look. mr. well fears of a new war brewing in america but this one isn't in a combat zone and doesn't involve weapons cyber wars sparking fears among political leaders today and rhetoric is heating up in washington on the dangers of cyber war

equating it to a form of terrorism the pentagon is responding by pumping money into enhancing cyber security and those are to correspondent lisa cavanagh reports military contractors are lining up to cash in on the latest military fear. it may seem like a quiet day in america. it's the scene of a raging battle invisible to the naked eye. but there is war underway right now on the internet this is a primer war is the u.s. ready for a full scale cyber war a question asked at the highest levels of the u.s. government by fears of a new type of w m d a weapon of mass disruption in a world where acts of terror could come not only from a few extremists in suicide vests but from a few keystrokes on the computer the f.b.i. warns that those keystrokes could soon be more dangerous to america than terrorism itself the cyber threat well equal or surpass the threat from counterterrorism in

the forseeable future a future that's got the world's military superpower preparing for the fight ahead if the next pearl harbor that we confront could very well be a cyber attack that cripples our our power system certainly our grid cyberwar cyber pearl harbor frightening language for a hypothetical scenario one that could happen but hasn't yet and some security experts like jim harper warned that it never will because no chance whatsoever that nuclear power plants will be hacked that electric infrastructure will be hacked and taken down for any significant period of time so the worst we can expect is disruption that's not war it doesn't really terrorize so the threats are serious but they're not to. level of war or terror yet some of the key leaders in the war on terror are now in the business of cyber war michael chaired off once ran the department of homeland security he now runs a cyber security consulting firm you could have

a cyber attack that would be as consequential in terms of the economy maybe even in terms of loss of life as things return for your service there was more frightened once america's top spy chief mike mcconnell now oversees cyber operations for an event contracting giant where the most honorable nation on earth to a cyber attack and anti-terrorism czar richard clarke went from advising presidents on cyber security to publishing books about the coming cyber war for once it would be nice for the united states to be able to get out in front of a catastrophe to be able to prevent not catastrophe we know how to do it we just need to spend the money and the money is flowing the u.s. government will spend more than ten billion a year on cyber security by two thousand and fifteen in a worldwide market that's estimated at eighty to one hundred forty billion dollars a year the budget that we're releasing today it's one of the few areas where the

white house plans to increase spending despite other defense cuts and that some say is the problem is going to be even more tempting for folks and the you know the defense contracting for example to hype cyber threats because that's one of the few sign that mahdi that you know sort of silly forbes magazine contributor shawn lawson is an expert in cybersecurity is a classic case of an attempt to sort of motivate a response by rally the troops by appealing to fear feeling uncertain and inside the beltway fear and uncertainty can lead to big business and big bucks most people don't understand the problems with computer and data security of people in washington don't understand it specifically most people in congress. and understand therefore the quote unquote beltway bandits are in a position to create the problem to state the problem and offer their own services as a solution. a battle does reach here invisible to the naked eye award for money contracts

and powers to see kalf n o r t washington well better watch what you tweet these days because big brother could be reading as the obama administration plans to double security funding the department of homeland security you know plans to monitor social media meanwhile the sopa bill that sparked outrage over online freedom it's back under a new name so as big brother widens its cyber reach what does it mean for your online freedoms earlier i spoke with ginger mccall director of epix open government program and i p i o p programme about the issue take a look. well first department of homeland security does not have the legal authority to engage in the sort of monitoring that they aren't engaging in it's well outside of the bounds of their statutory mandate second this sort of monitoring has the very real potential to chill on line speech especially

legitimate criticism and dissent against the government and i understand that you are an attorney and your organization is filed a freedom of information act to the department of homeland security to get documents pertaining to social media monitoring what was the response that you got from that we got no response actually for about nine months until we filed a lawsuit against the department of homeland security under the freedom of information act and at that point we received about three hundred pages of documents from them detailing this program and i understand that you got more documents today anything in there that was revealing or eye opening or that higher interest in terms of monitoring of social media by the h.s. what we found in these documents is that the department of homeland security paid about eleven million dollars to general dynamics to engage in media monitoring not just for the sort of terrorism threats or whether disaster threats that you might expect they would be monitoring but also for reports that quote reflect adversely

on the agency for public reaction to policy proposals by the department of homeland security and even possibly the obama administration more broadly and for any sort of news stories that speak positively or negatively about v.h.s. or any of its components so i mean what does this all mean for the average citizen and the average on-line user i mean obviously social networking sites are huge these days and why should the average internet user be concerned about this well i think a good example of why user users should care is within these documents there was a report authored by the department of homeland security to instruct the. the media analyst on what to look for and one of the things that they held up as a good example was a summary report about public reaction to the proposal to move guantanamo detainees to standish michigan and they were scraping information from facebook from twitter from the washington post comment section there's just there's there's no reason

there's no earthly reason under their particular statutory mandate why they should be doing this that doesn't forward a national security interest it doesn't forward any sort of safety interest it's just it's merely monitoring for criticism and dissent what about the argument for an online user that's like hey you know this is not this is being blown out of proportion and you know if i'm not if they want to read about what you know i'm tweeting what i'm doing today and they're not really infringing on my you know my day to day lives that they're more looking out for for things that might cause a security concern what do you say to that argument if you have a government constantly looking over your shoulder listening to what listening in to what you're saying noting that down collecting that information retaining it for who knows how long it will affect the way that you speak it will affect your ability to criticize and express dissent against the government so you're saying that there is the possibility that this could get out of hand yes certainly. see it

seems in part politically motivated it's the department of homeland security looking for anything that reflects adversely on the department of homeland security they're protecting themselves instead of protecting the american public and why do you think they would do that. well to protect themselves again to protect their own interests from a. public relations standpoint but they're spending taxpayer dollars on this when they really ought to be focusing their efforts on things that will protect the american public another thing president obama he had now his budget recently released doubles spending on cyber security. do you think that the fears now today over cyber security and cyber warfare are justified certainly there's this idea that. a lot of times national security fears are overblown and that's that's often

valid what we see again and again in the national security realm is that there's national security theater we're all told that we should be afraid of a particular incident occurring even though statistically there's not so much of a probability of that and then vast amounts of taxpayer money are spent on programs that surveil the people that are that are overly intrusive and usually outside of the statutory bounds of the agencies involved now should people these days should they be concerned about what they are saying online in the wake of these new laws i mean even you as an online user are you concerned about what you say and what you tweet and what you do put out there people need to push back on the department of homeland security they need to let congress know that they're on happy with this program and express interest in there being oversight of this program ginger thank you so much for coming on the show that was ginger mccall director of epix open government program and i p i o p program. coming up in just

a half an hour is the big picture with tom hartman tonight tom breaks down the recent citizens united ruling in montana concerning corporate spending and state elections could the state be on the verge of a constitutional crisis also it's been one here since the uprising in wisconsin began tom explains how far the labor movement has come since then and where it's going and even though demand for oil is at a fifteen year low oil prices are still are still high tom reveals the driving home force behind that sturge stay tuned. but that is going to do it now for the news for more of the stories we covered you can head on over to r.t. dot com slash usa and check out our youtube page it's youtube dot com slash artsy america and you can also follow me on twitter liz wahl for now have a great night. sometimes

you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harkin is a big picture. kaiser this is the kaiser report let's look again at what's happening in germany and athens. max kaiser germany's carthaginian terms for

greece now ambrose evans pritchard of the telegraph says the last time germany needed a bailout from world creditors it secured better terms than shattered greece last week so in one nine hundred fifty three recall there was a london debt agreement whereby creditors for all of germany's debt agreed to take a fifty percent haircut on german debt quote statesmanship prevailed the finance ministers of the day agreed to overlook the moral origins of that debt and the moral hazard of rewarding a country that had so disturbed the european order yeah well this is interesting isn't it of a double standard here the germans got a huge break on the debt back in one nine hundred fifty three the other countries rallied to give them a break because they felt that it was in everyone's best interests now here we are twenty twelve and germany's in a position to return the favor but they bought well exactly as ambrose evans pritchard uses the term carthaginian carthage pieces. east in which the vanquished

has destroyed utterly a peace deal that once you are wiped out wiped off the face of the earth that's right they employ the scorched earth approach to carthage that is the say the romans did and they just scorched it they have blitter ate of it now here you have germany applying a scorched earth roman attacks carthage style obliteration of of greece of athens it's a nobody's interest and it's not even in germany's interest well actually wolfgang schauble cording to this article he was actually quoted caught on tape anyway talking to a portuguese finance minister in which he said to the portuguese minister don't worry we're not going to do this to you this in our treatment of greece is in order to appease our population at home private exactly this is amazing it's coming through now that the policy makers in germany that are applying the scorched earth policy to greece are doing so to appease their local constituents who want blood

for some reason they're just bloodthirsty which then brings up all kinds of other questions about who is this to germany of old is this to germany we remember from world war one and two is the imperial genie out of the bottle once again each failure is a scribe to lack of moral fiber not the design flaws in the currency project that shall bill himself helped create and forced on the german people against their wishes belief that e-m. you fall out from greek exit or great in market slang can be contained by far walls and more fiscal austerity assumes that greece is a special case alone brought low by turpitude you're right the idea that the scapegoating of the greek people that they are of low moral character and therefore deserve what they get we see again this is something is historically by the germans by the way not been the two recent past to confiscate wealth from another group of

people and of course. during the german confiscation of wealth in the thirty's and forty's they use ethnic division here they just use the new globalization of financial derivative products to carve out their empire and attack those like the greeks using credit default swaps that they can create in the derivatives market hundreds and hundreds of billions of them used to attack greece's economy and to confiscate that wealth yeah and as part of the propaganda of course that was used against the carthaginians the same sort of they're immoral and they kill babies the same thing you've seen sort of the same sort of propaganda against the greeks you've heard stories that they leave their leaving their babies on doorsteps because they're so hungry that part of the same sort of psychological warfare you know the question is where is germany go with all of this because ok they've got the biggest economy in the world the strongest most dynamic economy in the world the second or first biggest export market in the world great employment numbers are rising it's a fair it's an emerging superpower that's true it's going to break out of the euro

looks that way it's going to ally with other countries or this is an interesting development please continue well carthage must be destroyed oweis and that's where they're going with it portugal spain italy you know those are the next ones well hopefully they won't be parasites doorstop too soon now of course the war between rome and carthage was control of sicily and that important sea routes now the equivalent in modern times is of course the straits of hormuz so let's move on to that currency war going on over there around presses ahead with the dollar attack so this is also from the telegraph and they say last week the turan times noted that the iranian oil bourse will start trading oil in currencies other than the dollar from march twentieth this long planned move is part of president mahmoud ahmadinejad's vision of economic war with the west now of course this also seems to be some sort of propaganda every time we're in some sort of like tense moment they

bring out this billboard. we've been hearing about it for almost ten years now going back to when saddam was saying was going to trade oil in other currencies other than the dollar which brought about shock and awe and then of course there are the same thing coming out of iran oil bourse so currency wars you see it in europe now we see it in the middle east and you're saying the i mean reining in people the iranian government wants to do non us dollar denominated oil training and this is heating things up right this is a driving force it's not about the nuclear weapons it's about this currency war as i was just saying i'm saying one never knows who knows about whether or not the carthaginians killed their babies because the victor always writes the history here is the same as part of the propaganda one never knows if they're killing their babies are actually going to trade oil in dollars we don't know but it seems to come up over and over that this is a psychologically important move ok well let's just go to digress for a second and let me ask you first let's let's say it is about the currency and it's

not about nukes ok let's slow this do a little thought exercise here using jim rickards currency wars as the paradigm what would be the appropriate counterattack from the iranian action is would it not be for them to introduce a gold backed currency as another way to slam a nail into the dollar's coffin wouldn't that also be true if they're fighting against an empire this is the way the empire is able to extract in the modern day the wealth of around the wealth of germany the wealth of greece the wealth of china it's because when nothing backs the u.s. dollar but you have to keep them your goods this is your senior it's this is them controlling sicily this is them controlling the straits of hormuz you know iran says they control the straits of hormuz but if you're paying for that oil to go through there in dollars. the emperor controls the straits of hormuz ok good point now the telegraph says iran has the third largest oil reserves in the world and

pricing oil in currencies other than dollars is a provocative move aimed at washington if iran switches to the non dollar terms for its oil payments there could be a new oriel price that would be denominated in euro yan or even the yuan a rupee india is already in talks with iran over pricing their oil in rupees and they said even worse gold absolutely so if there are multiple exchanges of multiple prices for these commodities then the monopoly position enjoyed by the us dollar shattered and with that come all the benefits of that and all of the inflation that america has exported to countries like china comes roaring back so those i pods and i pads suddenly instead of band a thousand bucks you're paying three thousand bucks the article also then goes on to mention the e.u. ban on iranian oil imports which comes into force on july first could hit europe harder than it does iran so think of this as you see mass protests the burning of

athens the mass protests in lisbon remember one hundred thousand people were out in the streets of lisbon the same time the greeks were out there is mass protest and austerity and suffering and economic hardship all across europe and now they're going to find that as iran currently supplies five hundred thousand barrels of oil per day to the e.u. there is a potential oil price spike in the offing should iran preemptively stop the flow of oil which is it has threatened to do you know what let me go back to my original question where is germany going with all of this in other words if that is true what you just said and you've got europe forced to take a position between the u.s. israel and u.k. and iran which way will germany swing well carthage is the answer again curfew. must be destroyed now many romans went and fought all these punic wars they fought as valiant soldiers dedicating their patriotic fervor to rome their lands

were stolen they paid the price so that carthage was destroyed they themselves were the victims this is part of carthage this is part of iran being destroyed must be wiped off the face of the earth forever standing up to the empire that they could control the straits of hormuz based on a paper currency that is being diluted based into oblivion sure but it's a great deal in the world to get that we all know it's a currency that is worth nothing imagine if you came up with this fabric of paper here and i had to give you all my labor for that for just because you said it also still uses face on this piece of paper and as a movie going to trade out of premium to every other currency out there on the globe well this sort of a mentality of course trickles down even critics of safety net increasingly depend on it so this is an article that got

a lot of attention from the new york times last weekend and a source with key goal brinson owns a logo apparel shop deals and julie on the side and referees youth soccer games he makes thirty nine thousand dollars a year and wants you to know that he does not need any help from the federal government and he says too many americans live on handouts and that's why he backs the tea party and he dedicates money and time to getting the tea party in there to take down the government yet this year as in each of the past three years mr goldman sachs is counting on a payment of several thousand dollars from the federal government a subsidy for working families called the earned income tax credit he has signed up his three school age children to eat free breakfast and lunch a federal expense and medicare paid for his mother eighty eight to have hip surgery twice so. they would chronicle over and over that in fact much of the social safety net in america was in order to keep americans from extreme absolute poverty but

actually more and more of that pie is actually going to the middle class who are making thirty nine forty fifty thousand dollars and they're getting more and more of that pie and actually the poor the very poor are getting less and less of it and it is that middle class that they highlight so you know well that they're the ones that are most against federal hand outs to other people and the federal government does such a good job at it these people are even aware of it it's invisible to them they're pulled completely subsidized by the government and they have the nuts to come on and say well i don't want any federal subsidy i don't need it i'm a john wayne what do i need meanwhile an entire life is subsidized by the government because a stone so well he doesn't even know what a frickin baby got these diapers changed now i want to end on one little quote here from socrates because we're doing all these history lessons of going back in history to carthage and of course athens on fire was in the news and it really fits in with these themes that we've been talking about today at his trial when socrates

was asked to propose his own punishment he suggested a wage paid by the government and free dinners for the rest of his life instead of the death sentence which he received well as a philosopher and i think it's interesting that even two and a half thousand years ago this was still an issue of who gets the free lunch and government salary on one hand people want it but as socrates is perhaps suggesting it's also a punishment goldman sachs went around that would have created hemlock futures and forced him to buy into fifty trillion dollars worth of beyond collateralized hemlock futures contracts and what have gone bankrupt and kill themselves anyway all right stacy ever thanks so much for being on the kaiser report q. manx don't go away much more coming away so stay right there.

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the fifty. first. welcome back to the kaiser report imax keyser time now to go to new york and speak with chris whalen of tangent capital criswell and welcome to the kaiser report max all right chris well let's get into this question on everybody's mind the latest greek deal your thoughts well it's it's not so much a deal as is buying time we're now going to try and convince all these investors to

take a seventy percent loss and take these new pieces of paper in exchange for the old ones i don't know if this is going to be successful you know eventually we're going to have a new government in greece too and they may not agree with the path that the technocrats are taking at the moment so i think you have to view this is a step toward some kind of resolution but i don't think this is it right let's let's try to look at this you know higher up just look at the euro itself not sure if you have comments on this per se but i know your your colleague over there tangent capital jim rickards is very constructive on the euro over the dollar do you have an opinion on this currency play well it's funny you're right jim rickards is very bullish on the your or at least constructive and so is my good friend david kotok wrote a book a couple years ago suggesting that people invest in europe i'm still waiting to hear what is going to bring all of these countries into full union both in

a fiscal sense and the currency use we already have a currency union but we still have all these disparate countries so i'm not sure that they. really yet agreed to go all the way so if you're asking me do i think the euro is a good place to store value right now the answer would be no i don't think the euro is going to disintegrate i think the core countries germany france the benelux nations will probably stay together but the question is what do we do with the periphery even italy i just don't know that the italians or the spanish can bring their countries into line so that they can live like germans so i just don't know where we are in terms of the euro i always remind people that the treaty of rome and the coming together of the western european countries was an american idea and i'm not sure it was terribly well thought out the whole rationale was to prevent another war by putting all the europeans together tying their fate together but in terms of thinking through all of the.