tonight on our team as american families tighten their belts in a tough economy the pentagon is large and in charge politicians are doing just about anything to keep it that way the pentagon versus the poor and this is one battle that won't take any prisoners. plus they might just be the most powerful organization of the twenty first century yet no one knows who they are it's all part of the mystery in a lower surrounding the computer hacking group known as anonymous in this digital age understanding cyberspace is a tool and a weapon we're going up close look at this uncanny club oh my. god whole world might be watching the one percent of the department of homeland security is keeping an unusually close eye on the so-called ninety nine percent i'll tell you why the d h s and local authorities are spying on the occupy movement

. it's wednesday may sixteenth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm abbie martin you're watching our team in times of austerity it's the a loaded elephant in the room that no one seems to want to tackle yeah i'm talking about the pentagon a new survey shows the public is ready for some deep cuts an overwhelming majority from both parties support cutting the defense budget here's a look at that survey two thirds of republican support slashing funding one in ten democrats are singing the same tune but this all seems to be at odds with political leaders with the headline saying it all take a look house passes bill undoing defense cuts house g.o.p. pits pentagon versus the poor and house votes to spare punt pentagon from automatic budget cuts trims domestic programs instead. so why is it that elected leaders and the american people aren't seeing eye to eye when it comes to defense spending to

discuss this i'm joined by the man who wrote this book michael o'brien is the author of america's failure in iraq and he's here to help me follow the money. michael you know it seems like americans all across the board can agree that cutting the pentagon is really something they want to see why is this not having i mean our congress completely bought out by defense contractors and that's probably the main reason. there's a lot of reasons but that would have to be the biggest one. you know the term the military industrial complex. we've really heard it for the first time when and why eisenhower gave his farewell address to the nation in one thousand nine hundred sixty one right before he with the white house and it was because he was afraid of the strength the power of a companies that had built weapons and supported our military during the second world war and we really were there now and they it's sort of the tail wagging the dog. these companies are huge they will publicly traded and they have

a huge amount of clout and it's you know one hand feeding the other congress feeds sends money to them and then they send money back to con congress with campaign contributions and. so we say you know there's two sides of the coin here or at least that the choices that were given we have the democrats now a bomb that's pretty much a war president has taken the drone wars to a whole new level in target assassinations etc and then you have romney who doesn't really have a national security background is really a strong national defense and you know of course the democratic side doesn't want to appear weak so i mean is this just a vicious cycle that we're just going to keep seeing this unabated growth over and over it is a vicious cycle because remember a lot of democrats who are very pacifist by nature all a lot of these guys in the senate voted to support bush's invasion of iraq and it was all political because you know especially if they were coming up on the six year old election cycle with members of the senate and they they want to be it's in

vogue to be to be seen as being tough. on national defense and we're just going through that again baracoa brock obama when he was running for president was the biggest pacifist around that he gets into the white house and if i just woke up from a coma of five years i think george bush was still the president so it really is they're all the politicians frankly they're all communions. i sound very cynical it's because i am they're very very tough. they need the money they need the money if you're a politician it specially if you're a member of the house you're running every two years you need that money specially if you're from the north or the the d.c. area. and it's a hard not to be cynical i mean when you know one it's very hard not to be cynical expression after the debacle of our invasion in iraq and what's turning out to be a real pipe dream in afghanistan too and the thing about it is i am an ex army guy

i went to west point and i am really an old school guy my father you know will for the second world war i'm a guy that believes so we're fair when necessary but story with viet nam we've gotten ourselves in wars that had essentially nothing to do with the defense of our goal is really a war against an idea you know first we had communism and now terrorism it's this vague enemy that really instills this fear in the public that just it seems like just a way or means to keep people supporting these endless wars abroad do you think that there is even really a threat at all where you know i like you i like what you said it's a war against an idea in the sixty's you know the spread of communism you know there was a real threat i mean it was it was real it was it was legitimate but the way we want about going at this small tiny little country in viet nam that ends up going communist anyway then then nine eleven happened so it's the war on terror.

and you know the the knee jerk reaction the overkill the department of homeland security all these different things. as i wrote my book i really do believe and i always will believe that going into afghanistan made sense that did have directly a direct link with our national defense that's where al qaeda came from but then that was you but then going into iraq made no sense at all and the other thing my my other point is that even worse if it doesn't makes it even if it if it doesn't make sense. at least go about it the right way we don't all this money being spent but we don't even wage war the right way the very going to serve is overwhelming amounts of money but we don't invade attack using overwhelming force that america spends more than the next ten countries come by and oh social security obviously eye has a black budget we don't even know how much they spend i mean the dad has all these bloated industries let's talk about why what you're saying is we're not even

engaging in these wars the correct way i mean what do you think about drone warfare a poll came out that said eighty three percent of americans agree with that well think of the fact of the matter is the two of the two major areas of fighting our wars today are cyber security cyber space cyber attacks preventing them and drones . both relatively you know they're not manned. they're old they fly drones you know a drone halfway around the world is being flown by some person in california that attachment to the warfare on the ground very very much so it definitely causes a detachment you've got to have operatives on the ground cia and all that on the ground directing the drone strikes and all and all this kind of thing there's no question that drones are very very effective ok but. the. in afghanistan for example in afghanistan you can have all the drones in the world but all they can do is take out

a specific target but what about the insurgents what about the fighters what about all these thousands and thousands of taliban al qaeda fighters that are blowing people up suicide bombers how do you stop that or all this money here that show it's shown up on the screen the the billions the three billion dollars how are you going to stop a suicide bomber from blowing up fifty people with three billion dollars in these expenditures and it doesn't interest i mean we are also doing targeted not even targeted assassination. just being based on behaviors of groups of people i mean that's how broad that this drone warfare has become really quickly though i want to focus on the pentagon proposal. you know last week they proposed to add three billion dollars to fund a naval destroyer a new submarine and other weapons and at the same time they're vowing to curb spending on food stamps federal workers benefits medicaid farm subsidies i mean and

they're sitting there whining about this fifty five billion dollars proposed cut i mean this is insane isn't it will you know it's all the spending is insane it's not just the military. you know this is the administration that is saying that food stamps are good food stamps are or a good thing well you know like a false equivalency that it was a thing about it is if you're going to give somebody money for doing nothing what are you what are they going to do they're going to continue to do nothing so it's all it's goes across the board we are country wastes too much money on everything not just military i can't sit here and say that the three billion dollars babies are going to die because we're spending three billion dollars on the whole thing is crazy to spend on way too many of your money what do you propose i mean you know it's doubled the pentagon budget has doubled since nine eleven and some could argue that we're more safe i mean i personally don't think that we are.

i think that it was a fire and i mean it we're still spending an insane amount of money on on the pentagon i mean what do you propose in the future to curb this you know i'm all for a strong national defense i'm all for spending money on don't get me wrong i'm not for i'm not for you know babies starving that's not happening that's all that's all media hype nobody is starving but the fact of the matter is i'm all for national defense i'm all for spending my. that is directly related to the defense of our country not sticking our nose into tents halfway around the world that have nothing to do with the defense apart country if we're going to do that then we've got to go there's many many places around the world that stuff's going on why don't we what we ignore north korea and north korea and we're ignoring sensually iran you know what you know we're not focusing on the real enemies that are out there that are

developing nuclear weapons and i wouldn't have a problem spending some of this defense money on keeping a lid on these guys that have nuclear weapons some would argue that iran isn't really a threat to this country but i do agree with you that you know. a lot of people would say that being you know occupying these countries and engaging in this drone warfare is really creating is creating causing us to be less safe in this country i mean you've got the blowback there he or what else but i mean blowing people up and targeting innocent civilians abroad is definitely not going to garner support for this country it's a tough one because ok i mentioned iran if iran were to attack israel ok let's say iran nuke israel then i think israel has a how to hold on that region i mean do we really need to be involved and say it is only a what is this spec surrounded by arab countries that want to destroy it on

a beach. if iran attacked israel israel would fight back with nuclear weapons and you'd have a conflagration of the nuclear weapons though right now israel no iran. oh but if i said if iran attacked i mean we could debate whether iran has nuclear weapons for not i think it's fair to say that there are doing their level best to develop them and i do not have any more a mountain said they are not building one i don't believe. i mean i think i don't believe what leon panetta you know i mean iran you can you could say the same thing for iran is that they're surrounded by a country they're kind of being closed in by all sides from american and period isn't and israel has a stockpile of nuclear weapons they're also funded enormously by this country i mean well to defend themselves from one attack by places like iran from places like iran what gives you the opinion that iran is looking to attack israel well almost

some mistake him hasn't the president of iran are going to be mocked. publicly stated that he his mission is to destroy israel that's a mistranslation a commonly known as translation he never said wiping israel off the map that is completely not true so i guess then the whole everything about then i guess suranne you know we could arrange them on nice place to go well if you're saying no and i don't know i just think that you know the saber rattling and and the closing in on these countries isn't making us safer it's not necessarily our business to be you know eighteen israel's fear mongering in that region we can argue all day about this it's been very nice talking to you and it's definitely an issue to continue an absolutely larry important that was michael o'brian author of america's failure in iraq. they've been called everything from freedom fighters to cyber terrorists yes we're talking about anonymous infamous hacktivist group that has the government shaking in their boots with the shutdowns of some of the most secure government

websites now one of the one of the self-proclaimed members of the leaderless organization has fled to canada to escape federal hacking charges against him as alias is commander and in some recent interviews he's made some startling claims he says that anonymous may very well be the most powerful organization on earth and the group of fifty thousand members worldwide have access to every classified database in the u.s. government so are these claims overblown or is anonymous really as much of a threat as the government keeps hyping all along to talk more about commander x.'s claims i was joined by greg internet activist and c.e.o. of local as you know company take a look i think he's a pretty boisterous pretty vocal guy you know a lot of people have taken the claims what i'll say is a bit out of context you know reading the full comment that he made very he finishes it up with saying that he's talking about geeks and hackers and you know everyone who's in control of data he's not necessarily referring to the group just

meeting an anonymous user furring to all of us technical people who happen to control the data which in this day and age really controls the world you have a great he also says that these people in these organizations have willingly given anonymous the information and that you know they've they've kind of released it to them. i mean he does say that he actually does and that's that's something that's have been multiple times in the past so so no really how far along that is in the u.s. government i'm not sure but a prime example would be you know during the arab spring in tunisia when the attacks were going on against those networks instead of a lot of the nonce having to break into those networks the people the you know hackers the people who actually worked for the government there on those networks showed up and handed anonymous the passwords and usernames to get into those networks and to get into those databases that were used to take down a lot of the communications they've been all he had and that same type of person

works in those same positions here in our government too so to assume that they're not going to do the same thing is i think wrong i think you will find people in those positions which i would consider positions of great power at this point willing to give up that type of information to people who they think are doing the right thing ok let's let's talk about commander eggs and also saying you know how anonymous is the most powerful organization in the world potentially do you think that these claims i mean aren't they just going to let the government take this and run with it i mean the government's already trying to pass this track kone in cyber terrorism legislation and take away net neutrality and really impede our freedoms there i mean do you think this is just kind of eighteen their whole talking point on cyber terrorism and the threat of it it's a huff tough one to argue against you know you make a very valid point there that at some point you know the rhetoric might need to be dialed back a little but you know you also have to be convincing and you know tell the true story of things you know whether it's. going to help the government or not in some

situations he's got to say what he believes to be true in the honestly believes what he said there so you know you've got to run with it i think that the power is currently in the hands of the people who really control the data when it comes to the types of stuff you were referring to so it's some point it's pretty powerful the most powerful organization in the world is i think going a bit far you know i'm going to agree with most of you out there that that was overstepping of you but you know there is a lot of power to be had just through having control of this data so he's not he's not considerably wrong he also says that you know the killing of innocents and a lot of the what people have seen with the with the wiki leaks releases is the least of it and he said you know once we see the true extent of what the u.s. government has been doing we're going to change our tune i mean what's anonymous waiting for how come they don't just release the stuff i mean it's now or never. you'd be surprised how much thought is being put into

a lot of the things they've come across you know and talking to some of you would assume through other actions that have been done by you know or supposedly by anonymous that data would just be done no thought behind it right on time but you know of late you've seen people who have gotten a hold of you know this type of information and actually take a step back and think about the ripple effects the ramifications of that data getting out and you know who it might affect in some cases the effect is much stronger against the citizens against the people than it is against any government or corporation and they've thought twice about releasing it so some of the data is just being combed through to you know consider who it would hurt the most and deciding whether it's going to be released or not and i think that's a good swing i think that's heading in the right direction it just seems like you know in the face of this police state someone call it and these crackdowns against occupy i mean it just seems like what are we really waiting for i mean let's get the ball rolling here why doesn't someone who has just just taken around of that

but i want to shift gears really quickly and and kind of dovetail office and talk about who of law who was you know came out later that he was an f.b.i. informant all along or not all along but for many months and he compromised a lot of other hack hacktivists and the organization i mean when you look at this a loose organization do you think that a lot of it is compromised by the f.b.i. . i think that you have to assume that any i receive channel you join the reports to be anything related to anonymous is going to have a federal agent in it i mean that being that all of them are so open and so transparent that anyone can join you know that you know what we'll call the spooks the bad guys have joined and they're sitting there watching just as you are so you know everyone who does this and takes part needs to consider that in anything they do on those networks and i'm not saying don't go there i'm just saying be very careful about how you act and how you protect your identity and greg i just want to

talk about the whole cyber terrorism debate where government officials have come out more and more even americans are saying that they're more scared of cyber terrorism than actual terrorism now and they've said that it's not a matter of if but when there will be an enormous cyber terrorist attack in this country i mean how do we know that that won't just be a false flag by our own government. oh we don't i mean i would actually assume that it would be at this point but you know maybe i'm a bit extreme for my view there but i will say you know as a prime example of what you just said there is the and i say when they came out and said that you know anonymous and all these hackers were going to go after the power grid an interesting twist to that was that a year before they had put forth a proposal to get the security of the national power grid here in america all under a centralized control under them or some new you know government body that would control the security of those networks and it really fell on deaf ears congress that you know the house they really ignored it and didn't want to want to do it and

it is it is very interesting and the threats keep coming in from the government about this issue so we'll keep an eye on that was great house internet activist and c.e.o. of local as c.e.o. company. still ahead on our team say free that's because filling police in illinois is against the law classified as a class one felony for now but u.s. court of appeals might have something to say about that the first amendment versus the war on cameras and we'll tell you about it next. spring. but in the alone a cell you know gets a real headlines with none of them are saying the problem with the mainstream media today is that they're completely disconnected from the viewers and what actually matters to those viewers and so that's why young people just don't watch t.v. anymore if they want news they go online and read it but we're trying to take those stories that people actually care about and transfer them back to t.v. . margy is the

state run english speaking russian channel it's kind of like al-jazeera. russia today has an extremely confrontational stance when it comes to us. the first amendment it's the bedrock of u.s. liberty and the necessity to keep a check on power has been proven time and time again with the continued use of unwarranted police force and brutality so the surveillance cameras constantly filming us citizens that citizens have the right to film police i mean after all they are public servants on public property right well not if illinois has anything to say about it the state has already made videotaping police illegal and under an

antiquated eavesdropping act it's a first class felony to record audio of police officers while on duty which could mean as many as fifteen years behind bars recently in the u.s. court of appeals for the seventh circuit issued an injunction against the illinois law stating it as a violation of first amendment yay for freedom well unfortunately some of the judges serving on the seventh circuit disagree with the injunction and have stated they find no violations whatsoever so who's going to win this free press battle and it's going to be a growing trend nationwide jacob sullum is the senior editor for reason dot com he joined me earlier to discuss this issue of first amendment rights. well it's actually probably the worst in the country when it comes to restricting people's ability to record public officials in public places is really unique in terms of both the restrictions and the severity of potential punishment and it's been under challenge in state court and in federal court a couple of state court judges recently found that it was unconstitutional and now

you see that the seventh circuit is inclined to agree they haven't actually made a final ruling but they issued a preliminary injunction which means they think that the show you which is challenging the law has a good chance of prevailing and in the meantime they're barring prosecutors from prosecuting people out of law and barring police from arresting people under the law do you think that the injunction would possibly be lifted. no i think that the so you will probably win this case another circuit has already found the first circuit in a case involving the massachusetts law which was similar in some respects to the illinois law that you have a first amendment right to record police officers when they're performing. their jobs in public there is a guy who was arrested in boston because he recorded in the rest it was in progress he thought that excessive force was being used so he took out a cell phone to the cell phone to document that and he got arrested and so and he was charged among other things with with you dropping the equivalent in massachusetts and those charges were ultimately thrown out but then he sued saying

they should never arrest him to begin with and the federal appeals court there greets and now you're going to it looks like we're going to have two circuits agreeing that there is a first amendment right to record police in places and other states don't have laws or anything like that you should know that that in most states you do have a clear right to do this even the police may not realize that the police may arrest people for the slayer without realizing what the law actually says in most places in the united states you do have a clear right to report police officers in public places so you're talking about massachusetts and i know maryland trying to pass a bill as well i mean are there any states right now with a law on the books that make it illegal using this antiquated and dropping act to film police those are really the last two remaining states that have a statute that specifically prohibits it and some other places police officers might interpret the law or misinterpret the law to apply in that situation but if you go to court and challenge those charges in all likelihood been thrown out. jacob you know there are some protesters and here we are nato is coming out this

weekend and this draco in legislation is an alan noir i know that there's an injunction against and it's not in the books yet. more is but there is an injunction but you know these protesters cut these cops on film saying you know we said in sixty eight a billy club to the f. in scole what people saw was a dude i mean cops are making these direct threats against protesters i mean how are they suppose it's supposed to be held accountable if there's this chilling effect kind of against filming on right i mean that's the problem obviously and this is the a.c.l.u. if they were trying to do is simply observe police at events like pro you know protests and make sure that they behave properly and if they misbehave they wanted to be able to document it but they were afraid they would be arrested simply for trying to do that so that's why they've all filed this lawsuit and even if ultimately people prevail in these cases on constitutional grounds you still have the problem that police don't understand the law or don't care about the law and will nevertheless arat caressed you because you're doing something that you're

right to do there's no way to completely avoid that but you should be aware of what their rights actually are under the law in whatever state they happen to be in and they shouldn't you know try to get into a fight about it but they should be aware of the fact that despite the fact that they have a right to do this police may try to stop them and they accuse them of committing a crime and then down the line they can challenge the arrest if that's what happens we have an article on our website a month or two ago about seven rules for recording the police which gives you some tips about how to do it and you have the technology and how to avoid getting into so any kind of violent confrontation with the police and you know how do you how to step back so that you make sure that you're not interfering with their with them informing their duties that they want to use you of that group so that's worth looking at it's on our website reason dot com for people who are interested in trying to monitor the place in public or are document jake and it only jacob it almost seems like just a desperate. as are being taken by these national police forces because i mean

everyone has a camera now every cell phone has a camera and everyone can just take it out and film they can live stream and tell the truth as it's happening who's lobbying for these bills to pass i mean it's a picture speaks a thousand words you say oscar grant case now to kelly thomas case i mean is there some sort of massive lobbying from some industry to pass these or do you think it's just kind of you know like a desperate measures from police force to really cover up the abuse or i think the police are inclined to resist these developments they're not they have not quite adjusted to this new reality that they can be documented anytime anyplace by anybody who happens to be wearing a so phone you know for obvious reasons a lot of the police are on easy about that and therefore what you see like i said is more than the actual laws that ban that you have police who either think the law bans it or they take it upon themselves to stop you they don't want to be recording that only watching of course this is a ridiculous double standard because they have every right to record you in illinois particular the law it was amazing because the law said police had

a right to record you during their you you have no right to record them furthermore if you if you eavesdrop on just an ordinary citizen the maximum penalty is three years but if you do it if you record a cop or another law enforcement official the maximum penalty was fifteen years you know so what kind of message does that send to people when you're saying if you dare to try to monitor public officials who are inferior working for you then you can be charged with a felony in some prison. you know as i think i think that is on its way out i think that's what you're saying is sort of the last gasp of resistance to this new reality right is interesting to be threatened with a prison sentence comparable to rapists just for filming a public servant and even instances on some people's personal property so it is very interesting it will definitely keep an eye on these laws essential to the first amendment that was jake of solemn at senior editor for reason dot com but does it for now for more of the stories because.