that man behind wikileaks remains at the ecuadorian embassy. he is not staying silent. rt was able to interview the world-renowned leaker. the obama administration has invoked a chilling effect on the freedom of the press from the doj tracking the phones of journalists to the prosecution of whistleblowers. concerns for press freedom are growing. more on that coming up. it is the 11th day of the government shutdown.

the standoff between republicans and democrats continues. republicans are pushing for a race of the debt ceiling but obama demands no strings. the latest on the fiscal deadlock later in the show. it is friday, october 11, five :00 p.m. in washington, d.c. and you are watcin watcing rt. julian assange has been waiting for safe passage. in the interview he shared his thoughts on a number of issues talking specifically about the nsa scandal and the relationship with -- wikileaks has had with edward snowden. >> here at the embassy, he affirmed that exceptionalism

that barack obama, president of the united states is defending is nearly -- merely an excuse to be above the law. something used by nations to subordinate others. he alluded to the necessary -- necessity of developing technology to order -- defend patient against the mass espionage program that violates human rights and certain rights under international law. >> whenever a president talks about exceptionalism what he's trying to say is the rules of civil behavior does not apply to him. whether that is in invading another country or that is abusive laws at home -- the abuse laws at home. in relation to barack obama's use of the espionage act against

alleged journalistic sources, and journalists, that is something -- it is important that people understand, this is not just [indiscernible] it is a radical change. barack obama has prosecuted more people under the espionage act come a more journalistic sources under the espionage act than all previous presidents combined going back to 1970. he prosecuted double the number. this is a deliberate conscious decision by the white house to create a chilling effect using espionage as opposed to some other mechanism. cracks he thanked the russian government for giving asylum to edward snowden. the whistleblower and former nsa contractor and he thanked the countries of ecuador, venezuela and bolivia for offering asylum to edward snowden and giving support and asylum to assange

himself. saying they are among the few nations that have had the courage to stand up to u.s. power and aggression. cracks in terms of the nations that step forward, it it was latin america and russia. not all of latin america. venezuela, bolivia, and ecuador. showing a keen interest. crac>> if you take a visit to te white house webpage and type in government transparency you will find a memo declaring his policy on open government. he sees government should be transparent. transparency about the cut ability and provides information for citizens about what their government is doing. while that is his stated intentions, his actions speak louder than words according to a report released yesterday i the committee to protect journalists. he has fallen short of his promise. it is a detailed report on how

the prosecution of journalists has created a chilling effect. six employees and two contractors have been charged compared to three such prosecutions in all previous u.s. administrations combined. i was joined earlier by the host and producer of breaking the set, abby martin and they shed light on this discrepancy and talk about the report's findings. i asked abby what she thinks have been the most egregious helices said fourth. cracks one of -- i was not surprised to see this report. this is an organization that has been focused on war zones and journalists being killed in the line of fire. to take this initiative on the homefront shows you this is an unprecedented move. a lot of unprecedented trends going on with the obama administration. and the thing that is so tragic about it is he cannot -- he sees

himself as a transparency president. the things that stand out to me, the eight people charged under the archaic world war i at to prosecute spies. you see completely ridiculous seizures of phone records under establishment media organizations. ap, fox news. so when you're calling out fox news and ap journalists, you know that something is in trouble. >> absolutely. abby mentioned this but see pj -- cpj does focus on war zones. this is the first report they have done in the united states. what do you think that says? this is an organization that has been around for decades and this is the first year. -- the first they have done this. >> the focus is on war zone

countries, there it is dangerous in general to be a journalist for political reason, egypt, honduras and syria. these are regarded to be some of the most interest countries so why the united states? that signifies to me that -- as the actual shift we have taken from the bush of ministration to the obama administration. journalist and whistleblowers were getting their threats. we are not going to pursue to you but you had better start doing this. under obama that has become a reality. a people persecuted under the espionage act is unprecedented. this includes people like edward snowden and other folks as well. i want you -- i want to read you one quote. chilling is not strong enough, it is like freezing the whole process. the obama administration may be the worst when it comes to press freedom since the nixon years.

>> it is amazing how many reporters came out in this report and talked about how they have never covered a presidency with more secrecy. that is amazing. you mentioned edward snowden. i wanted to talk to you about him because he was the latest whistleblower charged under the espionage act. he is not in the united states and he will not be tried at least not yet. what kind of effect would you say that snowden and the nsa scandal has had on the public's perception of their privacy, the right to privacy? >> we have whistleblowers sickle -- is seeking asylum in russia and brazil and their partners hanging out in berlin. that is the state of the world where they cannot reside in this country because of the fear of being persecuted. it blew the lid off everything. it is something that was known for a long time since 9/11. we knew the patriot act but we did not how -- realize how far it went.

we did not have the proof in our hands so that edward snowden had blown the lid off everything. everyone in the country knows that not only are we being spied on and it is being collected, they goes to spying on people in brazil was no constitutional protections whatsoever, sharing this data with israel and other allies of the u.s.. we are in a state of shock, still recovering from the fact that we had all of our beliefs consolidated and confirmed. >> it was a pivotal moment. i wanted to ask you about -- the administration's defense of this. they said for every foia request we have released an information, we have been as transparent as we can possibly be and their reaction has been pretty [indiscernible] what do you think, should the administration get any credit for this? >> absolutely not.

it is ridiculous and the term they use it we have been speedy when it comes to this. the word they use is speedy. i do not know what method of time calculation they're using. from the state department to get financial records from the previous secretary of state it takes upwards of a year to get information. that is from the state department alone the cia and the fbi and nsa who will be bouncing back and forth, this is in our jurisdiction -- not in our jurisdiction you'll have to do this from nsa. i think if they are touting this this is erroneous, this is terrible for them to say that we are being very speedy. another thing the obama administration is guilty of is over-classification. when you get your hands on a foia request, half that stuff you cannot read. half the things are over classified and that has a chilling effect on its own for government employees to say we are not sure of whether or not this is a gray area where this

is classified or not. we are not going to talk to. that is having its own effect as well. >> we know this is not just about government sources. we know that journalists are being targeted. it calls into question another controversy of -- controversy all obama policy. the detention clause. can you talk about that and how it feeds into this whole thing? rex that is why people are so concerned. we have seen this egregious move on the part of the -- signing this into law. authorizing the indefinite detention of people who are and associated force with a kite or terrorism. that term is so general and subjective that it could be anyone. journalists have tried to suit the -- to sue the administration. i couldn't -- i can be detained by the military without habeas corpus. this goes back centuries, the

concept of having due process and a fair trial is so foundational to democracy and to freedom, i think that is terrifying when you see that coupled in with the war on whistleblowers and press. >> that was abby martin and the producer of "breaking the set." the deadlock between the white house and gop officials continues. with the partial government shutdown in its 11th day and less than a week to go before the treasury department runs out of money to pay the bills, president obama has been urging congressional republicans to end the gridlock that has taken over washington and crippled the country. house republican leaders that with president obama regarding a plan the proposed suggesting a short-term debt limit increase. it would last for about six weeks. the white house has hinted that that new proposal is being considered particularly if it means and into the government shutdown area this morning 20

house republicans and majority leader eric cantor gathered to talk about the possibility of quickly reopening the government but only if there is a commitment by obama to take significant deficit reduction steps. the president has asked for a short-term debt limit increase with no conditions attached and they continue -- he continued to press his case today in a meeting with senate republicans. while there is no definitive deal lawmakers are saying that the six-week proposal is the greatest sign of progress since the government shutdown went into effect. locals and the nation's capital's say progress cannot come soon enough. congress controls all of districts appropriations and that means the city has been caught up in this national political fight. to discuss the latest on the hill and how it affects washington, i was joined earlier by senator paul strauss, the u.s. shadow senator from the district of columbia. i was asking him if he was optimistic he was -- we were nearing a resolution.

>> the information i am getting is they are pretty far apart. i do not think it is unreasonable to expect the government be open and the government pay its bills before we begin to debate about the great issues of our day. this is an outrageous tactic by aggression a republicans to hold the government hostage and in particular might constituents in the district even worse because although we have been able to keep the government open temporarily, we are about to run out of money and the consequences for city residents are going to be much greater than those around the country. >> can you talk about that, how is this a bug affecting your residence? >> all locally raised tax dollars have to be appropriated by congress. that is wrong and it should not be that way. we should be treated like every other state and locality. local money should be our local money but the rules say congress controls our budget and when they cannot open up the federal government and pass an appropriations bill, the city and you gets tied up in that.

the mayor has decided not to close the government by declaring all bc government workers essential. we have a strong budget surplus but we are dipping into those savings to keep the government open and it was not designed to pay day-to-day operations. it was a rainy day fund and it is raining today and affordably and actuality but we are going to run out of money. unlike other situations where tourists cannot go to parks or passports might not be issued, the impact is very severe. we have health clinics that will be forced to close because medicare and -- medicaid funds are not accessible and mentally ill cap -- people cannot get their medication. we have charter schools that will be forced to close. that is not happening in the 50 states. we need the congress to do is free d.c.'s budget from this ridiculous deadlock and allow the city to stay open. >> as i'm sure you know a couple of days ago mayor vincent gray dropped in on a press conference

being given by senate majority leader harry reid to express that concern. let's take a look at that. >> we have -- we are trying to [indiscernible] >> i am on your side. click senator reed said i am on your side, do not screw it up. what does that even mean and was that response enough for you? >> i was right there. it was a memorable moment. i do not know what he meant exactly by that. the truth is senate democrats have been on the district side in these fights with the federal government. we are getting frustrated because it is like the fire department coming to your house and tell you a story about how many times they have put fires out to rescue people what we are saying this house is about to burn down. you need to do something now. senator reed is a friend and supporter of d.c. statehood and he has the job of trying to keep the country on track. we respect his position and we

are grateful for his help at we really need the district to be treated differently because we are different. we are not an agency of the federal government and we do not believe in the middle of this federal shutdown mess. >> let's take a look at some numbers. washington, d.c. has tapped a $144 million contingency river -- reserve fund to keep 32,000 district employees working during the shutdown. a 98 million dollar payroll for these workers is due. what happens when this contingency runs out of money? >> we really do not know. that is something we did not plan on. nobody expected that congress would be this irresponsible and allow the shutdown to continue. the last government shutdown, the district was exempted from the consequences. it has been many more days than that now. that contingency fund was not designed to fund day today operations and unlike the 50 other states this is serious consequences to people's health and safety, trash will not be

picked up, it will be fun. no parking tickets for a few days but that will get old fast as the garbage piles up. right now it is the district government that is picking up trash and national parks to avoid a public health calamity. i do not know what will happen when trash does not get picked up in the rest of the city, when health clinics aren't forced to close and charter schools are forced to close. the consequences will spiral out of control. >> house republicans have passed a bill to allow d.c. to sign it locally raised tax dollars but harry reid has not brought this to a vote. do you feel like there is a disconnect? chris there is a -- a fundamental misunderstanding. this is a government that is trying to spend locally raised dollars. let's not give republicans to much credit. they said a bunch of bills across and they're trying to reopened the government piecemeal. we cannot let that happen. if we begin passing piecemeal

cr's we will never have an epa again. we will have -- we will never have people taking on consumer -- fighting for consumers. there are agencies that the republicans would love to keep shutdown at the same time there is ample precedent to keeping the district differently. we are not an agency of the federal government. the people of d.c. deserve to be -- have our budget free from this dysfunction. >> let's hope that d.c. residents do get what they deserve. thank you for joining me. paul strauss representing the district of columbia. last week federal prosecutors's brought charges against 13 people for allegedly helping hacker group anonymous carry out a string of cyber attacks in 2010. the u.s. wished for it with an arraignment of a few of those indicted. the defendants are being accused of taking part in something called operation payback, a

group of attacks that took place between september 2010 and january of 2011. in which anonymous initiated denial of service attacks on several groups and even a member of the rock band kiss. operation payback targeted victims worldwide including governmental entities, trade associations, individuals, law firms, and financial institutions which anonymous claimed a posted stated philosophy of making all information free-for-all including information protected by copyright ross -- laws or security situations. thank you for coming. give us some history first of all. this all went down last week but can you give us a brief history? >> it started back in late 2010. it is similar to a couple of other operations that have been

waged by members of anonymous in the past. the bare bones of it are a group of people, who knows how many, handful were indicted but hundreds of thousands may have participated in this movement where they decided to target the websites of either corporations or government offices or any sort of entity that was litigating and trying to take down other people who were allegedly infringing on copyrighted material. anonymous and a lot of people involved in the free information movement generally oppose copyright law and say it puts restrictions on knowledge and hampers innovation. during the course of a couple of weeks, members took down the websites of the association of america, the u.s. copyright office, handful of others, gene

simmons became a target various times. it came and went and ended in january 2011 and now lo and behold, more than two and a half years later we are seeing an undyed meant unsealed and the arraignment. >> they're using the terminology denial of services. how do you distinguish that from cyber attack? >> at distributed denial of services attack, some people have equated to a digital protest. it sends a bunch of traffic to a website. let's say there is a website you do not like. what is your favorite website? >> putting me on the spot. google. >> google will be hard to ddos

because it is gigantic. you set up a piece of software called a low orbit ion cannon. you type in google.com and pushed a button and your computer start sending a request to google just as if you were to go to google in your regular browser but this will be sent again and again and again. if you have enough people doing this not with google but with a smaller, the riaa or mpaa, or gene simmons'website, you overloaded with traffic. it is like a traffic jam. there is too much traffic and you cannot access the site. i anonymous targeting these sites with ddos, all they did was crumble under the traffic and legitimate users were not able to access those sites and for waging attack that did that these individuals are looking at five years each. >> i want to talk more about

what you saw and who exactly was arraigned today. >> a handful of people were involved. i just came back from the eastern district court. i saw the arraignment of two individuals. mr. collins is in his early 50s's, his from ohio and he is currently a codefendant and a very similar case in which members of anonymous targeted paypal when paypal began refusing to process donations for wikileaks in 20. that's good for little while and that takes itself, there are 14 defendants, that has been going on for two and a half years now. still has not been resolved. that is significant. if we're looking at this indictment here, the new case we are dealing with, this could take another two and a half years. perhaps longer.

and he showed up today and set a couple of words and they were both arraigned, $25,000 bond. there is trouble at -- restrictions and a few others were in court. this case is going on for while. >> and an array of backgrounds from those who were charged. this is not the first time we have seen these charges. how does this fit into the larger narrative, the crackdown on activism -- hacktivism. >> there are so many different operations we do not understand are happening. i anonymous was was infiltrated by the fbi at least in 2010 and 2011. there was one individual who

worked as an informant and helped orchestrate a lot of these operations where the defendants in those cases have been convicted and sentenced to jail. he masterminded a giant conspiracy while working as an informant. the government is creating these hacktivists and putting them in jail. there is still people involved in the movement and i do not think -- as long as people have an internet connection they will want to, talk about things and do things and if the courts find it illegal, they will have to go to court, i guess. >> thank you for coming down. we will have you back on. that was andrew blake. in a surprise move, the organization for the prohibition

of chemical weapons also known as the opcw has been named the winner of this year's nobel peace prize. the committee announced the award this morning and oslo noting the group's "extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons." this is the 22nd time that a group has taken the top prize. last year the award was given to the european union. to further explain its decision the committee has said the conventions and the work of the opcw had defined the use of chemical weapons as a taboo under international law. recent events where chemical weapons have been put to use in syria have advanced the efforts to do away with such weapons. the nobel committee said this was not given as a result of the efforts in syria but the current work in syria stands as one of the largest endeavors it has taken throughout its long- standing efforts to eradicate chemical weapons worldwide.

and now to wall street where a former senior examiner at the federal reserve bank of new york has filed a wrongful termination lawsuit. the former employee is carmen se gara, who spent seven months examining goldman sachs legal and compliance divisions. she found the bank did not have policies to prevent conflicts of interests that were required by revelation. instead of being credited for discovering this lack of oversight she claimed she was raided by federal officials who oversee the institution's relationship with goldman sachs. the officials were concerned that the findings might cause a downgrade of the wall street bank's reg oratory rating, the lawsuit said. they tried to pressure her to change her findings and when she refused, they fired her and immediately escorted her from the building. in a statement, the new york fed

responded to the incident by saying that the institution provides multiple venues and players a recourse for its employees to freely express concerns. personnel decisions are based exclusively on job performance and are subject to thorough review. they rejected any suggestions to the contrary. in an interview her lawyer reiterated the wrongful termination and added examiners need to be able to operate without fear of retaliation. we will continue to follow the story. that doesn't for now. for more on the stories we covered today, go to youtube.com/rtamerica and check out our website and you can all of me on twitter. see you back here at 8:00 p.m. thanks for watching. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org--

hello, you're watching "newsline." i'm keiko kitagawa in tokyo. the global watchdog dedicated to the elimination of chemical weapons is the winner of this year's nobel peace prize. the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons is based in the hague. opcw experts are currently in syria dismantling the country's stockpiles of these arms. >> the nobel peace prize for 2013 is to be awarded to the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons, opcw, for