tonight on our t.v. american drone strike again ok it is number two was killed by a drone and what's being touted as a major blow to the organization but well we are the story before coming up we'll tell you while his resilience might outlast america's air power plus two hundred fifty thousand pages of treasury the documents a week in leaks on the map is now the main evidence against private first class bradley manning those same documents might be able to save him from some of the charges we'll tell you how. we all know the u.s. can be a little hollow it sign when it comes to cyber security it's downright hypocritical on one hand congress is ramping up the need for internet protection bills and on the other the obama administration is secretly attacking foreign governments using the resources it says it's so afraid of so what this can of cyber worms wide open

is this the next platform for war. one day june sixth seven pm in washington d.c. i'm at a martin and you're watching r t. well the number two al qaeda leader has been declared killed by a drone strike on the pakistani border according to government officials under obama's cia drone strikes they've killed fifteen of the most important players and al-qaeda bush has toppled sixteen top leaders in the organization problem is the threat of al qaeda seems to be ever expanding after nine eleven they were primarily based in afghanistan pakistan and sudan which is led to drone strikes in those regions and recent years ok his influence has reportedly sprung up more in yemen and somalia which is led to more drone strikes there and mali may be next on the list. so those important leaders of al qaeda being taken out of the drone strikes

doing their job of a limited eliminating dangerous terrorists and as a result is america safer because of them scott horton contributing editor for harper's magazine joined me earlier today i first asked if these drone strikes have killed one terrorist to have another one just pop up in its place. well i think if and and part it's because of their organizational structure of course you take out the number three and the new person is going to become number three so you have something of a whack a mole game here but i think in the past there's been some skepticism about people described as being senior figures but i would say that's not the case with libby the person who was taken out today i mean really he has been the subject of extensive profiles in the media a special article in the new york times for instance and he's been profiled by a number of other people peter bergen at c.n.n. he's the real mccoy he clearly is the senior leadership figure and i think the

essence of the washington post story is correct that is there's just no doubt that in the last three years there has been a dramatic ramping up of the attack going after senior al qaeda leaders and in fact this organization has been reduced to a pale shadow of what it once was now that raises the question that you you also mentioned. in the arabian peninsula somalia and other places and i'll just say that you know i and many other people who've studied them are much more skeptical about those organizations their capacity for threat and their even their linkage to the original al qaida organization than one phenomenon that's going on here is that we have an intelligence operation right now in which we have ten american operatives or analysts for every one else the member at least maybe

more than that and we've got a lot of people trying to preserve their jobs by establishing and talking the risk threat here and i think when we look at some of these starts coming out of africa that's definitely the case so do you think we're not ready yet and i'm just going to as you think the threat is completely overblown at this point i mean that we're going to the u.s. government makes al qaeda out to be this tentacle like organization a sleeper cells all in america and spreading all across the middle east would you say that that's completely overblown. i would say that there is that you have to look at in the case by case basis so if we're looking at yemen yes there definitely is something in yemen and let's not forget some of bin laden himself was you minnie i mean this in a sense was part of a core part of the organization there the allegations are more serious but they're still probably overblown and terms of the threat is going to lot of people there

who are identified as being part of the threat in fact are just different tribal groups who are in opposition to the sala dictatorship and yemen but you know let's contrast that with mali i mean i've spent quite a bit of time studying and evaluating the situation in mali and my view is the claims of our car them there are vastly overblown we're looking at a torah stand you know uprising that has you know extremist islamist elements what the other been extreme the islam is elements there forever is nothing new about that and nothing that presents a particular risk tied to al qaeda scott you said yourself to some of these people aren't even affiliated with al qaeda they might just be extremists in other organizations and it seems like when the government touts you know that someone's a member of al qaeda it's really just you know they're dead and it's really there's no due process for these people to see really if they were complicit in the crimes that we've set out when we assassinate and i want to ask you though why do you think it is that al qaeda wasn't even referred to as an organization before nine

eleven it was just a tactic. well you know i think before nine eleven we have a handful of people in the united states and the f.b.i. and the cia who were focused on the outcry that were tracking it who were trying to deal with it and identify that this is a serious threat it didn't get that sort of higher level political attention that even after the u.s.s. cole attack that only came after nine eleven so i think in part that's sort of a domestic political situation it was literally never even referred to those literally never referred to in the f.b.i. as a group that's got i want to ask you really quickly you know every time there's a new al qaeda leader taken out it seems like there's a pentagon official right there in the mainstream press saying this is exactly why we need these drone wars do you think that they're just how do you mean these just to continue to justify obama's drone wars. well i think there's a problem i mean look we really have

a question of balancing tactics versus strategies here and i think when you look at what's going on particularly in pakistan and yemen it seems like a lot of strategies a lot of tactics in search of a strategy we still have a strategy because drones are a good tactical device they can be used effectively to deal with terrorists and i salie the conditions certainly in conditions like you have and pakistan and yemen but the brothers strategic concern has to be not just a limb in a they give them but also a limb in aiding the breeding grounds so to speak their ability to recruit and and also the risk of deterioration in relations between the u.s. and the governments of all the i mean particularly we've seen the meltdown in u.s. relations with pakistan over the last couple guys and dana and panetta just came out today and said that we're actually at war officially with pakistan and people

have told reporters their people on the ground have said you know you consider al qaeda terrorists we consider drones terrorists and i mean you're saying that drones can be used and a good way but i mean do you think that it's really helping the war on terror to fight terror with terror. now look if the use of drones and the north-west frontier era area of pakistan results in the open war with pakistan which is a nuclear power with the largest growing nuclear arsenal in the world then the use of drones has not been successful even if it's taking out the outcry that it's produced a new and bigger problem and that i think is what we need to focus on this is for instance what admiral blair former national security adviser and the white house has been saying for some time and scott what do you think the threat really is i mean in america americans are more likely to be killed by a lightning strike or accidentally suffocating in bed than actually die of

a terrorist attack i mean do you think this is completely overblown should we even be focusing on this a loose affiliated group in the middle east as a threat to our nation frankly. if you look at the quadrennial defense report that's in preparation now you look at the tactical analyses are coming out of the cia it's clear that notwithstanding this political rhetoric our own intelligence community in our own defense community no longer view this islamic terrorist threat as the principal security risk to the united states they're looking elsewhere and then fact you'll find outcry this slipping off the list of the top five threats so it's captured the attention of the american media and american politicians but the people who are really serious about the subject no longer view it as a prime concern very interesting thanks so much for joining us scott that was scott horton contributing editor for harper's magazine. he's declared an enemy to some but a hero to many army private bradley manning is allegedly responsible for the largest

government leak and u.s. history after being held without charges for over two years manning's pretrial hearings finally started today he's charged with twenty two counts including aiding the enemy we're told a life sentence in a military prison it's a very serious charge that deserves a fair trial at the u.s. government is holding on to two hundred fifty thousand documents relating to manning's case that are being withheld from the defense to join us now for an update of someone who's been at the trial all morning zac president press liaison for the bradley manning support network that give us an update about what happened at the trial today i tell you it's like watching a poorly executed circus act here think the prosecution's verbal acrobatics really reached new heights today and i think it really came to the surface for the judge and it became apparent to this military judge that the prosecution is simply using word games to try to stall and delay this trial to try

and drag it out and often we spent you know probably half the time just going over various definitions of words as opposed to really dealing with the substantive issues of the case as we've been wanting to do all along and so there were a number of occasions today where the judge basically caught the prosecution essentially misrepresenting the facts you know that in the past for example they may say that you know they were unaware of wiki leaks impact assessments for example and it as it turns out in a memo that was revealed in court today they actually were quite well aware of these things and so there were a number of instances today where it became clear that they weren't telling the truth talk a little bit about these documents but two hundred fifty thousand documents what are they and why are they being withheld from the defense well there's. quite a large body of material in this case and it became clear today exactly what it is

we're working with in the best way i can explain it is that there's about sixty three different agencies who have some sort of analysis or something to talk about with wiki leaks and so far twenty eight of those agencies have turned over some sort of information to the defense team the vast majority of these have been one to two page documents all of which is bradley manning's attorney david coombs noted in court today. all of these documents have shown that there that there wasn't any damage to national security some of the bigger wiki leaks impact assessments that we were looking at finally a state department has been turned over to the defense they are in the process of turning over another one that was done by the defense intelligence agency there's a heavily redacted. assessment that came out today from the f.b.i. actually which pertain the little bit to the wiki leaks grand jury investigation

and there are others there's another one from the cia's wiki leaks task force that is still in the process of being turned over to the defense. you know charging someone with aiding the enemy is a very serious charge as we said hold a life sentence in prison if convicted what evidence is there really for this i mean what evidence is the prosecution have if worse if you're saying that these assessments say that there was no compromise to national security well i mean that's a that's exactly the point you know if there was no harm to national security then why were these documents classified in the first place and if we go back and look at president obama's own executive order you can read it you know for yourself it says that the only reason to withhold information from the public is if it would impact national security so you know if there hasn't been this this terrible thing then why why were they withheld from the public and i think that you know when we

look at that issue when we look at the fact that bradley's intentions were clearly you know to inform and alert the american people and you know the prosecution is basically saying that you know his intentions don't matter they've even said in court it doesn't matter how pure is intentions were it doesn't matter that what the impacts were the government is arguing a very narrow point that simply by putting classified information on the internet if the enemy can also read the internet therefore you've helped the enemy and this as the a.c.l.u. has pointed out would establish a very alarming precedent whereby essentially any soldier even if they unintentionally reveal something completely harmless they could face capital punishment and so this i mean this could have a really huge impact on journalism not only for sources but on the ability of the american people to know what their elected officials are doing is this completely unprecedented to have such a hard line against someone who's merely just

a whistle blower like you said in obama's rhetoric leading up to the campaign we need to protect whistleblowers it's very important only if they compromise national security would we go after them. i mean it took two plus years some of which was in solitary confinement why did it take so long to well this point it well i think they're trying to stall the case out you know i think that. you know when we look at the fact that the court martial is currently scheduled for september we've got an election in november. the kinds of sort of just deliberate stalling tactics that we've seen it almost seems as if they want to try and drag this out to where it'll happen after the election and one could only assume that that's because barack obama would see this as some sort of political liability to continue with this retaliation against a whistleblower and we have to remember that this administration has prosecuted

more whistleblowers under the espionage act than all previous presidencies combined and this clearly flies in the face not only of president obama's. promise to be the most transparent administration in history but also to stop torture and he should not have treated bradley the way he's been treated and that's why it's time to let him go even john mccain said that in the prison camp you know solitary confinement is tantamount to the worst torture that one can experience and the way that he was treated was very inhumane i wanted you to discuss more about. why do you think it is that we praise whistleblowers in the past when daniel ellsberg declared as a hero why is bradley manning considered an enemy of the state for doing essentially the same thing which is exposing war crimes and corruption well i think that you know the state may think that about bradley manning and they're certainly pulling out all the stops to try to keep the press from being able to report the story i

mean the some of the folks in the video feed the side room for the media at the trial they counted at the last hearing they said something there was like sixty two different times that the. audio visual feed was cut and so they weren't even able to take notes on what was going on and so you know this kind of thing as happened in the past with daniel ellsberg the nixon administration tried to retaliate against him they tried to make him seem like he was crazy or you know they even sent some folks to you know to go after him and so i mean i think that you know this this that aspect is is not necessarily unprecedented but i think the scale and the scope and the fact that you know it just seems anyone who. could not just a whistleblower but someone who's you know really criticizing the administration those are the ones who are getting prosecuted. and what's next with the trial what can we expect i know that they change from three to six pretrial hearings or whatever so what can we expect next and how can people follow the case well there's

going to be a series of pretrial hearings between now and the scheduled court martial in september there are going to be additional ones now to deal with some of the new evidence that's being turned over to the defense team tomorrow as i understand it they are expecting to have someone from the state department answer a few questions so that may be a fairly interesting thing to look at tomorrow but you know we're going to be out there pressing this case you know every step of the way inside and outside the courtroom it's very important case to follow and definitely a very large precedent for whistleblowers in this country thanks so much for coming in studio. seven to press the ways on for the bradley manning support network. when it comes to the faceless threat of cyber terror american apoc received rings loud and clear recently the u.s. government has been ramping up fear about cyber terrorism saying that cyber warfare will soon be the biggest threat facing the u.s.

and recent documents they say that the cyber attacks we viewed as america an act of war which could work retell atory military force was congress introduces countless numbers of cyber security bills to prevent attacks the government on the other hand is attacking other countries covertly now confirm that the us working in concert with israel created stuxnet at the computer virus that was used to infect iran's nuclear enrichment programs so what precedent does this set for the rest of the world and we'll gauge it in cyber warfare but america at risk trevor ten activists with the electronic frontier foundation joined me earlier to touch base on the implications of this take a listen this could have huge implications going forward not just in the u.s. but with other countries. you know as you said the pentagon said a year ago that cyber war attack on the u.s. could be looked at as a real act of war and the u.s. could actually retaliate with withrow weapons and now we find out last week from

the new york times that the u.s. government is actually engaged in cyber attacks against iran and president obama according to the new york times is it has been acutely aware of this situation where we're setting precedent for other nations and that's where the real problem lies because we've been criticizing china for allegedly attacking united states companies and u.s. governments while the same time engaging in this in the in the same conduct with other countries and so this could pull open up a huge new can of worms and as the new york times pointed out this is a similar situation the u.s. faced the one nine hundred forty s. when it was developing and tom a bomb it's really important that we set guidelines and limits to how we act and react in that in these situations because it could have huge effects in the future . sure what do you think about the ramping up of cyber terrorism as this giant threat i mean we saw robert mueller come out and say that that's going to be surpassed terrorism as the number one threat facing the nation and then here comes out that they're engaging in it all along across these names to these other nations

what do you think about them using this threat against our nation to pass legislation like cispa yes they've been engaged in fear mongering to pass this bill which unfortunately doesn't even really address the cyber security issue the problem of the problems with. our it just addresses information sharing so it lets companies and governments share huge amounts of information with each other which could lead to companies giving your personal information your communications so the government without a warrant which current privacy law now prevents and so cisco kind of carbs a giant hole into this and that's not even really attacking the problem so if we take stocks that for example they used four zero day exploits and stocks that they were the exploits are essentially vulnerabilities in software that allows attackers to get into a system and take your information well when governments have these other people have them too and there's

a huge underground market for the zero to exploit which are being sold to governments all around the world for hundreds of thousands of dollars now it should be the u.s. policy where if they find out about a zero day exploit that they that they tell a company immediately they tell a browser that they're their system is vulnerable and they can fix it and make us all safe unfortunately when they keep them to themselves we're all less safe do you think that this could be a possibility that they're trying to create a cyber retaliatory attack against this countries than they can justify passing his bills by doing this covert warfare against iran. i mean i wouldn't go that far i think that you know there's plenty of evidence that cyber attacks are already happening against the u.s. as well i mean not to say that this isn't an invisible that they're completely making up this threat what i'm saying is that the laws they're trying to ask would invade people's privacy and wouldn't accomplish the goals they even want to accomplish they are using as an as they are using it as an excuse to say like less

than privacy laws but actually google came out the other day and said they were going to start telling users when they think that they're being with a state sponsored attack we've already seen google issue warnings to individual users in the last day or two including national security reporters and even. obama reelection campaign members saying that their g. mail accounts were attempted to be hacked by state sponsored state sponsored hackers so we know it's a problem but the way that they're going about attacking it and their hypocrisy in actually doing it themselves is really where the real issue lies cover what do you think about just our surrounding iran on all sides with our military and also just the saber rattling and going along with also the taking out of nuclear scientists that the explosion was suspected to be from the stuxnet that that killed multiple people there i mean it just seems like we're just saber rattling then waiting for

them to strike what do you think about that. well i mean i think the stuff that the stuff that virus how it worked was that it overwhelmed their centrifuges and their nuclear facilities and the explosion. whatever damage it caused such as wasn't involved in any big explosions that killed the iranian scientist that's a completely separate issue where scientists have been found dead. by targeted assassination it seems like. i mean the real problem is that you know we're trying to negotiate with iran right now to get them to stop their nuclear program but at the same time we're engaged in these covert activities which when iran finds out about them obviously they're going to be upset and it could end up backfiring on us completely where we could make progress in the goshi ations using diplomacy but where they end up. realizing that the u.s. is attacking the u.s.

cyber warfare and could end up. you know ending the negotiations actually well i guess that's the real question is why why is the white house saying publicly that we're trying to negotiate them with with them peacefully about their nuclear program you know the saying that all this but at the same time actually engaging in warfare and making these acts against their facilities thanks so much for coming on and sharing your opinion that was trevor ten activists with their electronic frontier foundation. still ahead on our team a disappointing day for wisconsin union leaders they were unsuccessful at unseating republican scott walker ahead we'll tell you what that means for wisconsin and the country. but first three letters burn droz right right i mean it's like a derivative of actual pepper it's a food product essentially. it's much stronger than anything you'd be by a lot of. thousands of times i'm stronger than any one of the bird you ever put you

know. what's. left of the aloneness so you know there's a real headlines with none of them or 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. 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. . what was unexpected or not so unexpected blow to the democratic party in wisconsin's recall election last night after months of daily protests heated debates. this attack ads

the tight race between barrett and walker resulted in walker keeping his seat as wisconsin's governor walker outspent barrett ten to one and some are saying that that had a major influence on the victory so what is the crime on the ground today and why is this election significant arctic correspondent christine freeze out is in wisconsin and filed this report for us. for the outsider it looks like any other day in madison wisconsin. but for many it will be a day spent trying to pick up the pieces how does it feel now that it's all for me a disappointing. it all but my so i didn't win some here say it came down to a contest of labor versus corporations and in this case corporations won big time i think all the out of state money mainly to cope brothers was just unconscionable i think it's just a really sad day for wisconsin and i'm in mourning today week by the right person

that way but you the best of luck but. this was the scene outside the capitol on election night. the supporters remaining hopeful and vigilant. the idea of their efforts falling short in comprehensible. c.n.n. n.b.c. a.b.c. have all announced governor walker has won just wanted to get your reaction to that . but the sad day for wisconsin if that's the truth. a really sad day for a lot of us well despite that energy that overwhelming enthusiasm the effort to recall governor scott walker has failed and now a message has been set it's a message many believe has the power to change this country forever. then we go to war with.

ok. tough decisions like cracking down on collective bargaining rights for workers are the spark that led to this fire storm more than a year ago. fast forward and that fire. is now dying down so those of you who fought looked pained signatures who stood out in the cold did what you thought was right never ever stop doing what you think is right and election day hang over sixteen months in the making in madison wisconsin christine for sound our team. well that does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to our you tube channel you tube dot com slash our to america and check out our website our to dot com slash usa you can also follow me on twitter at abby martin see you in a half hour.