coming up it's the company of people paid to gather intelligence on government agencies and corporations but someone was watching them while they watched everyone else and now wiki leaks is taking strappers intelligence global well to tell you all about the latest leave. versus supreme court decided that they are people now the scales of justice may be tipping and favor of corporations once again this time it's over torture and whether big businesses can be sued for the role they play and it will show you the dark side of corporate personhood. and in the fog of war there is always confusion oftentimes whichever side journalists are allowed

to invest with and get the positive coverage that it with the besiegers in iraq to the seeds in syria we'll show you how conclusions can be drawn by the camera lens. it's tuesday february twenty eighth four pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching r.t. . well the whistle blowing website wiki leaks has started releasing over five million e-mails from stress for stratfor is a private intelligence gathering firm based in texas and their clients range from big corporations to government agencies wiki leaks reportedly obtained the e-mails from the hacktivist group anonymous and while there hasn't been anything particularly groundbreaking it released yet the documents to reveal several huge corporations working with the intelligence far regardless of what details come out

of the e-mails they do reveal yet another layer of something we bring much attention to here at r.t. the massive and profitable military industrial complex to talk more about this charlie mcgrath of wide awake news dot com joins us now live hi there charlie so big companies turning to stratfor for intelligence for information so obviously there is quite a demand for their services so is intelligence another layer of the military industrial complex yes i would actually label it the security industrial complex and you know certainly since nine eleven trillions of dollars have been spent securitizing this nation and we've seen this rise of private contractors in the intelligence game and you know this is just a byproduct of that now we have all these private companies that are acting as intelligence agencies and we're seeing them being hired by a group such as companies such as goldman sachs bank of america all to gain a les go on you know to the front runner the bad news and to gain

a leg up on the competition perhaps or try to figure out how to go in and conquer new areas of the world financially now so intelligence as we see from this leak is a a business a very big business it's become a commodity that can be bought and sold charlie who is benefiting from this business. well the private contractors the institutions like the one we're talking about that sprung up out of nine eleven and securitizing this country the security industrial complex over a trillion dollars spent in the last decade just to get us ready for the next terror attack what is sprung out of this is this unbelievable web of private contractors who have an unbelievable amount of information on regular people and have really no checks and balances of government there are operating outside the law in my opinion and they're gathering which would could be considered dangerous information about people with no regard to their constitutional rights how is that

able to happen charlie to operate above the law well they're not oversaw you know they're not there's no committee overseeing them for in congress they don't answer to anybody in washington d.c. we don't have the checks and balances like we would on something supposedly like the cia or the n.s.a. so that you know they're out there gaining intelligence but the big concern always because a private corporation is the bottom line and you just mentioned trillions of dollars spent on security security sounds like a good thing for the average said a said so i mean if it is in fact being used to improve security is this something that citizen should be too bothered about. you know every anytime that liberty is being usurped or we're throwing away our god given rights we should be very concerned about it when we're having for profit corporations go out and gather intelligence that is just completely wrong i mean there is

a function of government you know intelligence apparatus is one of them to have it for profit is inherently dangerous and i think we start to see that you know and it's ironic that we see wiki leaks being attacked wiki leaks the only outfit out there is trying to disseminate information to the public and were you know told that it's a bad thing that they're jeopardizing national security but the fact of the matter is there are so many corporations out there for profit corporations that are gathering intelligence we keep leaks isn't the problem it's this rogue intelligence apparatus that we have around the world that's the problem and talk a little bit more charlie about what it means for the average said a said and you know our rights to our right to privacy when intelligence firms become a growing business says. well you know it's hard to it's hard to quantify what it means to the average person but you know what can be said about it is what used to be a function of the government has now been shifted to private corporations probably with the

a little bit of payola that came from the corporations in the first place this is a perfect example of legal based and financial based capitalism free market capitalism is dead legal basin and financial based capitalism is what we have now and what that means is if you have a legal base capitalist system you have corporations maybe there's a c.e.o. or maybe there's some other intelligence credit gathering corporation they greases the wheels in washington d.c. with money in order to get the power elite elected and keep them in office then they end up with these big fat lucrative contracts all on the back of the taxpayers of this country and with no way to oversee what they're doing other than you know the same politicians who gave them the authority to collect data they're the ones who supposedly have oversight over and it seems to be a very slippery slope and very dangerous for the intelligence gathering capability of this country now we do see that intelligence and is indeed a big business do you expect the demand for it to increase sure i think we're going to see the demand for increase especially as we see public outrage continue to grow

i think will see the security industrial complex that we've seen grow up over the last ten years turn into it rather than facing the guns outward looking for the next enemy under the bed the next the up within earshot to pop out of the closet we're going to turn those guns inward on the people of this country and people such as myself that maybe go on the radio every night and talk about companies like bank of america or goldman sachs or j.p. morgan chase you know we know for a fact because of wiki leaks the bank of america does hire these kind of firms to find out what's being said about them and to work on their public image so yeah i mean i think we're going to sixteen you to see them thrive and prosper but it's going to be term in work rather than supposedly looking for threats outward. very interesting charlie thank you so much for coming on the show pleasure to have you on as always that was charlie mcgrath founder of wide awake news dot com. still ahead on arts here we already know that corporations are people that much was

decided by the supreme court not too long ago but do those people have the right to torture that's the debate currently being weighed by the scales of justice but if they are why do i have to abide by the law that story next. and what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through it's already been made can you trust no one.

with the global machinery where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do our t.v. question more. well today the supreme court takes on a case that could decide whether or not corporations can be sued over torture the case involves about a dozen nigerian activists that say shells show oils parent company help the nigerian government and violently cracking down on anti oil protesters in the country but the multinational company argues they are not liable because they are quote because they are not quote natural persons so in other words since corporations are not people they can't be sued for human rights violations all of this talk more about the implications of this caroline helder and professor of politics ahead of us in a college joins us now hi welcome caroline so this comes years after the

controversial citizens united case where the supreme court ruled that corporations are people and therefore they have the rights upon as much money as they want into political campaigns but when it comes to something like human rights violations they're not people how does that make sense. well the case this particular case is coming because the second circuit court. is looking at this shell case and saying well if a corporation is not a natural citizen then they can't be held liable for their actions of cross overseas the problem is three other courts disagree with them and the supreme court upheld this notion that we could be trying corporations and individuals based upon violations of international human rights law in two thousand and four so this is not following precedent and the fact that the supreme court is looking at this now probably means that there's a pro corporatist agenda and it doesn't make sense given the citizens united case

because you can't have it both ways right you can't say well you get to be a citizen you get to be considered a citizen if you're a corporation because it will give you power in politics but then we're not going to hold you accountable using that same logic it is illogical and there certainly seems to be a contradiction there mitt romney presidential candidate stands by the fact that corporations are people here's what he had to say about the issue in the past. my friend we can raise taxes and of course they are everything corporations are and also that it goes to people. what do you think. so corporations are people shouldn't they be punished for torture. well they should indeed right we have that eight hundred eighty six case of the santa clara case finding that corporations are people and then the application in two thousand and ten was citizens united saying and they can contribute as much as they want to in politics using that logic we need to hold it treat them as citizens across the board

although i would take a step back and say i have a problem with the fact that we can't hold corporations accountable and lest we consider them to be persons i want to hold them accountable regardless of whether or not we consider them to be natural citizens imagine the implications if we were to implement this law in the united states what corporations can't be held accountable for murder and rape and in this particular trial state sanctioned murder for environmental and human rights protesters in nigeria we would never allow this on american soil so why are we willing to allow this on nigerian soil that is certainly an interesting question and so it seems that corporations want to have the best of both worlds they want to be considered a person when it benefits that and not consider a person when it doesn't benefit. right liz you bring up a great point right that the supreme court that we're seeing right now is the legacy of the bush administration but also the lower courts i mean there was

a concerted effort to stack the courts with conservative pro corporate individuals and i think what you're going to see is this a pa prosy where the five members of conservative members of the supreme court ended up supporting citizens united which is triple the amount of outside money in politics in the two thousand and ten election and will probably be much larger than that in the two thousand and twelve election you're going to see those same folks saying corporations shouldn't be held accountable for torture for rape for murder it just boggles the mind how blatant the political agenda is here and when you look at the lower courts so far with all of this disagreement it is it is split along the lines of party so democratically appointed judges have been in favor of holding corporations accountable for these atrocities and republican judges with the exception or republican appointed judges with the exception of one have gone with corporations and allowing then this double standard or into this incredible immunity which is just popping up out of thin air with no precedent and it seems

like a no brainer i mean if somebody is torturing another person that that person should be held accountable but how far could this go i mean exploiting slaves atrocious human rights violations that corporations will not be responsible for these heinous acts should the supreme court rule in their favor is that correct. correct in fact i think that if the supreme court rules in their favor it will encourage corporations to go in especially those that are extracting resources like oil or mining they will go and seek out regimes where they don't have to worry about human rights violations because those regimes can then take care of environmental protesters or people who stand up to them i mean look at the shell case in nigeria we're talking about medical doctors and activists who stood up to shells environmental degradation in their human rights violations and they were murdered state sanctioned murder for this and what's interesting liz is that this

reveals that this is not a particularly unusual pattern here we see a lot of corporations and gauging in this behavior anough so that we can we can talk about at least a dozen cases previously so carolina we had citizens united now this is this yet another example of corporations and their overwhelming power growing power of government and politics here in the u.s. absolutely i mean we have the best government that corporations can buy at this point we see the voice of citizens trying to buy corporate money and the citizens united ruling is done exactly what we thought it would do it is increase it it is increased outside spending and it does there's no transparency right we don't know where this money is coming from it's coming from probably a handful of large donors we need to revoke corporate personhood we need to go back to a time in the united states where corporations could only exist if they serve the public interest now doesn't mean they wouldn't exist and it doesn't mean that the market

wouldn't be free in fact i would argue that it would restore much better market mechanisms were corporations couldn't put their bottom line in front of the health lives and safety of american citizens or in this case nigerian citizens. obviously very huge implications for this case it will be interesting to see how it plays out thank you for coming on the show that was caroline held men politics professor at a hospital college. well the government's refusal to grant foreign journalists unfettered access has deep in the fog of war those who get it off to do so legally and as a result are limited to reporting on the bloodshed from behind the rebel held lives just last week two western journalists were killed in holmes the scene of some of the bloodiest battles between armed opposition groups and the forces of president bashar al assad some media executives say the lack of press access is unprecedented but as artie's lucic half an offer is about to show the world has been through this at least once before there is no doubt that the siege of homes is brutal and

horrific but it's difficult to see how it differs from the siege of fallujah back in two thousand and four. but they now call homes the capital of the revolution just as they once called palooza the capital of terror different conflicts that share more in common that actually means the eye now each is the third largest city and its country in each the site of a bloody urban war one of them now in history books the other still raging as we speak now in homes as in fallujah poorly armed insurgents faced off against a superior military well equipped soldiers armed with mortar snipers tanks and airpower and in both cases officials claims that only heavy handed force could bring peace blaming the violence on criminals and terrorists here's the chief military spokesman for the u.s. forces in iraq we will hunt down the criminals we will kill them we will capture them it we will pass before i lose you and here is syrian president bashar al assad

. our priority now is to regain security which our country has enjoyed for decades this can only be achieved by using the terrorists with an iron hand because there will be no leniency for those who are using weapons to q well civilians now in both countries that hire in hands targeted a sunni muslim opposition in wars that took on increasingly sectarian tones in fallujah u.s. forces and the shia iraqi troops were seen as infidels in syria their religious wrath is aimed at assad's alawite forces. some disparaging comments salah white monkeys satanic troops those are just some of the many slurs now amid the violent clashes gut wrenching images like these showing the human toll of war streets littered with bodies of the wounded not to mention those of the dead but this is

where the similarities and civilians did suffer most in both wars and yet the stories of pollution innocents remain largely untold most reporters in two thousand and four were embedded with the u.s. troops today the few who do sneak into syria often stick with the rebels and the difference in the coverage as well self-evident americans hit the military and murders. more of them by. the main hospital and locked in a key group they need help from the outside world medicine the most basic supplies so i witnessed acts of uncommon valor from the u.s. soldiers that i was with protesters fearless protesters really. now those who dared show images of the civilian casualties in palooza were often dismissed as propaganda their viewers even got the following advice from the pentagon. change the channel to a legitimate before to live on

a news station the accusations from the syrian government are eerily similar today lies in the media have gone beyond common sense some television channels have lost all shame and profession. now it is often said that perception forms reality and nowhere does this ring more true that in syria and iraq in one battle the press told the story of the besiegers in the other out of the besieged and in both cases it would seem it's the truth that suffered most. of our washington. so what's with this selective storytelling and what ever happened to getting both sides of the story joining me now to answer more of these questions is blogger matt car well he should be joining us in a little bit we're going to be talking about the differences in the coverage of holmes and felicia both. both different regions obviously but more similarities

than you might think matt carr who is joining us momentarily is the author of the infernal machine an alternative history of terrorism. either man i see you want to start off by asking you what similarities you see between holmes and felipe and the difference in media coverage over the two conflicts. whether the forms of violence that we've seen reported in arms are strikingly similar to what we saw in fallujah as your correspondent just pointed out you see unfit we've seen reports of snipers shooting civilians the use of heavy weapons against them fighters in imbedded in civilian areas we've had reports in both volusia and arms how soldiers shooting children the shooting an ambulance is shooting ospital in the leadership there were reports of banned weapons phosphorus weapons. helicopter gunships firing at civilians in their homes u.s.

soldiers shooting people because they couldn't speak english we've seen atrocities and human rights abuses in both situations the coverage in the western media what's taking place in homs is very different to the way that it dealt with the events in egypt because. for one thing in fallujah most reporters most mainstream reporters working for western media outlets were embedded with the u.s. troops surrounding the leader it was a deliberate strategy employed about pentagon because they want to avoid the kind of negative coverage that they received during the first april two thousand and four assault on fallujah when number images broke out particular to zero showed basic about six hundred civilians have been killed and he was at the time the first assault dismissed that as propaganda so the second time around in november when the group led to the biggest of all they made sure they had something like sixty are embedded reporters so obviously if you are embedded with a non it is carrying out

a military assault you're going to get quite a different perspective than if you were amongst the this is the people who are on the receiving end of salt and in the case of homs. we have seen not that many reporters did not know that many of actually made it to homs with those that have been in homs itself and so they've been giving it's not necessary question which is . accurate which is true i think when you're dealing with western media coverage of violent conflicts it's a question of emphasis was what they emphasize what is left in and what is left out in fallujah there were very credible reports from a few independent journalists and from eyewitnesses in st lucia of widespread atrocities carried out by u.s. troops during the april assault on the defenders all but these reports got very very little coverage in mentioning media whereas when we're looking at syria we hear nothing but atrocities and even rights abuses and there's no conflict as you

are stuck in the fact that we didn't see that coverage when it comes to fallujah in the mainstream media is it because the fact that the reporters weren't embedded to see that side and report on it or are you saying that there's something else going on where there's a conscious effort to not report on that information i think there's two things that have been really well i mean it's amongst. the western media in general there is a striking tendency when dealing with foreign conflicts that involve western troops or military operations or the conflicts involving allies or countries in which western countries and governments have some kind of interest there is a striking tendency to simply fall into line with the official narrative obviously if you're in bed with an ominous character miter saw if you look at inevitably going to bond with the soldiers more than the people at the receiving end of a do it may well be shooting you as well as the saudis so that naturally narrows the land somewhat that's why and gone was basically ducking the strategy it was in

the gulf war but there is another wider question which is as you suggest when dealing with these kind of conflicts if it's striking because the risks for challenging official narratives are not that great for most reporters in the western media because the most that can happen to them is the lose their jobs or they won't get rich and yet despite very this. rist it's often stunning to me at least how readily. the the western media in his editorial lines its coverage and people who do interviews in his general portrayal of these conflicts will reflect not exactly what it is told to do it's more not so simple it is given orders as such but it simply echoes or acts as a kind of echo chamber floor for the military and for the government agenda i'm of the moment well you just said that western media rarely challenge as the western narrative do you think that's in part due to the fact that maybe they take as

a given that all foreign policy decisions are driven by morals and humanitarian objectives. that's exactly what happens really i mean another there's another and it's a very important issue just raised really because. we in western society in general is not to the media basically helps generate this image which is basically group comes through the public and basically is constantly. propagated by politicians that western societies are inherently not militaristic when they engage and on and on it's always according to rules it's always done with respect for civilian life it of days the laws and the rules and yes in the kind of countries that you see even when you see who are the most extreme and those seemingly obvious atrocities that instead of one example on the first day of operation cast lead israel's two thousand and nine souls of gaza. israel fired

a missile without warning it killed about thirty or forty massed traffic police. they were simply standing out in a passing out rate it weren't fighting when you know the fight was coming right the mad mad i'll be portrayed it had been done by syria i think we can get the idea i don't mean to cut you off there sorry about that we're just out of time thank you so much for for coming on the show very interesting that was a blogger and author of the infernal machine an alternative history of terrorism and that car. the capital account is up next on our team at let's check in with lauren lesser to see what is on today's agenda hi lauren what can we look forward to hey liz you can like ward to some addressing of the big questions coming out of europe we have heard the news that ireland is calling for a referendum for a vote essentially on the fiscal pact for greater fiscal discipline that germany and the thing euro zone has called for and already we hear cries that this should not go to referendum the last time this happened in greece

a technocrat was installed in power so we're going to see if this is going to be yet another case of democracy just being too inconvenient for the debt crisis right that is coming up next the capital account that's going to go for the news well see you right back here at five o'clock. wealthy british style. that's what i'm fighting for. markets why not come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with max cons or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into cars a report on our. world for the future of

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