if you broke keystrokes now be considered an act of terrorism should the u.s. be more afraid of foreign threats or domestic activists some believe that new york could eventually be on iran's hit list we have to assume that hezbollah would be the forensic world carry out its part forget iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction its iran's nuclear potential that we should really be afraid of more so the media would have you think police forces in new york are ramping up security efforts is this phobia justified or is it a bunch of static and i was wrong. it's one step forward and two steps back for the u.s. military still fighting a war in afghanistan from you're an aging on bodies of alleged al qaeda members to burning korans and the u.s. win the hearts and minds of the afghan people.

tuesday february twenty first five pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching r.t. . well the u.s. department of defense is calling it the fifth domain of warfare last week r.t. took up the issue of cyber war looking into how defense firms and former u.s. officials are cashing in on security contracts that combat a this new fear now u.s. lawmakers are pushing for more power over the internet in the name of cyber security just today the national security agency warned that the hacktivist group anonymous could have the ability to attack the u.s. power grid in a year or two at a time when political hackers have joined forces with occupy wall street movement artie's lucy caffein of shows us how protecting free speech and the internet are growing increasingly at odds. cyber war is the next pearl harbor some dismiss it as

hype but in congress it's a clear and present danger we will suffer a catastrophic cyber attack the clock is ticking and in the pentagon wrote keystrokes could now be met with real weapons the pentagon now considers cyber attacks acts of war a cyber attack could merit a military response bombs for bit so to speak. they say that the threat will come from foreign shores. an invisible enemy that lurks abroad but in this year at the protest that enemy has a familiar face and a presence right here at home alone. we are anonymous a leaderless hacker movement with a political purpose together we stand against the new testament and i don't go into joining forces with occupy wall street to fight corporations banks and governments return for. their freedom of the power of the cyber protesters or cyber terrorists

for the u.s. government there may not be much of a difference there's a deep insinuation that dissent is somehow connected to or accessory to terrorism and that's a really horrifying prospect a horrifying prospect that is now reality if you're an american citizen and you betray your country you're going to be held in military custody and you're going to be questioned about what you know you're not going to be given a lawyer and freedom of speech and the internet may soon follow right now china the government can disconnect parts of it's in another in the case of war we need to have the pushing the us down the road to tyranny says retired army colonel lawrence wilkerson i don't think they're doing this based on their fear of terrorists. i really think they're doing this based on their ultimate fear of the occupy wall street movements in this country the face of a freedom fighter or a terrorist here in the u.s. the line between the two is growing increasingly blurred obscured by fear and the

fog of cyber war you see catherine of r.t. washington. well earlier i spoke with david seaman journalist and host of the d l show on house potential cyber warfare could affect the rights of every day u.s. citizens take a listen. i think the term cyber terrorism is a real misnomer it's something to get the sheeple behind this ridiculous idea that you fight hackers with physical force with drones that drop bombs and with hit squads that literally come into your apartment and could potentially execute you in the middle of the night it's such a ridiculous response to what amounts to defacing government agency websites if you take down the government agencies website that is not terrorism you're not killing anybody you're not harming anybody you're creating an inconvenience to be sure and it's definitely a criminal activity but it is not terrorism and the same applies to you know leaked documents that surface online on some of these download networks that we're we're

seeing around the world things like bittorrent that's not terrorism that's getting information out there and i think the government is terrified of the facts getting out to the average person that's what they're really afraid of here. now this fear is mostly a torrent for an hacker but is there a risk that the hackers right here at home can face similar consequences. i think there is that fear and i think what we're seeing with groups like anonymous and organizations like wiki leaks and the various occupy protests that are popping up around the world is that these movements are transnational if you have an e-mail or you know not a well instant messenger you can be in touch with somebody in africa or in europe so that's what the government is worried about i don't think they're going to respect borders all that much when it comes to cyber terrorism if there's a threat they're going to label it as terrorism in the going to go after it and speaking of anonymous the national security agency now says that the hacktivist

group well in a couple of years be able or be capable of hacking into u.s. power grids which could disrupt power anonymous today responded to this on twitter let's take a look at some of their tweets they said you know the n.s.a. director warns that anonymous could soon cause a limited power outages. and you know their response is this is fear mongering at its best second tweet there why would i shut off the power grid there are people on life support other vital services that rely on it try again n.s.a. and that is what the hashtags fear mongering and another tweet there the n.s.a. is reprehensible fear mongering and attempts to discredit anonymous are transparent and baseless. now a novel i mean. not to mention the fact that why would they cut off their power that's how they stay in touch with their followers through e-mail exactly and so

far anonymous has been used like to make political purpose is to make political statements why than what they target civilians where is the motivation there. it does seem like fear mongering to me i don't know the specifics of what the n.s.a. was saying but i think whenever you shut down information sharing whatever you shut down and whenever you threaten. activists groups whether they be electronic or people out in the street protesting something if you threaten with a military response and physical violence on the part of the government i don't think that's acceptable we're seeing them labeled these sorts of groups as cyber terrorism and we're seeing when somebody gets off their computer and they go out into the street and become part of a peaceful protests like what happened in oakland california recently they're met with less than lethal shotgun bullets from police and tear gas and other chemical agents so the government is definitely cracking down and i think this whole cyber

terrorism thing is just one more aspect of that now is this an example that of a line that is a blurring between line protester and online terrorists. well i think here's the thing the government has always had some control over you know television media and radio media but with the internet there is no control it's kind of anarchic if you think about it and it's totally democratic also if something has merit rises to the top and people find out about it even if those truths are inconvenient and in response we're seeing all kinds of legislation to crack down on this we saw. the same guys introducing h.r. nine hundred eighty one a surveillance bill i think that is trying to dismantle the internet basically they don't want to remain this international free thing where people can transfer information and people can. organize so i think they're doing everything in their

power to stop the internet in its current form and you know as you just mentioned we are seeing laws for example the national defense authorization act that passed recently which congress and congress also tried to push through these sopa bell and that's aimed at gaining control over the enter net now we have these new fears for over a cyber war and the wake of all this what does it mean for the fundamental rights and civil civil liberties for u.s. citizens. well lou is this is all just icing on the cake and it was the big thing and that's already been signed into law. now of flying a large portion of our bill of rights for american citizens and at this point they just want to censor the internet and control the internet so that protests against . and against some other government injustices don't go mainstream and when you turn on t.v. right now on some of the other networks what you see instead of seeing information about and or information about you know sopa and h.r.

nine hundred eighty one and people asking why don't we investigate people like representative lamar smith who wrote sopa and some of these other damaging bills instead of seeing that on the news you're seeing like three hour feeds of whitney houston's funeral. a person's funeral instead of seeing the funeral of our democracy and that's just the whole thing is weird i don't really understand what's happening here i certainly don't either david pleasure to have you on the show as always i was a journalist and host of the d.l. show david seaman. well here in the u.s. there is a lot of fear of iran and its nuclear program and if you listen to the mass media politicians ad g.o.p. presidential candidates it's not hard to understand why that's because a lot of fear mongering rhetoric has been heating up the airwaves recently this despite top military leaders saying iran does not have a nuclear bomb and has not decided to pursue making one so are these just scare

tactics and are the fears being blown out of proportion artie's marina porn i explores how media coverage could be helping and the push for war with iran. kind of shadow war now being waged by iran around the world in the us capital of media and message it one particular story a unilateral strike keeps spinning round and round iran could attack the united states in a much more fear some way iran a hypothetical national security threat growing more dangerous by the day not only that new york could eventually be on iran to list we have to assume that hezbollah would be the proxy for iran well carry out the attack as assumptions about iran's potential plan of mass destruction floods us mainstream media more cops in automatic weapons are flooding specific areas of the big apple the new york city police department increased security around israeli government facilities and synagogues last week amid growing tension over tehran's nuclear program however the

n.y.p.d. says it has not received any specific threat related to iraq upping the ante a u.s. senator has called on federal agents to quote increased scrutiny and vigorously monitor the iranian mission to the united nations but as politicians police officers and most mainstream journalists perpetuate a terrifying scenario for new york city officials in washington have thrown a wrench in this armageddon theme type news narrative by stating the facts about iran and their surrogates will revelation of a much less threatening tehran was recently disclosed during intelligence briefings the agency assesses iran isn't likely to initiate or intentionally provoke a conflict they continue to develop their enrichment capability but the intelligence does not show that they've made a decision to proceed with developing

a nuclear weapon. many experts have labeled iran america's new iraq critics then and now say washington pave the path and corporate me. plugs the message they've done with iraq and they're doing you know to go and it doesn't matter if you were missed by some of the bush administration it's the same strategy it's like all well there might be things but only or there are no nobody interesting so world it's not really credible don't know who's making a million. jack up his work so it goes well when you combine the characters together that you get is a media event they want to impede the most. critical scrutiny as a bit of instead fuel and jam by the day time and time again and we're seeing it again there though according to recent poll americans consider to be iran to be the us is top enemy and nearly half of all citizens support a military strike against iran. when factoring human beings it's necessary

or so close with and these we spend this constant drumbeat is designed to play on that figure to tell you that if you don't question the iranians then will question to marina porter r.t. new york. so well the mainstream media take any responsibility for amplifying the drums of war against iran georgetown university journalism professor chris chambers joined me earlier today in the studio to discuss this very issue i asked him what role he thinks television stations play and swaying the american public to go to war with iran here says take. well it's not necessarily agree ment it's more what what's being covered and what isn't particularly if the three broadcast networks in the cable giants fox and the scent b c c.n.n. most of the analysis and even the analysis on the right wing it's pretty much

taking place within the internet or new sites or on the internet presence of magazines and newspapers that's where you have to go to get the details but with with mainstream media and i'm here i mean television no i mean what it is is they're not they don't do nuance terribly well they do the fear factor kind of shows very well and this is a great item for fear you know and what you have here is is people ginning up coverage of of new people understand nukes people understand military exercises in the gulf people understand us responding to it and then we did it calling the military exercises god's vengeance that gets people crazy what we aren't talking about are the you know the assassinations the cove or war the drones if cetera and the intrigue that might be going on with israel they don't do that particularly well and that's the devil in the details it could get us into trouble so it sounds

like and reporting things in a very important events on the surface that they're kind of just regurgitating are reflecting what is being sad by u.s. politicians by the g.o.p. presidential candidates and not really showing the whole picture you know i think the difference what you have with with between iran now and iraq iraq twenty years ago and iraq in two thousand and three is that you don't have an administration that is purposely manipulating news and the information flow to create you know a result here you you have an administration that is probably stumbling around trying to find it. the way and how to deal with this problem and it is a problem but it is not a crisis and then the media the corporate media coming in primarily t.v. networks and chipping at the edge of the story which is the fear factor and you know here's a situation where ironically you might want the administration not to control the

flow of information but the stand up and say look look let's let's get a message out here that this is important and this is somewhat scary but this is not the giant following bogeyman that everybody is creating and you know we are not pawns of israel we are looking at you know the the situation carefully there is you know you saw leon panetta you saw the chief of staff and then but what happens they get up and say this at a hearing and then what is the mainstream media cover right wing attacks on that position or israel ginning up kind of a war footing you know these guys are the experts these guys are giving the testimony before congress and that's a message that's lost so i think you know maybe the irony is in two thousand and twelve maybe the administration needs to create a message they're not controlling it as they did under the bush administration at a kind of go along with this there is new concerns that iran may be plotting an attack in new york city this is according to them and wikipedia terrorism experts

so in response government buildings jewish synagogues jewish community centers they have been placed on high alert which means they get extra protection of that but the u.s. secretary of defense john it's polock tano says that there is no specific threat so is this being blown out of proportion well i don't i'm trying to figure out how the new york city police department has its own you know intelligence arm that reaches him across to say. they've had some problems in the past with their p.r. and their approach to dealing with muslims and dealing with you know credible threats their intelligence comes from. the federal government they've worked well in the past here this seems to be something that's there's something fishy about this story and it's not iran you know iran is not so stupid as to even with a quote proxy unquote of hezbollah attacked the united states directly and you know

even there are those in israel who even say that so i don't know where this where this comes from in this could be something that's a little fishy or something internal that is feeding frenzy on purpose so you know we don't really know you know and iran has maintained that their nuclear program as for peaceful purposes we even have as you mentioned before top u.s. military leaders confirming that iran does not have a nuclear bomb and hasn't been confirmed that they are pursuing a nuclear bomb why that is there is so much of this warmongering rhetoric when it comes to iran well i mean you have to have a symbol of fear you have you have a presidential campaign now that is definitely a soap opera that worst you know just fun to watch at best people are searching for issues and tag issues and red meat issues that they can feed to their constituency on the one hand on the other hand you do have an issue in the gulf you

do have a nation that is definitely. jumping around and wants to be a great power again in iran and they see nuclear power as a way to do that under certainly nuclear weapons but nuclear power as a symbol so you have fanatics in that country the look at it as a as a way of building themselves up and it feeds the fanatics over here that's great t.v. you don't need analysis for that but i mean two thousand and seven we all thought the through john bolton and dick cheney that iran was going to be attacked it wasn't in two thousand and ten we all thought iran was going to be attacked and it was and now it's a little different because you have that layer of presidential. the you have candidates shooting their mouths off without really understanding the facts to feed red meat to their constituents and you have an administration that again is trying to find a course in a message so when all those things are in play you know it's time to worry chris

pleasure to have you on the you know as always thank you so much of that was christopher chambers journalism professor at georgetown university well thousands of afghans enraged today after reports surface of americans burning korans at the back room air base and afghanistan their reports suggest that the books were taken from taliban prisoners after they were suspected of using them to send messages to each other now protesters thousands of them are demonstrating outside of the base and the protest turned quite violent they threw rocks over and tires and smashed build buildings many of the buildings located nearby that base u.s. officials including defense secretary leon panetta are condemning the acts and even issued an apology today but with yet another humiliating report of military behavior abroad is this really the way to win the hearts and minds of people overseas can we now is jake deliberate oh iraq war vet they seceded jake.

it was their series well so afghans are angry because burning the koran is considered extremely sacrilegious when reports like this get out to the afghan people how does it breed anti american sentiment abroad. well this cannot be seen as an isolated incident this needs to be seen and the broader context of the united states having a p.r. problem with the islamic world since one thousand fifty three the us has been engaged in the series of affairs in the middle east that has not been done well for arabs persians or in this case afghans and the general movement within the islamic world to reject a lot of american. political ideas as well as activity and in this situation if you can imagine just if the us did everything right and the were disposed

of the proper way and everything was done well it doesn't matter because for the afghan the rumor mill is what dictates everything one person said look the americans destroyed a bunch of korans they're going to remember back a few months ago when terry jones that even if we did a right they're going to remember of that wacko back in last year when westboro and terry jones so it's a it's a broader p.r. problem and the problem we have is it's not going to go away as certainly this would be a p.r. problem because it is not making troops there less very good at all and we should mention that defense secretary leon panetta has condemned the act and vowed to take measures to prevent something like this from happening again but jake has the damage already been done. i mean the damage was done the damage was done. a long time ago when the israeli state was established in the treatment of palestinians

thus far has been bad the damage was done when the us did a bunch of. things regarding governments around on supporting saddam hussein in the one nine hundred eighty s. and supporting khadafi and mubarak and a bunch of corrupt regimes in the damage was even further done when we invaded iraq in two thousand and three on the sarah lee now again ask. situation a little bit different but it can't be seen isolated muslims have a trans national identity and they see any behavior towards by the west against the koran or against their face as. a unified movement against muslims and honestly stateside here in the us in the u.k. now but back in the us a lot of domestic policy hasn't been well for the muslims either you know there is the peter king hearings on muslim radicalization work keith ellison was crying when

muslims see that and they get tormented by the fact that they walk around they don't feel like society is on their side at home in the us and abroad. i feel like this conversation is a little bit repetitive because i was talking to you about something another embarrassing act by the u.s. military just not too long ago do you recall that video that resurfaced a marine on the bodies of dead taliban so what is going on here how does this all. the big picture shape of our troops overseas. well specifically in afghanistan. of the marines the marines and of the marines on the dead afghan the burning of the koran the incident now and the others just general treatment of afghans day to day throughout the counterinsurgency effort. afghans are in favor of international support for their not in favor of

a lot of this kind of anti afghan anti muslim behavior which that they see as. an identity crisis that's occurring right now it's as if this is their afghan idea that is being taken from them from foreign occupier and i will tell you the americans that are serving over there the soldiers the guys on the ground these are these are good people that have real good intentions but however due to the nature of war due to the bad situations that they're put in all kinds of unexpected behaviors and with p.t.s.d. with bad diplomatic skills and bad cultural training as well you know you see this kind of stuff happen and. we should be we should know this isn't going to be the last time we're going to see something like this because i are going to show you this probably wasn't done on purpose this was probably an accident but something like this is going to happen again it's only going to make the hearts and the minds

campaign in afghanistan and globally basically untenable and lastly really quickly this is all happening as the u.s. prepares to leave afghanistan. for a good relationship with the afghan people to what extent are events like these going to hinder that that process and that relationship. well i think the afghans are going to be happy once the us leaves i think the taliban is going to be happy when the us leaves i think the product of stan's going to be happy when us leaves i mean americans are going to have with us when the us so we all roll what happens in that side of our areas then it's going to be set at the base of the afghans and this particular incident is probably not going to make a big difference on things but i do think that people remember this stuff whether it's occurring virally through you tube or you know communications or even rumors so again the u.s. has a p.r.

problem with the islamic world and we need to change what we do. thank you for coming on the show pleasure to have you on as always i was a former u.s. marine at our team blocker jake delhomme barito. well the alona show is coming up in just a half an hour let's check in with the law to see what is on today's agenda hi there are a lot of what can we look forward to now as well really interesting discussion going on on today's show it turns out that more venture capitalists are finding themselves investing in companies where the c.e.o.'s happen to be maybe twenty one years of age or even younger so we're seeing a boom of young entrepreneurs are seeing a boom of startups in this country but the whole idea is to how do you get it so that there's more of them right so they're not only centrally located in silicon valley because unfortunately in order to start your own company you need a lot of things you need a big support network you need to know the proper investors and so you know a lot of the time that's left to those young entrepreneurs the already have a support system within their family so we're going to see if maybe the government

should start subsidizing helping out adding a little bit of welfare to startups instead of the giant corporations that we see on a mass scale right looking forward to that that is coming up in just a half hour but that's going to do it for the news right now for more of the stories we covered you can head on over to our t. dot com slash usa and you can also check out our youtube page it's youtube dot com slash r t america you can also follow me on twitter at liz wahl we'll see you right back here at seven o'clock they want to show coming up in half hour. ha ha. ha .