twenty two months in jail twenty two charges against him no trial date set as far as media coverage the case of private first class bradley manning is on lockdown these days now the allegedly the leaker had supports today why is this case shrouded in so much secrecy. so we know that mitt romney rick santorum they are part of this two min race here for this republican race apparently is going on and it is mitt romney tries desperately behind the scenes to end it all as a three way race to the finish or sold of mainstream media and the establishment what have you believe you are ron paul is still polling in the crowds and the votes

but what the media blackout. feel like we're living in there we're here in government and it's awful because at least in places like the middle east you know . you you know that you're living in a dictatorship you know that you're living and it's sort of you know like. and yet this land of the free might only be intended for those who are brave enough to be arrested while exercising their first amendment rights there unless david seaman will tell us why we might have to stop protesting altogether. it's thursday march fifteenth seven pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching r.t. well the army private accused of looking hot leaking hundreds of thousands of secret military documents appeared in court this morning prosecutors today said

bradley manning aided al qaeda documents to the whistle blowing web site wiki leaks handing out days as a slew of charges including aiding the enemy but that enemy was not names until today's hearing as court sessions. underway sounds out the alleged whistle blower stands a chance at a fair trial and some say he was already punished and tortured while he was locked up for over a year awaiting his day in court so and such a high profile government case a fair trial and a military court even possible for manning well to discuss this and more kevin costello a blogger for the center dot firedoglake dot com joins us now welcome to the show then so on just a reaction the newest development today is that the prosecution said for the first time that manning aided the terrorist group al qaeda by releasing those documents

your reaction to that you know they submitted a motion which is called a bill of particulars and they were able to get this specific information that it was. a q a p and these are the groups that he's accused of aiding and this was largely suspected because this came out in the article thirty two hearing at least they showed no propaganda video during the article thirty two hearing so it's not surprising but it reaffirms people's concerns about what is the extent of this charge is pretty severe and they're basically accusing him of aiding terrorists and that sort of makes him out to be like a terrorist sympathizer i just don't know if that's really what bradley manning was all about when he committed these alleged crimes and so out heda now that they have been identified did that surprise you the fact that he has been charged with helping a group like al qaeda. i think it just shows you how far the government is willing to go in this case to possibly make an example out of manning and make sure that no

holders in the military do this again with any classified information and you know recently a united nations official investigated this case and the findings from that investigation was that they found that there was a cruel inhumane treatment used against manning. they called out the u.s. for holding manning in solitary confinement for twenty three hours a day for a period of he's been locked up for longer than a year so i mean do you think that manning has already been punished severely for a crime that he has not even been you know he hasn't even been on trial for it yet yeah i think that the defense definitely will try to get some time served when the sentencing does happen but you know the other thing is that today during the hearing there trying to get disclosed to quantico video i don't know what the video

is pacifically but i can only presume that it might show what he was strip searched and there was a period of time where he was not allowed to have any code he was totally naked in this cell for a few days because of something he had done he was sarcastic towards an officer in the brig and the. the defense definitely doesn't turn to use the way he was treated to make it harder for the government to prosecute manning and some say that this treatment the way that manning has been treated so far. is that he is being acquitted and treated it like a terrorists or do you think about that well actually he's he's being treated worse than a terror suspect because the media is not actually allowed to have access to records during the military court proceedings but if you were at guantanamo you would be able to access records during a military commission so you have this media coalition now there's actually challenging this because we don't get to know the sort of things that are going on

we don't get to read the motions that are being filed we don't get to read a lot of the documents we don't know what's going on the back room they have secret conferences and we just take their word for it when they do synopsys and summaries and side of the courtroom and going along with that there's been a lot of talk that there has been an effort to control the media and this trial and the type of information that the media has access to when you say that it's hard for the media at sea would accurately cover this case i just think it's very suspect because you find yourself wondering if you're missing key details because later on you know you have these instances where the government will come out all the blue and say we handed this information over they just got the cd last night at seven thirty but you know there's probably a whole saga going on behind the scenes and we don't know about it should we know about it before probably it would be helpful to get information to people like the public who should know what's going on with this trial it's very high profile and

significant and now you said that there has been a lot of documents that media cannot get ahold of do you think that there is an effort to suppress these kinds of documents keep this information out of the public around i mean it's definitely suspicious because. if if you can access the same sort of documents at a trial for a guantanamo detainee you should be able to access those documents if you're a member of the media and you are. looking into a soldier you're covering the case of an american soldier and you're not able to access the same documents that just doesn't make any sense now he is being called by his critics a threat to national security yes or no what do you think about that but personally i don't think he's a threat i don't know what conclusions they're drawing from especially when you look at him he's almost like the sort of person who could pose such

a threat but i understand that he released or is alleged to have released almost half a million documents certainly it was very embarrassing for the u.s. government so i guess that alone might make him a national security for all right kavin of all thank you for keeping us updated and we will continue to keep our viewers updated on this very important case that was kevin don't kill a blogger for it to censor dot firedoglake dot com. well it seems the mass media has officially given up on one republican presidential candidate ron paul who has consistently attracted a very passionate and dedicated following reportedly has had only one embedded reporter there out the campaign and but now he apparently has none because on this n.b.c. poll the sole embedded off the bus now this proves that the mainstream or mainstream reporters wrong call just isn't worth their time but when you see videos of paul

he's usually swarmed with a very energized fan base and he hasn't won a single caucus yet and that's how the candidate raising suspicion. here since we you know the people accuse him to get to the polling booth they were when the when the caucus said. you know a lot of our supporters are very suspicious of. the strober citizenry confusing i mean you read the papers but it wouldn't be the people you just love it position where they said rico this is the candidate we can't be just right he's never said piece of paper he wrote what you can to refer to it's accustomed to fiction suspicious so is there an ad for it's a silence palmas the candidate getting a fair shot in the race to be the next republican presidential candidate well to dig deeper into what's really going on here i was earlier joined by a very well as inches a volunteer organizer for the los angeles liberty headquarters and ron paul

supporter she was in our alley studio i first asked her if the media is actively biased against ron paul here's their take. completely there doing absolutely everything in their power to give less coverage and make him seem unelectable they're the want the media is the one who started the whole rumor of an electability and actually ron paul is highly electable and that's why they're not covering him he's drawing crowds of you know three to five thousand on a daily basis sometimes multiple times daily or he'll have a. conference in one place and then you know fly over to another and yesterday spoke to a crowd of more than five thousand in illinois and took them to the polls right afterward and the media can't cover those sort of things because. you know they are the kind of government sponsored organizations that get taxpayer bailouts and g.e. the parent company of. c.m.d. c. got over one hundred eighty two and a half billion dollars in taxpayer bailouts and you know ron paul does not support

bailouts and that's why you. know i kind of want to pull up an example of this this was a poll that was on c.n.n. where ron paul he was ranked the highest and best poll two percent so significantly higher than some of the other candidates there if you see all the way on the bottom there so that doesn't really seem to make much sense off the bat. what do you make of that and what else would this ever happen. only only when ron paul wins would the winner be listed at the bottom of the page and we saw much worse than that much more blatant attempts you know in almost all of the debates you know we would have a debate watching party and you would see that the way that the camera was framed they would put the other three candidates in the together and put ron paul off to the edge and the camera would frame on just the three candidates as if ron paul wasn't even in the room on the same stage and in one debate he only had eighty nine

seconds to speak and in another one i think it was an hour and a half. debate and they cut off the second half hour where ron paul had the opportunity to speak and here is somebody that is trying to shine a light on. jon stewart let's take a listen. survey showing rick perry running romney knocking down the aisle for show off. you know you. have a little jury room because the war you know holds true. so mary why would there be a silence and why what is the motive behind ignoring him. exactly as i mentioned you know ron paul you know he's not the establishment candidate he is not represents the things that. benefit these big corporate corporate

corporate government sponsored organizations and the corporatocracy you know ron paul is the exact opposite he's the patriot for the people and you know that's why they don't give him any coverage because he actually can win they like to misreport on his delegate wins they like to misreport on his caucus wins in the size of them so you know nobody gave him any credit for winning the caucus in the virgin islands and that's just insane so if they want to call mitt romney the winner and for him winning eight delegates in the virgin islands then i guess that we can call ron paul the winner in. colorado where he took all the delegates now and tory earlier you played a clip there of ron paul he was raising suspicion of the election fraud any pointed to the fact where wherever he goes he is surrounded by so many of these very vocal passionate people and you don't see this kind of following for the other candidates yet at the same time he hasn't won any caucus. and so many of us followers

something doesn't add up do you think that there is there is fraud going on. i think that the establishment g.o.p. . has been told which candidate and has you know has a candidate in mind and they're pushing forward for those candidates you know mitt romney is stablished in choice and doing whatever they can to steal away ron paul's ments and if they had declared him the winner in the u.s. virgin islands as he was rightfully so then that would just help to propel him into the next states and keep things going for super tuesday but they did not want to give him that win and you know by doing that it kind of colchis his momentum and you know supporters sometimes fear. you know throwing the vote away if it's some some people are very loyal to the republican party and they fear that you know i'm not sure why that if they gave it to the other case in most cases or as i feel it

they would be throwing their vote away if they gave it to the lesser of two evils rather than sort of the one candidate who's actually standing up for them now in terms of reelection for mary do you think that that could indeed be going on. i think it's a possibility and you know a lot of the ron paul supporters who've come showing up to the caucuses a participant become delegates have been turned away and there's been a lot of rumors about it i'm not on the ground and i'm not with the official campaign i'm a grassroots supporter but there is definitely a lot of a lot of. information that comes out of some of these and we've. informed the voters to participate in in the caucuses and to be a part of the public tally that people can call for a public tally of the vote and when they've done that i think it was in iowa you know they reported that you know they had they had counted out the public votes and

then it was you know the those results were not even turned in by the g.o.p. and in maine where eighty four percent of the vote was counted and several precincts in counties were not counted their votes you know and they claimed mitt romney is the winner with only i think one hundred seventeen votes apart from their own paul so now whether it's an accident or restates whether it's an act that in our it was intentional it is raising some sense suspicion. followers i do want to pull up a quote from an editorial this is in the daily. quote it is time it is time for a groundswell of ron paul supporters to quietly respectfully but firmly make their position clear to the mainstream media and the g.o.p. establishment simply pod no paul on the ticket means no vote for the g.o.p. and november are now married you think that that's what needs to be done in order

for him to be taken seriously for some of his followers to put their foot down and say hey we can impact the outcome of this election. you know i don't know how to answer that question i'm unsure of how a third party would run i think if i don't think that people don't want. you know that's a tough question i think that ron paul is on the republican ticket because there's finances there to run up against obama i think people would be doing themselves an incredible disservice if they don't vote for ron paul because in my opinion the other candidates have no chance of winning this race against barack obama because these other candidates support everything that barack obama has done wrong since he's been in there as far as bailouts are concerned increasing the debt ceiling preemptive barriers and things like that. but thank you very much pleasure to have you on the show as always that was mary well said well and there are going to

is there for the los angeles liberty headquarters and around paul supporter well as the u.s. and its allies criticize other countries for their lack of freedom and human rights it seems those very rights are being threatened here at home the latest example a lot recently passed that limits where and how people can exercise their freedom of speech. reports. it's a country that extols the virtues of liberty unlike no other. since the temper some six thousand seven hundred americans protesting against economics in quality and corporate greed have been arrested and silent. a police offensive aimed at crushing occupy wall street has succeeded in shattering america's global remarketed brand of freedom but it's made people realize the kind of devastating eight of our

ability to be in a state to spend their marriage and how challenge that is and how that is i think people thought they were free to dissent and very fair until a tribe. as anger over corrupt politics fractured community and us foreign policy groups federal anti protest laws are also slightly expanding. in america it is a criminal offense to exercise freedom of speech by defense deemed nationally significant such as presidential convention and debate. protesting in areas where the u.s. president or anyone protected by the secret service may be visiting is considered a felony punishable with the fine and up to ten years in jail the federal restricted buildings and grounds improvement act known as h r three four seven is a lot most americans don't know about but you don't have to do a lot to feel it for we represent people who are charged with felony offenses soley

because they put up posters they put up signs asking people to join the demonstrations and they've been arrested by the police detained hold on twenty five thousand dollars bail in terms of element with nato and g.e. protest posters popping up nationwide u.s. lawmakers are tightening up recent after mending include push to bring protests around the white house and broader language to make over and prosecution easier i think there's a specific response to sort of the fear that we are actually going to act and and you know like. transforming the political landscape katie davison was arrested priceless here while taking the illegal nonviolent occupy wall street demos in new york i feel like we're living in an earthworm government and it's awful because at least in places like the middle east you know they you know the early being in the dictatorship you know the early going to you know like here we sort of like

wrinkled democratic you know like. words all over everything as if you know like we have all these freedoms that we actually don't you reality where it's here that just about any american engaging in political protest oh i can be prosecuted unsound wages affront to civil liberties and the first amendment and. i have my personal personally have been arrested several times protesting there have been misdemeanors and now would be a felony and it's just unconscionable that the congress passed this america on its course we know more if i want to be reached consensus when it came to clamping down on constituents only three elected officials voted against expanding federal restrictions on protests all u.s. leaders can't resolve issues like national debt and almost there on the scene each

when it comes to how to handle the citizens what in the streets to demand change and accountability are in upper nile r.t. new york so the long tradition of protesting in america being threatened to help answer this earlier i spoke to david seaman there to listen house of the. this is a sacred protected constitutional right this is not something that should be infringed upon that's why it is in fact the first amendment of our bill of rights it's very important to us it was very important to our founding fathers and just to be clear with your viewers this bill which is now a law because obama has signed it it does not say protest is now legal in the u.s. move along citizen that's not what it says which is part of the reason why it's not getting more attention what it says is actually far more insidious it outlaws certain forms of peaceful protests if you happen to be within close proximity to

high ranking elected officials who are receiving secret service protection that can be considered a felony and the problem here is if you take away somebodies right to get the government's attention that's a really big deal i mean we solved the civil rights movement in the sixty's that was something that really emerged because of peaceful protests this is traditionally how americans influence policy on the individual level as you go out and you piece would protest for something you believe in if things get bad enough and to take away that right is really quite criminal and it's troubling i mean a.c.l.u. is analysis there they sort of agree with me they're saying that it's an incremental thing that's happening it's not as if some of the protest is illegal everywhere but we should fight this incremental slide because it's extremely dangerous if you can't protest in your own nation's capital what kind of constitutional republic have we become now calling best pal the anthea occupy bell do you think the occupy movement could have something to do with this. i think it's all

a part of their fears the occupy movement and then you have shadowy groups like anonymous which are very hard to track and then on top of that you have the tea party on the right there are a variety of movements something government is cracking down on all of them and they've also seen what happened in the middle east with the arab spring and they don't want anything similar to happen here the problem is they're actually making this worse you're radicalizing people out there who just you know hear about the summer news and might not really care about occupies message you know that might not interest him and it gives them their economic message but then when you see that the government is quietly taking away these core constitutional rights you know have citizens who are upset and actually do have a grievance because they don't want to see those rights go away even if you don't plan on protesting you like to know that you do have that right so you're saying that this kind of adds fuel to the occupy the occupy fire and incite people to get

angry and protest even more so i think it does give some added the judge in the seat to some of the peaceful movements out there that there is a problem and one of your previous guests was talking about ron paul and how our republic has strayed very far from our founding principles and i think that's something that a lot of people are waking up to and it's something we need to address i mean it could be addressed new legislation to just roll back all of these things we need to get rid of that trespass bill h.r. three forty seven is pretty un-american we need to get rid of and we need to talk about letting the patriot act retire which it was supposed to do these are things that have really destroyed our core rights over the past decade and it's something that we can fix that's the good news but the problem is most people don't know and those who do know don't necessarily care now how would this law in fact outside some of the big events that are coming up for example in nato and the g eight summit they are just around the corner. yes so these big events where

world leaders come together in one location this can be one of the only opportunities for your average person out on the street your average joe or your college student this is one of their only opportunities to grab world leaders attention and to influence their views and if you're suddenly criminalizing protest in these areas then you don't have a feedback mechanism and that's a huge part of our democratic of our democratic system is that you have the right to speak back you have the right to speak out and to take these things away is extremely troubling and i think in the long term will lead to more problems but if they just left these rights in place now the point of the bell somewhat sad is that you know in the name of security in the name of safety what do you think about that purpose of this now. well i think the secret service already exists to protect our elected officials high ranking elected officials in washington and they already

have considerable resources i think to take away peaceful protests doesn't make them any safer and also i mean there's a chilling effect that's the first problem is that protesters who know that they could face a twenty five thousand dollar bail and they could be charged with a felony that might not come out in protest in the first place so instead of seeing thousands of people you'll see it doesn't cross as toure's the other problem is that you can see selective enforcement where if somebody is in front of the white house and they're supporting president obama's policies on you know whatever on the war in afghanistan or. if there's a group in support of the secret service might turn a blind eye to that but if there's a group that's negative and critical they could crack down and it's really selective enforcement could be a big issue because the media will show oh there are protesters but they're actually in support of the president or they're actually in support of this new law but they won't show the other side because those other protesters will be charged

now what's interesting about this bell is that congress almost unanimously unanimously agreed to it and it's rare that both political parties see eye to eye these days you know we saw during the budget to pay the debt ceiling debate but a bell like this that has very much patience for a citizen fundamental rights and receives bipartisan support why is that. you know it's really it's extremely disturbing and i don't have an answer for you liz. as you said this is been a very partisan congress they can't agree to do anything and yet over the past few months they've rapidly come together and agreed to things like this and i approached a spill and a stunning attempt to crack down on internet freedoms we saw and they haven't stopped it's just the media has stopped talking about it mccain has sponsored a bill which would allow the military to have oversight over u.s. civilian internet traffic it seems like over the past few months they've really

been hell bent on taking away americans rights and i don't know why that is i don't know why they've come to some sort of agreement over this but there should be far more discussion and far more disagreement within the two parties before moving forward and lastly david yes when asked here will this change the way that you protest in exercising our freedom of speech. i'm going to be completely honest with you i think it will if i know that walking out on the street i can face a felony if i'm just holding up a sign and protesting for what i believe in i might stay at home and that's the real problem is that other people are going to think the same thing and after you see the first few arrests college students and mothers and fathers and every day people who don't have the resources or the legal teams to back them up they're just going to stay at home and a major part of our democracy is going to be dead when you don't have the right to protest you don't have much left. hopefully that not that long and.