there's a slick battle brewing between china and the u.s. at stake canada's oil so what will win out principles or economic interests. and as u.s. president obama rides a bus across america trying to ease economic worries france and germany are pushing for a common sense approach to saving the eurozone by actually balancing their budgets so should the u.s. follow suit. which. is meant to. run the economy to russia itself or through national systems and that may be true but. is this still technology meant to a global revolutionaries so could it also be an excuse for the u.s.

to launch it or to global playground. good evening it's wednesday august seventeenth i'm lauren lyster here in washington d.c. and you're watching our t.v. while president obama is in his old home of illinois today he's riding around the midwest on a reported one point one million dollars bus paid for taxpayers mind you unveiling a plan to convince the news focused on creating jobs oh yeah and it is not a reelection campaign sure we will have more on that later in our shows but while obama's trying to save face with americans his second in command is trying to save face with beijing vice president joe biden is on a five day visit to china he's trying to reaffirm the u.s. his status as a world economic power fresh off of of course the debt ceiling crisis and the downgrade of u.s. credit not very good p.r. there but in the u.s.

is it already losing out to china economically and what's more important in these countries dealings principle or economic interests which when. out which of which should win now let's take a look at what's going on with oil in canada is one example so the u.s. imports about half of its oil and canada is the largest foreign supplier of oil to the us it's called by saudi arabia mexico and venezuela which give considerably less though canada's only major oil export market is the u.s. now enter the bass reserves of oil in oil sands in alberta the u.s. views this as the pillar of its future energy needs however it's running into some problems it's building a pipeline to deliver it which has been stopped by environmental concerns and by regulations because this is also known as dirty oil and environmentalist are fans that's just one of the concerns meanwhile as the u.s. stalls china is eager to step in they are ready to spend big money for

a big piece of these oil reserves and check out of the leaders in canada have changed their tune just in general towards china now that it's looking to the asian country as a customer for its exports to pick up slack from the economically challenge us for example back in two thousand and six prime minister stephen harper said that i don't think canadians want us to sell out important canadian values our belief in democracy freedom human rights they don't want us to sell that out to the almighty dollar back then he was harping about china's human rights records and also around the time his foreign minister accused china of industrial espionage now fast forward the harper government calls china a friend an important ally saying things like this it's clear that the strategic partnership between canada and china has never been more promising as the structure of the world economy changes more and more we're in a position to cooperate for our mutual benefit human rights not such

a big rallying cry these days how things change so what's right what's wrong how do you weigh these approaches earlier i spoke with the host of freedom maine radio's to fondle and you and i asked him which is more important taking canada first is the example of operating on principles like human rights as canada claimed to in two thousand and six or economic interest would seem to be more important now here's this response. but you get the very question i think there's a bit of a false dichotomy i think it's really important to remember that human rights are the issue or the business of the chinese government whereas people who want to trade and do business together these are economic or property rights or free trade right so i don't think that we want to punish people who want to trade in canada and want to trade with china for the actions of their government i think that would be quite on just so i think that there's a fair amount of value in allowing this kind of open trade between the two countries so you think it's actually a good it's the right thing for stephen harper and his government to be putting economic interests before values that they seem to really care about as the

foremost priority before i think it is reasonable i think the way i would phrase it is to say that it is good for the government to not interfere with the free choice of trade between individuals ok now let's bring in the u.s. so the former foreign minister of canada said this about the u.s. china dynamic he said there's a real sense in canada now that the americans take us for granted and that canada has to strengthen relations with china in order to get more respect and us do you agree and do you see this oil sands issue as an example of that i think it is important i think that there's a certain amount of dilution around energy requirements and it could end if your production particularly in america so for instance almost eighty percent of the oil around the world is either own dock controlled by governments and the vast majority of those governments are not very friendly either for their own people to human rights or to the environment as a whole and so if you want to do business around oil you're dealing with twenty one

percent of private companies fifty eight percent of those are in canada so if you want to do free trade around oil you have to go to canada canada is alberta and the majority are ninety seven percent of canada's oil reserves are in these tar sand projects so i do think that china wants to do business in canada they are canada second largest trading partner they are the main source of canadian immigration there are very strong ties between the two countries they need energy canada is sitting on massive resources of any. american special interest groups particularly hyper environmentalist seem to be i think in order to be concerned about the environment which you know we all want to have a clean environment but let's look at the reality is that if america does not get its oil from canada it's going to have to go to the middle east or someplace in africa or some other place where there's some godforsaken government oppressing its own people so it's not like there's some magical solution where you can get clean of oil perfectly with no human rights abuses i'd like to think that canada sits at the top of the human rights compliance regimen relative to almost all the other countries that produce oil at least in this crowded i mean well let's get

a little bit more into that because you brought us in it is conversation with the environmental concern so you have us saying we don't know about these oil sands because of the environmental issues this oil is dirty the pipeline could pollute drinking water and china just junk then says sure we'll take it and we don't care about those things and they seem to have a model that they use more broadly that's driven purely by business interests which lead with less concern over the environment or that kind of thing which is working better in a country's interests because you mentioned that you know if the united states really wants oil should they really get as concerned about the environmental concerns that bring in from canada. well i don't think so i think the environmental concerns are pretty questionable there's a lot of flak back and forth about whether it's better or worse to have this kind of oil pumped through the u.s. is it is it better for the environment as a whole to have it produced in saudi arabia where there is almost no concern for the environment whatsoever and then shipped in dangerous supertankers across oceans

with storms and lightning i don't know that that's necessarily a big improvement question with these kinds of decisions is always compared to what so we can get the american can get some oil from canada compared to what compared to shipping it from africa and doing what china is doing in africa which is letting down lavish bribes to dictators get access to these resources we have to make intelligent decisions about how these resources are going to be gotten and i think that dealing with canada. which has one of the strictest environmental controls on the planet dealing with candidate with private companies who have profit motives and are controlled by shareholders and consumers that is the best and cleanest way to get your energy going over to the middle east which is significantly anti-american and it's going to be significant evils at the moment i think is not going to be a winning strategy for america in the long run and those awful you mention ok you gave the example of china and you said they lay down lavish bribes to african dictators to get oil that sort of thing so it is situation where china puts business interests in your example i had any concerns about human rights or what

a country's leader is doing to their people that sort of thing is is that making them more successful than a u.s. model that puts concerns about what a country's leader is doing or what the u.s. considers the right human rights record or environmental concerns ahead of its business interests who's winning china or the u.s. . well i think from a purely economic standpoint it's clear that china has experienced the most extraordinary growth since the early part of the industrial revolution in western europe so china's growth has been seven eight nine ten percent for almost twenty years so there's no doubt that getting out of the way of people who want to do who want to trade freely is the best way to grow your economy there's also a very strong argument to say that the best way to get environmental protection is to grow your economy to have the excess wealth that is necessary to have luxuries like scrubbers on your smoke stacks and think of all the people who drove to work using gas to invent email of the fax machine which is vastly reduced the amount of gas that is required to ship documents around the world so i think that that what

you want to do is get as much wealth as possible that gives you the excess rope that you need for environmental controls denying a forty five billion dollars of economic growth from these tar sand projects is simply going to improper america and that means that there's going to be fewer excess amounts of wealth available for environmental protection and that's a great point you brought in full circle you're in here essentially saying that the u.s. is hurrying its ability to protect the environment by holding this with environmental protection is that right that's exactly right yeah i mean if you raise the price of gas you're going to hurt your economy which means you keep your growth is going to be lower which means you have less money available for regulation and you have less money available for environment protection you need wealth wealth wealth to protect the environment so when you see leaders like president obama who have come out and said that gas prices are threatening the economic recovery or threatening to bring the economy into recession obviously regulations and that sort of thing factor into gas prices so in order to help the economy with the best thing be to lessen those

regulations and allow this kind of a project without as much concern for the environmental standards absolutely and now environmental standards have been taken over by the state but they existed long before hand where people could take companies to court for polluting the land of it here this has been all taken over by the government and of course. governments around the world we saw this of course from the russian example from the one nine hundred seventy s. and one hundred eighty s. governments around the world are by far the worst polluters on the planet the amount of waste and pollution that they exude is staggering so i think that we should return to a pretty free market private interest model where shareholders and customers and to tort law and civil litigation is the way that we protect the environment that way we don't just hand things over to bureaucrats who have no direct financial incentive think you can the environment clean what is not given a lot of trust to people there ultimately put their bottom line above everything else well sure absolutely but the bottom line should include complaints by customers that should include the damages and people getting sued companies getting

sued for the damages they create absolutely i think it takes a lot more naive it's a good faith to put your trust in government regulators bigger question bigger picture i want to ask more philosophically which do you think is better for the world to make decisions based solely on your economic interests of the country or to make decisions based on some kind of principles about human rights or how people are supposed to operate or are the values that you hold dear as a country i think that in the long run the economy drives human rights it's no accident that for instance we've been getting rid of child labor is a significant advancement in human rights that occurred because parents became rich enough through the industrial revolution the children didn't have to work and so that's just one example among many if we drive economic growth we gain things like the luxuries of human rights i think that nagging people about human rights at the expense of their economy only harms the growth of what we want most in the world which is the greater legal equality among all races and genders and everybody so

ultimately you think that everyone make has made decisions just based on their economic interests as a country the world would be a better happier safer place. interesting all right thank you that was hosting freedom a radio stuff on of freedom a radio set on millennium. now as obama rides around on a bus as i mentioned earlier trying to pledge to save the country france and germany are trying to save the euro zone a different way feeling the weight of crippling debt for some of their members they're calling for a collective economic government and they are pushing euro zone countries to do with this adopt this new rule they said this is our cosy he said we want these seventeen members of the eurozone to adopt the golden rule that the annual financial laws must be subject to a return to the balance in a budget that is a cut rule of common sense which must lead to the reduction of deficits and the reduction of the debt. balanced budget that's a novel approach to reducing debt why isn't the us tried it to help me figure that

out i spoke with radio host an economics blogger at covering delta dot com dimitri i started by asking him if these reforms suggested by france and germany were the right move for the future of the euro zone here's what he said. i mean the thing is that now that usually that is the austerity right and our series is something that's needed but it's not a two way street so imposing austerity on people but not opposing on the banks is the real ground and i think that's it doesn't far enough i mean if we're going to make greece the folded arguably you're staring at the same time you're also going to sort of the banks that were caught on with relations that's not what you have been in the euro zone have he's not brought in which is basically keep the banks. prosperous keep profits going there around america right now and at the same time create a stir you know in the nation states so that's not really mark but if you back up what about austerity for governments having government that spend only what they

have to spend is that the right approach and is that what a balanced budget means well surely you can't chronic current account deficits that's what the united states is going through the past four years and you see what the result of so having balanced budgets refined and you keep that as a source good thing but it's also ironic germany and france are proposing this now because they were reading those conditions the stability growth back in two thousand and five star i mean it's a good thing but i don't really see them implementing and i don't see that being the solution europe itself why what do you think is the solution well the solution dissolution is the is revamping the entire model the entire minor system is the problem and still you know having a certain measures and putting them still missing creating your own barns and creating this want to gratian in giving to your original bank more power is not going to solve the problem the ultimate problem is the system which is the stabilizing you create in dallas's and structural imbalances in the global economy

so until it's a grassroots you're going to have a crony relationship between the central banks and the private banks are sort of the central bank does that not making europe or was that benefit from what france and germany are proposing when they benefit more from the euro bonds. we'll be seeing you the better we'll do you see he's a client of the back so it's really at the end. of the banking system so we're going to fix the bank and if it's. nice to be in that case it would be better for the european market because it would be a bigger market within which the e.c.b. could. wipe the us out of the treasury bond market would give it more power to manipulate the streets and you just loosen the price of money and by keeping interest rates low and a lot of banks to get cheap money speculate what the same time pushes down do you believe you were going to sue and liberty's the middle class so it's a futile model when you have several bios that keep interest rates down look which is what we have here and we bring this over to the united states because this is

somewhere where our central bank is keeping interest rates very low it's also somewhere where we've heard calls for a balanced budget amendment this is going on during the debt ceiling debate there was a vote on it now there will be a vote on a resolution which isn't binding in a debt deal that was passed this is something that ron paul has been calling for for a long time living within the country's means and methods which seems to be resonating with a growing number of people if his supporters are evidence of that so should the u.s. follow the calls of france and germany and have a balanced budget amendment to the constitution. i didn't ask what it meant i think it should get rid of the signal back on him a federal. grant that you don't need a signal back if you don't have a central bank you can have these sorts of problems so i do think you should go further to the problem that it goes against the issue of regulations a lot of the really rich that people want to control the banking system are there because you've been a central bank and a lot of the brains if you do that it will be with the other ones so i think that ultimately if you really want true individual freedom and freedom over my credit

you have to get rid of certain amount that you can't run banks that have a front company that when you close the price of money to act as a backstop therefore if you can we actually externalizing credit risk to the rest of society socializing that risk socializing the losses and privatizing the gains and you can't do that which is why banks have always been the ones that push for central banks and people should have the right match them or more but it's still not something that you can recover more exciting because at the end of the day if you accept a model where you get rid of the city you're going to have to go through some sort of depression when there is liquidity and that's what. you want for it was so no one wants to accept a depression that was radio host an economics blogger to me take a famous now from economic failure the internet failure after the arab spring shut out the middle east and parts of north africa we picked haters switching off the internet to control crowds the u.s. move right in with a purported plan to switch it back on but the u.s.

government quote liberation technologies also pose some tough questions about just who is watching who and for what purpose really also about the hypocrisy of touting internet freedom abroad or threatening to shut it down when protests break out at home in the u.s. or when riots rocked the streets of the u.k. but are teens kill and board takes a closer look and show what's really going on in the news shadow web. when a wave of revolution crashed over the middle east this spring. many said and it in the streets began with one hundred forty characters or less and social media like twitter and facebook. because harness the power of on line communication the u.s. state department is providing two million dollars in grants for a quote internet in a suitcase program it's part of what secretary clinton calls a venture capitalist approach to addressing the wide range of challenges that

democracy and human rights activists face in internet repressive environments around the world sensuous servers like this one can easily be cut by governments but the internet in a suitcase is i think of dissidents a mobile web but nest technology that runs through cell phones and other devices making it harder to cut the founder of his own clearinghouse of confidential documents john young worries that american suki servers will serve another purpose the suitcase is meant to give the illusion that you can run if you like trying to watch it without point to national systems and that may be true but it will they will not be outside of the u.s. system young says the suitcase is just part of so-called liberation technology that has its advantages for the u.s. prosecutor for being empowered is that for you to watch what you're doing are probably influenced by doing and it isn't just governments according to the hackers collective anonymous which releases hundred thousand classified e-mails from defense contractor h.p.

gary federal about the romance coin program from a school in surveillance. through you know national intelligence. says romas claim is partly designed to manipulate social media one of. you. this software would allow the u.s. military to push their agenda by flooding social media forums already influenced by so-called witness bloggers international outrage a kidnapping of a self declared lesbian blogger in syria had real policy implications until i mean it turned out to be this american man but i feel really. rather say there's a contradiction between support for internet freedom abroad and subpoenas of almighty wiki leaks collaborators at home including private bradley manning. pozner

says the suitcase is just part of a larger internet freedom agenda don't shoot the instant messenger. instead address the underlying grievances but these platforms appear less welcome when activists take to the streets at home yet again release a surveillance video but in san francisco police cut cell phone service is on the metro during protests those who you say this is going to go to church it is a hard. look. to in following riots in london there is talk of shutting down social media we are working with the police the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence disorder and criminality. the u.s. will spend seventy million dollars and internet circumvention technology in two thousand and eleven abroad even as tough questions remain at home. or to our t.

washington d.c. . to talk about this internet circumvention these internet cases is a lawyer and author eva golinger she's here in the studio with us thanks for being here now the internet circumvention the internet suitcases the u.s. says that these are ways for dissidents to get around repressive governments to help democracy cry. it's don't believe that they say this is just opening the door to massive surveillance what do you think the u.s. is real ambitions are with these programs well those programs in particular i think are part of what is in the now the cyber campaign of the united states what they're calling cyber warfare where they're basically trying to control and dominate cyberspace the internet in every single one of its different aspects so this is another angle to it i mean they don't they don't want any other state or any other group to be able to circumvent u.s. power u.s.

power as we've known it traditionally and now u.s. power in on the internet in cyberspace so i think that it forms a part of what's just been an ongoing plan and an agenda of u.s. domination worldwide in all different spheres people say that the united states has an empire of hundreds of bases all around the world so that its presence is all over the world do you see this is the u.s. building an internet empire well for us because how would be as it is i mean bases all over the world i want to write the u.s. government i mean there's no question it's a known fact the u.s. has hundreds of bases around the world and smaller operating level of like an intern absolutely and i mean we've seen it in the obama administration he specifically has talked about the fact that internet warfare cyber warfare is now one of the most cyber security is that right also is one of the most important aspects of their defense and security agenda and that's why we're seeing of course an increasing investment into this area and ways that yes they can form teams cyber

teams cyber warriors as they're you've been calling them in countries throughout the world to be able to promote u.s. agenda and assure that they maintain their space in their control and you live in venezuela part of the time you're in the u.s. that i'm keeping a show that you have here but what would be the reverse if what would what would be the reaction by the u.s. if it were the reverse if they were venezuela was working together with maybe china to help our. diffidence with internet tools in the united states to promote regime change here what would the united states do well obviously would be something that would be considered completely illegal would be a violation of u.s. sovereignty i mean it's the traditional hypocrisy and double standard that we're seeing with the u.s. government on a range of issues i mean it's taking place for example with foreign funding a political group says the u.s. doesn't menace well ending hunger other countries around the world dozens of them if that is prohibited internally in the u.s. so a foreign government cannot fund a political party in the united states or it would be a violation of law and in some cases it would be considered even treason on behalf

of those doing it in the u.s. but then we also have governments and lobby though and that's very successful in the united states but they have to be registered as a lobbyist they can't do it in a way that circumventing laws the u.s. government uses facades of n.g.o.s and all kinds of programs in order to circumvent and get around those types of laws and we're seeing it in the case specifically of this issue of internet where in the case of venice where the cuba syria their countries russia china the u.s. is conducting campaigns of what they're calling cyber dissidents where they're training them bringing them into the u.s. funding and providing skills and now equipment we know in order for them to return to their countries and then wage these kinds of cyber campaigns against their governments when it takes place in the u.s. the will of the u.s. people we see a repressive reaction i mean this case of san francisco is in the first i remember two years ago in the protests in pittsburgh against the g twenty summit where several individuals were arrested for tweeting and for informing other protesters

of you know the movements of police and during the protests i mean something that was a completely legitimate expression of speech was then criminalized and so again what's good for the u.s. to do in other countries is never good at home and you don't hear them saying anything i mean i think one of the most in your face examples that we were talking about in our news room today within the u.k. in the wake of the riots. you saw two men in england get a four year sentence for inciting disorder through social networking sites essentially on facebook they use it to quote organize and orchestrate disorder for your sentences i mean is that a headline you would read in the u.s. and just go oh also not not only would you not read it but you would not be very sorry if you were but you're not going to hear a spokesperson of the state department when i was reading a declaration condemning the violation of freedom of expression freedom of speech in england just as this is a part of that and you know for four years for a facebook message right and i mean the rain we've seen again i mean the case where

constantly for example the u.s. government specifically if we look at venice which is where i reside if they are constantly condemning the venezuelan government for violations of freedom of expression and yet venezuela is one of the new top three tweeting countries in the world president chavez of venezuela is the number two followed head of state worldwide and one of the most tweeting heads of state i mean there is an ample access to internet to all these sources they're even tweeting all kinds of things including not just you know trying to incite violence or protest but in some cases in venice where we've seen all kinds of messages about the assassination of the president which obviously something that should be illegal in any country but in the case of us was permitted whereas if you saw anything like that in the us that we didn't immediately be criminalized and repressing the people would be arrested state well why don't you think we see more outrage over this double standard in the united states and you saw this in san francisco you see western democracies like

the u.k. doing that but no response from the u.s. but yet you know they're quick to come out and say that there needs to be internet freedom in egypt or syria why not more outrage well i think most people on an individual level recognize the hypocrisy and the double standard yet there are unwilling to react because there has been a history in the united states of contemporary history of repression against those who protest and those who try to organize and and. there's a very controlled environment in the us when it comes to not just raising your voice in protest of certain policies but actually mobilizing to try to change them and that's why we've seen a criminalization of protest in the united states we're out of time but what would you say is the biggest example of that because you hear people say criminalization of protesting but how does that actually what would you say the example of that happening well the fact that i mean the rights are very limited when it comes to protesting you're caged in you know you have to abide by all kinds of strict regulations and in general your voices are never projected in the mass media and all it means for me to.