tonight on r t hoops wiki leaks has done it again the info sharing website releases hundreds of emails from an intelligence gathering agency called strapped for the media outlets are finally getting to see the true face of the military industrial complex will bring you the latest. taking aim at the amendment the right to bear arms might just be the only freedom americans are truly willing to fight for these days we'll show you how buying a gun is easier than voting in some states. and in the fog of war there is always confusion which oftentimes whichever side journalists are allowed to embed

with end up getting be positive coverage remembering what the besiegers in iraq to the besieged in syria will show you how conclusions can be drawn by the camera lens . it's tuesday february twenty eighth seven pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching our t.v. . well the whistle blowing web site wiki leaks has started releasing over five million e-mails from strath for strive for is a private intelligence gathering firm based in texas their clients range from 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 released yet the documents do reveal several huge corporations working with the intelligence firm but regardless of what details come out of the

e-mails they do reveal a get another layer of something we brought much attention to here at r t a massive and profitable and military industrial complex for more about this we talked with charlie mcgrath of wide awake news dot com here's his take. i would actually label it the security industrial complex and you know certainly since nine eleven trillions of dollars of 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 a now we have all these private companies that are acting as intelligence agencies and we're seeing them being hired by groups such as companies such as goldman sachs bank of america all to gain a leg up on the front runner bad news and again a leg up on the competition for apps or to try to figure out how to go in and conquer new areas of the world financially so intelligence as we see from this

leak a is a a business a very big business and it's become a commodity that can be bought and sold charlie who is benefiting from this business. well the private contractors the institutions they were talking about this from got out of the 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 out of this is unbelievable web of private contractors who have an unbelievable amount of information on regular people and have really no checks and balances of government they're operating outside the law in my opinion and they're gathering which 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 over they're not there's no committee overseeing them 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 they you know they're out there gaining intelligence but the big concern is always because a private corporation is the bottom line and you just mentioned trillions of dollars spent on security security sounds like a dead thing for the average citizen so i mean if it is in fact being used to improve security is it something that citizen should be too bothered about. every anytime that liberty is being usurped or we're throwing away our god given rights we should be very concerned about it 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 a 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 we're told that it's

a bad thing that they're jeopardizing national security but the fact of the matter is there's so many corporations out there for profit corporations that are gathering intelligence wiki 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 that is then you know our rights to our to privacy when intelligence become growing businesses. 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 evil 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 we'll see the security industrial complex that we've seen grow up over the last ten years turn into it rather than facing the guys out we're looking for the next enemy under the bed the next off with the 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 verbs to find out what's being said about them and to work with their public image so yes i mean i think we're going to do need to see them thrive and prosper but it's going to be turn it were rather than supposedly looking outward very interesting charlie thank you so much for coming on the show pleasure to have a lot as always that was charlie mcgrath founder of wide awake news dot com oh buckling down on your first amendment rights the house today passed a bill that would make it illegal to protest when government officials are nearby and by government officials they mean past present foreign anyone who is protected by the secret service this of course raises a lot of questions about fundamental first amendment rights the freedom of speech

and assembly especially in the wake of the occupy wall street demonstrations that have swept across the country so rick santorum who just got his secret service privileges no protesting near hen former presidents foreign heads of states protesting would be off limits for them now under the act the government has the power to bring charges against any american who engages in political protest around the country so anyone who enters a building without permission with the intent to disrupt a government function as secret service is on the scene that you can be arrested and we're not just talking high profile buildings like the white house either the bill includes any grounds quote restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance so how far can this bill go and bridging on your first meant first amendment rights we'll keep you updated on the story. and speaking of your rights as the presidential campaign heats up we expect

no issue to be off the table and as always the argument over gun rights and gun ownership is sure to fire off some heated debates it's a discussion that is had time and time again the sanctity of the constitution and the second amendment is sure to be invoked but when it comes to another right signing the very making of a democracy that is the right to vote that discussion is had far less often and as arctic correspondent christine for zero found out it's an issue worth looking at as major changes are in the works. it is a write transcribed into the very fabric of our culture and our constitution. the right there was. only a certain number of things that were put in the coast by the founders and they put a right to bear arms of the constitution for a couple reasons first of all they were just finished a violent revolution you know they overthrew oppressive government and i understand

just how many people enjoy that freedom today here's a look at background checks for firearm purchases on what is typically one of the busiest days of the year for potential gun buyers black friday the previous record was in two thousand and eight with just under ninety eight thousand background checks this year the record was broken for checks in a single day with one hundred twenty nine thousand one hundred sixty six thirty two percent increase from two thousand and eight i think right now the reason so many people applied for foreigners licenses is they were afraid the obama administration was going to take active steps to bear and whether or not that's true the gun loving portion of america remains a group whose affection many would be politicians often try to win the republicans they should be better. game that the cap and trade bill and the second amendment is increasingly celebrated and the number of gun owners expand the right to vote listed in the fifteenth one thousand and twenty sixth amendment is

narrowing a new policy that initiatives mean as many as five million eligible voters will lose that right to choose the next person to occupy the white house. fourteen states states which represent two thirds of the electoral college votes needed to win the presidency have already passed several measures these include restrictions on where people can register to vote less time for early voting and stricter laws requiring people to provide government issued photo i.d.'s african-americans alteration of the minorities are very heavily targeted the poor those who don't drive cars or have cars are also very heavily targeted hilary shelton washington d.c.'s and c.p. director says the policies hearken back to the days of jim crow bringing back old obstacles sought to be eliminated by the voting rights act of one nine hundred sixty five the most basic right of all. was the right to

choose your own leader. the history of this country in large measure. is the history of expansion of that right to all of our people by history now reversing itself with new laws also targeting convicted felons who have completed their sentences have jobs and pay taxes in florida iowa virginia and kentucky anyone convicted of a felony has their right to vote denied permanently if the idea of prison is to rehabilitate one of the practices would want those in prisons prisons to be able to to master the process of participate in a dialect or process traveling for many in texas as well where you can't use a student i.d. to vote but you can use a handgun license in the words of governor rick perry who signed the bill it's the integrity of every vote that every vote can the question for many others though how

many votes won't be counted because they were barred from being cast in washington christine for r.t. . well earlier today josh gerstein white house reporter for politico weighed and on the seeming rise and fall of these different amendments take a listen. well there's basically two totally different sets of rules in fact in this country most places if you're not buying from an actual gun dealer you don't need any identification whatsoever in a private sale or to buy a gun at a gun show there's no obligation of the person selling to even check who you are at all with any type of identification and as you just mentioned in that report you've got laws going up all over the country requiring that you have a photo id to vote which kind of surprising number of americans don't have so why i put more regulations on voting instead of more regulations on owning guns.

well i don't think it's generally considered an either or although there was a mention there of felons and criminals and in fact it's much easier for felons and criminals to get guns to get their gun rights restored in a lot of places than it is for them to be able to cast a ballot there is this concern among conservatives among republicans that there's a lot of voter fraud that there are people going to the polls and casting ballots that they don't deserve to have that they're either not citizens or they already voted somewhere else or using a false identity how often that goes on regarding guns i'm not entirely sure but again why would you go and present yourself if you're not qualified when you could just legally basically buy a gun without any background check in certain venues at all and with a more regulations on who and when someone can vote who is hurting from this senator who is benefiting from these tighter voting rolls well it's it looks like it's going to be largely minorities that are going to be hit because they tend to have a lower percentage of having either driver's licenses or state photo i.d.'s it also

looks like students in a lot of states could be hurt as again was mentioned in the report in places like texas a student id from a university even though it's issued by a state university is not considered sufficient to vote and so therefore if those students don't have driver's licenses which many of them may not and don't have driver's licenses from texas they might not be able to vote either now when it comes to owning guns the right to bear arms but those that believe in that right of are very very passionate about protecting their rights to own guidance and as sam and i went to see back and saw a lot of stands out there making sure that that is indeed protected why don't we see the same kind of passion when it comes to possibly losing the freedoms to vote . it's a good question you do see a lot of groups protesting it but i agree with you there haven't been the same level of demonstrations and so forth i think you have to look at sort of the socio

economic background of the people who would be affected folks that are likely to not have a driver's license or state id may not be working a lot of them could be homebound a lot of them could be elderly there not necessarily people that are going to turn out at a protest if you have the wherewithal to get to a protest you probably have the wherewithal to get a photo id but it is interesting a lot of these laws kind of harken back to thirty or forty years ago when we had poll taxes you had to pay a certain amount of money to vote the court said you can't do that and now people in some states are being told you have to pay for a photo id in order to vote and when you see this crackdown on the right to vote presumably it prevents people from being able to vote how do you think that could possibly tip the outcome of the election. you know it the general conventional wisdom is that republicans benefit from stricter voting rules because a lot of those who would be affected are minorities and minorities tend to vote

more democratic than republican there does seem to be a lot of energy among conservative republicans for passing these kinds of laws whether they actually can tip the balance in an individual election i think it's not entirely clear at this point clearly it's something that the republicans want to see happen and most democrats are trying to prevent from taking place right and that's something that would be hard to measure what do you think it's says about priorities and politics when we see something like you know the right to bear arms a lot of passion behind that and then when it comes to voting not so much a there when we see the rise and fall of these different kinds of regulations when it comes to these amendments what does it have to say about the priorities and politics. well there's no question that the moment the gun lobby is a more vocal and more active constituency then the civil rights movement the civil rights movement has been going for forty or fifty years and i think

a lot of people at this point probably assume that those rights are secured when in some places they might not be but it's sort of across the political spectrum the success of the gun rights lobby even this white house has said basically not a word about any increased gun control since they came into office and so that gives you a sense of how reluctant democrats are to even engage on the gun rights issue whereas certainly on the other issue of the voter id they are willing to speak out about that. thank you for coming on the show that was josh gerstein white house reporter for politico. well the government's refusal to grant foreign journalists unfettered access has deepened the fog of war those who get in often do so illegally and as a result are limited to reporting on the bloodshed from behind rebel held lines just last week two western journalists were killed in holmes the scene of some of the bloodiest battles between armed opposition groups in the forces of president

bashar assad said media executives say the lack of press access is unprecedented but as artie's lucy caffein off 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 volusia back in two thousand and four where they now call homes the capital of the revolution just as they once called pollution of the capital of terror different conflicts that share more in common than actually meets the eye now each is the third largest city in this country and 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 air power and in both cases of fishes 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 flew. 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 you've. seen using weapons to kill civilians now in both countries that iron hand 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 is well self-evident americans hate the military and there are. more of them by. the main blog he wrote they need help from the outside world medicine the most basic supplies. so 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 fallujah were often dismissed as propaganda their viewers even got the following advice from the pentagon. change the channel to a legitimate authoritative corniche 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 and professionals are. now it is often said that perception forms reality and nowhere does this ring more true than in syria and iraq in one battle the press told the story of the besiegers in the other that of the besieged and in both cases it would seem it's the truth that suffered most. of our washington. so what is with this selective storytelling and what ever happened to getting both sides of the story to help me answer some of these questions earlier i spoke with blogger matt carr he is also

the author of the book the end colonel machines and on your screen there an alternative history of terrorism i started off by asking him what similarities he sees between homes in fallujah and differences in media coverage of the two conflicts take a look. 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 see reports of snipers shooting civilians the use of heavy weapons against them fighters imbedded in civilian areas we had reports in both volusia and arms how soldiers shooting children the shooting an ambulance is shooting ospital was in 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 but 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 had the biggest of they made sure they have something like sixty our 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 hamas. we have seen not that many reporters did not know that many of actually made it to homes with those that have been in homes so 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 some palooka of widespread atrocities carried out by u.s. troops during the april assault on the developers or could these reports got very very little coverage in mentioning media whereas when we're looking at syria we hear nothing but atrocities and human 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 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 or the people at the receiving end of a do it may well be shooting at you as well as the saudis so that naturally narrows the land somewhat that's why and gone was basically ducking the strategy that was in the gulf war but there's 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 what happens when you lose their jobs or they won't get rich and yet the start was. rist it's often stunning to me at least how readily. the the western media in his editorial lines it's coverage and people who did interviews in his general portrayal of these conflicts will reflect not exactly what it's told to do it's not so simple that it's 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 on of the moment well you just said that western media rarely challenge as the western narrative and do you think that's in part due to the fact that maybe you 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 only the media basically helps generate this image which is basically brought us through the public and basically is constantly. propagated by politicians that western societies are inherently not militaristic when they engage in violent conflict it's always according to rules it's always done with respect for civilian life it evades the laws and the rules and yes in the kind of countries that you see even when we see like the most extreme and most seemingly obvious atrocities i mean so one example on the first day of operation cast lead your israel's own two thousand and nine assault on gaza. israel fired a missile without warning it killed about thirty or forty massed traffic police.

there was a standing order to policy operate it will. notify the company all right. people trade it would have been done by three i think we can get. our 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 mad car. and that's going to do it for the news for this hour for more on the stories we covered you can go to our t. dot com slash usa there you'll find my interview with caroline hellman about a new supreme court case that will decide whether corporations can be sued over torture and if you miss anything from this show or any show not to worry we post our interviews in full online you can just go to our youtube page at youtube dot com slash r c america and don't forget leave a comment we love to hear what you think of the stories we covered today and to find out.