really hard. today on r t republicans and democrats might not be willing to cross party lines and matters dealing with health care the budget or the nation's debt but now two lawmakers are coming together to make an internet bill of rights what's in it and what does it mean for your cyber freedom well western more. and if you thought the bridge to nowhere was a waste of time old battle is brewing between kentucky and indiana well tell you why the local government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build a tunnel under eleven acres of trees. it's tuesday june twelfth eight pm here in washington d.c.

i'm liz wahl and you're watching our t.v. . all the battle for internet freedom is crossing the political divide democratic senator ron wyden and republican representative darrell issa have put political differences aside to make a bill of rights for the internet let's take a look at the top three freedom digital citizens have a right to a free censored internet second once there is openness digital citizens have a right to an open unobstructed internet and then there is a quality digital citizens are created equal and the on the internet now both lawmakers were instrumental in defeating sopa and pipa both bills that critics say strip citizens of their online freedoms and privacy and now they're pushing for this bill of rights wyden has been a staunch critic of these bills where he here he is on the floor condemning these cyber intelligence security protection act better known as sista. it creates uncertainty in place of trust it or wrote erode statutory and constitutional civil

rights protections and it creates a surveillance regime in place of a target. cyber security program that is leading to truly protect our nation. so can the class for internet freedom unite lawmakers of all political affiliations and can they be successful and defending and turn out freedoms to discuss that the bill and mara was joined by david seaman and a pen and journalist and tack and destry expert here's the take it's a great idea in theory. i like part of the wording of that certainly the internet should remain free and uncensored i think the part about all digital citizens being created equal is a little bit cheeky and i don't know if that's something that the government can force or even should be enforcing you know certainly the c.e.o. of google probably has a higher internet speed internet connection and more online influence than somebody

just logging on from their a.o.l. dial up account so clearly all digital citizens are not created equal some people have more influence online than others but this is a step in the right direction i just hope that it's not a p.r. stunt because we've seen so many awful bills out of congress over the past six months and originally i believe he supported cispa so maybe he's trying to atone for his sins here in any case it's definitely a good step and senator wyden are very powerful in congress they're both high ranking members and they can really get something done here so i think this is a good move ok so you seem consciously optimistic about this do you think it sounds like you also think that some of them are might be unrealistic. yeah i mean we don't have to descend into total idealism the bill of rights that we already have prevents a lot of the more awful bills we're seeing in congress member becoming law things

like cispa clearly violate your fourth amendment rights and potentially even your first amendment rights but certainly it's a good idea to clarify these things and to bring things up to date for the modern age because the founding fathers didn't have an internet to work with and i think when they word this this bill of rights for internet users needs to be worded as simply and so the sink flee as possible so that future generations of politicians cannot intentionally misconstrue it saying the bill of rights is worded extremely simple you don't have to be a lawyer to understand it you just need to have like a seventh or eighth grade education and you know what the bill of rights gives you the same with a digital bill of rights i think it should be extremely simple and there should be no room for loopholes all right and as you have mentioned there they are quite simple easy to under the understand and they keep them short and to the point everything from freedom to creativity to privacy to sharing the thing that these rights are basic fundamental rights that american citizens are entitled to.

you know it is i really do the internet comes down to freedom of speech and freedom of expression and freedom of the press and the internet is still emerging it's such a new technology who knows where it will be ten years or fifteen years from now certainly going to be a much bigger influence in our lives than it is today and it would be really silly and dangerous to overregulate the internet at this point and prevent it from becoming the engine of economic growth and innovation that is in the united states we innovate we have google we have facebook we have microsoft the united states is leading the way in this information age and it would just be disastrous for a congress composed of older people many of whom don't really understand how the internet works for those folks to overregulate it would be just totally the wrong move and it would also open the door to a kind of police state where the government can spy on you without a warrant and that's not ok in the wake of all these pieces of legislation and

south of tampa they were kind of knocked down with c.s.s. but now i number of other bells do you fear that these riots that are stated in these digital bill of rights are in danger. i i don't know i think there's so much influence so much power backing these bills that they're not just going to go away one of my readers when i have so that i was coming on your show today to talk about this they suggested that i mention who's really behind these bills and it's the entertainment lobby it's groups like the m.p.a. and riaa these very powerful very well connected groups who have the money to back what they believe in. they want control of the internet they want old school media companies to succeed no matter what even if that means crushing the web even if that means crushing freedom of expression and we need to speak out against that because american citizens are not the ones asking for this know typical internet users saying we need more internet regulation i don't feel safe when i'm online

that's not the case this is being pushed by lobbying groups and by companies that are using. their backdoor power instead of just competing with everyone else and seeing who actually wins in the free market and david it's interesting and this case we have a democratic senator and a republican congressman both of them are standing behind us is this something where when lawmakers from both parties can find common ground. i think it is like i said these are both these are powerful guys these are not you know newcomers to the game. they can really get something accomplished here and it is bipartisan and maybe this is a chance for them to go back to their constituents and say look we saved the internet things got pretty bad but we've put a stop to it and since but didn't get through and so but didn't get through and at the end of the day you still have a free internet so maybe that's what they're going for here i hope it is a success and i hope it has some flesh and teeth and it's not just a p.r. stunt as i was saying online earlier today airlines now

a lot of major airlines have a passenger bill of rights to appease people but that's mostly a p.r. move these passenger bills of rights don't really do anything and i hope that the digital bill of rights is serious and it's enforced all right but i'm a if it's a p.r. move it sounds like you're afraid that that i guess there's not really any legal standing behind or that there would be any push to enforce them. yeah it was i just i don't know i don't really trust congress at this point i would've been far less skeptical six months ago but we've just seen so many whacko bills come through that at this point i want to read everything and read the fine print and see. how are they going to do this how are they going to protect our rights because when you create something this broad you want to make sure that it doesn't unintentionally damage things that we might want to do in the future and david what do you think it will take for people to really rally to stand behind it and to keep these rights. i think what it comes down to is you need to explain this in terms that the average

internet user can understand this stuff about intellectual property protection and cyber piracy and cyber security it's a little arcane it's difficult for even you and i to get through these bills but we have to do is show the average person that look if something like cisco becomes law the government and local law enforcement and random private companies could sift through your e-mails your facebook activity your google searches they could do all of this stuff without a warrant it could be used to blackmail you it could be used to just really to sell you products you don't want it's just a dangerous dangerous road that we're headed down and so we clearly need something like a digital bill of rights i think if you show the average person how this can affect them they will speak out in support of the bill of rights and against anything that infringes on their rights and david if these rights are strat men americans end up losing them how would that affect our internet experience. it would definitely

saw it would be bad news people no longer expressing themselves freely online because they would be afraid of future employers or even the government itself cracking down on you if you say that if you post a tweet that's critical of the obama administration it's mean that you can't find work it could mean that the government is going to come after you and dig a little bit deeper. so it could definitely chill free speech but at the end of the day technology and innovation are moving so much faster than this legislation anyway there's always going to be a way to speak your mind but i don't think we should be regular regulating things like the internet in the first place the internet is not broken it's great it works fantastically so we really need to speak out here and stand our ground and lastly david not too long ago when there was a cyber attack it's still unknown where the root of it as it's known as flame and when things like this are going on do you think that they're going to serve as

justification for lawmakers to say hey we really need to do something and crack down to prevent cyber attacks from happening. well whatever government or agency or organization is behind these very sophisticated attacks like flame i believe flame is the most malicious and sophisticated virus ever created. the people behind those certainly know how to get around a law like cisco any way they can just log in from an internet cafe you know through several different proxies so if they can't be traced and they're not going to be affected by these laws the people who will be affected by these laws are you and i like i said the government snooping on what you're searching for who you're talking to what you're looking at and what your political opinions are so at the end of the day this is about protecting me this is a protecting you it's not about protecting some super sophisticated cyber hackers. right david pleasure to have you on the show as always that was david seaman he is

an independent journalist and tack industry x. part. on our t.v. there bridging the gap between tax payers money and wasteful government spending and their loyalty a million dollar project is protecting a left makers of trees but draining the green out of citizens wallets tell you about this expensive tunnel next. r t is the state run english speaking russian channel it's kind of like. russia today has an extremely confrontational stance when it comes to us.

we just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old when she told the truth. i'm going to get a friend that i was having hip hop music and. it was kind of yesterday. i'm very. it's a place. that just burns your eyes right right i mean it's like a derivative of actual pepper it's a food product essentially. much stronger than anything you'd be by a lot of. thousands of times. stronger than any gun a broom of w.

there were but you know. there is. nothing to be alone and so you'll get the real headlines with none the worse 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. . controversy in indiana over a tunnel that is costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars take a look at this this is a map of the tunnel in the works right now it will be done forty feet below the surface and will connect indiana to kentucky the one thousand nine hundred forty

foot tunnel will carry two lanes of traffic in each direction between the states and cost a grand total of two hundred fifty five million dollars and that is just the tunnel and here's a breakdown of the costs incurred by each state for this project two point six billion dollars for the joint construction project that is now pending federal approval but critics say the huge investment is a waste of precious tax dollars especially when indiana can spend much less if they build a bridge instead of a tunnel but a lot is getting in the way of preventing that from indiana from being cost effective preservation as have deemed the trees part of a historic designation that means no one can mess with the trees but many citizens say this is regulation gone wild and taxpayers are left footing the bill well earlier chris kick reporter sick excuse me a reporter for the indianapolis star joined me and i asked him if he was a. huge critic of this project take a lesson. i don't know that i'm

a critic but i definitely reported on it i started to phone calls a few months ago from google which is about one hundred miles away about this tunnel that indiana was going to build in kentucky and more i looked into it more questions i had it turns out we're going to build a bridge over the ohio river and on the kentucky approach there's a historic. and it it looks like it was listed historically twenty years ago by the preservationists in kentucky who wanted to stop the project but instead of stopping the project it's moving forward in indiana taxpayers are going to pay and that's exactly at that my understanding and that is what is halting the project preservationists they have deemed it a historical site they also cite concerns about the environmental impacts of building that bridge what do you make of the concerns of what are the citizens what do they make of these arguments. you know it's really interesting everybody wants

the east end bridge itself which is going to be a connector for the economy especially in indiana but the people in who live in that area bill are worried about the impact on their environment so that an environmentalist have been fighting the project for decades. most of the regular people who live there and i talk to you would just rather behave through these woods it's kind of interesting the olmsted for it had prepared a plan for it in nineteen zero four but it doesn't look like the plan was ever actually implemented it's still got the historic designation and now the states and moving forward and they're stuck tunneling under these trees and this is a wooded land to the north end of the states there to the north end of the east eight there isn't a house it's not going to destroy any buildings it's not going to try any landscaping it's just naturally grown woods like you see along any highway ok well so apparently some people think that these trees are worth fighting for what's so special about them. you know if there's really nothing special at all from what i

could see they were the almost as prepared to plan and they are there they helped design central park in new york for instance so the plan for this site had she had had the trees in a certain location throughout the property but it doesn't look like that was ever actually implemented be trees no tree on the property actually where the almost it said it should be planted it got the historic designation anyway and now it looks like there's nothing indiana can do. and so do people want to do away with some of the environmental regulations are they saying that they're that they've gone too far. yet are saying that not too far it is quite only the two governors can hold back the deal it looks like and most people i've talked to would rather that we just paid through the trees and save the indiana taxpayers more than two hundred million dollars and that's a lot of money hundreds of millions of dollars are a taxpayer is finding that this isn't an abuse of taxpayer money. the reaction i've

heard from calls e-mails blog posts comments on the story everybody is just outraged by this i called the indiana governor's office today and they said they had heard no public reaction and that the project was going to move forward as planned and you know people on my understanding got their houses knocked down at least sixteen people in order to make room for this tunnel so. that the trees are more important than people's homes. yeah that's one way to look at it yes sixteen homes have been knocked down and they're very serious about moving forward with this project the. roadways going to come through and apparently the only thing in its path worth saving are some trees along the north end of this estate and i mean aside from the environmental concerns i guess preserving these trees are there are there any other pros to building a tunnel instead of a bridge that might justify spending this massive amount of money no i haven't found any benefits toward actually building

a tunnel some people say it would be quieter some people say it would be louder because the sound would rather break it all just seems to be about. historical preservation which actually was just an attempt to stop the project for being built at all only setting instead of stopping it down the government's found a way around it and that's going to cost taxpayers two hundred fifty five million dollars all right two hundred fifty five million dollars a lot of money is being spent and presumably somebody is making money off of this any idea who that is and if that could play into the picture here which you know the family that lives there made a tidy five million dollars profit by selling the land of the state of kentucky i was told by kentucky officials the jones family which goes under the name of the sectarian corporation refused to grant access to build the tunnel or the highway or anything so rather than fight out the right of way battle kentucky just bought the land and that family is earning five million dollars. ok so

a lot of money being thrown around there so do you think there's any other possible motivation besides environmental concerns of behind building this tunnel. you know that's an interesting question i think it just comes back to this was an attempt to stop the project the attempt failed and now taxpayers are stuck footing the bill. and you know president obama he has voiced his support in investing and for a structure i guess this is an investment a very big investment so i mean could it be looked at from that standpoint. yeah you could make the argument that you know an infrastructure investments going to bring temporary and permanent jobs indiana has thousands of acres on that side of the river and pay thank this will open up development more people say it's going to ease commutes but that's an awful lot of money to tunnel under what it is state alright a lot of money and what are the citizens saying over there do they feel this money

could be better spent in being invested elsewhere. yeah or just to save it there are other highway projects around the state and need funding this is a state that's even now lobbying washington d.c. perdition ally way funding but this is also a very real like to say this is a state that likes to save money so if there's a way to say you would end up saving two hundred million because it would cost fifty million to pave over the trees so there's a way to save two hundred million dollars i think in the end taxpayers are interested in listening to that ok so this this project is currently underway all right it's already begun and there is this battle between people that between the environmental protection advocates and people that want to. save taxpayers that want to save money is there any hope in changing the project there or preventing it going a different route or are what's next. and they're waiting on federal proof which they expect at the end of this month hire contractors by the fall. we'll start

breaking ground next year so unless people can convince either indiana's governor or kentucky's governor that this isn't the best plan there's not much hope for stopping the project and this is a common theme over there in indiana kind of the environmentalists pitted against people that want to develop. it's a very common theme were extending i sixty nine as part of a national highway project and it's hit environmental concerns along every step of the way. in and that is just just now starting construction too so that's definitely a common theme in indiana what makes this story a little different is this is this river fields group in louisville it is a very fluent group this is a very this is the richest area of the state so there's a lot of. powerful influence people who have been trying to stop this bridge drawing time so perhaps some might just come down to aesthetics that people just

don't want to see a bridge to them i think it's an eyesore and they would rather have the nice trees there and build the tunnel underground it could that be it could that play into the picture. yeah the preservationist want the project stopped completely and they want the they don't want to bridge to move forward by older daughter a lawsuit to stop it there are no hearings and. they tried to stop it or for decades they would rather that a bridge to the south and west to be doubled in size which it is it turns out is going to happen anyway so they're going to do both bridge projects and the environmentalists are really worried about bringing extra people through and the impacts of course lands flood plains trees and farm land they don't want more sprawl and think that's what this is going to lead to right so while this is happening in indiana i guess on a national level why do you think people should be concerned about about this project and i guess everything that the controversy surrounding at everything and

terms of taxpayer money development versus in environmental concerns what do you think i guess what is the significance nationally. well if the situation were to repeat itself from any kind of highway project could find itself could fronted with the land that has a national register listing and if it's questionable listing like this it could affect. taxpayers in any state and it looks like the only people with the authority to turn this down are the kentucky heritage council which are a group that includes some of the very people against the project and then. the national register of historic places so that they were there really isn't an appeal for of the taxpayers on this it's all about whether the land itself is worth saving very interesting chris thanks so much for keeping us updated on what's happening over there in indiana that was chris sick reporter for the indianapolis star.

all p.r. we all know it stands for public relations good p.r. can help sway public opinion in stories and that's the kind of good p.r. help you win a war or influence world leaders are it's he is ted are a sellout looks at the spin of conflicts. images like these. and words like these innocent civilians were beaten imprisoned and the violence protect civilians are often what have preceded military operations in the name of stopping brutal killings by hardened dictators and while authoritarian regimes are not devoid of responsibility for atrocities the story often ends there especially when leaders of intervening countries have to justify their wars to their people it's depressingly easy to sell a war it's almost becoming a habit sanctioning even in spite of all that we now know about the lies told over iraq the same stereotypes crop up again and again and again regardless of who or

what kind of regime is being attacked whether it's a secular regime or a religious one to the viewer it's about the good guy bad guy it's about saturating us over and over and over again with the same images now here's what they're good at satisfied the viewing audience without exposing your true agenda in one thousand nine hundred ninety agr. told the story of what iraqi soldiers did to babies in a kuwaiti hospital to think it is and let the children to die have a clue. her testimony was widely publicized and cited by politicians in justifying their support for kuwait in the first gulf war turned out she was the daughter of the kuwaiti ambassador to the us and her testimony was part of a public relations campaign run by an american p.r. agency for the kuwaiti government sparking controversy and public anger. p.r. firms or individuals spin doctors consulting for governments and politicians is certainly not new or uncommon but while there may be

a need for effective communication there's also a very thin line between that and saddam hussein to build and keep weapons of mass destruction out right manipulation as many would point to the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction he used as a pretext for western powers to attack iraq in two thousand and three. communication is a weapon each slogan is a dumb dumb fillets advertising terms have become war terms we talk about targets we talk about strikes again we talk about its impact this is terrible but it is also a weapon in the war because all wars not are broadcast live and these images can influence world opinion with it's already been done several times in the past change the face of war to bring the bodies the make up you can always simulate a massacre that is not a current it was misinformation it is easy to fall during a period of war. even when history is full of examples to learn from

some say people's collective memories are simply too short to reality far we have are blocking what truth has many sides to it but when the wheels of the p.r. war machine start hurting serving up polish that happens through the facts take a back seat at the first a lot of statements are often one stick and even if corrections apologies come later the damage has already been done the consequences are often the reversible. tesler so you are tea party. that's going to do it for the new. for tonight but stick around the big picture is coming up at the top of the hour looks like spain is the next domino to tumble in europe's debt crisis plan to have spain's bank stirs take a bailout as sending shock waves across the continent it could be as much as one hundred billion euros and out might not even be enough to save it and italy could be next tonight host tom hartman will be at the european economic crisis with his panel of guests.