from your knitting on bodies of alleged taliban members to burning korans as a possible to win over a population without taking the time to try to understand them. we will suffer a catastrophic cyber attack the clock is ticking and the total calamity is just a click away terrorism to the laundry list of american fears while lawmakers focus on foreign threats are hacktivists the real danger. some believe that new york could eventually be on iran's hit list we have to assume that hezbollah will be the proxy for rent that will carry out the attack and speaking of fears media outlets have their sights and their rhetoric pointed toward iran but something's missing in all this static like a cold hard facts or explained. it's

tuesday february twenty first eight pm here in washington d.c. and liz well when you're watching our t.v. . well the pentagon 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 aimed at combat ng 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 now at a time when political hackers have joined forces with the occupy wall street movement is loosely caffein off shows us how protecting free speech and the internet are growing really 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 up to protest that enemy has a familiar face and a presence right here at home how low. we are anonymous a leaderless hacker movement with a political purpose together we stand against the new testament i don't know joining forces with occupy wall street to fight corporations banks and governments return for. their freedom of the power of the people 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 our washington. and to talk about what's

being considered a new form of warfare bera brown founder of project pm joins me now. so the pentagon now says they can respond to cyber attacks with physical attacks in other words you mess with our cyber security bombing is not off the table how do you feel about this. well that's no concern you know they're going to you. soon what they see. you know traditionally military sponsored and i mean already they respond to these things when crucial long or. doesn't grow. if you're going to mount a missile is known as awkward. and that's going to lose time goes by regarding this situation. zander and who allegedly off the record talk about potential attack by anonymous against our next two years that seems

very very likely to have been something that was intended to get out. ok from the wall street journal. into fact is that regardless of the truth of the possibility the message gets out we do something about anonymous cowards and to them the first year when they start for them term status as the white house and it's and who are going to do know that starts to equate synonymous in years not as many people with another organization that used to be considerable medical well now that the national security agency you know they did announce that that this group anonymous will be able to hack in to u.s. power grabs which would disrupt power anonymous today responded to this on twitter and just want to take a look at what their response is. the n.s.a. director warns anonymous could soon cause limited power outages this is fear

mongering at its best another tweet here why would a not a mission off a power grab their people on life support and other vital services that rely on it try again and i say that with 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 anonymous so far better at has used hacking for political purposes to make political statements why would they target civilians where is the motivation there. well yes and these are the qualities in the intelligence community are not actually concerned about rinsing knocked off line what they're concerned about is the greater actual real president which is an ongoing dynamic whereby the losing credibility of governments because the left are losing a lot of the credibility of that rely on screen fundamentals. and it's not it's not

as if everyone the country is now closed the government but they're losing the right people they're losing the people who pay attention to people who are who are . the people who really make a policy worth having anonymous whether being on this or anything else these new movements these new groups are attracting like a magnet. that you want to have with you and if that happens the real threat is not whether one will be listened we can balance the more example read the thread is you know the governments and their standpoint how much longer can they go on. as they are in this special spiral of loss now as the pentagon is declaring this new form of warfare. and this is a relatively new territory is it possible that the line can blur between online protests or an online terrorist. no lines they want that one

and in fairness are those those who are to experience the one defines terrorism it's one thing and one finds out with another. i would say it would be hard to point to anything that's been done. by anyone so if anonymous are going to really define is terrorism is terrorism that supposed to mean something with terrorism but i'm going to say that evokes fear to me extent that we can we conflate these things with terrorism term terrorism comes to mean less and less. embarrassed. i don't just want to ask you in the government from from the defense standpoint if it is possible to cause harm to another person through cyber warfare why that shouldn't the government be able to protect against these kinds of attacks well they do and there should be some expense i mean this is a situation of this the rule of law is one of them and all of that. but in so

much of that no one on their side of the law whatsoever especially when dealing with us it's going to make a lot less on our side people to be a lot less interested in following the same you know a nonexistent. you know if if we see more and more conflation between the state and disposed to be harmed or to move low and in these other issues with whom they find a common alliance against and fight with you and you see them by a law and see them ignoring. you know the values that are supposed to. justify the use of the government first place to the extent that they can see. the government has no leg to stand on. very very interesting viewpoint there that was bare brown founder project. and keeping on this issue of cyber security twitter is being called to the stand prosecutors in new york believe one man's

tweets could be considered a disorderly conduct now the man accused was one of hundreds of occupy wall street protesters arrested on the brooklyn bridge back in october protesters say they were practicing their right to free speech police say they were blocking traffic earlier today i spoke with the man whose tweets are causing all this controversy malcolm harris. well when i saw the email i thought it was a scam of some sort these scammers use requests or twitter passwords all the time but when i looked a little closer i saw it was it was a legitimate subpoenas forwarded to me i was shocked surprised it was hilarious and only a little bit scary at the same and wired tweets being called to testify well i was part of the group on with over seven hundred other people arrested on the brooklyn bridge as part of an action beginning of october wall street. i was

charged with disorderly conduct which is the lowest of the low violations you can be charged with in new york state. the parent lease subpoenaed my electronic information pursuant to that charge trying to prove that i was conducting myself disorderly and how far back either are they requesting or tweets how much information are they asking for they're going back to september fifteenth which is actually two days before the first. post on the wall street real action happens the operations of cutting park on seventeen and could you tell us maybe what you were tweeting during this time frame if you believe any of your tweets could be considered disorderly conduct. i don't think anything in the sort of the conduct statute allows for tweeting i actually don't remember what i was saying and since they're far enough back i don't have access to them through twitter. i don't

think there's anything there that they would find of interest but apparently they do now this is a centrally a traffic take at a you call a politically motivated traffic take and why well the prosecution of seven hundred people on the brooklyn bridge there are there is there are actions that go over the brooklyn bridge sherry runs or whatever all the time and no one arrests them. what they arrested seven hundred people there was for was disorderly conduct. in act of civil disobedience and that's why it's politically charged now there were hundreds of people like. any other cases that you know of the prosecutor is trying to get twitter information from political activists. so far mine is the only one i know of connected with the bridge

and now do you think but do you think that this is the beginning of twitter being used more so in the courtroom. well awfully the beginning of the end we were in the motion already twitter's been subpoenaed for more on line related to wall street activities in boston and there's been a wordpress subpoena in plano texas so clearly law enforcement's using whatever tools are at their disposal or they may feel are at their disposal hopefully we're going to able to show through this trial that our electronic communications are not one of those tools now this as. prosecutors are trying to are saying that they need this information to see if they can go ahead with charges as to whether or not you dead. and you did engage in this disruption but you think that there could be more to this what do you think are the greater implications of them trying to extract people's twitter information there or their

tweets and investigations who have to say it could be aiming for some sort of chilling effect where they're trying to prevent protestors or activists from using these effective forms of electronic organization or just if they're going to use them anyway just go fishing through them for anything that might be of use in jenning of new charges which is not the proper use for the trial for a subpoena as has been issued and why do you what is not proper about this. earlier it's proper not as ultimately for a judge to decide. but the scope the scope of the requests running from the fifteenth of september through the fifteenth of december as well as much longer than the electronic subpoenas they've been issued for other are the wall street online activities it looks like a fishing expedition to be honest and what punishment are retribution could you

expect if your tweets were indeed found to form to be part of this disruption. well it once again would have the judge would have decided the guilty of disorderly conduct the tweets are just supposed to be evidence supporting that charge. to be honest i haven't even looked up what the consequences are for disorderly conduct i'm not particularly worried i'm not facing jail time of any sort and i think i mean now are you going to be watching what you tweet more often in the wake of all this. no i think i'll be doing exactly the opposite i think that's the only way you stop any sort of chilling effect that this could have on you. right well it sounds like you are unstoppable when it comes to twitter that was malcolm harris writer an editor for the new inquiry. thousands of ak afghans enraged today after reports service of americans burning korans at the back an air

base in afghanistan the report suggests that the books were taken from taliban prisoners after they were suspected of using them to send messages to each other and now thousands of protesters are demonstrating outside of the base and the protests turned violent demonstrators threw rocks burned tires and smashed buildings nearby 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 of rod is this really the way to win the hearts and minds of people overseas earlier i spoke to r.t. blogger and former u.s. marine jake della barito for his take on all let's take a listen. this cannot be seen as an isolated incident this needs to be seen in the broader context of the united states having a p.r. problem what the islamic world since one thousand nine hundred fifty three the us

has been engaged in a series of affairs in the middle east that has not been well done well for arabs persians or in this case afghans and this is the general movement within the islamic world to reject a lot of american you know political ideas as well as activities and in this situation if you could imagine just if the us did everything right here and the korans were disposed of the proper way and everything was done well it doesn't matter because for the afghan the rumor. mil is what dictates everything so one person said look the americans destroyed a bunch of korans they're going to remember back a few months ago when terry jones and that's so even if we did arise they're going to remember of that wacko back in last year when you know our westborough in jerry jones so it's a row it's a broader p.r. problem and the problem we have is it's not going to go away certainly this would

be a p.r. problem because it is not making troops there look very good at all and we should mention though 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. yeah 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 of iran supporting saddam hussein in the one nine hundred eighty s. and supporting khadafi and 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. situations a little bit different but they 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 u.s. 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 if you recall that video that resurfaced the marines on the bodies of dead taliban so again what is going on here how does this all you know in the big picture shape opinion of our troops overseas as. well specifically

in afghanistan they see the pain of the marines being the marines of the marines on the dead afghans the burning of the koran incident now and others just general treatment of afghans day to day throughout the counterinsurgency effort. afghans they're in favor of international support they're 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 it says this is their afghan idea that is being taken from them from foreign occupier and i will tell you the 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 minds campaign in afghanistan and globally basically untenable and lastly really quickly this is all happening as the u.s. prepares to leave afghanistan and 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 pakistan is going to be happy when the u.s. leaves i mean americans are going to be happy with us when the u.s.

so overall what happens in the side of afghanistan is going to be at the state 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 communications or even rumors so again the u.s. has a p.r. problem with the islamic world and that 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 blogger jake alberto. well here in the last there's been a lot of fear over iran and its nuclear program and 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 i'll georgetown university journalism professor christopher chambers joined me earlier today in studio to

discuss this very issue. well it's not necessarily agree ment it's more what what's being covered and what isn't particularly 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 is 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 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 shipping 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 you know 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 that 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 ministration needs to create a message they're not controlling it as they did under the bush administration that 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 an n.y.p.d. terrorism expert 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 janet 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 the 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 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 of 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. 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 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 on the surly 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 in 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. campaign you have candidates shooting their miles off without really not understanding the facts to feed red meat to their constituents so you have 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 that's time to worry chris pleasure to have you on the you know as always thank you so much that was christopher chambers journalism professor at georgetown university. and that is going to do it for tonight from on the stories we covered and has arky dot com slash usa you can also follow me on twitter at liz wahl have a great actor.