permit restriction what's to keep all the options they don't want to leave. its closure torture because it would. seem past and present american presidents it is a matter of national security according to the geneva convention it's torture so why is the us dropping ninety nine of one hundred one cases dealing with cia interrogation techniques or explore. and in the quest for energy independence the us is calling out all the stops to hunt for the next great energy source and i draw it fracturing may hold the key only the e.p.a. approved will tell you about the latest tussle over fracking i know.

your fire wall street movement is splitting along ideological lines on one side the so-called die hard occupiers on the other people who believe the left is trying to co-opt the protests so is there a battle for the soul of the occupy movement. it's tuesday april seventeenth four pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching artsy. well we began today on the issue of using torture terror suspects waterboarding and stress positions and just two techniques used by the u.s. against those accused of having ties to terrorism now a secret memo has been leaked which brands them war crimes and shows the bush administration was warned against their use and also sheds light on the birth of

the bush administration's torture policy and as are his marine of course and i reports many people president obama isn't doing enough to make up for america's past mistakes. america's so-called war on terror produced images and accounts that ignited a world of questions about torture and the u.s. treatment of suspects american people need to know we're using techniques within the law to protect him two years after george w. bush left the white house let's talk about waterboarding the former commander in chief admitted his stamp of approval for the use of interrogation techniques like waterboarding dubbed inhumane and illegal under u.s. law and the geneva conventions but as waterboarding legal in your opinion this is a lawyer said it was legal so it did not fall within the it of course right. and but your says the judgment of people where you and i view the bush administration also chose to disregard the judgment of

a top adviser who warned that the cia's interrogation of terror suspects people waited to felony war crimes according to a secret memo obtained by wired magazine in two thousand and six state department councilor philip zelikow warned the white house that controversial interrogation techniques such as word or boarding stress positions and cramped confinement are prohibited under u.s. law and under american law there is no precedent for excusing treatment that is intrinsically cruel even if the state asserts compelling need to use it i think there needs to be an accounting of united states. what was going on over the last ten years the name of america there is a president after the second. united states actually executed japanese soldiers who had. used torture. against american prisons they took action against the japanese but the u.s. . as opposing want to talk to other countries so there is

a clear legal case to say that you know action must be taken we're still evaluating two weeks before taking office u.s. president barack obama steered clear of saving america's historic commitments to international justice obviously we're going to be looking at past practices. and i don't believe that anybody has a lot on the other and i also have a belief that we need to look forward as lost as opposed to what looking backwards last june obama's u.s. justice department dropped in ninety nine out of one hundred one cases against cia interrogators over the use of torture i'm afraid that the current ministration wants to keep also options open they don't want to label these techniques just as crimes or torture because that would prohibit them from using or by weaving the needle definition however slight degree they we can soak the auction replied mr newts once again and that is what is threatening your scholars attorneys and human

rights not sports around the world have calls for the prosecution of senior bush administration officials who designed in order torture tactics however critics say the unspoken agreement within countries proclaiming to pioneer democracy is to never turn on europe and the problem is that in the west we you know we make great play and we use to promote our great democracies but there is a kind of stitch up between the people eat hearty but they will not press charges and they will not take legal action against crimes of your previous administrations through the use of torture rendition and secret prisons america's world position or around the world. undoubtedly shifted and while the u.s. will likely continue barking the beacons of freedom and democracy critics say the more important questions i ask is who's even listening anymore. artsy new york. and joining me now to discuss america's tortured past and present as david swanson

campaigner for rights action hi david nice to see you. so first want to talk about the case of this man a john kerry aku is a former cia official very is on the screen accused of leaking classified information to the media now this is also the same man that blew the whistle on the use of waterboarding during the bush administration so today there are many questions as to whether or not this case is about politics or justice david what do you think. certainly the former this is someone being charged the six person being charged under the obama administration under the espionage act but he is not being accused of having sought to endangered the nation having such a many so-called enemy he's been accused of blowing the whistle on the crime of torture and so he is being prosecuted for something which yes those resemble the original purpose of the espionage act one thousand nine hundred seventy which was to prosecute anyone who was in

a war or discouraging recruitment any time you saw the truth about u.s. foreign policy towards urging recruitments from the u.s. military but that's not how they talk about art about it's as if he has endangered national security and yet this is someone who's gone in words since that the servants who are a senate foreign relations committee and there's no suggestion in any danger there that it's a traitor to the nation it's all about finding a technicality on which to prosecute someone who has spoken out against a crime that they did i want to play a part of an interview. he did with journalist david leopold truthout areas talking about the case of a detainee about any amount abu zubaida and what he discovered cia officials did it to their suspect this is what they say they needed to do to extract what they call actionable intelligence take a look my view now is now that we know was eighty three times if you have to

waterboard somebody eighty three times to collect the information even if the information is correct and it's actually well it was of the wrong thing to do. so this man he was water boarded as we get eighty three times that we would have learned about it had it not been for whistleblowers like john kerry aka so and this case does the ends justify the means. well of course nuts are we are talking about torture and the new york times calls it a suffocation tactic as if that excuses waterboarding is torture the united states has prosecuted the mess that we and at the end of past wars and this is something that we were first told about by mr heriot knew and then we later learned and even learned from leaked stock humans that it was eighty three times but there is no evidence that any useful information was gained from torturing. who still

remains a lot of us prison with no rights there is no evidence that there's a trade off here if it's orchard gains us information that we do not need being without the torture and so we have to make we've got your wish and now if this is all negative it puts the united states outside of the rule of law destroys our reference of your reputation around the world and if you encourage is torture by other countries which are following the recent samples one enormous it's not now others david would say that when you work for the n.s.a. or you work for the cia you're dealing with a very classified information and where when you become when you become employed by the is agency is you take have an elk not to disclose government secrets and the guest apartment says they came broke this promise what do you say to that. i say there's a higher oath to uphold the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic there is an obligation to report on crimes when you are aware of it when these you

are legally required to make that information known there is an understanding in military law that you must use illegal orders and they are not going after people who leak information in a consistent manner they are growing at three people we will report so on crimes he says this is number six then there is a resemblance series of bradley manning a resemblance to thomas three and you're going after whistleblowers which is exactly what he ended the obama promise not to do now the man that blew the whistle and also or he is the man that expose these torture and practices that happen under the bush administration these practices he calls them illegal a man by the name of philip that like out of the state department made this are made this argument and i want to pull the quote from wired magazine that was published in the story and it says zealot how argued that the geneva convention

applied to al qaeda a position either the just a guess just apartment nor the white house shared at the time and so this is kind of something that is central to this whole argument is there a distinction between treatment of prisoners and terrorist suspects. well there shouldn't be philip philip though is down here at the university of virginia and i feel a little bit better out here on since there's no modest home out so it's a little bit at least without it coming up recent low or at least he said an internal something but this was the maneuver by the bush administration there was an attempt to get outside of us rot and get outside of the laws of war and here's what it said she was there both states of law or flight there was no middle ground there was no third addict or you people whom we put a lot got. outside of you know the geneva conventions or our inside fortress to

actually work or instead to he he went so far as to go back to the constitution and say that the amendment on cruel and unusual punishment was central europe even right now it's very much to his credit not to have brought one step further like mr kiriakou and blown the whistle but with. and they have it there is still a lot of americans that support the use of torture here is a sound bite from dick cheney on this very subject take a listen ok in your view we should still be using enhanced interrogation yes should we still be waterboarding terror suspects i would strongly support the use in every year and there are circumstances where oh sure we had a high value detainee in the cellar we would get a lot of people call it torture when you think it should still be a tool to us. now. to ask

a question that he would ask a lot of people like minded people what ask if torturing a prisoner could prevent the next nine eleven would you be in support of at it would lead to any permeation that could prevent something like that from happening would you then support it. were a pretty it's a bizarre question because there is no scenario for that is possible there's no instance where you can reasonably predict that there is any chance that torture will prevent such a thing there is no way of knowing that someone will give you accurate information hundred torture and dick cheney is not a news analyst here cheney is one of the top torturers it's like asking you know rate is the if you think rape should be legal or not did cheney and the rest of which top torturers are not being processed anywhere on earth or instead of on trial and to ask them what they think with the matter is sprint's the journalism

profession they need to take seriously their intention it player is the spiritual scenario in which torture is going to save us after all these years and years of evidence that the contrary is outrageous that they have had the pleasure to have you on the show as a way that what they have it's once and campaigner for its action. well a battle on capitol hill today over energy the environmental protection agency is set to finish up rules to cut down on pollution paranoia and gas drilling under scrutiny as the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing more commonly known as fracking and iron mentalist say the practice leads to toxic waste but oil and gas industries say regulators are going overboard joining us now to talk more about the future of fracking greg palast a journalist and author of baltar's picnic and pursuit of petroleum pigs power

pirates and high finance carnivores. hi greg i know that you are a very outspoken when it comes to the practice of fracking how hopeful are you that you piers regulations that are set to come out today will result the problems associated with a practice i'm not too hopeful you know i'm an investigative reporter you know it's not so much opinion is the facts i have to deal with i conducted investigation for the government on the exxon valdez we had oil companies that lied to us and broke the rules i just completed an investigation of the deepwater horizon blowup which by the way is two years. two year anniversary is on friday well do we think that we had enough regulations there and deep water drilling there are eleven guys who died there we just had a pipeline blow up in california eight people incinerated from the gas

pipeline which we were told by the by the owner p.g. and e. was safe we had more deaths from pipelines by our close petroleum so is the problem that we have to stiff of a regulatory regime or one that is allowing people to die unfortunately death seems to be winning out over science and reason. and this is an election year the republicans have made energy producing energy an issue some how they've connected fracking for gas under your home connected to the high price of gasoline your car which is you know insane frankly scientifically there's no connection or economically and so i'm very concerned that the e.p.a. will be issuing politically oriented rules that is helping obama fights election by saying he's allowing fracking rather than going with the science and the science is

saying we don't have yet the means to properly control this process and preventing the pollution of our aco first and preventing death by pipeline greg advocates that clearly there are many problems associated fracking but some of the advocates say that there are some positives to that it creates jobs that allows for the u.s. to drill for its own natural gas all very relevant now that gas prices are going up so what it's about about fracking if it's done correctly well two things let's let's go back a step back when thing price of gas is going up and gasoline has gone up but that is a do it with natural gas that we pull out of the ground which you don't know the very few cars that run on natural gas in the united states of america and ever and we never will have such a technology it's not practical to put on wheels as we really don't want to expose

of cars as to creating jobs it's not a very big industry we have a lot of fracking going on in north dakota and they say oh look at the increase in employment well known losing their of the code it's pretty easy a thousand jobs there is a massive increase in employment and the problem that we have the problem that we have is that. it is not going to reduce the price of gasoline is not going to even reduce very much the price of oil or natural gas we have plenty of safe resources i'm very afraid of using of the argument about jobs it means a lot of dangerous things that could create jobs and there's also things like solar wind etc which are really areas that create continuing jobs not one time drilling jobs which where workers rush into an area you have a boom then you have a bust and they're unemployed they leave a mess

a socialist an economic message and an environmental mess so ok so maybe i won't help the price of gas go down but the u.s. is searching her way to become more independent when it comes when it comes to energy and fracking presumably could be one of the options so greg is there a way to do it that is sustainable and that is a friendly environment really friendly and if so why not. there probably is if you could you could frack using purely c o two. but that's what they're going to do they put the the drillers puts all kinds of mystery sauces in their formulations help burton for example had a had a formula and they would tell us what it was that would increase the amount of gas coming out of this process turns out that there's secret ingredients was diesel fuel you top these fuel down under the aqua for our drinking water in the united

states and it cracks up word we also have tremendous problems in in sealing those well casings we saw that in the deepwater horizon when the cement failed well the same cement that failed on the deepwater horizon and blew it up spectacularly it's causing cement failures all over america but because these wells aren't as big. we just don't hear about the problems in the cracks and leaks tremendous amount of pollution we don't have the regulators who can stop these guys from throwing all kinds of poisons junk down those wells and from illegally dumping the waste all over the place we have it already and only begun this process it's very we just don't have the ability to control this industry they have simply they've already run wild and i don't see that changing so do you think that the answer could be there needs to be more regulation of fracking and the whole because these companies

accountable well i think two things i mean i would like to see a moratorium until we figure out why we're getting all this pollution it seems to be coming from well casings and we don't have a method for correcting that problem yet so i'd love to see a moratorium now but if if not i would like to see some serious regulation with some serious fines and some serious restrictions about the nearest to the water supplies the aqua first and a serious business where companies are absolute responsible for the drilling waste that comes out once you do that suddenly this cheap source of of gas is not to look so cheap if we had or you know we have all kinds of restrictions on oil wells and oil well waste. and somehow with fracking we decided well we don't have to have so many restrictions oil well drilling is is expensive because we want to turn safely i've been down in the amazon. juggling in south america where chevron

was drilling is almost no restriction it's a poisonous no this cancer child kenya is our epidemic we don't want to bring that to the united states i hate to see it happen in south america a lot to talk about unfortunately we're out of time but thank you very much for coming on the show that was a great palace and that's the good of journalist and author of cultures i think. well as the weather warms up occupiers are aiming to revive the movement but there are signs that the civil war is brewing within the occupy lawless within occupy wall street that organizations like move on dot org jumping on ed some say the establishment left is trying to co-opt a movement to get president obama reelected suck more about the future of the movement i'm joined now by jesse leg raca and activist and i think the other posts i get the nice to see you so i know that you have been have been part of this

movement from the very beginning how do you feel about this you know it really doesn't bother me that much because the way i will get is if we're going to sit there in chorus of the ninety nine percent doesn't make sense to exclude about sixty million obama voters and really look at it from this perspective to me activism is like a tackling dummy you know one guy hits one side the other guy hits the other and you push forward together so some people are more focused on local activism by all means go ahead and do so exactly i mean wouldn't that be a plus that more people are coming onboard and supporting the movement. oh absolutely in order to grow movement that really speaks for the concerns of working class people we should be inviting everybody in to me the opposite seems like just absurdity to say like oh no if you were a real you know overage and you're not part of the team this is for everybody we should open our arms to anybody who shares the same ideas we do can you that there are skeptics i guess about this party people that are now jumping on board can you

define what would characterize that and what would characterize the true occupiers well i think people maybe a certain language because it became popular became pretty obvious we are than i might percent versus an oligarchic one percent but you know basically avoids reality but at the same time to me it speaks of the popular vote that will surely rule of the leaders of organized like move on dot org are using our language that means we're winning that's good so you know it doesn't really concern me that much about splitting off who gets the credit for coming up with what term or what organization would want to i don't see david koch and rupert murdoch fighting about who's co-author who's side of the movement i don't think we should do the same speaking of republicans some compare this to the republican establishment benefiting and taking over the tea party here what do you make of that comparison. well when people talk about coughing they're not totally out of reality there is

a great potential to take a message that's beneficial and down to something that's corporate friendly but the difference was that the tea party was demanding that the republican party be more extreme more beholden to corporate welfare where is occupy wall street and organizations on the left are doing something that the democratic party kind of those who want to do they don't want to stand up for reasonable tax rates on the rich they don't want to slow down the corporate consumption of basically over civil rights so if anything were coming out of the other way i don't think it makes sense to compare the two because we're demanding that obama do more to protect working class people where the tea party is demanding that we you know fight back against the gay muslim women who are demanding you know reproductive rights in america or whatever they're worried about. they get to switch gears a little bit i know there is some controversy now over occupiers sleeping on sidewalks and they were kicked out of the cutting park but now police want to evict them from sidewalks but you know about that. i actually have a bunch of friends who have been staying down town leader and night and visitors

out we're actually looking at them with yeah sorry to interrupt yeah that's happening. we have a little saying with an occupy wall street which is that it gets confusing when the world changes every day we were initially informed that we were within our rights to sleep on the streets as long as we didn't block traffic then the police decided to enact the law differently we currently have norman siegel a noted civil rights attorney who's looking into our rights and to be honest i look at the freedom of assembly as a definite i shouldn't have to ask where it applies i keep a constitution my pocket because that is my permit and if anything i was trying to strike and we observe that with all the problems in new york city mayor bloomberg well as the n.y.p.d. to focus on this triviality among many other larger issues like occupiers are going to try to fight back where they can. now that you are one of many that are hoping to her by this movement this spring and what do you hope to accomplish this spring that wasn't accomplished already are there so much work to do i mean the banks have

gone back into their systematic exploitation of everybody they refused to lend they've got tons of money spent on political campaigns but they can't be bothered to pay any higher taxes at all to me the entire purpose is to push the conversation forward to demand a change of laws that benefit people whether it's bringing back less overturning citizens united this is where the electoral side comes in because we can more of all we like at some point we have to elect people who are going to change the laws in a way that benefits people and i think there's a world of work to do and i'm glad that we started back again. thank you very much for coming on the show that was jesse led grappa and activist and writer at the daily. well that's going to do it for now but for more on the stories we covered you go to her head on over to youtube dot com slash r t america you can also check out our website at r t dot com slash usa and you can also follow me on twitter out lives of all the capital account with lauren lester that's coming up next.

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