welcome to the lower show we'll get the real headlines with none of them or see if you live in washington d.c. now tonight we're going to take a look at the killing of anwar the law what i mean for al qaeda most importantly excessive presidential powers germany is going to join us for that one then should the department of homeland security be abolished some argue that that's one government agency full of unnecessary waste that we can do without and then as the eurozone moves closer to increasing their bailout fund we're going to look at what obstacles still stand in the way and what the chances are that fund is even going

to be enough but business insiders joe lies and paul hash it out with us or have all that and more putting it to us of happy hour but first let's take a look at the mainstream media has decided to miss. wasn't sure you heard by now this morning the reports came in that u.s. born muslim cleric anwar allah locky had been killed in gannett now this was the first attempt on his life by the us but i guess this time and cia and special ops forces had enough intelligence to make sure that the drone hit the right target so the mainstream media obviously very dutifully reported the news as another big victory in our war on terror but take a very careful look to see what's missing from their coverage. one of all kind as top recruiters who once preached at a mosque in virginia and california he was called the internet bin ladin because of his skills of recruiting terrorists online just two of the world's most wanted terrorists our dad. who was killed by a missile from a u.s.

drone to he was considered one of the biggest terrorist threats to u.s. homeland security and more level aki the head of al qaeda in yemen killed in a u.s. drone strike two predator drones equipped with how fired missiles took out. now to start with let me find out who the second person was that was killed samir khan an american citizen of pakistani origin who is the editor of inspire english language magazine so here we have every mainstream media outlet reporting on the death of one of the worst terrorists in the world and their banners say american born on the bottom and yet not a single one of them bothered to mention that this raises a very very serious legal issues i guess it's not all that surprising considering that they've never shown any concern over the fact that this president place an american citizen out of this us nation list but now that this u.s. citizen where a lockie and one other of actually being assassinated by their own governments do you think they just might you understand the magnitude of what was just done here

you have one man the president of the united states that just decided that he can singlehandedly order the death of a u.s. citizen without asking any courts about any form of due process whatsoever that is exactly the type of thing that our constitution is supposed to protect against so essentially king obama just tore that constitution right up traveled all over it decided that he is above it that sets an incredibly dangerous precedent and the problem here is that people are actually cheering this death cheering it is a positive step in our war on terror cheering is yet another victory for this president what happens when it's not somebody the government is labeled as a terrorist who gets killed or executed should i say what happens when someone else when it's not obama that's deciding on ordering executions is the left suddenly going to come out of the woodwork say that it's in same it's dangerous and it's excessive use of power if there are any objections at that point they won't matter because the president has already been set you can't pick and choose something like

this it is a matter of all along he was a bad guy he deserved to be in jail for the rest of his life and none of that is ever going to be resolved now we didn't take him to the courts we just kissed justice and constitutional protections goodbye that the mainstream media well what do they have to say about it. luly nothing they just regurgitate the official report told the official lie talk about what a big tories moment this is for our war on terror and for the president and who want completely blind to the fact that the standards of this country are changing before their very eyes so much for a government watchdog you know i think this is a sad day for this country not a seller tory one but that's something that the mainstream media is apparently more than happy to miss. now aside from the glaring legal concerns of the us government assassinating one of its own citizens without any means of due process we actually examine some of the

other claims that have been made about well locky and his role in al-qaeda here's what president obama had to say about that. this of all it is a major blow to al qaida as most active operational affiliate alike he was the leader of external operations for al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. in that role he took the lead in planning and directing efforts to murder innocent americans. now in the past the government is using state secrets privilege to hide any real evidence that they may have about iraqis alleged operational role so why now is it being true to this fact or earlier i got the jeremy scahill national security reporter for the nation magazine and author of the book blackwater the rise of the world's most powerful mercenary army i first asked him if he had the same reaction that i did to the media coverage today about the lack of questioning about the due process for the killing of an american citizen. i mean for there are there are two

sort of glaring media errors here in my view one is anwar locky was not the leader of al qaeda in the arabian peninsula most yemen experts people that have spent much time there have reviewed it including former u.s. officials say that he is barely mid-level management with al qaeda he's far more important to the u.s. counterterrorism community than he is to anyone in yemen or anyone in the arab world for that matter secondly though we have an almost an utter lack of discussion in this country to date of the fact that president obama has served as judge jury and executioner of a u.s. citizen i'm not here to defend locky or anything that that man did with his life but i am here to say that we should we should be a nation that follows its own laws and subscribes to the rule of law and we can have our own government assassinate our own citizen on a non declared battlefield where he's not directly engaging with american forces in hostilities that's a sad day for america when we don't have a very rigorous debate about that ideally before we kill our own citizens well i

couldn't agree with you more there now when it comes to you know what you say is a glaring media error in terms of overestimating the lackey's influence how high up he is in al qaeda in the arabian peninsula is also something that we hear coming from the president himself who comes out and says that we've just dealt a decisive blow to al qaeda you know who else is responsible for some of the misinformation here. well i mean first of all so the president used the title for anwar a lucky that i haven't found anyone in the counterterrorism community that has ever heard him labeled with such an official position within a q a p but it's you know i would say that part of it is the system that relies on anonymous. held accountable for the statements that they make of the propaganda that they feed to c.n.n. or other networks on the one hand on the other hand though it's lazy journalism it's you know if i had a dollar for every time somebody sent me a tweet today trying to proclaim their vast expertise on adora locky because they read something on wikipedia you know i would be

a millionaire but i maybe would have twenty thirty bucks you know the fact is that most of the people yapping about who are lucky had never heard of him or if they did they probably knew something that was factually incorrect that you know the reality is that most credible sources say that this was a guy whose primary threat to the united states was his ability to go on youtube and preach his message of hatred and let's also remember and no one wants to talk about this on moral locky after nine eleven there was a mainstay on the news hour with jim lehrer he was in the washington post as a voice of moderation condemning nine eleven but also condemning u.s. policy so it's quite likely that anwar locky himself was radicalized as a result of what was perceived widely in the muslim world to be a war against islam we don't spend a lot of time studying or talking about blowback in this country but we should because you could make a reasonable case that he was a product of u.s. policy he seemed to be a guy that was very much critical of nine eleven up to the u.s.

invasion of iraq and now aside from the fact that of course there are a lot of you tube videos out there that the u.s. government tried to get taken down and some of which they did speaking in very good english and of course you know preaching his philosophy is there ever any direct proof will we ever seen the government disclose any direct proof that he's actually been behind any plot society or navy being an inspirational people like. the fort hood shooter is there any direct proof that he was involved with the christmas tree with a shoe bomber or with any other klein underwear bomber and am i thank you well let me just take these in parts you. a couple questions here first on the issue of major nidal hasan who is the alleged fort hood shooter he hasn't been prosecuted yet so you know we have to be careful about that because we do have a system of justice in this country that's supposed to be respected as far as the communications between a locket asan go and they took place before he was the he had this incident took

place in fort hood and investigators that reviewed those e-mails said that there was nothing indicating that a lockie had directed him to take part in that action and that their discussions were of a more spiritual nature about the koran a lot he did praise major nidal hasan after the fort hood shootings but again that's not any evidence that he was involved or that the most serious allegation against iraq is that he provided operational support to the alleged underwear bomber that you were referring to earlier but there has been no evidence certainly no evidence that would stand up in a court of law other than hearsay to indicate that that's true that's why it would have been important to have a trial or an indictment but the obama administration is hiding behind state secrets much like the bush administration did when the center for constitutional rights of the a.c.l.u. represented his father in a u.s. court the prime motivation for them representing him was to say to the government if you're going to assert the right to kill one of your own citizens we demand to see the evidence against him and that case was dismissed on state secret grounds

and so the obama administration saying we have this evidence we just can't show it to you because it's too sensitive and you think there's any chance that they might release that information now or that you know if there were another way to take place they would be able to claim state secrets anymore because let's face it they already went and killed it. i you know i wouldn't expect to see any sort of mother load of proof against anwar a lockie i mean the fact is that president obama is not going to be under any pressure from anyone that matters to his administration to produce such evidence he has normalized policies that would have been the source of scorn and denunciation from liberals the this s. the nation policy the bombing multiple countries the intervening around the world he's normalized it in a way that a president mccain would not have been able to do so i think that short of the usual suspects who do horrible things like the fed prisoners at guantanamo stand up against warrantless wiretapping that supported by the democrats and the republicans short of that clik of uncouth people no one is going to be raising any ruckus about

this capitol hill only six members to represent as percentages bill last year attempting to just say that the u.s. should not assassinate its own citizens without due process i mean that gives you a sense of where things are in this country a half a dozen members of the u.s. congress dared to cite a piece of paper that said we don't believe in assassinating our own citizens without due process and i'm happy that you brought that up because yesterday on our show we were discussing op ed by legal scholars john kerry who not only talked about obama's horrible civil liberties record but he actually said that obama just may have killed the civil liberties movement here you know something that we saw a lot of organization for a lot of passion for towards the end of the bush administration there was hope obama ran as a president or as a candidate and promised to abide by the rule of law and i wonder if you agree with that that he's killed this civil liberties movement that no one ever is going to really stand up and wait a thing or any more. i don't know that i would go as far as to say that he's killed the civil liberties movement i do think though that given that he is

a constitutional law expert his policies have been shockingly terrible you know given what we've seen unfold and both domestically and internationally but i the reason that i say disagree that is because i know those are very brave people from these legal. it is ations that have been fighting for so long and they are not going to be giving up anytime soon and they get hammered for it all the time times accused of being terrorists or operatives for the republican party i was accused today repeatedly of being a g.o.p. troll because i have the audacity to have the exact same position on president obama's targeted killing that i had on president bush's so i mean i think that those people that believe in the rule of law process as a matter of principle are going to hold it under both democratic and republican administration so whether or not president obama completely killed that movement. i think that's a debatable question i like to believe though that there are people that believe so deeply in this country they're going to continue to fight even if it becomes

politically unpopular as it as it has under president obama now some people tried to argue that legally under the authorization of the use of military force it may have been ok for after president obama to go after are largely because he was fighting for a foreign power here i'm wondering what your take is on that i mean define fighting for a foreign power what do they have evidence that they have evidence that anwar a lockie was himself in gauged in hostilities against the united states he was not on a battlefield of course under various rules of law combatants have a right to kill other combatants the united states i think is on very shaky legal grounds with that congressional authorization for the use of military force and applying it to al qaeda in the arabian peninsula an organization that did not exist . to lebanon and was very much an outgrowth of u.s. policy attacking afghanistan and other countries around the world muslim countries around the world so i mean it's a subject of much hot debate in a way it's irrelevant because this president has solidified it as

a bipartisan right of both democratic and republican presidents to kill whoever they want with whatever legal justification they choose to to apply and i mean unfortunately obama administration is also playing legal acrobatics much the way the bush administration did in defending these policies so you know the legal argument at the end of the day. is is we're not going to win that one because they're the ones in control of writing the laws and manipulating the law to fit their their missions and should be the other way around where you have a principle and then you see how it applies to the actions you want to take where we just apply the law retroactively to the actions you want to take and argue that that's the way it should be i think there's a very serious case to be made even under their law or their interpretation of the authorization for the use of military force that he was not a legitimate target and that's what the sort of rights an a.c.l.u. have tried to argue and i think they're right i don't believe as horrible of a person as anwar a lockie was i i don't believe that the authorization was legitimate to kill him and i just want to ask you one last think you do you think that this changes the

relationship with yemen at all and then of course when we've seen people protesting in other countries say libya we decided to go and stage a humanitarian intervention and yet may not so much because of course even depending on help work with us to help give information on the ground now i can't. but i think that the vast majority of yemenis would say that the you know the greatest threat that they face is ali abdullah saleh the u.s. president. a lucky was it was barely known to anyone if you if you look at the reporting of laura kasem off of the new york times or other reporters that are in yemen today there's some hilarious tweets coming out of there were people are saying was he was a lucky was he that used car salesman was he the refrigerator repair guy people not knowing who he was so what i think this solidifies in the eyes of many in yemen is that the u.s. is firmly in bed remains firmly in bed with ali abdullah saleh who just returned from from exile in saudi arabia where he was getting medical treatment after he was very nearly killed the u.s.

sends a message in its statement thanking the yemenis to that they remain with this really despised dictator that's ruled yemen for thirty years and i can i thank you so much for joining us tonight. thank you. and so to come tonight we often highlight waits . spending by the defense department on the shelf that's now a few more examples of questionable tactics on spending and should the form of homeland security be abolished by the fat talk they can just not. let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime right. i think the readable and well. we never got the book says the keep things safe get ready because you get the freedom.

you know sometimes you see a story and the same so for life sleep is if you understand it and then you've lived something else here's some other part of it and realize that everything is all you don't i'm trying hard welcomes the big picture. says. he has put a picture of me when i was like nine years old like this you know lived through. the confession i am in control get a princess i love driving to posses

a man for. he was kind of the jester. i'm very proud of the world with its place. well whistleblower within the state department to shed light on get more instances of wasteful spending by the u.s. in iraq state department employee peter van buren was in iraq from two thousand and nine to two thousand and ten part of a provincial reconstruction team so iraq van buren came across several unnecessary projects are being funded by u.s. taxpayer dollars take for instance a children's art calendar a local baghdad school children enter the contest for the best artwork for a calendar that calendar was then distributed to a nearby neighborhood but the rest of the calendar is all ended up going to the

state department employees and the price tag was only eighteen thousand dollars or how about a local gym for cider city residents that was redecorated with a large were all that apparently looks like a man competing in a mr universe contest price tag on that one twenty two thousand dollars disadvantaged iraqi women were treated to a french pastry class thanks to the state department the classes were taught by volunteers there is still a bill of ten thousand dollars to be paid now those are just a few of the examples of van buren to say the high life of your tax dollars being spent to win hearts and minds of course even here in mentioned all these projects in his book we mentioned well over his work has fallen under the scrutiny of state department officials ever since he were posted a wiki leaks cable on his personal blog and subsequent blog post it explains how he has been interrogated by the bureau of diplomatic security and was ordered to have any further tweets facebook posts or blog posts approved before being shared now earlier he spoke with r.t.

is lauren lyster about the government's continuing efforts to silence whistleblowers. realized they couldn't stop the publication of my work they wanted to send a message the easiest books to stop are the ones that are never written and so for my colleagues here who are seeing things and make notes and thinking about their own books watching the treatment of state miscue the nice ones are very clear signal that you do want to publish a book you're going to pay a very heavy price for it perhaps your career. i've been very. joins a group of former government employees people like tony shaffer frequent guest on this show and ishmael jones a former interrogator who also is under the magnifying glass after their own books were shed light upon unpopular acts within the military and the cia now the way i see it then here it is just the latest example of the obama administration's crackdown on whistle blowing none of the information that he wrote about was classified and as for the wiki leaks cable that was already publicly available on the web so why is this man being targeted or perhaps van buren said it best to make

an example out of him to prevent similar issues from annoying the government in the future. now defense spending on weapons systems our wars abroad those aren't the only areas where we see a lot of waste we've discussed the massive amount of money that's also spent on homeland security here at home we even spoke to john mueller what his new book found by using cost benefit analysis the order to justify the increase in homeland security spending post nine eleven we would have to deter prevent foil or protect against one thousand six hundred sixty seven attacks per day or or for a year excuse me or four attacks per day but now some are arguing that we not only should take a discerning look at spending maybe we should abolish the department of homeland security together so without the smarts and would it ever really happen to i mean discuss it as gene healy vice president at the cato institute and columnist for the washington examiner jeanne thanks so much for being here tonight picture of you know what do you say department of homeland security you just want to get rid of it

you want to abolish it absolutely it's one of the worst. nine eleven it's a giant bureaucracy you for your mostly been devoted to her actually industry airline travelers are groping pre-schoolers i think we definitely do without it but how would you sell that to the american people because at the end of the day unfortunately i think what we've seen time and time again is that people are willing to be harassed they're willing to give up a lot of civil liberties if they think that something is keeping them safe and especially when you have stories like yesterday right. another terror plot that was foiled by the f.b.i. despite the fact that maybe the f.b.i. had a little bit of a hand in creating it themselves well yes like most of the terror plots since nine eleven the majority of them i think this is actually to do they never got operational and a lot of times it involves an f.b.i. informant who's actually producing the plot along but i think original question i think look i know abolishing v.h.s. would be an uphill battle put on like other ways for inefficient on necessary to

apartments this is one that gives people the business end of the state every time they every time they travel you know that this is an agency that the most visible part of it puts you to a choice when you travel you know the government is either going to look at you naked or feel you up and it's your choice i think this is causing a lot of resentment and i think you're increasingly seeing even republicans looking at putting some of this but so to you it's more about the principle here is you don't like what the common homeland security is doing rather than the money and the waste because we probably could just pick a few weapon systems right have you contracts that have been awarded by congress that would add up to you know the same amount if not more of what has been spent on homeland security the last ten years yeah that's right it's not the biggest line item in the federal budget and there are a lot of departments that would like to get rid of that waste money i think some of

the spending in the homeland security department though more than wasteful it actually encourages infringements on civil liberties i mean everyone knows the famous stories about kids being. you know the airports and so on boy what's also been going on through the homeland security grant program thirty four billion dollars over the last nine years is the building up slowly at the local level of the militarized service. and you have grants going to localities for security cameras there's a fishing village in alaska that has twenty four hundred people and eighty security cameras you have small towns so throughout the country getting homeland security grants to get armored personnel carriers which are going to be used in no knock drug raids and so this is a little more concerning a little more dangerous than say like a small business administration grant so i think it's worth the emphasis on this

kind of spending but you know that's something we talk about often on this show if you if you could say this over militarization of police forces the use excessive use of force and of swat teams in general when it comes to nonviolent drug raids and i'm just wondering do you think that this is something that would be better handled by private industry because that it would just be a blanket here's a ton of money they would have with it what you want. well i don't think you could probably find some homeland security grants that were useful you can find things we've done after nine eleven that definitely made sense or hardening cockpit doors for example but i don't think there's enough so who's going to handle that if they're driving home i think kerry doesn't exist anymore well i think i think first of all when you abolish the department of homeland security you do get rid of janet napolitano his job but you do not abolish every responsibility for public safety for the federal government i mean a protection against terrorism a serious responsibility the federal government mean agencies to do that kind of

thing are not within the d.h.h.s. now the f.b.i. is not within within the v.h.s. now you know you it's an unwieldy combination of twenty two agencies that have responsibilities from everything from counterfeiting to you know disaster relief and it doesn't make any sense so going to going to other agencies then making those now a days i think it's even bigger well what i think you did. you would have some things completely abolished you have to the air marshal service completely abolished it when its security great program basically abolished and then you would have things like we're still going to coast guard which is within the home which security. organization now. but i think one thing one benefit that you would get out of it is you get rid of this horrible germanic soviet term a way of security that. has become like this talisman so we you know it's as

a colleague of mine puts it it allows people to wrap pork barrel spending in red white and blue i think if you split the string out of that because they're running out of time too i just want to ask you what you think the chances are of this happening because everyone always talks about how polarized congress is these days but there is always a lot of bipartisan consensus when it comes to things like increasing defense spending and homeland security spending and of course you know allowing the patriot act to keep on going well i'm not naive this is said this is an uphill battle that will be done tomorrow but for example the house has voted to to freeze funds is to stop funding on their three point four billion dollars you know pyramid. you know new homeland security headquarters so there is some movement in this direction you know my job is to point out what i think would be the right thing to do in hopefully eventually when there's nothing else left to do congress will come along our jeanne i want to thank you so much for joining us tonight we'll see if

this idea you know has any traction congress obviously isn't a cutting mood unfortunately i think that often they're just not putting their sights on the areas that actually you know deserve to be glad and maybe homeland security is one of those but they have to deal with the whole here aspect first they will have to sell to the american thanks so much thank you. now thirty concert i believe the occupy wall street protesters are calling the wrong people his comments and i still find war and george soros has a three step plan to stop the second great depression at work. internet only or military mechanisms if you don't work to bring justice or accountability. i have every right to know what my government is doing you want to know why i pay taxes. i would characterize obama as a charismatic version of american exceptionalism.