good voice ceased to face with the news makers. welcome the ilona show will get the real headlines with none of the mercy or can live out of washington d.c. now r t journalists were arrested over the weekend while covering protests of fort benning against the school of america's even though they were members of the press they were still arrested and charged with demonstrating without a permit so we're going to speak with one of the journalist who was incarcerated to get her take on the incident and this raises a larger issue about the first amendment people reserve the right to protest the press reserves the right to film the events within the appropriate means but does the incident with our crew getting arrested show the freedom of the press is being limited in the us a misspeak with media consultant joel silverman next all eyes were on lisbon

portugal as the nato summit wrapped up this weekend we're going to have the details about what was covered on the leader's agenda and how europe is getting fed up with the u.s. military policies abroad artie's lauren lyster was in portugal and is going to bring us all the latest then we'll touch on an issue that's got a lot of people up in arms prayer taking place in the capital the fox investigation claims that terrorists have participated in muslim prayer sessions and that they were invited by the congressional muslim staffers association but some out there are saying of this is just an example of some good old fashioned bigotry so we're going to host a debate on the topic and i cannot believe that i'm even saying this but it is possible that sarah palin could run for president in two thousand and twelve is becoming more and more of a reality and now sarah herself is starting to flex their muscles we're going to speak about the was still a wingnut with david pac-man at the end of tonight's show but now let's move on to the top story. this saturday while covering a mass protest at fort benning georgia which houses the formerly known school of

americas to our two journalists were arrested along with more than two dozen others . where i wasn't doing anything. i moved i moved i'm a member democrats republicans i'm a member of the price i'm sorry ok i'm sorry i'm i'm i'm sorry. i'm at. right i'm sorry i'm a member of that but i i was now despite repeating that they were members of the press not protesters archie correspondent kalen for photographer john conway were held in custody for over thirty hours and correspondent karen ford was charged with failure to disperse and demonstrating without a permit so earlier i spoke to kayla and asked her to explain what happened how it is that she found herself being arrested. you know in a we were there as journalists covering this event this event has gone on for the past twenty years it's a largely nonviolent movement by no means it was it any sort of violent protest any

sort of radical vandalism anything like that people were there with their children it was founded by a jesuit priest who had a lot of nuns there a lot of older people there in solidarity and you know the day began with sort of with music and poetry and you know sort of a coming together around the gates of the school of the americas which they were obviously trying to close as people were leaving you know we went and we were filming outside and as you can see i'm sure that we you know the police asked us to move on to the sidewalk we did you can see in the video that we were actually walking away from the police onto the sidewalk as they had instructed us and that's when i was arrested and then shortly after that my cameraman was also arrested john conway so you know we were we were doing our job we were being journalists we were not trespassing we were not violating any sort of line anyway we were not demonstrators were not at. we were there covering the event as press and we had our press credentials and yet we were thrown in the same category as the activists

legally and obviously arrest wise as well i mean there were hundreds of people there so how is it that you and john conway and about two dozen other people were the ones that then became targeted and got arrested somehow block you off. you'd have to ask the police exactly how we were targeted of course but there were actually you know well over three thousand people there and they chose to sort of arrest as i think because you know in some ways they watch this film other people getting arrested they've been servicing people and so people are walking to their cars so you had a lot of the women that you're seeing here they were walking to their cars on the sidewalk as they had been instructed single file the protest couldn't leave a certain permitted zone so once people were starting to leave they were walking single file out which they were complying with when they were arrested so we started documenting that and then i was arrested and of course my camera was arrested as well there was another young woman who was seventeen years old who was working for a community radio station in boulder and she was documenting our little handycam

she was also arrested and other people who were taking photos as well were also arrested with us so it seems that especially the people who were trying to document was going on there were being targeted by the police now after this you spent well over thirty hours in jail so i mean how were you treated there what were the conditions like you know i think that we have to look. in many ways of it as this is sort of an opportunity in some way because they would never have let journalists . the conditions were horrible the women that were in my cell block that were with me talked about having the bacteria the floor was not clean shower had staph bacteria staph infections. they weren't given any sort of nutritious food they lacked you know because of the sunlight they lacked any sort of vitamin d. . the were in the wind. and in this particular cell block that i was in weren't allowed their exercise yard was inside the building they weren't allowed outside

and the conditions were terrible and it was really it was amazing they didn't give one woman her medication she almost had a seizure while she was in custody they didn't allow another girl to use her inhaler in time she was had an asthma attack in custody and they were really there was no sort of concerted effort on the part of the police to take care of us or obviously to take care of the people who are already inmates in this jail so for us it was an opportunity to see what the conditions were like in that building and to document it which which we will be doing because those stories those women stories need to be told in that prison as well now you repeated time and time again you are a member of the press you had your press credentials with you when it came time to go before the judge did they did they take that into account the fact that you are indeed media or do they just want you in with activist they asked us for our press credentials which we gladly presented them of course we have them on you can see in the video that they have that i have them on. and you know we thought that would factor into the decision certainly the attorneys thought that that would factor

into the decision they also showed video evidence to the judge both from the police officers cameras and then from several cameras of by standards and we were we were confident that it would show that we were innocent and some of the police in the courtroom weren't even able to identify. who had who they had arrested and what they had been arrested for and yet we were still all of us were found guilty on all counts as we were found guilty just my cameraman and i just as if the activists were for the exact same thing with no consideration for our status as press whatsoever very quickly no this protest goes on every year it's been going on for the past twenty years would you say that this year was different in the rest when you spoke to some of the other activists because i know there's always a group that you know it's their point to get arrested they crossed the line on purpose but i mean hundreds thousands of the people who were there they're just there to peacefully make you know take a stance i think it's really important i think it's a great question alone and i think it's really. to make a distinction between there's always a group of people at this gathering that does civil disobedience that engages in civil disobedience in order to draw awareness to the school of the americas its

graduates and their crimes which i'm sure you've already talked about for your viewers you know this is totally separate these people were walking to their cars they were following police instructions to walk away they were arrested at walking to their cars these were not people who intended to get arrested these were people who had small children who you know what happened to their children i don't know you know these were people who were just peacefully walking away and i think in terms of the police presence i mean i haven't been to the school of the americas vigil in the past but activists said that the police presence was high and that this is never happened in years past as i mentioned we had a chance to talk to the police interview them before all of this started happening early in the morning and they said no you know we've never had a problem with these people they were a nonviolent they were a pacific you know we sort of we respect their sort of struggle in the sense that they do it so now and violently so what needs to be asked here is that what what first amendment rights do we have as press or those not defended why are we not

recognized as separate from the group of activists and why were we not first of all told what we were at we had been charged with and then held that way all valid questions thank you so much for being here and recounting your experiences with us i know that you're exhausted after not sleeping for the past couple days thanks thank you. and that was just one example of many reporters have been detained by the police at events that they were covering in a professional capacity and events where they were practicing their first amendment rights which leaves many of us to ask if the police in this country have become overzealous if the protections granted under the constitution are increasingly coming under assault especially for those in the media are just trying to do their jobs here to discuss with me as media consultant joel selvin joe thanks so much for being here a long time since we have you on the show now tell me this do you feel like as of late we've seen a bit of a pattern emerging that we see more and more you know of of these. that's where it turns out the journalists also get swept up and get arrested a protest or you know whatever it might be that they're covering yes i absolutely

have seen a pattern and when i think about amy goodman who was in two thousand and eight that was when i was really aware that we had crossed a border some of that somehow the first amendment freedom of the press before the second amendment right to bear arms which everybody's up in arms if you'll pardon the pun about then i knew we'd crossed the border and you and i have talked before about this wall that has eroded between management and editorial where reporters used to be the flagship of a news organization and management really was using that energy to create what america needed which was the news thomas jefferson said that given the choice between the government with no newspapers or newspapers with no government he would take the latter i think there's a lot of people out there especially these days you could see a lot of people out there that would say that but i mean tell me this too do you think that it has something to do with the types of events they cover you know that let's say if this is a protest where protesters are also being arrested where the media happens to be

covering you know or are getting this on that tape that the police perhaps using excessive force and they're more apt to go after them to try to arrest them i think there's there's definitely control of information that has gotten worse because everyone knows that you can have the news story out very quickly that with the internet it's gone it's gone the minute you've sent it and pushed your send button from your phone so there's no question that they're trying to control information in a new way and that sensitive things don't want to be discussed this was a sensitive protest and while no surprise but no surprise also when you connect the dots of the long arm of corporate military industrial complex into ownership of newspapers it's very scary to me when this corporate wall is becoming the old one and when newspapers are fighting for. their lives when news organizations are fighting for their lives inside corporate empires but

entertainment of course is doing very well and the news that becomes entertainment is doing very well of course but i mean i guess you could say that that's why we don't see perhaps some of the you know mainstream media organizations at these events right that are rather sensitive they're not covering protests at fort benning ga well why would that be it seemed to me that one of the things that interested me about this story specifically was just that where were the other media and where was c.n.n. and what i really wanted to see the oremus and b.c. or n.b.c. c.b.s. or a.b.c. or even fox where were they and why weren't they covering this because it's an annual event excuse me so anyone that has three thousand people it's about something controversial and i don't think this is about politics i think this is about freedom of assembly and covering freedom of assembly and i think we're managing information and when people don't want information to get out and they have powerful money at stake defense contractors they can reach deep covertly to stop it from happening and i think what i feel i mean i'm not

a conspiracy theorist i just see this pattern well here we get into something to you know we often well juxtapose what's happening in europe where we see millions of people out on the streets and you always wonder why i don't see these mass protests in america and i think that a part of it you know everyone always blames apathy but a part of it might be that they're happening you just don't necessarily see them on the news and other thing you know and i completely stand by this is that i think that people are intimidated you know i've seen it happen in my own university where someone is trying to do you know a peaceful act and before you know it a swat team shows up i think that we are living in a tougher. under the guise and the fear that has been put into us look at the security story that we're all covering right now and we're talking about all of this and the t.s.a. and all of that we're all talking about security but we're talking about it from fear based speaking as someone who's been to israel i've seen some of the best security in the world that i don't. fear when i'm there because i think they're more intelligent about it if you'll excuse the pun but i think they think about it

more strategically i don't think we i think we think about manipulating the population and that's concerning me i've seen what you talk about it your university i've talked to university folks about whether that exists i also see big things happening in america that aren't getting covered and that bothers me and so when this fear comes into play i mean what does that mean for us you know what do events like this where now journalists people are exercising their freedom of the press or becoming arrested you know what does that mean for all of those rights that are granted to us under the constitution well it means a lot first of all when journalists feel like they are fearing whether or not they'll have a job they're told well maybe you shouldn't cover that and they take that figure a lot more seriously when their job is at stake their job never used to be at stake that way if they got a good story that's what kept their job you know covering the right kind of news that's going to make the right kind of story is how they keep their job and i think that's affecting all of us i think we are weakened as a nation this is not political this is about the constitution it is about the

constitution and i mean personally i can't believe that we need to get permits for the right to assemble since that's a right that's also granted to us in the constitution and you know more often than not those permits or are denied by the police and so this is what happens you know that when there is some unlawful assembly as they like to call it they just start rounding everyone up journalists included thank you so much for being here thank you and still to come on tonight's show it's been the scene of a war for the last nine years but according to a nato official the ball is a very safe place for children more of the strange comments coming up and american mission to help of nato the europeans are becoming increasingly wary of the u.s. strategy we're going to take a look at changing dynamics within nato laura lister in just a moment. trying

to. move. from science to. don't. so today we are introducing a new segment on the alone a show that's called show and tell now every day you hear my opinion here the

opinion of our guests or whatever topic we decide to discuss but we don't really get to hear from our viewers enough so show and tell what we're going to do is every monday every thursday we're going to ask a question live here on the show we're going to post it on you tube and we'd like to get your video responses on you tube if you can post a video response then answer us on twitter or you can write us on facebook and then throughout the week we're going to start showing talking about your answers so since is the very first time we're doing this segment i'll tell you what the question is for the day you know there's a lot of rumors out there that sarah pailin is vying for the presidential bid so today's first question is would you vote for sarah palin to be president in two thousand and twelve. now as the nato summit in lisbon wrapped up a comment by a senior nato official has been well it's been a bit embarrassing mark sedwill nato his top civilian representative in afghanistan said that the streets of kabul are safer for children in the streets of new york or

london now his comments were made on a b.b.c. programme that airs daily and is geared towards children so as you can imagine those ridiculous comments through fire from children's advocate advocacy groups who say that afghanistan is one of the worst places in the world to be born the country has been the scene of a war with us for more than nine years so saying that children are safer in kabul the new york or london well it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense now he claims that there are just a few bombings there are low levels of crime against children in kabul so youngsters in the afghan capital are more safer than other big cities now he later clarified his remarks saying the violence is on even across afghanistan he pointed out the half of all surge in violence take place in just ten of the country's more than three hundred districts but let's be honest here life for children in the afghan capital is far from safe troops police armed guards are everywhere not to mention the threats to their health there are open sewers piles of garbage which children pick through for food there's also

a problem with dirty water too all you can say of the violence may be down in kabul still not safe for the new york not even close and in recent years new york has had a major crackdown on crime of course there are muggings there are murders but that's going to happen in a major any major city around the world the same goes for london a city that's about to host the two thousand and twelve summer olympics and to prove my point let me just tell you in the first six months of this year the number of afghan civilians killed or injured in the war soared thirty one percent over the same time period in two thousand and nine children made up a rising proportion of the victims with child casualties rising fifty five percent in that same period so mark sedwill splays just spare us the claim that children in kabul are safe because they're living in the middle of a never ending war courtesy of nato. now as world leaders wrapped up their latest nato summit in portugal protesters took to the streets to get their own agenda across to say though we need a world with more peace and fewer wars they also spread the message that nato is

policies are out of date including their cold war alliance lauren lyster was there and has more on how these protests might come down to one country in particular. as nato leaders came to lisbon over the weekend to try to answer the question of why the cold war alliance needs to exist now. the answer. thousands of protesters took to the streets with a clear response i think there is no place for nato i think there is no place for those who realize this any longer because you consols and you know the global problem with military not yet nato members still trying to show they believe they can introduced a new strategic concept for the first time this century and rolled out a red carpet for its once foe to get their help and try to put a new foot forward together we've worked hard to reset the relations between the

united states and russia which is lead to concrete benefits for both our nations now we're also resetting the nato russia relationship yet all of this talk in strategizing does little to change the criticism of a bloc whose effectiveness not to mention power has been challenged by a near decade long war in afghanistan it seems only to be getting worse actually in afghanistan and in many other places in the world we're seeing. the lack of. ability to transform. the debt crisis there is no greater example of the discontent with nato it's called think and we think we're on the streets of lisbon where they'd be built thousands of i mean by protesting the alliance and some it. was going to we don't think it's necessary it's for example for us to say what a country in crisis is spending so much money on something its whole world will be calling for here is withdrawal of troops from afghanistan and an end to the new

korea means of europe and get involved in a process of nuclear disarmament to bring about a more peaceful world. and when they talk about. those tactical called more nukes in europe those belong to the us and when they talk about that mission in afghanistan that's led by the us and when they protest nato they're protesting an organization led by the heavy hand of one member of the united states is trying to use the to directly and indirectly or directly tries to use need to as is does in the against them to fulfill american missions enables us to do two things one to assure the american people that the threats we're dealing with for example in afghanistan or are not just against the u.s. and that the u.s. while it is the world's greatest power is no longer a power that can do everything by itself and while the u.s. uses nato for its purposes. so to do activists for their complaints

but behind the protests i don't want to see a military alliance which will kill more soldiers more civilians and lead to a more divided world are u.s. policies u.s. policies brought to light in portugal as much through a president. as through protest lauren lyster r.t. lisbon portugal. well joining me live to give us more details from our studio in new york is our chief financial correspondent lauren lyster and all lauren we hear a lot that the european population is war weary i guess that this was a good way to prove it how many people do you think were out there on the streets. there were thousands alone and they weren't just from portugal though a number were from the country where nato was having their summit many were international the organizers that i spoke to had come from germany there were people traveling from the u.k. from spain there were members of parliament from the u.k.

that i interviewed as well as from the e.u. so there was a wide range of people that came specifically for this from internationally all over europe as well as from portugal where the summit was held now would you say that their criticisms live with nato as a whole or did they try to single out the us as a leader of the alliance. well that's something that you know in my interviews with the protestors on its surface yes it was a nato protest many of the signs were for peace and not nato and they view nato as a military alliance that should not exist and that is spending money on defense and on wars that they don't want to pay for especially at a time when many people especially in portugal are facing cuts are facing cuts to health or facing cuts to education into social programs at home so tough decisions are being made and they don't want more money spent on military which is what they see nato as but when you talk to people about these policies about the wars that they oppose who they see is leading the charge the u.s. definitely i mean i spoke to people and interviewed them on their take on the u.s.

they characterize policies as imperialist when you talk about the wars in afghanistan the war in iraq people i interviewed say they consider them an occupation for economic resources and that their countries are funding an occupation that benefit the economic resources of the largest economy in the world which is the u.s. so really been need these banners that are that are anti nato are criticism of policies that are policies of the united states i mean another big issue with these protesters in europe is tactical nukes that are in many european countries left over from the cold war which these are you united states nuclear weapons that the u.s. maintains that they will continue to maintain and that's another issue with these protesters that they oppose now the other day i was talking with one of my guests who essentially was saying that it feels you know the people only think of nato by what they can see physically by the wars that they can see by the talks of nuclear weapons that nobody really has any idea what a search feature concept is what they come up with on their little pieces of paper

when you spoke with the protesters out there did they get into some of the nitty gritty details. you know what they did i actually disagree with your guest you know many of the protesters that i spoke to that specially the ones that had traveled internationally from the u.k. from germany they were very very well informed about the strategic concept that was just released they said that they see nothing in the thirty eight pages that are paragraphs rather that makes them any less concerned about nato they said it will lead to increased military spending as well as increase in nuclear armament and many of the things that they oppose that this does nothing to stop can you break down very quickly for us some of the things that they did come up with in that final strategic concept absolutely the strategic concept maintained article five which is that if a country and nato member is attacked that they are all attacked in that they will respond they named new threats such as cyber attacks such as terrorism and these as being what they need to defend against also missile defenses in this which has been

a sticking point between nato and russia for years many people consider this to be a u.s. policy a u.s. initiative and this is one of the items in the strategic concept that they will move forward with with missile defense for europe so that's new many people that many protesters are very opposed to that because no enemy is named they don't see this is what they see this is an arms race so that's another of the issues to come from and also you know they talked about more efficiency in the strategic concept but they also talked about spending as much on defense as needed to protect against the threats that they foresee so you know many of these nato members are facing military cuts they're facing austerity measures in their home countries so as far as being able to maintain that level of military defense spending many of the protesters on the street that's what they're opposed to definitely a lot of people still questioning not only nato is relevance but well also the massive amount of money that's spent on the alliance today lauren thanks so much. well sort of come on tonight show praying for your safety apparently the state of

kentucky things the god is going to protect the commonwealth no matter what we're going to tell you more in tonight's poll time award and there's a debate brewing over prayer here in washington d.c. some are claiming that as long as the islamic extremists have infiltrated the u.s. capitol but is that really the case for the host to debate on the topic interest among. the official g.o.p. cation. called touch from the. video on demand. among the old girls. on the registry now in the palm of your.

this is also you coming to you live for most of the headlines. freedom of speech on violence censorship and also a correspondent a number of men have been released on bail and the hoff in the u.s. trail arrested while covering her head against a controversial combat training school they were also forced to pay a fine after being accused of taking part in the north. pole to see i think the euro zone's days are numbered i can't see the euro survive in this decade. review approves a massive bailout on the on and loans for the future holds for the union but numbers are the single currency in economic crisis. the russian newspaper has published details of the european arms and missile defense system as proposed by russian president dmitry medvedev it's hard to treat any responsibility even though between nato and russia. as the headlines now back to the hot seat often i don't.