the media world is buzzing about the latest merger between the huffington post and you know well so we see a new huff po out of all this has the site dedicated to liberal bloggers now sold out to corporate interests will discuss the buyout with allison kilkenny next what's gotten in to the neo cons first they seem to get along with glenn beck fabulous seat now we're hearing about some people like bill kristol calling back out for his crazy accusations and beliefs so they finally get the message the backs of nuts or is there some very sly political scheme behind all of it radio host david pac will join me to discuss crystal's change of heart that aspace book celebrates its seventh birthday this month we're going examine how facebook and the internet as a whole have changed the way that our world operates and have we as americans completely given up on the notion of privacy or compare the american and european approaches and the atlantic's john handel be here for that and then the super bowl it was the most watched program on t.v. the ever sarah but it cost will be her view all the commercials from the big game

and will determine which ads were hot and which were not to happen at the end of the show but now let's move on to tonight's top story. today is day one of two and the extradition hearing of wiki leaks founder julian assange in london now the media question to hand is whether a songe can be extradited from britain to sweden on sexual allegations but the question on everyone's mind is of course if he goes to sweden what comes next could it open the door for the u.s. to get their hands on it earlier i caught up with r.t. correspondent laura and who is just outside the courthouse in london and i first asked her what the main arguments were that we heard today specifically coming from the defense who has claimed on many occasions that they fear a songe won't be given a fair trial. well on monday they concentrate on human rights really the allegation that human rights would be violated if he was extradited to sweden that

preliminary. round the risk that the u.s. would seek extradition from sweden or even subject ourselves to illegal rendition to the u.s. and from there they said that there was a real risk of him being detained in guantanamo bay or another facility like that they also talked of the risk that he would be subject to the death penalty once he arrives in the states if they manage to successfully argue this risk of the death penalty then there's little to no chance of him being extradited because the has very strict laws against sex drives into a country jurisdiction where the death penalty is in force and they also are fighting on the grounds that so much hasn't actually been charged with any crime they say that in sweden he's only wanted for questioning and that everything surrounding extradition and the extradition procedure generally suggest. one anywhere and what just because you want to talk to him you have to actually

produce the evidence to say that he's charged with a crime now i know that the second day of this hearing is going to be tomorrow do we expect it to end right there in there to get a decision on tuesday. well this was a two day hearing as it was originally scheduled obviously choose day will be the second and supposedly final day but we've already heard the judge saying that he doesn't expect to make a decision there and then in fact expect it to take him several weeks of deliberation together with the both sets of lawyers in order to come to a decision and then following that if the decision goes against assault or indeed against this prosecution both sides can then appeal that so we're not expecting any kind of decision until march well into march and then after that this is a process that could take some months ok so definitely seems like they're drawing it out here you know from everything we're hearing it seems like also the biggest issue or at least at the center of this is the fear that if extradited to sweden then join assigned will be extradited to the u.s.

not even really the allegations of sexual assault in this case but you know let's look at what the chances of that might be what kind of relationship do the u.s. and sweden have. will the swedish prosecution has come out today and said that even if sweden did manage to get hold of us soldiers then they wouldn't just be able to do what they liked with him that wouldn't be a case of getting hold of the u.s. requesting him in sweden sending him without without to squeak what what would have to happen is that sweden would have to get approval under the e.u. rules from the u.k. to the end extradite him to on to the states prosecutor also made very clear that politicians in sweden aren't involved in the legal process is a decision purely for judges so stepping away from that political influence that everyone is accusing accusing sweden of having but many many say that sweden's friendship with the u.s. is such that sweden would try everything in its power to kowtow to what the u.s.

wants if you like in fact the u.s. and sweden have worked together on previous cases of rendition ones. ific case where someone was illegally from sweden and then egypt where he was tortured so this very cozy relationship there between sweden and us although it is worth pointing out that sweden then backed away from that agreement to put a stop to it but of course they can then be swayed it's a relationship that is already in place now what about how much attention is this hearing getting in london has the media tired of it yet are they still going crazy over this case or songe. no i wouldn't say they're going crazy there was a lot of media down at the courts on monday and we're expecting even more people to be there on choose day all the usual suspects media from all around the world just as just as much as there was a month ago when this case was first jules what is interesting though is that there

are fewer and fewer protesters at the beginning of this whole essence thing and outside the court in central london hundreds of people saying you know speaking out for us all i'm saying what a huge injustice it was today i would say that at their height there around twenty people processing they were trying to make themselves as visible as possible wearing those orange that we associate with guantanamo bay carrying placards saying this is not one nine hundred eighty four and we all know what this is about with the wiki leaks symbol underneath so really i think popular support for us almost certainly in terms of turning up at the court and shouting when dealing now i'm just curious i mentioned that last week at a panel at columbia university here in the us the editor of the guardian had said that if it does come to be that julian assange faces criminal charges here in the u.s. that he would stand by him and he would support what he did editor of the new york times bill keller not so sure he was much more careful in his words and said i

think maybe but i probably shouldn't comment because my lawyers were like it but are people talking about that in london the fact that the guardian has taken a stance here. i find that very interesting. i haven't heard people talking about it all and be the guardian recently released a book detailing its relationship with wiki leaks warts and all it was it was a very nice book really saying that it was a relationship that had gone quite horribly wrong talking about their collaboration and things that you said at the negotiating table should really shocks them and there are now reports that our soldiers even threatening to sue the guardian so i would be quite surprised if our soldiers relationship and wiki leaks relationship with the guardian was in fact any better at this stage than his relationship with the new york times well it definitely seems to be a different picture at least from where i'm looking at it laura thank you so much for filling us in and of course we'll continue to follow this story for the second day of the hearing tomorrow. and in past interviews we've told you about the group

of hackers named anonymous we've even spoken to various members here on the show and they have worked hard to preserve and defend julian assange for they've taken revenge on companies like pay pal and mastercard for those companies suddenly cut ties with wiki leaks perhaps the request or the pressure of the u.s. government but it seems as if anonymous is that again this time they've taken their revenge against the feds themselves after word got out about anonymous the f.b.i. hired private security firm h.b. gary federal to track down the leaders of the hacker group to talk about a plan backfiring ten fold not only did anonymous catch on gary's efforts but they even hacked the firm's official website they uploaded sixty thousand internal e-mails from the firm and the site's page is still filled with a message about anonymous his mission now the group also hacked the c.e.o.'s twitter page leaving the following message they say today we taught everyone

a lesson but we actually decided to bite back against those who try to bring us down by heart so ouch i hate to say it but they had to see this one coming right when the f.b.i. . search warrants for members of the organization forty of them executed last week here in the us when they arrested five people in relation to the attacks in the u.k. what do they think was going to happen everybody saw the effects of the hacks against major companies one anonymous first performed those denial of service attacks better known as d.d. o. s. and just a few weeks ago i got to speak with one member of the group asking if they planned to retaliate against the f.b.i. and the u.s. government. they could always help and mainly i'm just baffled by the f.b.i. statement about this dosing can own up to ten years in prison it's pretty ridiculous i think they just see us as hackers and storage they try to take us all down. how goes on steroids or just an organization with a political purpose i guess the message here is do not mess with anonymous now

coming up a.o.l. and the huffington post are merging so does this mean that corporate media is going to try and take over the blogosphere or has it already why not we can back and it's glenn back a versus the neo cons some people like bill kristol are trying to turn against but do they really think he's dangerous or could it be just a political stunt.

i. last night a very big announcement is made for the online media world a.o.l. is buying the huffington post for three hundred and fifteen million dollars now as part of that deal huffington post co-founder arianna huffington will oversee all editorial content for both companies and upon hearing this news a million questions come to mind first and foremost a.o.l. still exists they have three hundred fifty million dollars i thought i was shocking but seriously with this merger will the huffington post once a bastion of liberal blogging turn into a typical corporate owned news organization are we going to have fewer options for thought provoking coverage than we thought or did huffington post leave all of that behind a long time ago joining me to discuss it as allison kilkenny co-host of citizen radio alison thanks so much for joining us now before we get into the serious

ramifications of this merger here were you in a shocked as i was to learn the a.o.l. even has three hundred fifteen million dollars. yeah i was shocked about that it seems like it's sort of a hail mary move as far as a well goes but i wasn't shocked that arianna decided to accept the offer for three hundred fifteen billion dollars you know it's interesting how few groups that supposedly there's passion of liberalism yet it exists only three weyburn out of the writers have ever been paid and i really doubt that's going to change now that a.o.l. is part of the picture well i'm happy you mentioned that actually because in an e-mail to some content creators they basically told them i'm sure you have a lot of questions to you know how things are going to work around here and they basically said nothing is going to be different the only real change is that more people will be reading what you write so i think that's kind of a nice way of saying i'm going to pocket three hundred fifty million dollars and you guys keep writing for free exactly and you know full disclosure i wrote for

a king to post arianna has always said that we're paid an exposure which is a nice thought but if the new york times said tomorrow that they were going to you know pay their reporters in exposure it probably wouldn't go down well do you think that perhaps we we should have seen some of this coming too i mean when i happen to post first started out they had a tiny staff it was a million dollar investment now they're one of the most highly visited sites in the u.s. on a daily basis they've censored certain content that we've spoken about on the show they've now started hiring some more mainstream writers to act like they really produce content and they're not just an aggregator so was it a little predictable. it was you know i don't want to bash have been imposed they do a lot of bad stuff that they've been criticized for you know they give creation as the chance to put all their crazy propaganda they were really into that like this pseudo science. but they have really great reporters like rain graham sam stein that they do as you said

a great first hand stuff so maybe it was inevitable in the sense that you know i mean huffington post has as large of an audience as the new york times does so where do you go after your blog what's the next step and it seems like this is it but in any kind of media merger like this you have to be wary because what happens when these mass murders happen is the news is really homogenized and one sense of dissent can be suppressed so you know to have an imposed credit they have any goodman bill moyers huge huge voices on the left and it's great that they had that platform but who knows what's going to happen now well yeah that's what i'm wondering because they do have a lot of voices they have a lot of liberal voices on the huffington post where israel has been pretty you know a political when it comes to their content especially their news content so i'm wondering who is going to win out in that battle here is the huffington post going to have to adapt or are they no longer going to be a liberal media outlet or say oh well i'm just going to have to you know turn

ideological. i don't believe that anyone's really a political everyone picks and chooses what kind of political philosophy they choose to spotlight but it's an interesting question and i don't think it's one that we can answer right now arianna has said that you know this is just there's no nothing's going to change nothing is going to be compromised politically speaking but it's hard to believe that because a.o.l. has sponsors that they're going to have to answer to so again it's sort of a wait and see thing but it's hard to buy that it's going to be you know business as usual do you think that there might be some job losses over those two you know from what we hear politics daily or finance daily. those are organizations set up by a.o.l. the to do some of their news content and you know they've really been shrinking whereas the have to post has been growing so are some people just going to have to be cut out. probably not because having imposed those in the position where they have free labor so they can just take on more and more of bloggers it's going to is

going to be roper cloggers you know because it used to be easier several years ago to get featured on huffington post because there was only you know a few hundred of us and now there are thousands and thousands so i mean it's a good business model when you're the one running it because you don't have to pay anybody do you think then that having a post is worth three hundred and fifteen million dollars i mean is that a really big risk a.o.l. is taking here i mean these kinds of numbers are crazy even when it was like a facebook deal with goldman sachs you know or several billion dollars i don't know where they get these figures from but you know to having them post credit they do have a huge huge audience on scale up of the new york times so if we're going to say the new york times is already and is worth you know several million dollars then how can you post audience has to be worth just as much but do you think that we should also take this you know with a grain of salt saying this shows us a little bit of caution when it comes to the blogosphere the perhaps at the end of

the day everyone's going to sell out down the road or merge with another you know media organization or with some kind of a corporation well i have to just hate all the progressives out there but where do you make your messiah you know arianna is a former republican she's always said she's a business woman it is about money you know so if progressives are looking to a business person to their progressive cause they should really really consider looking elsewhere and news is business once again that's a constant line we always have to end up repeating alison thanks so much for joining us here. our guys it's time for show and tell on tonight's program last time we wanted to know what you thought of hosni mubarak's conflicting statements about the future of egypt while he said that he was fed up he also said that if he were to step down the country would sink into chaos so we want to get some of your opinions on

mubarak's next move is he going to stay in office until the next election or will he step down in the next few days weeks knows so here's what some of our viewers thought robert call whom responded with the following on facebook you said don't think it's an option anymore the people have made it clear that they want a new or ministration in place pedro lopez agreed he wrote mubarak will eventually be forced into exile the writing is on the wall for him and stephan bore said it's a matter of days maybe a few weeks i think only if the military is heard convincing arguments on how and where the country is going then they will tap mubarak's shoulder and that will be the final curtain now on twitter pauline murphy said i'm scared he'll continue to hold on and send in the army leading this revolution to end in severe violence so from the responses that we received it seems like a large number of our viewers think the mubarak is in his final days in office he's still there for now but of course we will keep covering this situation as it

unfolds now as always we appreciate your responses and here's our next question for you as we just mentioned a.o.l. has bought out having to post for three hundred fifteen million dollars but how will this buyout affect the news coverage the viewers currently receive with huffington post so we want to know what you think do you think the how poet has sold out to corporate interests you can respond to us on facebook twitter and you tube and who knows your response just might be on air. now in light of the continuing protests in egypt we spent a lot of time on this. ground looking at the spin coming from right wing commentators the news channel that welcomes them with open arms which obviously is fox news you know many of their hosts an analyst in recent weeks of war in the islamism are going to take over egypt and then the world but none that it is blatantly as glenn beck who went on a conspiratorial rant about how the fall of egypt and the rise of the muslim brotherhood will then lead to the fall of every other nation in the middle east

along with india australia portugal spain france even the u.k. and these countries according to beck will all be united under an islamic leader called the callous and eventually this caliphate will rule over america's well known how could i forget lefties and communists are totally in on it too but we're not really here to talk about that after all that's typical for back but what's not typical is that some neo cons are now publicly calling him out for it most notably weekly standard at all bill kristol who used his column this week to call back a john bircher who pushes hysteria and who's marginalizing himself so could be our neo cons and finally starting to get it that well beck is crazy or something fishy going on here joining me to discuss it is david packman host of the david pacman show david thanks so much for joining us now let me explain some of my logic here before you really get into this interview i by no means. glenn beck fan i

definitely think that he does promote hysteria with constant theories about how the world is coming to an end we should all be scared but i'm confused as to why this one you know about a muslim caliphate taking over why why that's the one that really scared bill kristol. yeah i don't know if there's anything specific about this one it may just be that it's been going on long enough where they've added up and even bill kristol has had his fill i mean let's put this in context william kristol has said that white women are a problem but you know we all live with that he was key to defeating the clinton health care plan in ninety three leading proponent of the iraq war i'm almost scared that i'm starting to agree with bill kristol on anything but what i don't even know what that means really but that's why i'm not so sure that i buy it i can't tell if kristol really is changing his mind here when it comes to glenn beck or even blame back is now going to be this this scapegoat even for neo cons that

they can point fingers at him and say look here's the crazy one it are to make themselves sound like they're totally normal. yeah i mean well listen bill kristol was an ardent promoter of sarah pailin even before she was picked as mccain's running mate so he knows about picking the wrong candidates going into elections i think that it's very possible what's going on here is as we get closer to two thousand and twelve and that election that neo cons of figured out we have to at least criticize someone to then appear to have credibility when we do support the candidates that have a shot michele bachmann she's being criticized now by many republicans many certainly didn't like the fact that she went off and did her own tea party response to the state of the union sarah pail and by all measures doesn't even have a chance of being the nominee so i think republicans want to position themselves as saying we want to support anybody so we're going to rule out some people we're going to call some people out. but i'm you know i'm

a little carious as to why we don't see this more often i mean honestly the only times that i think we've ever seen a lot of uproar a lot of backlash to things that glenn beck is sad as way one when he called barack obama a racist then you obviously had a lot of voices coming out and saying i completely disagree with him he's completely out of line and that you know about a month ago or so he did a whole thing about george soros and how the jews are taking over and obviously there is a little bit of a prayer about that but those are only two examples and now we have some people speaking out here do you think that there's also a fear that if you speak out against people like glenn beck like rush limbaugh perhaps then well then they're just going to go on the attack against you next there's that fear but there's also the fear that the other side will take it sees it and just start kicking it like a dead horse and we know that happens on both sides right if any if anybody if there's any perception that there is conflict within the party or political spectrum the other side i know i would do it on my show and we're talking about it

here so that clearly it's happening will start saying hey look at what's going on so that there's there's the fear you mention but there's also that fear. yeah i mean i get that but like i said i'm still kind of more feeling like everyone's a little bit spineless here because you know i really think that it shows how much these t.v. radio personalities these pundits how much influence they have on our culture especially you know the political culture in america today if you needed more evidence that there was there were spineless people in the media and in punditry look at wiki leaks i mean have you ever seen people more afraid in order to not lose access to the people they want to interview to say what's going on with wiki leaks might be useful we're learning interesting things things that we would we have a right to know we really want to know about what's going on around the world i think you're absolutely right spineless is the word i'm happy to mention that you know we've done a lot of coverage especially on this program to about certain news organizations

like the new york times that we're happy to work with wiki leaks happy to take that information make reports out of it and now recently at a panel last week at columbia university bill keller of the new york times said that well he wasn't really sure he want to speak out without his lawyers as to whether he would defend assigned in court if it did come to criminal charges so yes once again spineless that's keep repeating that but in terms of glenn back you know this is a guy that really was the darling i think of the conservative party of neo cons of libertarians too especially when he first came out he was a huge hit now his ratings are fallen almost forty percent and you know the more people that are getting fed up with them a lot of people are questioning whether he'll be olbermann and next what do you think the chances are of that coming up well we know the most important thing is is he profitable if he's less profitable he risks that for sure my thought when i heard him talking about egypt was which which of the sponsors is this a thinly veiled infomercial for is that you're going to not have any were your

currency will be worthless so you need to get gold from goldline or is it you need food storage because you're not going. to be able to buy any food because of what's happening in every country is going to fall down with glenn beck personally i've been conditioned to say which which sponsors stuff is you pitching with this news story. i definitely hear you there now we spoke a little bit about political posturing any other names aside from glenn glenn beck you mentioned michele bachmann that republicans are really going to try to steer clear of coming out for twenty twelve i am still seeing what's going to go on with sarah pailin i think that the consensus quietly right now is she had better not get on that ballot and kind of a less interesting one but still you know something to consider is mike huckabee i think the consensus is he can't raise enough money to really be viable and i think probably inside republicans know that interesting well we'll see of course the pack

is coming up this weekend and we'll be looking forward to that straw poll to see who they choose david thanks so much for joining us thanks. now coming up in our next half hour a radio and t.v. host c.n.n.'s anderson cooper staged his attack while he was in egypt covering the protests find out more in our tool time when we come back and over this weekend many cars reflect on what would have been wrong. but as the fortieth president's legacy been inflated by the g.o.p. and the media that's.

seven thirty am in the russian capital good to have you with us here on our t.v. your headlines wiki leaks founder julian assange fights his extradition from the u.k. to sweden with his defense team highlighting fears of u.s. reprisals over thousands of leaked diplomatic documents. russia's most wanted terrorist open tomorrow claims responsibility for the january bombing of a moscow airport that left thirty six dead and one hundred eighty injured made the claims in a video message on an extremist web site. egyptian anti-government protesters stand firm on demands for the president to step down despite concessions being

offered in the tyro but there are fears that some opposition activists are being influenced by islamists pushing their own agenda in the region. and russia set for a massive overhaul of its police force after president medvedev signs a bill to rebranded and reform law enforcement. those are the headlines now back to our washington studio for part two of the. all right it's time for tonight's toole time award the radio host don imus has quite a history of making comments that are inappropriate and offensive he lost his job on m s n b c of years ago for calling a group of female basketball players from rutgers nappy headed hos now a show is back on the air at fox business channel on friday imus was discussing a story about the attacks on journalists.