Bank transactions and more privacy tools keep all of that data secure. But Hari Sreenivasan dissects new revelations saying the n. S. A. Can crack those codes. Woodruff and we return to syria, starting with two looks at its impact on the middle east. Ray suarez reports on the flood of refugees in neighboring jordan. Brown and Margaret Warner is on the ground in egypt. Woodruff plus, mark shields and david brooks analyze the debate over military action. Brown and gwen ifill gets Historical Perspective on how past president s flexed their war powers. If we go through american history, president s, even to this day, have an amazing ability to change americas minds on Foreign Policy when they have to. Woodruff thats all ahead on tonights newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by support also comes from Carnegie Corporation of new york, a foundation created to do what Andrew Carnegie called real and permanent good. Celebrating 100 years of philanthropy at carnegie. Org. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. And friends of the newshour. And. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Brown the worlds 20 leading economic powers wound up their summit in st. Petersburg, russia today, deeply divided over how to punish syria for using chemical weapons. It was a setback to president obamas campaign for military strikes, but he played up what support there was, just the same. Ive been encouraged by discussions with my fellow leaders this week. There is a growing recognition that the world cannot stand idly by. Brown the president came away from the summit saying thered been a full airing of views on syria and that most of the g 20 nations agreed on a central point. Here in st petersburg, leaders from europe, asia, and the middle east have come together to say that the International Norm against chemical weapons must be upheld, and that the assad regime used these weapons on its own people. And that as a consequence, there needs to be a strong response. Brown in all, ten nations plus the u. S. Signed a joint statement accusing syria of attacking civilians with chemical weapons last month. But they notably stopped short of directly urging military action as punishment. Russia remained firmly opposed to any strike. President obama did meet today with russian president vladimir putin, but failed to make any headway. Listen, i dont expect us to agree on this issue of chemical weapons use, although it is possible that after the u. N. Inspectors report, it may be more difficult for mr. Putin to maintain his current position about the evidence. Reporter at his own news conference, putin argued its not only russia that opposes military intervention in syria. translated who was condemning and opposing that way of action . Russian federation, india, china, indonesia, argentina, brazil, south africa, italy. And the secretary general of the United Nations also voiced his protest against the military intervention. Brown president obama also acknowledged today that he faces a heavy lift in getting the u. S. Congress to go along. Its conceivable at the end of the day i dont persuade a majority of the American People that its the right thing to do. And then each member of congress is going to have to decide if i think its the right thing to do for Americas National security. The president said he plans to address the nation tuesday night to make his case. He would not say whether he would still order an attack against syria if Congress Rejects the use of force. I think it would be a mistake for me to jump the gun and speculate because right now im working to get as much support as possible out of congress. But ill repeat something that i said in sweden when i was asked a similar question i did not put this before Congress Just as a political ploy or as symbolism. Brown in washington today, in a session that lasted five minutes, Senate Majority leader, harry reid formally began the process of bringing the issue to a vote next week. Meanwhile, security was tightened at u. S. Diplomatic posts in lebanon and turkey. And the state department ordered nonessential personnel at the u. S. Embassy in beirut to leave the country amid rising security concerns in the region. The wall street journal reported that iran has directed shiite militants in iraq to attack the u. S. Embassy in baghdad if theres a military strike on syria. And russia announced it is sending more warships into the eastern mediterranean. One was said to be carrying a special cargo. The statement gave no details, but insisted russias beefedup naval presence is meant to ensursecurity. Woodruff still to come on the newshour disappointing jobs numbers; cracking Online Privacy tools; refugees fleeing syria for jordan; Margaret Warner in egypt; shields and brooks; and a historical look at war powers. But first, the other news of the day. Heres kwame holman. Holman the new foreign minister of iran has confirmed he sent a message on twitter yesterday, celebrating the jewish new year. The tweet said happy rosh hashanna, and came from the account of Mohammad Javad zarif. He said it was aimed at irans small jewish community. The gesture came amid continuing tensions between iran and israel over Irans Nuclear program. Many of the striking gold miners in south africa accepted a new wage offer today. Tens of thousands walked off the job late tuesday, demanding up to a 60 increase in pay. Today, a spokesman for the Mineworkers Union said most have now agreed to salary increases of up to 8 . South africas gold industry is one of the biggest in the world, but its been plagued by falling gold prices. The last surviving witness to adolf hitlers final days is dead. Rochus misch passed away thursday at his home in berlin. Misch was in hitlers berlin bunker, working as his s. S. Bodyguard as the battle for berlin raged in april 1945. He said he did not hear the gunshot when hitler committed suicide. Rochus misch was 96 years old. There are signs the u. S. Birth rate may be stabilizing after falling sharply four straight years during the recent recession. The centers for Disease Control and prevention reported today that nearly four million babies were born in 2012. That was only a few hundred short of the year before. At the same time, the birth rate among women in their early 30s was up for the First Time Since 2007. Wall street finished out the week on a disappointing note. The Dow Jones Industrial average lost nearly 15 points to close at 14,922. The nasdaq rose one point to close at 3,660. For the week, the dow gained less than 1 ; the nasdaq rose 2 . Those are some of the days major stories. Now, back to judy. Woodruff and we turn to todays report on jobs and unemployment in the u. S. , one thats raising concerns again about sluggish hiring and the pace of economic growth. The newshours economics correspondent, paul solman, has the story, part of his ongoing coverage of making sense of financial news. Reporter todays headline numbers employers added 169,000 new jobs last month the official Unemployment Rate slid from 7. 4 to 7. 3 . But what to make of the numbers. We enlisted newshour regular lisa lynch, a former Labor Department chief economist, now at brandeis university. In todays report, we have a little bit of something for everyone. We saw the Unemployment Rate drop, jobs were added to the economy. Thats good news. But when we go deeper into the numbers, we see a more mixed picture. Reporter while the quantity of jobs added looked okay though lower than average tbain over the past year lynch questioned their quality because, continuing a trend throughout the recovery, most of the added jobs were low paying. We saw a lot of jobs added in the retail sector, in stores. Thats good news, consumers are shopping, but those jobs tend to be lower wage jobs. And we saw jobs added in restaurants and hotels. Again, that means people are spending money. Theyre going out. But those jobs themselves are not highpaying jobs. Reporter by contrast, wellpaying finance and information jobs shrank. Also vexing a sharp 74,000 downward revision in jobs already counted as having been added earlier this summer. In fact, the newly revised figure for july sthaiz we only add a little more than 100,000 jobs to the economy. Now, if we were told in july when the report was first released that we had only added 100,000 jobs to the economy, people would have put their arms up in the air and said, oh, my goodness. Were going into a recession. There would have been a lot of doom and gloom. So those downward revisions give one pause. Reporter and there may be another cause for pause, says lynch a trop in the percentage of americans who are either working or looking for work. Were down to a Labor Force Participation rate that we havent seen since the 1978. Reporter but is the drop the result of the baby boomers finally retiring . I think we saw in todays report some of that. But were also seeing young people either not going into the labor market or delaying entry into the labor market. So youre seeing it on that end. And then you are seeing the impact of an aging population while more older people are work than in the past. They still have much lower Participation Rates. Reporter meanwhile, markets will be digesting the numbers in advance of the Federal Reserve whose open Market Committee will meet later this month to decide whether or not to pare back the feds 85 billionamonth bondbuying stimulus program, which depends on how well the economy is doing, and depends in turn on how to interpret todays unemployment numbers. Woodruff if you want to know more about different theories that can explain why the workforce Participation Rate is dropping, paul takes a deeper dive on his making sense page. Brown next, new revelations about the governments ability to crack through important internet privacy safeguards. Hari sreenivasan has the story from our new york studio. Sreenivasan like other surveillance stories of recent weeks, the governments efforts are being led by the National Security agency or n. S. A. And like other disclosures, the latest information comes from documents provided by former n. S. A. Contractor edward snowden. In this case, the reporting was done by a partnership of the New York Times, propublica and the guardian. Reporters found the n. S. A. Is able to crack through encryption or protective encoding tools that are used by businesses, banks, social media and other kinds of online commerce. For example, its often assumed that when you purchase a product online or bank online with a secured and locked h. T. T. P. S. Connection, you have protected your password and financial information. But the news reports say the n. S. A. Can unlock that information. Nicole perlroth is a cybersecurity reporter with the New York Times. She joins us from san franciso. So, nicole, how significant is this . This is huge. This was the last bastion of privacy on the internet and what weve discovered is that the last few decades, the n. S. A. Has been actively working to crack or circumvent the incontraception technologies we all use, not just for Internet Banking and to protect medical records and electronic voting systems, but that we actually, as you pointed out, use for everyday Internet Communications like email or internet chats, et cetera. How does the n. S. A. Do this . Were talking about a set of locks and keys we think we have to protect things. Do they have another set of keys or have they poked holes in the locks . All of the above. When weve learned is that theres been a sustained, multipronged effort to break or circumvent many of the Encryption Technologies that have been developed over the last two decades. In some cases, the n. S. A. Is using its power and influence as the worlds best code maker to set standards that only it knows how to break. In other cases, its getting into servers and taking Encryption Keys. Its using secret court orders, in some cases through its intermeadaries, to grab Encryption Keys from private companies and in some cases, its working hand in hand with companies to embed itself into encryption chips that scramble information for much of the worlds businesses and governments or working with companies to build in Custom Solutions that give it preencrimented access to communications. This has all been done in secret. So as we point out in our article, two decades ago, we as a nation had a Big Conversation around the clipper chip, which was the clinton administrations way of putting in a backdoor to all Encryption Technologies. And as a nation, we decided that this was fundamentally unacceptable, that we wanted some things to remain secret. What we found out yesterday and what we said today in tower article is that the n. S. A. Has gotten around that effectively done the same thing in secret. Whats their justification . That they want to be able to pick the locks of communications from the bad guys . Exactly. That their effort depend on the ability to read terrorist communications, and to track where the money is going and that the only way that they can do that is to break this encryption. The problem is now its no longer targeted. So during world war ii, the u. K. And u. S. Broke the encryption surrounded the enigma machine and that was hugely influential in determining the end of that war. The problem now is it is not just the enigma machine. Its everyday communications. Its u. S. Technologies, basically assure their users that they can trust these companies that their communications are private and whats been happening is in the background the n. S. A. Has been finding ways inside. Have u. S. Technologies been explicit in this . Have they been enabling the n. S. A. With backdoor keys or access . Its difficult to say how much of this is voluntary and how much of it is coerced. If you look at the documents that we got from edward snden, there are multiple mentions of cooperative partnerships and voluntary relationships, which would insigneuate that the partnerships are voluntary. But then i spoke with a number of Technology Companies that said off the record that they were compelled by court order, facing in some cases contempt of court, if they did not hand the government their Encryption Keys or build out these Custom Solutions and theyre not able to talk about this because they are under gag order or secret court orders forbid them from talking about exactly what these relationships look like. And this sort of influence by government is something weve accused Chinese Companies of, putting in backdoors into american technologies. Thats right. What we found out is all these accusations that american lawmakers have leveled against wawa and cte in china, basically american lawmakers accused those companies of planting backdoors in their systems allowing the p. L. A. To spy on american corporations and what we have found out in our report is the u. S. Government has been doing the exact same thing. It definitely puts american lawmakers in a bind and it puts American Companies in a bind in terms of their Global Market share. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next coming months. So your report tomorrow morning in tomorrow mornings paper is going to be about the reaction to all of this. How are Government Agencies or people that are in the Technology Community reacting . Well, the n. S. A. Put out a statement said that effectively said that this was a huge setback for them, and that they didnt believe that the story should have been published, that there was that National Security concerns outweighed the publics need to know and debate about this topic. Everyone else ive spoken with, however, is very glad we made these disclosures. People in the cryptography community dmoount thought they had won this war with encryption two decades ago are heartbroken. American companies are extremely frustrated that they continue to make assurance thoz their customers that their systems have not been breached or compromised and are not handing the government their Encryption Keys, but i think the public no longer can trust those assurances any more. So i think what were seeing now say fundamental lack of trust. All right, nicole perlroth, from the New York Times, thanks so much. Thank you. Woodruff and we come back to syria with two takes on reaction to the conflict in the arab world. We begin with a look at how the crisis has spilled beyond syrias borders. Earlier this week, the United NationsRefugee Agency announced that more than two Million People have fled the fighting. Newshour Fore