had no event for 28 years. Reporter in a statement for this report he told us residents who took the buyout received fair market value for their homes and that some even got allowance to assist we vacuum weighs weighs evacuation and had broils and cookouts. Nick is also moving out. They built this house on land they withins once used as a campsite and like shaft they planned to die here. Having to leave this home is the saddest thing that ever happened to us. It was good while it lasted. Reporter for brenda coping with it all has been especially difficult, the same year the sinkhole began swallowing the community she was diagnosed with cancer. So what is your feeling about texas brine now is . They were a bad commute and never came to the door and introduced themselves and said im so and so we have been doing business here for 40 years and im so sorry this is happened. Reporter when you look at this place you undoubtedly reflect on all the things that have happened here, what comes to mind . Just the friends that we made here. The parties we had. My husband dressed as a woman one year. I dressed as a man, you know. You realize you are admitting this on national television. That is okay, we lip synced devil with the blue dress on. We just know how to have a good time. And the friends that we made here with the same way. Reporter there are some people who argue it has, in fact, stabilized and toxic gasses are not escaping at the rate they did before and the sinkhole acreage in terms of the size is no longer expanding. It was not that long ago that it was 38 ag acres and now its 4 is and didnt want to say after we saw the trees fall in, im sure everyone in the nation saw that clip, we just knew there was going to be problems with the homes. Reporter some evidence the gas leaks have been tapering off not everyone in buoy corn is pessimistic about the future and dennis owns the local marina along with several others on his block and decided not to sell out to texas brine convinced the concerns are over blown. I think there were some scare people. I think there were some fear mongres out there. Residents . Not so much residents, maybe a couple perhaps but mostly outside environmentaltype people you know. Reporter what is haunting you about this experience . Its just that if this had been my place for so long and so many memories here and its gone, you know. Its time to move on and letting go is the hard part. Reporter just as hard for many to accept, there is no telling how many more calamities like buoy corn lay ahead. Michael with al jazeera, buoy corn, louisiana. Ahead in our next segment the battle down under. Its like women are fighting two wars and they are fighting one war with the men that are supposed to be there side by side and they are fighting the war over there too. Reporter and enlisted women on board the silence service, will they speak out against Sexual Violence . King county is going both directions with a low income fare of 1. 50 and at the same time, fares will go up for richer riders to a high of 3. 25 at peak hours. Sort of a classically goodhearted seattle move to say you folks need to ride the bus. Ride it for 1. 50. Is this in its own way redistribution . Its not just about altruism though, you know . Its about economic development. We need to make sure workers can get to work. Its about economic opportunity. In a Transit System that has had 5 fare hikes in 5 years, price is a sensitive point. San francisco is the only other major metropolitan area with a similar two teired system, with 20,000 people buying half price fare cards. In king county it could cost 7 to 9 Million Dollars in lost fare revenue every year, plus a few million more for administrative start up costs. Were eliminating routes, were cutting back service in some areas, theres pressure on the system in terms of money and were saying okay, were gonna make things cheaper. So it seems almost counter intuitive. Yeah, well not everyone has the money to afford the kinds of fares weve arrived at in king county. We need em, we need em to bring in the revenue to keep the busses on the road. There was no vote on this the policy came out of a county council comity. The new fares, higher and lower, start in march. Finally tonight on point, she may be the worlds most famous and most anonymous dancer ever and in the 19th century greatest artist and some of the biggest fans are trying to solve the mystery be hind the muse and got the sheer exhaustion of a ballerina when dance had opportunity of art from girls from humble backgrounds. Becoming a ballet student and rising through the ballet was a cans to rise in the world and it was a slim chance but it was a chance. Reporter they are best known for the figures of the dance lesson, in the years of studying and painting in paris he knew well the simple reality of their lives. They were called rats, that was a slang term for the young ballet students and they were young and skinny and scampered in from the streets. Reporter and tapped the energy in his studies and in a parallel, more private project he produced her. Little dancer, aged 14, a jarring difference from the art standard of the day. This young girl was modern and wasnt mature enough or fine featured enough to be beautiful and then the realism was scary. Reporter eyes closed, chin up and she was crude and nearly primitive and xray shows her cobbled with piles. There is a structure and around that is cotton padding inside held in place with wire and then rope. When he needed to put a little more strength in her arms he used paintbrushes from his studio and then he put a coating of surface. Reporter the first and last he exhibited was a tough one for critics and for art lovers. People loved it or hated it and thought she looked like a criminal and thought she was a specimen from an Anthropology Museum and other people thought that he had with one stroke sculpture. Reporter his model was marie who along with her two sisters posed many times for him. One sister we know had a successful ballet career, one accused of be coming a petty thief but marie, the distant federal government figure of a female dancer. She is dismissed from the why. Reporter the mysteries of the muse have long intrigued his fans including a claimed broad way director and coreographer and created a musical about her. The statute was a part of me as it is for most dancers and i would see that in the museums and i would wonder about that little girl and wonder why he chose her and she looked very different from all the others he pane character. Reporter character and secrets and why did she leave the core, what became of her . Was she the chattel of a black headed gentleman who was in the paintings or a ghost who simply slipped away from the spotlight. I feel like writing this musical has brought marie back to life. Reporter for us though the little dancer is a figure trapped in time. The beauty of young girls and the promise, the possibilities that they represented, girls who might become great, who might rise, he liked the double nature of the girls the fact they were street merchants and potential queens. Reporter the hard labor and high art. Poised as all of the dancers to take flight. The little dancer, the original sculpture will be on display at the National Gallery of art through february 8 and you can see the little dancer, the musical in los angeles this summer. That is america tonight on our Weekend Edition cutting to the front of the immigration line, we will look at a Controversial Program that some lets people buy their way to citizenship if you want to comment go to our website Al Jazeera America tonight and talk to us on twitter or Facebook Page and good night and please join us for more america tonight. Announcer this is al jazeera. Hello from al jazeeras headquarters in doha this is the news hour coming up in the next 60 minutes i gets president leaves the African Union summit early after a string of deadly attacks in the sinai peninsula. Growing discontent and we speak to people inside iraq controlled mosul who say they are hostages in their own city. We feel really sad