you know if it has the right to privacy just like a human being now some think that this whole thing has gone way too far so we can discuss corporations rights with radio host tom hartman and attorney seth barron's week then will investigate the increasing amount of resignations within team wiki leaks important players are throwing in the towel because they say that it's just too difficult to work with a too radical julian assange wired editor kevin colson will join me to discuss the website's troubles and then we're going to look at the state of america's infrastructure with the rise of natural disasters and mounting troubles with bridges and roadways we have to ask is the u.s. starting to crumble literally correspondent christine will have that story but now let's move on to tonight's top story. today the jury selection began just blocks away from ground zero in the first civilian trial of a guantanamo bay detainee it's the case of ahmed khalfan ghailani he faces two

hundred eighty six federal counts related to the august seventh one thousand nine hundred ninety eight bombings of u.s. embassies in tanzania and kenya where twenty two hundred twenty four people were killed including told americans now golani is accused of helping deliver bomb making components including t.n.t. and oxygen tanks in a truck detonated outside the u.s. embassy in tanzania he fled africa with a senior al qaeda explosives trainer and according to court papers then remained an active participant in al qaeda as a bomb maker a document forger and as an aide to osama bin laden himself he was then captured in pakistan in july of two thousand and four held and questioned by the cia for more than two years and was transferred in two thousand and six to kuantan him obey now golani has pleaded not guilty and also claimed that he was subjected to enhanced interrogation for fourteen hours over a period of five days which one judge earlier said serve compelling interests of national security now if you remember there has been

a lot of debate as to whether or not others like the lani should be tried in military commissions or in civilian courts and many are seeing this as the first test case but i guess the real question we have to ask is why a test is needed to begin with or joining me from chicago is attorney kelly saindon partner belong here shapiro and franklin kelly thank you so much for joining us now let me get this straight i want your opinion do you believe that he should be tried . in a civilian court or in a military commission. i think you should be tried in a military mission and. you should be treated as such and he should be treated like a time of war we should not be worried great's of our citizens but we have tried other terrorists info. courts in fact i think that one hundred fifty suspects of terrorism have been convicted in federal courts and since september eleventh and only three people have ever been convicted with military commissions so how is this

case any different than those one hundred fifty others well this case is different because it's a sensitive issue or it's someone that's the soon to osama bin he is trying to use our rights as citizens to protect him from our judicial system so he's saying he's first amendment rights are really excuse me his sixth amendment rights are violated that these enhanced interrogation tactics should not allow evidence in admissions that he made to come in so he engaged in terrorist activities in a time of war he was hostile to the united states he i believe was involved in what ended up deaths of american citizens and now he's trying to say that he should be afforded protections of our citizens and this is different because he is trying to exploit our systems and his manager but just remind me in one nine hundred ninety eight when this bombing took place where we had war in nine hundred ninety eight i guess it depends on who you're asking because there were announcements of

announcements that the war was over excuse me and announcements that there's always then and i'm going to work so it depends on whether you look at it activity especially one that united states embassies on one soil being bombed as a war or not so i would if i did i think that's you know one of the problems here too is people are saying that with this global war on terror that we're fighting that is just has become so expansive you don't know when it began when it might and you don't know what border it even touches it somehow spins seems to span all borders then it seems like anything goes i mean what happened the fact that this is america this is a country with a strong justice system a country with a rule of law that we very much respect and are proud of why do we just throw that out the window now. well i think the reality of the situation is people are incensed that individuals that allegedly are terrorists that are that at mit to being associated with terrorist activities and terrorist groups are being afforded

protections so the victims weren't protected but now they're getting special protections from our citizens taxpayers individuals here they're exploiting our system they're taxing our system they need additional security all of the resources to try them floor criminal matters in a civilian setting are draining our economy and if it was the military they have their own tribe you know and they actually understand the tactics that were used to be interrogation the word fair and so confidential net in a civilian trial it never sees the light of day but you know there's been a lot of problems with these military commissions i mean to begin with they're fairly new right there isn't exactly this is kind of uncharted terror territory and a lot of attorneys out there will be the first to admit that this isn't necessarily the best system that the federal courts have a better track record that they've given harsher sentences and you know not to mention it takes a lot of money also to fly everyone out there to guantanamo bay just for these just for these commissions it's not like that's much cheaper for the taxpayer regardless

money is being spent here. you're right i mean there's pros and cons with everything but the reality comes down to do these federal trials work are we now going to import in one hundred seventy four get. and try them all on u.s. soil so we're going to why not you are i don't i don't quite see what the problem is considering we've already tried one hundred fifty suspected terrorists on u.s. soil why is it now that it's become such an issue. well if we import one hundred seventy four of these individuals and put him in a holding cell in new york you're not concerned that there's going to be some sort of blowback or some terrorist activity over that to stop them from confessing secrets to abort our justice system to create more turmoil that we're going to have to have additional military in there to protect them while i was really i don't really see how having them on u.s. soil or on cuban soil in a little jail cell makes any difference obviously the fact that we're detaining people illegally that our country has been torturing people that's not good press

all over the world i agree that it's not good press but i don't think that there's any other way to go about it do you really think it's just locked in and send search alice what you did he's going to volunteer information well in fact if you look at the case of the underwear bomber in december they read him his miranda rights and he did in fact comply and you know and answer the question so there is proof that you don't need to torture people you don't necessarily need to detain them you can work within the rule of law and the system that this country has built which is what makes it great i have to say to get. i don't necessarily disagree with you in that particular case but he wasn't successful he didn't bomb the plane this was somebody who got caught in the process he was unsuccessful and i think he wanted to get his story out there had you been successful you wouldn't be alive to be able to avail himself of our protections you have to remember that that is somebody who is trying to undermine our way of our society so to say our systems working to his benefit is a little bit of

a problem i think what i want to ask you this question this is something that i found very interesting about this case is that they're actually planning on using osama bin laden who is also been indicted here to establish that the defendant intended to kill americans and so they're taking bin laden's words things that he said in interviews where he said the u.s. civilians are his targets and that he they're saying that because galani was a follower of been lot and then of course american citizens had to be one of his targets too i mean by that logic it's like you can go to a church and you find a preacher that perhaps you know was feeling some kind of hateful rhetoric then he goes out and kill someone and then everyone in his congregation is also implied. i understand what you're saying but i think to liken it creature to osama bin laden are a little bit different because it's fundamentally a different ideology and bin laden has been very public about wanting to destroy america that's what they're using osama bin laden to talk about the defendant in this case which i'm not quite sure if that's really

a fair or right or legal to make i kind of connection. character always comes into play and you can always associate if someone is a gang banger then you can show that he's affiliated with a gang and therefore it's more likely than not and his bad acts had something to do with that well i agree that there are certain issues but i don't think they're going to get all of the osama bin laden stuff been in a military tribunal here say is admissible in civil cases there are specific rules and so to say that he subscribes to serious theory they may ask him but you know he's been on the record before are now golani saying well i didn't know i was going to kill americans how does that make it ok he knew he was involved in a scheme to bomb a u.s. embassy and so his defense is no americans would die now well i mean if we go by character our track record isn't exactly the best either considering that we tortured people but it definitely is an interesting debate civilian or military commissions regardless this trial will go ahead and like i said they're calling it

the test case kelli thanks so much for joining us thank you are so to come tonight should the u.s. treat corporations like people after the supreme court made the citizens united ruling some are wondering if corporations should also have the rights to privacy so a debate the issue with radio host tom hartman and attorney seth barron's week after the break. every month we give you the future we'll do you understand how we'll get there and what tomorrow brings best in science and technology from across russia and around the world. join our technology update on our g.

now since the supreme court decided in the citizens united ruling the corporations are persons and have the first amendment right to spend money and political actions now come the next questions do they also have other rights of individuals do they have a right to privacy lots of the supreme court will be taking up this year as they've announced their decision to review the case of the f.c.c. versus eight in t. the basics here are the f.c.c. sought documents under the freedom of information act from eighteen to you as part of an investigation into claims of overcharges by the company and a program to provide equipment and services to schools now eighteen t. is seeking to block the release of those documents through an exemption the could constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy because according to a third circuit court appeals judge corporations like human beings face public embarrassment harassment and stigma because of their involvement in law enforcement

investigations but just because corporations can be embarrassed does that mean they deserve privacy like you or i well joining me to discuss it in the studio is attorneys brazen way baron's way give me managing partner with barron's week leonard l.l.p. and radio host tom hartman gentlemen thank you so much for joining me sorry i didn't know but during the day no matter how much i tried not to tell me tell me why i should care if corporations can be embarrassed and can feel harassed at all i mean who cares if a corporation that's isn't the way they hire p.r. people well it's bad for business and it's bad for the company and it's bad for the employees that work there the laws been settled for many years that a corporation or company. it is a legal entity that is equal to being a person under the eyes of the law so as a matter of law companies are considered to be people they do a number of the things legally that people do they have the right to sue be sued they pay taxes and they respond to subpoenas so the bottom line is under the law as well as under four which defines corporations as

a person they're entitled to certain rights as individuals do as well so this is one of the issues that's been up in the case the circuit court of philadelphia agreed with and they protected that right to privacy so now the supreme court is going to be ruling on that as well now i don't know because i feel like it started setting a dangerous precedent right if we say that corporations are people on that they have a first amendment right to spend money on elections and what's next are they also i don't know if they also get to vote you know i like to think that that's could go a little too far tom if they get to do they get to marry if more than two corporation emerges that a violation of the of bigamy laws or the polygamy laws. i'm going to say because respectfully corporations are not people they're persons and historically we had two types of persons i mean going back to six century british law artificial persons and natural persons artificial and they both had personhood so that they could own property be sued and pay taxes but that was pretty much it and when the fourteenth amendment was written the fourteenth amendment says no person shall be

denied an equal or shall all person should be entitled equal protection of the law and it failed to say natural person it was on the basis that eighty six in santa clara county versus the pacific railroad that allegedly the court said no corporations are persons turns out the court ever said that if you read the case the head note written by the clerk who turned out to be an old railroad corporation president and was in the bag with the southern pacific railroad corporation along with stephen j. field was on the court wrote that and the whole thing has been based on a lot of this whole concept of course oh my god this is not by the way although i write down a lot of terror book about this is used in law schools it's. it's called an equal protection and this is not the first time by the way corporations have claimed forth a memorised first a. chemical about ten years ago claim this in a case that involved illegal emission of benzene and when the. e.p.a. flew a plane over them and took pictures of an alien they said this is an invasion of

our privacy that that ended up not blowing up but well the statute at issue is pretty clear and one of the reasons why the court ruled that way as a matter of law was because the statute said that this was an entity that was entitle to these kinds of protections and including invasion. of their privacy interest in these documents it's also interesting to note and i agree that it's helpful to go through the facts on these cases if you take a look at the facts in this case it just so happens that one of the main parties that's interested in this case is a trade association that's made up of companies that are competitive. so at the end of the day all you're really talking about is an organization of companies that are competitors of trying to get competitive and confidential pricing data in business and for me but it doesn't matter that in the investigation that they were overcharging our school and all people they had overcharged school that was originally something that was so for ported by back in two thousand and four the company reported its own violation to the justice department co-operated incident to a consent decree and it paid the price they paid a fine of a half

a million dollars so it can't be accused of not being transparent and it can't be accused of not following the law what's happening now is that you've got competing companies that are using for you as a mechanism to try to get competitive pricing data and in business litigation it's very common in this context and in others to give companies a right of privacy and to have things sealed to have protective orders this is a concept that is really not very uncommon as far as business litigation is concerned but my concern is i don't know. you know now the corporations have all of these rights is that what happens to the little guy what happens to the individuals that work in these corporations and when you have these gigantic persons that are ten times richer than all the other persons that there are comprised. add that it's likely at an individual it just starts to fade away here's the ultimate irony. when you go to work for a t.n.t. or any other corporation america you lose your first amendment right of free speech you can say things that will get you fired they can listen in on your phone conversations they can read your e-mails you lose your fourth a member at a privacy they can they can ask for bodily fluids they can you know they can check

up on you you lose your for the moment right of free speech i mean all of these things have been you know are settled law essential and yet corporations which are not persons they are not people they are creations of the state we allow corporations to exist as abstract entities for the benefit of society at the basis of all the original corporate laws that go back to the early nineteenth century late eighteenth century these entities are claiming rights that the founders fought and died for for people and this is just and as four out of the nine justices on the supreme court would agree with me i mean this is this is you say it's a law you're right there's a certain monastery decisis going way back but on the other hand it's still very controversial the fourth and fifth amendments don't apply to a private employer the fourth and fifth amendments apply generally to the actions of the federal government corporations have certain rights and sometimes they have certain obligations when employees work for companies generally speaking they sign

off on employment agreements employee manuals and they usually expressly waive the right to have their privacy with regard to their communications their blackberry their e-mails that's entirely up to the individual so that's more often than not that's purely by consent of the employee if you want to worry about what happens to the employees if the companies get slammed and they have this competitive information released that it's against the company's interests and then that can pose a threat to the employees that are working for the company i don't disagree i just think it's incredibly ironic that now corporations want fourth amendment rights if they just got first amendment rights i've been saying is you know what's going to come next i mean and judging by the decisions that have been made so far by the supreme court are you assuming that they're going to side with eighteen thousand here in this ruling well i my prediction is that they will rule. on behalf of the justice kagan is disqualified from this case because she was actively involved in this call from a lot of the cases in this at all and your sadness and other matters are not on the bench dick cheney is got a case going before the supreme court where he's been essentially prosecuted and scalia is the swing vote he goes duck hunting with scalia and they ask are you

going to recuse yourself because why sure do i can do whatever a law but a landmark a body is going to that is be a lot of you say no i'm going to recuse myself in this case and probably if this were you know if this were going to be a split decision she made and of having been the swing vote i think it is there you know what i think she should follow the liberals are focusing on here she was the fact that you're saying well this is already law but if we look at the recent actions of perhaps corporations if we look at the actions of banks on wall street if we look at the actions of the government there are also two cases coming before the supreme court that to deal with the over use in my opinion of state secrets privilege is right and makes you start questioning whether just because something is a law if that means you have to support it i mean look at how many people are taking advantage of this and really starting to subvert it while you're talking about the next round of cases in the supreme court that's also very interesting in the lead case of that is mcdonnell general dynamics versus united states and it's involving

a big protest and some claims form a government contractor and the issue in that case is whether the federal government can attack a government contractor on what's called a termination for default when they allegedly blew their performance on a contract as well as in this case getting something from a really big government didn't actually give them those extra secret technologies so they couldn't come up with the weapons that they whine about i mean i know i know the issues in this case sure i'm just talking about the bigger picture what are what are american people supposed to think when they look at the decisions made by their supreme court i think they're thinking increasingly that we're turning into a plutocracy of corporations but but how if you're a corporation and if you're defending a three billion dollars campaign of corporate. well if a human is not a corporation doesn't think well but but so this abstract legal it's true but this in the second case which is a different issue the question presented there is how do you have a procedural due process right to be able to defend yourself or do you have to have your hands tied behind your back if the government's coming after you want to

government contract terminated there's a fall there's no billion dollars eighteen ninety's during the charter of the law in the united states was that the books and activities of every corporation chartered every state they soon had to be fully open not just to the government but the entire general public at all times and our debate should all be up in the eyes of all the time that we have i want to thank you janet both for being here very much like you are there so much more to come on tonight's show hillary clinton invited to keynote speakers to the state department's conference on here china but other two guests of honor really the right wants to tell you about the region and is these see really to say to all of us the highest median income it's also the region with the most extreme poverty rates.

1930's england and france trying to reason with hitler germany demands of the land and gets its way they also have been created a safety net for themselves. thirty nine the whole of europe isn't in war efforts to establish a system of collective security nine hundred thirty eight failed and it's still on the agenda. the lessons to be learned from the munich agreement. every month we give you the future we help you understand how to get there and to bring the best in science and technology from across russia and around the world join knology. today hillary clinton well attend a major state department conference on the history of the indochina war and she's invited two major foreign policy figures to come and speak about events former secretary of state henry kissinger and richard holbrooke isn't that interesting

we'll go back to that now the conference plan to center on what caused the fall of indochina as the kids injure was just a mere observer of that fall rather than one of the orchestrators you couldn't forget when he was secretary of state of the u.s. under his direct direction he has collated the war in vietnam dumping more bombs than during all of world war two the number of civilian deaths were in the millions and twenty thousand u.s. soldiers also lost their lives all while kissinger prolonged war even with grave doubts about its chance for success they extend the war prop it up even though it's unpopular and maybe if congress keeps pumping money into their efforts the us was bound which sounds a little bit like those wars that we're waging right now for the past nine years prop up an unpopular war continue asking for money from congress and extend the u.s. involvement in the country without officially ever declaring war and at the same

time maintain a massive us us military presence after that war's over so do you think that's why holbrooke might be in attendance too to shed light on the similarities between the vietnam war and our current efforts in afghanistan oh to be a fly on the wall at the conference i don't know any better i'm sure the whole work is going to pretend like he's not repeating the exact same mistakes that kissinger made in the seventy's it's like clinton putting rumsfeld and cheney up on stage to give them an award for bringing peace to iraq and at all and all this irony hillary clinton herself once opposed kissinger's mass murders by protesting his actions back when she was a mere college students saying i guess is true those who. can't remember the past are indeed condemned to repeat it and i guess this definitely is pretty. well there's a new superhero comic book in the works but this isn't just any ordinary superhero this one is a muslim boy in a wheelchair the new superhero came to life after

a brainstorming session made up of american and syrian disabled youth they met last month in damascus to discuss ideas on the new comic now this is a sketch of what the superhero is going to look like but it's only a preliminary sketch the final design could still change and according to online reports the superhero lost his legs in a land mine accident and later becomes the silver scorpion get this he has the power to control meddle with his mind seems innocent enough well let's for you think but it's not innocent to adrian morgan the editor of family security matters who's already criticized obama for his support of other popular and moderate muslim muslim comic books apparently obama is using comic books to promote islam over other religions or something i'm just wondering how long before sarah palin a new gingrich also try to join in on this fine let's just hope that that doesn't happen and let's simply let a comic book superhero who happens to be muslim inspire disabled children worldwide

. now dare we draw a comparison between the current status of our economy and a charles dickens novel. a tell of two cities it's the story of the hurting french peasant three who's being demoralised by the french aristocracy and sadly right here in the nation's capital are witnessing the exact same thing ok well not exactly but i think you get the point currently washington d.c. is considered the cream of the crop when it comes to places to live it's got the highest rate of median income coming in at about six eighty six thousand dollars a year meanwhile it also boasts the extreme poverty rate at ten point seven percent that's right this city of successful government workers and lawmakers the capital of the united states is also the city where one in ten people are living in abject poverty while having the highest median salary and as

a resident of this city i can tell you personally the shocking disparities in wealth that are part of everyday life not to mention areas like anacostia where large numbers of the population live in poverty and most you see residents don't even know it exists i think it's time for lawmakers to take a break from all the bickering about taxes for the rich and to address the problems right here in their very own backyard. now coming up our tool time award goes to a young political activist who's no stranger to the headlines but as a latest attempt at media attention has seriously backfired and people are lining right and left at the wiki leaks compound according to rumors it's tough getting along with the boss truly innocent so could this be the final chapter for the whistle blowing web sites and what not to the media after president obama and often in the u.n. last week the news cameras seem to leave with them so is the media's lack of coverage for the rest of the general assembly

a major fail we'll be right back with those stories. again this is all seem to have. a one hundred thousand people have participated in a wave of strikes across europe as an optional government impose all proposed will still receive measures to pay off massive debts some are run out by big. change in moscow city hall just a day off to may your emotional song came with construction projects call to gays getting the rice to rally after their homophobic for the city to strike down the demos meanwhile the outs of mud says he won't take legal action against his firing that's will stay home take. on the long awaited stability here yet another round

of violence here based on his gearing up for parliamentary elections fully months of political turmoil and ethnic clashes the ballots with over two dozen horses taking part from the referendum which will parliamentary democracy to the country. as the headlines and let's not go back to their militia. it's time for tonight's jewel time award we're going to give it to james oh keith he's a young conservative activists that's made a name for himself but not in a good way o'keefe was the guy who secretly recorded meetings with acorn the community group which he then doctored to make it look like he was wearing a pimp outfit and that he and his lady friend were getting advice on how to set up a prostitution business you remember fox news jumped all over the acorn story and eventually they were forced into bankruptcy acorn not fox. sadly in the same.