washington studios artie's alone a show with more on the protest against a disputed internet anti-piracy bill stay with us. welcome to the loner show where you get the real headlines with none of them or see me live out of washington d.c. now today is a day of protest against sopa and protect ip act we're going to give you a breakdown of who's taking part and how and we'll speak with alexis ohanian founder of reddit about whether online activism and the tech industry are going to be able to beat the entertainment industry on this legislation then there's feverish debate amongst the left over president obama's record and his policies so will they still choose him in two thousand and twelve in order to keep republicans out of executive power or will the president find himself in trouble come november how sparks is going to be with us and then rolling stone's michael hastings had the

rare opportunity to sit down with wiki leaks founder julian assange for a one on one interview so hastings is going to join us to tell us about songes regrets his take on the u.s. government's case against him and the future of wiki leaks and also the big news tonight the state department and the obama administration announce that they will not be supporting the keystone x.l. pipeline so we're going to have all of that morphy tonight including a dose of happy hour but first let's take a look at the mainstream media has decided to miss. it so today january eighteenth is blackout day and protest of sopa the stop online piracy act in the house and the protect ip act in the senate hundreds of websites have blacked out their websites and guess what the mainstream media finally noticed . several websites including wicked pedia are blacking out their web pages for the entire day they're protesting an anti-piracy bill in congress

a defiant protest today several web sites including wicked pedia literally shutting down their sites they have gone dark today. as a protest of a new bill that many critics say could lead to censorship that's just the latest in a widening base of high profile sites protesting a pair a pair of them of anti-piracy bills making their way through congress the bills would force us internet providers like comcast or eighteen t to block communications to offshore sites that steal content this is a really dumb precedent it step for internet companies in the united states to use their home page to protest a very bad very bad public policy. although i have to say about this is welcome mainstream media and welcome to the world that you've been ignoring first so long where opposition to these two anti-piracy laws has been growing for months welcome to the world where the biggest tent companies were online communities like reddit where blogs and think tanks the legal scholars far and wide

have all been voicing their concerns about these bills that would allow the u.s. government to blacklist websites and according to some break the internet my only question is where you been all of this time i love the fox news even try to claim that these pieces of legislation are new like they just popped up out of thin air yesterday and immediately we saw this quarter native response of this magnitude well guess what guys they're not new you're just waking up to them and when i say court made response i mean it is the mainstream media has chosen to focus solely on wikipedia but they're not the only ones the blacked out their websites today so did wired dot com so did boeing boeing so to read it so did the oatmeal and even google took part in the believe me the list goes on and on and on for raw story to democratic underground in craigslist and so on and if we may go back to the computer for just one moment there is one single page on their site today they didn't blackout being the site for censorship so now listen one hand we're seeing

today is a great testament to the power of online activism the power of the internet and the amount of information and the amount of content that's available. on it we take for granted every day those bills that those opposed to these bills want to protect but what's sad of course is that while it took wikipedia blackout its web site for the mainstream media to finally even notice that this was happening it shows you that they don't know an important story until the scaring them directly in the face and once again aside from chris hayes show and m s n b c the last week and really did do an in-depth page on this issue everybody else well even really slow to follow suit but once again you have to ask why would they follow suit it's a very convenient for the mainstream media to ignore sopa and protect ip because let's see viacom comcast n.b.c. universal time warner news corp all the parent companies of these channels are in support of sopa and protect ip now what i fear is after today after this blackout day the mainstream media will just move on and once again forget that this battle

is even taking place we all know they have a painfully short attention span unless it deals with campaign politics or sex scandals so once again i welcome the mainstream media in the world that the rest of us have been living it this weird world where people on the internet actually talk about what matters to them rather than political tit for tat but i dare them to keep it up so only tomorrow will tell and for some reason just get the feeling that starting tomorrow they're going to continue to miss. arias so we went through a brief list for you of the many many websites that are out there which have blacked out their sites for the day and aside from finally getting the mainstream media to pay a little bit of attention looks like this protest is really working on capitol hill for sponsors of pip of dropped out senators marco rubio john boozman orrin hatch roy blunt and james inhofe at five on the sofa side sponsors ben quayle tim holden and co-sponsors lee terry and roy blunt announce availably are moving their names

many other members of congress sponsors are authors of the bills have also. released public statements today signaling their opposition that includes dare i cite rick larsen senators john cornyn and mark kirk and the list keeps on going now in addition the phone lines and the websites of members of congress were overwhelmed today by those in opposition so in this battle of hollywood versus the tech industry on the tables finally beginning to turn joining me to discuss this is reddit co-founder alexis ohanian alexis thank you so much for joining us tonight and just looking at what i've named you know in terms of the lists of the members of congress that now have publicly come out in opposition in terms of the websites that are blacked out would you say that this day of protest has been a success a failure is it too early to tell and it has been a resoundingly success because this has just been online protests this is also been offline protest i was fortunate enough to speak at the new york tech meetup protest

outside of our senators offices here in midtown new york and i saw thousands of new york's job creators the business people the programmers the innovators who would much rather be working on their startups right now came out in mass to support what was probably the key is to and most rational protest ever in the history of new york city speaking out against these bills and it wasn't just here in new york it was in cities all across the country and it's very very encouraging well i mean you call it geeky but at the same time the internet is something that we all use at this point right it's not just for the nerds it's something that every single one of us depends on and i think you can say especially maybe the younger generation so in that sense if we look at this battle that's going on is a battle of old versus new is it you know the entertainment industry there are a the m.p.a. versus silicon valley. well aside from the fact that i'm a big cheerleader for new york jack. i think it is much bigger than just silicon

valley in fact i would reposition it as a battle of sort of government as usual. lobbying dollars dictating policy versus american the electorate dictating policy when you actually look at the numbers last year ninety four million dollars from hollywood went into government in order to basically get this bill written or these bills written and it's frustrating because we have a congress that can't solve any of the important use of the day things like unemployment things like the deficit they are gridlocked on but yet as soon as a lobbyist shows up ninety four million dollars you've got democrats and republicans lining up to co-sponsor bad legislation written by lobbyists not technologists that would lead to the wholesale destruction of one of the all these parts the u.s. economy so what i what i'm seeing now is not just the tech community up in arms it's americans up in arms and it's great to see it because that after all is the promise of a connected world that's what the internet was supposed to bring and now all the

people who enjoy it whether it's for you know finishing up a college research paper or activate or doing actual activism where we're speaking up and we're actually being part of the an unfortunate part there too is that you know there's going to be gridlock ng and congress even when there is a lot of lobbying money involved if you look back to the health care debate which i think was the most heavily lobbied piece of legislation the most amount of money was spent on it and the rest of this current law because everyone's lobbying from a from either side but so in that sense i mean you you know on one hand you can say that they're listening to the people on this one but do we also see the tech giants who are obviously playing a very big role in this changing the game saying that we're not going to pay to play the way that it usually works. well you know the numbers that i just quoted came from the center for responsive politics in the last year the entire tech sector lobbied fifteen million dollars worth of money compared to the after mentioned ninety four million so clearly they haven't been playing this p.c. game you know we we have a very different perspective in our industry we work we operate on the most level

playing field the world has ever seen the internet is. a meritocracy in the purest form as long as it's free and fair all links are created equal the best stuff does well it's it's very encouraging to know we can build something and if we build something better than our competition it can thrive they can succeed whether it's a business or whether it's a nonprofit or whether it's an idea and we i think naively assume that well obviously everything else must work that way and then to see something so blatant as what we've seen with soap and work absolutely not that way where the best ideas were ignored and what we've gotten is instead what was basically paid for it those two worlds came crashing together and so you know we had a great opportunity but i really i think this is just the beginning and it's not something that's just attack world it's it's america what lexus you know we've been talking about south africa for months here on this challis had a lot of voices chime in and terms of why exactly they think that this is dangerous

let me know let me give you your turn as well and tell us what it is that you think is the most damaging about these bills as it is the way they stand well you know the the most thorough explanation is on blog dot com and because it's extremely technical and a number of pages bring some coffee when you read it but i recommend you read it. in a nutshell the legislation is like i said written by lobbyists not technologists and so some of the language in there is so incredibly vague that it's really open to all kinds of return of interpretation depending on who's reading it and it creates such a clumsy large stick it can be used to basically inhibit domestic sites that while the targets the technical targets are foreign domain names there's so much confusing language sometimes even misunderstanding whether or not an american site operating under a foreign domain or a foreign domain like pirate bay dot org operating under a u.s.

domain is classified as foreign or domestic when you get to the actual technical language of it it's it's absurd. and so. you can't help but think so much potential comes from this industry where you know for instance steve and i never could have started reddit if either of these laws were in place that we owe it and i feel like every other tech company or every website that took itself down today in part was doing so because it acknowledged the fact that if these laws had been in place we wouldn't have all the things that we enjoy today and you know all of these. government officials wouldn't be able to tweet out their messages or upload youtube videos of their content so we could take and knowledge alexis let me ask you one last question to you what we did is they asked of our viewers if they had any questions for you on twitter and so here's why because at the moment what they're you know what's been done with harry reid is still pushing forward with it so they say that it might be postponed you know how congress likes to work then

they're going to try to do it sneakily at some other time so charles gabriel asked a question if so but actually becomes law and read it is gone what do you plan to work on next and that's a good it's a good question what do you do do you leave the country and go to start your business elsewhere that's depressing cards and so to be clear i am no longer c.e.o. of reddit i'm on the board of directors the team at reddit is running it all it's honestly doing a great job i give advice or i can last year i started in the startup but with a buddy of mine steve who's my cofounder read it called it like it's a travel search website and fortunately because it doesn't have user generated content it is. it is the kind of thing that would kind of awkwardly fall into that very gray area if these bills were to become law and so as an entrepreneur for a site like that and like all the others that are actually user generated sites like reddit yeah your best option is probably canada at least for the time being

because you know unfortunately the u.s. seems to set a standard when it comes to a lot of these laws and it would be it wouldn't be hard for me maginnis. an area where a wall that went into effect in the united states would rather quickly be eight by other nations and yet harry reid wants to claim that this is a jobs bill you know so anyway i think the people and people in congress need to really take note that this might push business out of the country alexis thank you so much for joining us tonight and it's exciting you know we like i said we've been talking about for months it's exciting to see this massive action online and i hope that it continues thanks will think you. are you guys it's time for a special edition of our tool time award not only we have three winners today but they're all washington power players that are backing sopa and pipa lamar smith harry reid and chris dodd they've all seen plenty of time on capitol hill they are

all very familiar with the process of pushing bills through congress pushing bills through congress excuse me and they're using that power so it started perhaps the worst offender who is lamar smith he's the chairman of the house judiciary committee and he's been on board with sopa from the very beginning and in fact he wrote and he is the chief sponsor but this isn't his first time to the censorship rodeo he's also been linked to the past efforts to create similar legislation like two thousand and eight protect ip act which he co-sponsored and there's even more he also support of the two thousand and ten internet investment innovation and competition preservation act which were to stop the f.c.c. from an acting net neutrality regulations and despite the judiciary committee's utter lack of understanding of copyright infringement when they debated this bill back in december well mar smith is dismissing this entire blackout across the web today he called it a publicity stunt and then went on to say it is ironic that a website dedicated to providing information is spreading misinformation about sopa

this publicity stunt does a disservice to its users by promoting fear instead of facts perhaps during the internet. blackout internet users can look elsewhere for an accurate definition of online piracy and you know it is ironic that these men that are elected into office by the people choose to simply dismiss outcry from those same people who gave them their job i'm sorry but i thought that elected officials are supposed to have an ear to the voters not to the entertainment industry who just gives them the big bucks oh yeah that's our political system works these days you pay to play so perhaps we should follow the money trail term mind us why this texas conservative is so adamant about this bill so according to open secrets smith's top campaign donations came from the t.v. and cable industry about ten percent of his campaign donations between two thousand and nine and two thousand and eleven came from t.v. and cable totaling over one hundred thirty thousand dollars t.v. and cable contributed another eighty eight thousand dollars just to his reelection campaign with cable provider clear channel dropping twenty three thousand dollars

so far so just more proof that money is the be all and end all when it comes to what happens on capitol hill but it's not the only one that's influenced by the benjamins chris dodd former lawmaker turned and be a cheerleader has now gone against his past vows not to lobby and two thousand and ten he promised that he would not be taking that trip through washington's revolving door but alas it looks like the money really does change everything see now the current c.e.o. of the n.p.a. is getting paid over a million dollars a year he's speaking out in favor of sopa but he also called today's internet blackout of silicon silicon valley's way of resorting to stunts he said it is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information and who use their services is also an abuse of power given these freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today so irresponsible response and abuse of power maybe a lifelong lobbyist if they have things like this but not before a presidential candidate now the right to protest is one of the most fundamental powers given to americans by way of the constitution so what a difference

a few years makes it seems like god is forgotten that even pretend that he actually believes in that document anymore. he's now far more vocal about his disdain for both the right to protest and it seems the freedom of speech but our third offender tonight is actually working the hardest to get the senate version the protect ip act to pass the senate majority leader harry reid has vowed to get people to reach the floor for a vote sooner rather than later it despite the fact that opponents of the legislation are literally growing by the hour including co-sponsors of the bill and even the white house read it still fighting to get this thing signed and out of his hair he's so determined to get legislation that could change the internet as we know it past that he's willing to use misleading rhetoric on national t.v. for this cause to this past sunday he was asked about protect ip on n.b.c.'s meet the press david gregory asked him why is pushing so hard for this bill to go through despite the growing outcry and here's what harry reid had to say. for having a very important piece of legislation important to this network right here p.

and that's a course to be with informational with with making sure that we have intellectual property that is protected and we need to do that and that's also job saving so that's what we need to work on things create jobs and protect the american economy . we're on to you you just try to say this is a job creator we've told our viewers time and time again that this bill has nothing to do with jobs if anything it's going to hurt more jobs in silicon valley's and than elsewhere and don't forget that is there is going fast is that it will rescue jobs in hollywood we've told you before you know why they're hiring few people fewer people in hollywood it's because the numbers prove that the executives are raking in the big bucks with less staff so clearly it is a watch our show but so here we are again watching a bunch of all politicians that are supposed to be working for us refusing to listen to the american people especially those that know what they're talking about when it comes to the internet so there's public opposition the way that we've seen over the past month help over the course of just today should be sending red flags

and warning signs to congress that this bill is not right now as we told. earlier a lot of websites either completely blocked out their pages to protest the bills or that at least blacked out their content but frankly we just wish that we could blackout these three for their work trying to get these draconian measures passed as law sadly we don't really have that power but we can't condemn them for their actions and that's why lamar smith harry reid and chris dodd are tonight's two all time winners. all right still to come tonight aggressive within the democratic party to express their disappointment with the obama presidency from almost day one when you look at the republican field you have to ask if they really have anywhere else to go what is all mean for president obama's chances come november from this politics with actor and comedian hal sparks after the break. well with the. technology innovation all the latest developments from

around russia we've got the future covered. well much of the debate that we hear today primaries are underway in the g.o.p. field of candidates is whittled down all the scandals of these candidates mitt romney's bain capital problem the fact they only pay fifteen percent in taxes there's a serial flip flopper romney and gingrich tearing each other apart and tax about who suddenly hates super pacs more and the question is always how will this help the obama campaign but should they have been astray ssion actually start hearing its own base as well so it's no secret there is why discontent on matters of

immigration policy not prosecuting wall street and worst of all in my mind an assault on civil liberties what will be left for give obama and all of his faults to forego the threat of this. my view on other social issues such as the gay marriage i've always opposed gay marriage i believe that we should provide equal rights to people regardless of their sexual orientation but i do not believe that marriage should be between two people people of the same gender the idea that the catholic charities cannot take money or with the federal government this administration won't give them those dollars for sexually trafficked individuals because this administration doesn't agree with the catholic church on the issue of abortion if that's not a war on religion i don't know what it is in this administration. speaker gingrich you recently. said black americans should demand jobs not food stamps you also said poor kids lack

a strong work ethic and propose having them work as janitors in their schools can't you see that this is viewed at a minimum as insulting to all americans but particularly to black americans. who don't choose a i so joining me from our studio in los angeles to discuss all of this is comedian and actor how sparks how thanks so much for joining us tonight and so you know i played some of those clips this is a republican field in my mind we've been forced to suffer through an inhumane amount of these debates and there's going to be a second one just this week so just you know overall what's your view i'm going to start off by disagreeing with you right away because this is for the most people don't know this these debates are actually not singular debates meant to pick a republican candidate this is a new sitcom they debuted earlier last year and it is one of the most successful i

mean it's they they keep adding episodes it keeps getting funnier even though they're eliminating cast members week after week it's like it's kind of stunning how well it's done i always meant to be a comedy well i mean it's stunning and it's a little scary if you ask me that these are the actual contenders and like i just said in the introduction here is that often this makes people on the left brain a sigh of relief because they say well if that's the obama's going up against then he's fine but let's actually step outside of that for a moment if you were looking at president obama and his record his policies while in office not comparatively but just solely based on merit on what he's done do you think he deserves to be reelected. i do i do i have no problem saying that whatsoever i mean i think i'm more of a realist i think than then i think you know a certain segment of of the like the progressives in media. and there's only. that's the wonder of them the glenn the no no i'm talking about saying great glenn greenwald to some degree i have no problem with calling certain

elements out i just believe in and sort of an honest discourse that there's more than one person in government and if you're going to lay everything at obama's feet and it lets too many people off the hook that's the part i disagree with and i think you know even if you look at sopa for example the president came out and said don't support it won't support it my administration is against the keystone pipeline you know yesterday just going it's not going to happen. i think those are things that are just softball you know you know red meat for our for the for the left of the base i think those are genuine decision presidential ones that actually earn some merit i think you know he's taking hits on the n.b.a. as a valid even let me have to interrupt you here for is that i also think that i also think the senate in the congress had to have totally dodged the bullet on the n.d.a. when i was there and that's allegedly our responsibility on the list but you know let me disagree with you here for a moment because and you know andrew sullivan has do piece in newsweek this week

saying that obama's critics are dumb and he has some good points when it comes to some of the stuff that we hear from the right calling him a socialist saying that he's you know kenyan anti-colonial list and what not but i feel like his critiques of those on the left and you know certain things like you say say that you're a realist to me these are some of the greatest offensives that have happened in terms of civil liberties and those are actual presidential actions in terms of violating our civil liberties like letting anwar oh i don't like using the state secrets privilege like continuing on programs. surveillance of american citizens and going after whistleblowers that is the obama administration's why satan and i being there and our view obviously we could slice up chunks of each one of those and actually have you know legitimate discourses on all of them because i think there are there are grounds and reasonable miss on on both sides in parts of it and i think grabbing for the extremities of them all. them get painted immediately as can be painted as negative or positive depending on which way you flip but the i

think the issue with the president in a lot of these ways is who do you want in charge of these kind of systems i think a lot like the spying on american citizens for particularly dealing with occupy or whatever is largely a state oriented and city oriented endeavor the ties to the d.h.s.s. were were completely fabricated that was a that was a non source story that went very deep but it but there were people who ran with it to paint the administration as being some sort of draconian overseer this big brother aspect of things when it was really largely a right motivated activity i let me ask you we were running out but i didn't have that as i have one where i have the mail i stand for you had to just because we're running out of time if we look at what i care you know wide actions right now i get citizens united the occupy wall street movement actions against sopa and pipa do you think about also means that finally americans are starting to wake up and go after things that they can attack with their brain not necessarily their heart like you know where you see the issue of abortion takes center stage but is that

changing now. well i think i think it has to i think ultimately when we were fighting the soviet union there was almost a scientific bent to what americans were going for math and science where the way we fought back against the soviet union in this idea that we had and then we moved into a religious war essentially and that's all five thought not only with hearts and spiritual beliefs but almost a lack of knowledge of a lack of scientific approach so i think we're getting back to that because we're thinking you know twenty twelve is you know we've got whatever ten months until the end of the world and if it doesn't happen we're going to start having to act like we're going to be here for a long time and i think there's a good portion of the public that are going we've got to start thinking about long game how we're going to behave and that's where dissatisfaction with with the i have noticed and i kind of ran a time i got to cut you off but they came for a half and i thank you absolutely. everything right that you know sometimes you see the story. and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear sees some other part of it and realize

everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. ten thirty pm in moscow these are your r.t. headlines london edm it's an electronic spy rock found by the f.s.b. in moscow six years ago belonged to her majesty's secret service the u.k. had vehemently denied involvement in the scandal told not. more tough sanctions against the syrian regime in the pipeline as the arab league observers mission readies its final report on how to stop the daily deadly violence over the weekend the regional body will decide whether to continue its own efforts or ask the.