welcome the alone a show where you get the real headlines with none of the mercy and i live in washington d.c. now tonight we're going to talk about obama's new executive order against those who use technologies to commit human rights abuses rarely though only syria and iran count for now then what makes a crime domestic terrorism we're going to get some of the double standards that are applied to muslims animal rights environmental activists verses anti abortion crime and then if you're part of the religious right does right wing economic policy really align with their christian views they would throw it is going to join us to talk about the right wing's party we're going to all of that morphy tonight including those of happy hour but first let's take a look at the mainstream media has decided to miss.

so there's another big case that's going to be heard at the supreme court this week arizona's immigration law s.b. ten seventy is finally going to have its day and considering what a huge issue this has been since the law first passed the mainstream media is gearing up. court hears arizona's case on the controversial immigration law that is happening tomorrow now a federal court has already blocked four key parts of the law saying immigration is a federal responsibility so more of the supreme court will hear arguments about arizona's controversial immigration law but rate will focus on whether states can adopt their own immigration measures borders and boundaries a day before the highest court in the land takes up the question of who can enforce immigration law democrats about to force a vote in the senate to sit down arizona's controversial immigration law fight over illegal immigration heating up on capitol hill this morning

a senate panel stacked with some heavy hitters oppressions the architect of the legislation that raises the question of whether state laws can trump federal authority on immigration issues german chuck schumer says they'll take action if the supreme court upholds arizona's law last week state versus federal power struggle that they're looking at the key issue before the court is who should be enforcing illegal immigration laws it's a controversial state law that cracks down on illegal immigration in arizona which requires police officers to check the immigration status of anyone they suspect is in the u.s. illegally it also makes it illegal immigration a state crime they say s.b. ten seventy is a racist law. now that case is an important one and so will be providing more coverage of it tomorrow but the supreme court is in the news i think we should take this opportunity to shine a light on another case that could be heading there and it's a case we will not hear about in the mainstream media that's for sure so a.c.l.u.

and the mother of jose previa are asking the supreme court to reinstate their lawsuit against former defense secretary donald rumsfeld and five other corporate officials are not familiar with this case jose padilla is an american citizen who wants to sue these officials because he claims that he was tortured right here on u.s. soil now currently pretty a serving time for convictions of supporting terrorism in kosovo bosnia and chechnya something that he's trying. appeal but we're not actually talking about that case we're talking about how it was that he was treated here in the u.s. in two thousand and two the deal was detained after returning it to the u.s. from egypt and was accused of collaborating to build a dirty bomb it was then detained at a military brig in south carolina for four years and almost three of those years he was held without any charges and during that time he was deemed an enemy combatant by the bush administration and according to produce his attorneys he was kept in a blackout isolation cell he was shackled for hours what are known as stress positions exposed to noxious fumes at extreme temperatures and threatens to be said

to guantanamo bay so all of these things amount to torture and his mother in a.c.l.u. wants somebody to be held accountable for it especially because he's an american citizen now as a c.l.u. puts it it's hard to conceive of a more profound constitutional violation than the torture of a u.s. citizen on u.s. soil and these days we've been forced to put up with a lot of profound constitutional violations right things like the u.s. government killing its own citizens abroad without any due process but this case brings up so many important questions about lead immunity the fact that high ranking officials have not been held accountable for any of the policies post nine eleven also the fact that the courts for the most part of been complicit and allow the government to get away with it using national security excuses the reason they're trying to take this to the supreme court now is because they're trying to appeal the ruling of the fourth circuit court which said that the deal could not sue and a.c.l.u.

is also asking the supreme court to answer the following question they ask whether federal officials responsible for the torture of an american citizen on american soil may be sued for damages under the constitution glenn greenwald pointed out at his blog at salon today in what kind of a country is that even a question it is really crazy it's important that cases like this not only seem. the light of day but they also get attention from the media when they're trying to get into the court room and so far the mainstream media has chosen to. yesterday while speaking of the holocaust museum here in washington d.c. president obama had new announcements to make and regards to stopping human rights abuses and mass atrocities around the world and one of the announcements was the formal establishment of an atrocities prevention board and other preparation of the

first national intelligence estimate of the consensus view of all u.s. intelligence agencies and praising the potential for mass killings in countries around the world but perhaps most interesting was the announcement of that another executive order. signed executive order that authorizes new sanctions against the syrian government and those that abet them for using technologies to monitor and track and target citizens for violence these technologies should not empower these technologies. should be in place to power citizens not to repress. now the order will allow for u.s. officials for the first time to impose sanctions on foreign nationals using technologies like cell phone tracking internet monitoring to carry out human rights abuses now iran and syria specifically came under fire and then unnamed officials told the washington post that this could be expanded to other countries as well but what are the chances that really going to see it expanded to other countries like

other u.s. allies like the raider saudi arabia and does it mean the companies that work with the u.s. government to make our massive surveillance state function just fine here discussing with me is i've got still a civil liberties civil liberties blogger at firedoglake kevin thanks so much for joining us tonight thank you i mean overall let's talk about what it is that you know what it is that they're approaching here do you think that there's an issue that there are private companies out there that are creating these technologies that well it's incredible you have this technology but they're getting you know they're selling them to governments that might be using them to hurt their own people it definitely is an issue and we saw that it was an issue prior to syria and now iran we saw this issue actually existed with libya with technologies being passed on that gadhafi was using against citizens in libya so it definitely is an issue and there's also you know in syria and iran that we know just based on regular day to day reports that citizens who are engaged in struggle against assad are being targeted through technology so it's definitely an issue that is kind of

a new friends here too obviously we've seen we see sanctions that limit private companies working with certain governments but in terms of the tech industry being involved well what's interesting about this executive order as i've looked at it and as the electronic frontier foundation has pointed out is that it doesn't really go after the companies specifically per se it's going after as i understand it the people who are using the technology or anybody who's purchasing the technology so. as it stands right now the most interesting thing about the executive order is how it doesn't come down on the corporations that are guilty of selling this technology ok so that's a good thing to point out and what about the fact that it's only here and at the moment towards iran and syria i mean does that seem a little hypocritical should this be something that's supposed to be a broad based policy that applies around the world i want to believe that the obama

administration is doing this out of the love in you know being interested in upholding human rights but when it is just a run and what is just syria you look and you notice that those are people those are countries that have been on the axis of evil historically so it all seems like a tool that could be pushing toward something more and we know that in the past decade the united states has had an interest in humanitarian intervention in iran and syria so it becomes something that you can't ignore that aspect of it is there going to be more after this executive order or are there geopolitical interests involved like i said you know on twitter i keep seeing people ask over and over again what about bahrain why did bahrain completely left out this one put and let's also talk about right i think there is quite a difference we see a massive surveillance state we see a lot of monitoring of u.s. citizens here at home it's not being used to track people down and kill them it's

not there's not a moral equivalence there but at the same time why is it ok that our government can use these types of technologies and then monitor and surveil people or movements like the occupy movement. yeah so our own government in the united states the department of justice is issuing subpoenas for people's twitter account information and i always hear people who are following this story say well what is that all about anybody who's tweeting that's public information you can see that you can see what they're sending messages about well the issue is that the government isn't just looking at what people are saying in the movement they want to know when these movement people logged into their twitter account where they were logging on and this is what jacob apple who's been targeted for being someone connected with wiki leaks this is what he's had to deal with which is that now they were actually able to force the data to be handed over twitter fought and challenged it which is good

to know the as a company they would do that but the government law and so we've got this president here where people's information can not be protected from the government but what about you know william and now there whistleblower who is telling as even more scary stories about exactly how much information the government you know collecting . so in the case of the n.s.a. when we find out through him that the a.t.m. t. as a telecommunications company might have trillions of records from people's personal billing data that they're turning over to the government and that isn't something that's been turned over through a warrant it's not clear why they would need that information exactly except to maybe keep it in their massive database that they keep building and that we here you know they have another bottomless database that they're building out in utah and so i mean that's a good point too as well that our government is just taking information from people and then the other aspect i would throw into is we've see in the proliferation of

domestic drones coming on here in this country and we found out last week through the that there are all the rise drones for colleges universities police departments and think of how those that technology might be used against citizens in this country to manipulate and go around laws that are already in existence it's really you know it's scary stuff one of the other things we have to mention to you and i talk about this all the time which is you know when it comes to whistleblowers when it comes to the expanding surveillance state when it comes to the erosion of your civil liberties why does the left no longer really seem to care when it's the obama administration that's doing it and so in this case of this executive order you're seeing a lot of anger coming from the right wing because they're seeing as an abuse of his executive power yet another executive order where the president goes around congress to get these things done and. you know it's just an interesting dynamic to about somebody who is in power someone who is the executive why does it become ok

when it's in their hands you think you're better equipped than everyone to handle it you know there is someone in the atlantic when we can hear that wrote today do we need to elect people that trust themselves a little bit less that they have if they stop abusing these volatilities. it's just it really blows your mind because first off having that assertiveness having that belief in who you are as a person that's the sort of that's the kind of leader that americans want to be in the white house in the first place so for them to be a criticism is kind of absurd but then on the other and the other hand it's like obama didn't really take this as far as it could go i mean when you think about it he could really have come down on corporations for sending technology over to iran and syria and he would have probably had the political capital to be able to do that because if you think about it nobody really likes iran or syria at all in this country and what's being done by the governments there is really appalling to

people here and they want to help the citizens and they probably would have understood that preventing corporations from selling this technology to the dictators and the different telecommunications companies that are working with the governments would be something really valuable to do but see he just it's the whole obama thing and you could run down a whole lot of us are always going halfway somebody gives them a good idea and then he doesn't do it anyway or that i wonder how into that he would be because you know when it comes to private business and not stepping on there is not stepping on their rights you know i then i think we'll be hearing more complaints coming from the right wing than i do actually. thanks so much for joining us tonight thank you. i would take a quick breather but after the break we're going to have the latest on the trial and then we'll look into the best terrorism double standard you can translate a document on it the hottest web site and the charge of terrorism the burning down of planned parenthood currently the.

story. is if you understand it. here's the part of it and realize that everything. is a big. blow to the.

we'll get the real headline not. the problem with the mainstream media today is that they're completely disconnected from the viewers and from what actually matters to those viewers and so that's why young people just don't watch t.v. if they want news they go online and read it and we're trying to take those stories that people actually care about and transfer them back in t.v. . is the state run in english speaking russian channel it's kind of like. russia today has an extremely confrontational stance when it comes to us.

senator chuck grassley said some fairly things in his time on capitol hill but one of the more astute observations he has repeatedly made is that whistleblowers are quote often treated like skunks at a picnic also they were reminded how insiders who speak truth to power are routinely treated as criminals or undesirables more pretrial hearings in the case of alleged wiki leaks or bradley manning kicked off today at fort meade in maryland and hearings are expected to last three days and will center around the defense's motions to dismiss this case either entirely or at least to try to get some of the charges against manning dropped he despite his lengthy detention manning's lawyers said that military prosecutors had failed to turn over exculpatory evidence in the discovery process that is grounds to dismiss the case entirely so that motion was filed last month of made public only last week and

a blast the prosecution claiming that its abdicated wholesale its discovery obligations of a document at the heart of this is no small matter either it assesses the alleged damage done to national security by the leaks and it appears that none has been proven right now only with that the bunker the claims of wiki leaks you tractors and the government but manning's lawyers say that it is crucial to their client's defense they also intend to argue that manning had to aid the enemy and they're filing a separate motion to dismiss the charge let's not forget that the enemy here according to the government is al qaeda associated forces and they were aided because this material found its way to the internet very dubious way of going about charging someone if you ask me and that's something they can also put journalists in jeopardy not to mention with no proven damage to national security it's kind of hard to prove that manning aided the enemy government prosecutors have contended that the report has no bearing on this case it's an argument it seems pretty shallow and completely ridiculous when you look at the charges and what high

ranking officials have publicly said on the issue. united states strongly condemn us the illegal disclosure of classified information it puts people's lives in danger threatens our national security and sure schonchin say whatever you like about the greater good he he he's sure sure doing but the truth is he might already have on their blood and show him your shoulder where they're going to fear and fear . well considering the wait two weeks in the documents that they put out there have really only harmed the egos of american officials it's little wonder that the government would try to hide this damage assessment now fortunately for manning the judge presiding over the case needs lindh rule that the prosecution must turn over three damage assessment reports by the state department the defense department and the cia how it's going to affect the case we're going to know more later the state department is of course challenging its roulette but it's hardly surprising that

the governor would take pains to can feel these kind of reports we spoke about the massive overclassification it's occurred post nine eleven and of course the obama administration's war on whistleblowers who want to expose that overclassification which includes we were his cases not just out of bradley manning but sometimes we even see the government try to hush people that put together i'm classified material take for example the tenet colonel gangle davis he's another case of a skunk at a picnic in the words of senator grassley recently we spoke to davis about his incredibly revealing report that he authored on the war in afghanistan and how the military leadership is lying about the so-called progress now there was a classified report that davis wrote submit it's members of congress and i'm classified version for everybody else in the pentagon wasn't approving her release and the rolling stones michael hastings got a version of it and put it out in the open but anyway here's what davis had to say when he was a guest on the show. what our soil fear over time specially was beginning to be clear was so different than what the public assertions or that i started to have.

problems with it but that turned into something more when i started she and the results of me die as a result of it in missions that. made no sense and would have been later characterize this big success is going fact they were not of the people of afghanistan you know now into the eleventh year of war showed no inclination to have any desire to be connected with your government. politico reported today that davis will be awarded the riding howard prize for truth telling this week that the ten thousand dollars prize sadly davis told politico the pentagon is now a very unpleasant atmosphere work atmosphere for him and he also said the congress doesn't want to hold hearings on his findings once a pathetic congressman jim mcgovern for the davis' report quote doesn't conform to our current foreign policy and that makes a lot of members of congress uncomfortable well gee get think maybe that's because members of congress after reading the report realize that not only of they've been

lied to by the military leadership but they were also completely blind to it considering some of the figures simply didn't add up and we called davis today to ask about how he felt about getting the award and he told us i'm very honored and grateful to receive this award very mean frustrated people continue to accept and act on inaccurate information although the cases of davis and manning are quite different in many ways so one thing that definitely unites it comes to transparency our government prefer that we the people stay in the dark. well how do you measure what counts as domestic terrorism we've seen a case after case some involving entrapment where people are sentenced to a year behind years behind bars because of an ideologically driven crime or attempted crime and more often than not in the last ten years has had to do with islam but as we've documented many times before on the show animal rights environmental activists are also getting charged with domestic terrorism crimes but then is there a double standard for those that are anti-abortion activists francis grady is the

man accused accused of trying to burn down a planned parenthood clinic in wisconsin on april first of this year last week he pleaded not guilty in a court room and of the charges against him and those charges are arson and intentionally damaging the property of the syllabi that provides reproductive health services notice that domestic terrorism is not one of those charges despite the fact that he made statements in court statements and documents brought by investigators where he said that he has protested against abortions in front of that planned parenthood clinic on prior occasions that he's pro-life that he believes in god and disapproves of the activities taking place about clinic back and he told a reporter who asked why he did it that it's quote because they're killing babies and their so joining me to discuss this is journalist matthew harwood frequent contributor to the guardian salon and truthout abbie thanks so much for joining us tonight good to be here where do we start how about you just tell me when you look at the definition when you look at the law what is domestic terrorism. difference

is you have to look at what the f.b.i. says its domestic terrorism so what the f.b.i. says is that it is an act that could put in danger people's lives clearly would do that. also is it fair to coerce the population and is it politically and socially logical driven i would say great he's definitely needs that definition and. what's interesting about this is that couple standard that it was environmental activist he did this say he. tried to burn down to make for. i think it's almost impossible to think that you know. which is a joint terrorism task force and then the u.s. attorney's office would charge them with the best in terms of the russians there is is why you know why is that considered so much worse why is that something that the f.b.i. decides to devote resources time to pursuing so aggressively and yet it doesn't count here where i do think that you know if you just look at the statements that

he makes it seems like it's very ideologically driven but there's no question that . the big difference i mean i can only say i actually don't want to speculate but talking to critics environmentalist rights activists it would be that they attack corporate property and so get attacked profits and so since it's really their tech and american capitalism that's the big distinction another distinction would be you know environmental activist mentalism and also animal rights activism outside the mainstream whereas i think pro-life activism is entirely within the mainstream and i think most americans are more comfortable with that can so i think when they look at a francis grady. constantly they see themselves in a lot of ways. they're more comfortable but i mean i definitely you know a good or good point that you bring up and probably that makes sense to you if you want to talk about environmental activism animal rights activism versus something that you rely on with your christian views first is right i mean is i guess islam

is also still considered outside of the mainstream especially in the last ten years yeah i think there's no way that we're i should say the point that you bring up definitely i mean islam is still considered in every an ideology on american soil ideology religion political islam itself i mean you have to make a distinction between political is on the jihadism which is a big difference although we may not feel comfortable with americans i mean as americans it's much different than jihadism which means you or on the path of violent resistance which of course if you do that on american soil will be terrorism. of course of course there's a huge difference there have we ever actually seen. an anti-abortion activists or an anti-abortion crime get a harsher punishment you know than perhaps an environmentalist or animal rights activist what i think you know you bring up a greedy case what's interesting is he could go to prison for a very long time to go to prison for twenty years i think the big difference here

is the language in the sense of labeling someone a terrorist as opposed to not labeling them a terrorist and so when you talk to civil libertarians the idea is that when you say someone is a terrorist then you start looking at the community in which they came from and then there for you start looking at what kind of police techniques you can use that can use agent provocateur poor's can you go on fishing expeditions you know make sure i mean from the a.c.l.u. say can you imagine if we took the the sense that if they're going to use against environmental rights activists and rights activists muslim americans and apply that to say christian churches because they were espousing. no right i mean there hasn't been there has been some outcry especially if you look at the eighty's investigation to say the n.y.p.d. in their surveillance program on muslim communities on muslim students not enough outcry if you ask me but you know what do you think can you imagine if and i'm not saying that i think that you know the law enforcement should be actually damaging

people's civil liberties in that sense and should be surveilling communities just based on their religious beliefs or whatnot but would there be a bigger outcry if they were doing this in you know religious christian communities i think you know the answer is to ask it is the answer it you know that it would be a huge outcry especially i mean you have to take into account now it's the obama administration so with you know all the ideas that he's a cause that most of the sort i think you know the rhetoric on the right would just be through the roof and i also fear you know the opposite way. you think if the f.b.i. is scared of going out and going to terra charge you know when i spoke to the f.b.i. on background i don't see that actually i just i just don't see the realisation that when you look at say what grady did and they look at what you charge the environmental rights activists and rights activists they pretty much along total them and yet terrorism was never brought up i mean when i spoke to us assistant

william roache he basically looked at me or absolutely look at me told me that you know i took a hard look at this i did not see the mass of terrorism here you know he tried to burn down a plane parenthood and he threw basically where he lit a fire in an unoccupied room and then occupied and therefore since there is no threat to human life therefore it's not the best interest of. all right yeah right i'm with you there in the sense that i think it looks like a double standard for a lot of other people matthew thanks so much for joining us tonight you're so much for having. time for one more break and we have to speak with david sirota about rights of poverty when it comes to their religious values and the i cannot policies i support. but we work hard. i think.