Dionne warwick. New information tonight about a troubling story we have been following out of st. Louis where dozens of black mothers may have been lied to, told their newborns had died, instead their newborns were stolen and put up for adoption. Diane eastabrook is in chicago with more. Diane. Yes john. The city of st. Louis says its getting dozens of dozens of calls from families where they feel their family members have been illegally adopted from the homer g. Phillips hospital. Trying to identify adoption records from centuries ago. Seeing her mother for the first time over skype is raising hope for similar reunions. When i saw her moving and her mannerism and everything, i said thats me. That is me reporter medical staff at homer g. Phillips told her her premature baby died the shortly after birth 50 years ago. Back then, doctors and nurses were held with such high esteem, you believed it. And mine was believable because i was so early. Reporter earlier this week prices attorney filed a petition to unseal her adoption papers. Albert watkins says she was stolen. There is a rule out there that says you cant traffic in human babies. You dont need a policeman to explain that to you. You cant take a baby from a mom. Since then dozens of people have contacted watkins office hoping they too may find long lost family members. Maria gallagher thought her step mom lost five babies at homer g. Phillips. Were you suspicious . I always wondered bud that was it, nothing else was done. What was it like for you knowing you have some other siblings . It would be wonderful. While the hospital has been closed for 36 years birth and death records still exist and if there was terrificking, the city could be accountable. Be the city of st. Louis could be on the hook for millions in restitution . Millions, i dont think you can quantify loss of a baby for 50 years thinking that that baby is dead. And watkins says he has had to assign yet another attorney to weed through applications people are bringing into his office to identify potential family members. It could take weeks if not months to find out if there are more people that have reserves relatives that were illegally adopted from that hospital john. Areva martin joins us. Areva, does the statute of l limits runlimitations run out on this . If the claims are true who was involved . I imagine that the City District attorney would also like to take a look at it, if any of the individuals are still alive. When i first heard the story john i immediately heard about the forced sterilization cases weve covered on the network before. Families in the hospital he in the 20s and 30s in different parts of the country and forced to be sterilized, the way that these women are learning that they may have had children that were stolen from them. All right, if the city could be held accountable are we talking about negligence here . Well were talking about more than negligence. Were talking about people intentionally taking live babies from mothers and eerts selling themeither sellingthem to adoption agencies or giving them. Were they given away were they sold to adoption agencies or to individual families . So theres a lot of information to be yet revealed about these children that were allegedly taken from them in the hospital. So youre saying the city might be responsible for this . We know the hospital was owned and operateby the hospital, the city is responsible responsibly for everything happening in that hospital they are responsible for staff women who gave birth that the beashes babies were not removed illegally or improperly. So a lot offing questions to be answered by these city officials. As the piece said, the hospital has been closed for over three decades now. If its true its a horrible story. Is there anything other case like this . Like i said, i think for me it conjures up images of black women, women who were disabled, saying that they were forced to be sterilized in state run institutions. Thats what were talking about. Not a private hospital but a hospital that was run and operated by city officials in the city of st. Louis. I think those cases give us a good comparison of what happened in those cases. Because the statute of limitations had run and those women were not entitled to get civil damages the state stepped in andal actual law was passed to allow those women to recover. I know you have a special interest you grew up in the area. Areva, thank you. Now to baltimore where the state of emergency has been lifted an the National Guard is gone. What remains is a Police Department under fire. Charges were filed against six officers for the death of freddy gray while in custody. The department has a long way to go the mayor said to rebuild trust with the black community. In order to achieve the kind of sustainable and significant reform that we want to see that i want to see that the citizens want to see in baltimore i am requesting the department of justice conduct a federal pattern or practice investigation into the Baltimore CityPolice Department. The department of justice has not ruled out the mayors request. I. T. Comes one day after she met it comes one day after she met with the new attorney general Loretta Lynch in baltimore. Is Jonathan Betz following a story, jonathan. John this troubles a lot of privacy advocates worrying the government ising overstepping its bounds to use surveillance planes over demonstrators. Few are aware that high above planes were circling, west baltimore above the area where riots broke out and then tweeted about it tipping off their presence. Certainly information about the registrations and the flight path of the planes appeared on social media fights. One propeller driven the other a small jet flying formations for several hours at night for up to three days this past weekend. Precisely why however remains a mystery that troubles Civil Liberties activists. The that raises some questions because there are powerful new technologies that are used on aircraft by Law Enforcement. That sweeps up information about people. Helping Baltimore Police run surveillance on neighborhoods possibly to manage crowds. But privacy advocates worry it could be more. Possibly for hours or days at a time. Or activists worry agencies were using the fleans planes to track cell phones. In ways that basically watch an entire city and watch everywhere everyone is going and watch more than the protests them sefs. We have l information that the Police Department considers that on a routine basis. So far the Baltimore Police havent plaind what those planes were doing. While paifnger at authorities brewed below. Now who offenses the planes is unclear. The tail number of one of them is not yet known. The aclu has now filed a request demanding information about those planes and what exactly they were doing. All right jonathan thank you. John brennan special agent with the fbi and specializing in domestic terrorism. Thank you. Being did it have the technology then . We dont know what technology is being used on the planes. Thats a lot of the reason why the aclu wants more information. Certainly surveillance planes have been around for decades. In 1989 they determined they didnt need search warrants as long as they were at least 400 feet above private property. The use of these planes last been a technique thats been around for a long time. What do they use the information for . Its unclear what information they are collecting in this particular instance but what we know from other types of Law Enforcement activities they could obviously the optics that have been developed are extreme and can read license plates around detect faces perhaps. But also, electronic surveillance. They could be using these sting ray devices that capture Cell Phone Communications and information about whose cell phone is in the area. So theres a lot of information that could have been collected. And i think a lot of what is driving the concern about this instance isnt the facts that there were planes above the crowds. But rather, that this technology has moved so fast and the law really hasnt kept pace. Its a violence, some would think its a violence of civil littleliberties. Thats the planes that were just up looking at the violence taking place. And help Police Identify agitators when the government has talked of in the past. In the recent past, theres a lot of filming of different protests and photography of protests so clearly that type of activity infringes on peoples first amendment. Because of the new technology were now facing a Law Enforcement system that can learn so much information, from just a protest a political protest, if you might. Absolutely. And that creates quite a chill where people who might being interested in the issue might not be sure where they fall on either side want to learn more but afraid if they show up at a protest and get a photograph or captured often a video tape of, someone might make assumptions on them that might have implications in the future. But of course there was violence at this protest and Law Enforcement might argue you need this kind of surveillance to stop a violence. Absolutely. If they had an appropriate purpose they should make that known. Its the lack of transparency thats causing the concerns and the fact that over the last several years many times weve only found out about grerve aggressive surveillance being taken when weve seen abuse. Its up to the government to be clear and upfront about what methods theyre using and what forecast theyre collecting with these types of activities. Well see whether the government is up front. Michael, thank you very much. Thank you. Chicago will become americas first city to pay reparations to victims of police abuse. The controversy surrounds former Chicago Police commander john burge. Dozens of men almost all of them African American said they were tortured by police under his guidance. Burge and his Police Commanders deny the violence. Each victim could get up to 100,000. Up next, the tough restrictions on californians. And intersex children, the heartbreaking decision for parents when a childs sex is unclear at birth. Just because im away from my desk doesnt mean im not working. Comcast business understands that. Their wifi isnt just fast near the router. Its fast in the break room. Fast in the conference room. Fast in toms office. Fast in other toms office. Fast in the foyer [pronounced foyyer] or is it foyer [pronounced foyyay] . Fast in the hallway. I feel like ive been here before. Switch now and get the fastest wifi everywhere. Comcast business. Built for business. In the middle of californias worst drought on record sweeping new restrictions on water usage. The new plan limits cities from watering public property and it also sets mandatory conservationing policies for agencies who provide water. Jennifer london is in los angeles tonight. Jennifer. John, its called the drought of our lives. Be impacting everyone and everywhere in the state of california. Jerry brown took the unprecedented step of issuing mandatory you are water restrictions,ing cutting water usage by 25 . We have a better idea what that actually means and where those cuts will actually come from. In a small organic farm in camarillo, phil mcgrath knows what to do with less water. Farming organically thats really hard but farming without water, thats a big trick. Hes been farming the land for 37 years has seen it all wet years dry years but nothing like the last three years. We just havent had any rain. And its just more insects its the cost of water is three times higher than it was three years ago. Its only going to get more expensive. Reporter we first meth mcgrath more than a year ago. At that time, the drought was a concern. Now its a crisis. It means collaborating. Reporter last month californiacalifornia many governor jerry brown called for 25 water reduction across the street. A law for implementing what that will look like. It requires 400 water producer to cult usage between 8 and 36 depending how much they used in the past, that means lawns cant be watered cars cant be washed and ornamental sprinklers will be cut off. Use 25 less water. The he governors restrictions, stop short of placing further restrictions on farmers but requires them to produce a drought managements plan showing how much water they use. The amount of water they are allocated for irrigation and when you consider 80 of californias water goes to farms across the state its possible even larger reductions could come in the future. Californians we have to save water. And every way we possibly can. And we have to pull together. And there will be some heartache here. Whats the water that were seeing here in the creek . This is not coming from the mountains. Right. This is not like this is snow melt. This is not coming from it isnt rain. We havent come from rain. Its not rain, its effluent from a lot of facilities, and a lot of dry weather runoff which basically comes from the streets and storm drains which is mostly people watering their lawns. Liz is with l. A. Water keeper an organization looking to protect and restrict water supplies. Should california having acted for mandatory restrictions earlier . We have advocated for mandatory restrictions earlier than now. I believe there was a lost opportunity earlier than now since the governor dlierd dlaird declared a drought. I would say theres a lot of californians that dont realize were in a drought. Expanding on restrictions already in place since last july residents were restricted to watering two days a week and only watering with hoses with automatic shut off nozzles. Good first steps but a lot more needs to be done and done now. We would like to see state agencies actually put a limit on how many gallons per capita per day used in california and that should be based on current uses. So not only should there be a 25 reduction statewide but we should look at the biggest water users and ensure that theyre make the biggest reduction so that we have a quinlt distributionequitabledistribution of water among the state. Causing heartache as the golden state continues to turn brown. Again the new plan that was approved 50 state water board yesterday, john, that will gob into effect in jung bull ought californians are called upon to restrict and limit their water usage now. Jerchgjennifer youve got information on a California Community thats already completely run out of water right . East porterville since last august thousands of residents have been without Running Water for months, some of those residents without Running Water for years. And whats happened is their private wells have run dry because of the drought. And john its really hard to forget some of those images we brought you of the dried up faucets and the toilets that cant be flushed. The counties of tulare is being delivering bottled water and delivering external tanks to be filled up to provide some Emergency Water relief. Last february, a few months as, we reported from east portserville again that the neighboring city of porterville which does have water and had been providing some of the that Emergency Water to fill up those tanks, well the city was saying you know what . That Emergency Water delivery will have to stop because were worried about providing water to our own residents. So then it was looking like this water crisis in East Porterville was going to turn into oa catastrophe as we turn into the summer months. Today al jazeera has learned that the city of Porter Porter vim and theporterville and the county of tulare have reached an agreement to fill up those water tanks. Thank you jennifer. A victory against the federal government. Jonathan martin. Jonathan. John, a lot of people have been waiting to hear this decision for a long time. How much the federal government will have to pay for these damages and whether this case will be given class action status. The mere fact that the judge says the federal government is liable for some of the flooding damage a lot of residents have waited a long time to hear. Every few weeks for nearly ten years, elmo barnes has returned to his Old Neighborhood in st. Bernard parish to maintain the lot where his house used to stand. My house was completely underwater. When i meefd into my new house we carried Everything Everything in in a carlos hampler. A decade later barches barnes says theyre finally seeing juftsdz. A federal court being says be the shipping canal was largely to blame. The u. S. Government must pay for damages. Justice is being told that you were right and Something Else was wrong. The things that happened to you shouldnt have happened. They didnt do enough homework. They didnt say what was going to be the consequences of us digging this canal. Sit going to widen . The corps built the mississippi canal or mrgo, plk go. Mr. Go thing judge found the stick mile cadge had been poorly constructed and maintainand had substantially eroded and caused storm surge that was exacerbated by Hurricane Katrina and other storms. Judge susan braden called the canal a ticking time bomb. An environmental law attorney at tulane university. Back in the days they didnt have to think about the environment. But she said you should have foreseen this. And us since this was so foreseeable, you are going to be responsible for whatever happens. Super. Reporter reporter its a hardfought vic industry for st. Bernards parish. The court found this case was different, since the mrgo canal was built for nave gaition. I think more broadly whats more important is that what resounds from this decision is the people can hold their government accountable and they have the mechanism to do that. Reporter the canal was closed in 2009. The department of justice told al jazeera its reviewing the js judges decision, its unclear if it plans to appeal. And just how much the government will pay in damages remains to be seen. These are not easy damages to calculate and again not every person is going to have the same basis.