tonight on our t.v. patience may be a virtue before wiki leaks founder julian assange on jan british authorities it's exactly what they need both a way and answer from appledore songes hoping to be granted political asylum to avoid being extradited to sweden it's a tense standoff for the wiki leaks founder we'll bring you the latest. was ticking toward increased interest rates president obama please with congress to stop student interest rates from rising and time to act is running out but is now really the time for a partisan politics to override america's future generations there may be as many as thirty thousand drones flying in u.s. skies twenty twenty which is a huge number basically you know one every town searching for

a booming business to invest in just look up drone programs are flying high and so are the profits of the companies making them we'll take you to california the land of the silver screen and now surveillance for eons. it's thursday june twenty first seven pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching r t. well he is the world's most famous whistleblower and he's seeking asylum now at the ecuadorian embassy it's another twist in the case of wiki leaks founder julian assange that has captured international attention and a last ditch effort to prevent extradition to sweden a songe now waits to hear if ecuador will grant him asylum he hasn't been charged for anything yet but the ultimate fear for him is to end up in the u.s. or as a correspondent sara firth brings us the latest on the case from london. held on

the house and oppressed by the government in an effort to silence approaches. crissy message to the public but we're not talking about famous political dissident suchi she's now free and being warmly welcomed by the british government we're talking about western explain and freedom of speech the charges of of the important julian assange that he still spent more than five hundred days under house arrest fighting extradition to sweden and possibly the u.s. now he's desperately hoping ecuador in the safe haven see the latest dramatic twist in the case of julian assange has once again caught the eye of the world's media behind the could do it and to see julian assange takes refuge but away from the height and his supporters say that this is a dark a tale of a man who has been abandoned by his own country persecuted by the u.s. and failed by the u.k.'s legal system but he's not looking for consular assistance

he's looking for political and diplomatic assistance and he's looking for the government to stand up for the son just fight has been a long one eighteen months of legal wrangling in the resulted in the rejection of his seat between course appeal against extradition to sweden what this was about was once julian gets extradited to sweden he's in prison in sweden the next thing that happens is the u.s. assuming there's an indictment lodges an extradition warrant in sweden eventually the u.s. gets his hands on him they stick him in a prison in the united states fears of what might await him across the atlantic may well have prompted his latest. actually go through some very serious charge probably life in prison if not the death penalty and it will be a stacked against those who are sitting with the bradley manning case united states now has the records. these on time founded concerns as a long list of u.s.

biggest openly calls not only for songes incarceration even though his death for this guy is a traitor a true. and he has broken every law the united states the guy ought to be and i'm not for the death penalty so i'm not for the death penalty i want to do it illegally shoot and here's why because of his work. this guy has made some powerful enemies. the collateral murder video shows american helicopter gunships. all of this. has embarrassed. british government freedom fighting in the twenty first century is a whole new ball game. play is an unexpected even. though this was a complete surprise so we found out about it on twitter and say the man he revolutionized with and three wiki leaks released groundbreaking stories in another twist become

the story himself and there are many now hoping that the next big really. himself serves. london well julian assad has become both famous and infamous with some americans thirsty for justice take a look at a few examples there's a good reason julian assange should be worried about being extradited to the u.s. the government is the only one wanting to get their hands on him as a long line of politicians and media pundits who are calling for his head take former republican vice presidential pick sarah palin who was quoted saying. should be targeted just like the taliban. want to be her bad side songe also made an enemy out of former arkansas governor turned fox mike huckabee he believes quote whoever non-government leak that information is guilty of treason and i think anything less than execution is too kind of a penalty. those feelings against assad's are also echoed by eric bolling and fox

news commentator who says assad should be on the ground six feet underground he should be put in jail or worse hanged in a public forum i wonder if you would have said the same thing about daniel ellsberg back in the day meanwhile the editor of the weekly standard and fox news regular with him crystal summed up his feelings in a songe with this why can't we act force we can sweep the leaks why can't we use are various assets to harass snatch or neutralize juna songe and his collaborators wherever they are and not to be outdone the always outspoken right wing talk radio host rush limbaugh added this gem to the conversation back in the old days when men were men and countries were countries this guy would have died of lead poisoning from a bullet in the brain. and those certainly aren't the only examples of notable americans begging for a songes blood here's a short list of some of the others who have an off with his head mentality former

advisor to canadian prime minister stephen harper thomas flanagan washington times columnist jeffrey kuhn or and former white house adviser g. gordon liddy to name a few. well millions of college grads saddled with student loan debt in that burden might just get worse starting july first that's of congress doesn't get its act together and stop interest rates on government subsidized loans from doubling president obama today urged congress to act fast so just as you guys embark on this day of action i want to make sure you keep this going don't stop until it's actually done. there's nothing more powerful than millions of voices that are calling for change and all of your voices can make a difference so keep telling congress to do what's right to get this done tell them now is not the time to double interest rates on your student loan tell them to

double down on investment in a strong and secure middle class and that means your education and as interest rates are set to go up students that do graduate can't seem to find jobs fifty four percent of them are unemployed or under employed and check out these sobering statistics out of the bureau of labor under fifteen thousand janitors today have bachelor's degrees eighty three thousand bartenders three hundred twenty three thousand restaurant servers and eighty thousand truck drivers all of them working these jobs with a degree they are among the millions that have fallen into this student debt trap so where has the pursuit of the american dream gone wrong and with so many students crippled with dad how could that impact our already troubled economy talk about this re-enroll the founder of loan reform joins me now welcome ray so if interest rates double there is such a double july for as to how would that make a massive problem that much worse. you know now it seems like it would be

a huge deal but the fact of the matter is this is just a red herring to take away and distract from the real problem which is that there are already millions of struggling student loan borrowers and they are not you know just eighteen nineteen twenty twenty five year olds we've got people that are in their fifty's sixty's seventy's this problem affects people of all ages and in all situations and frankly most of us have been painting at least six percent on our interest rates on our student loans for years and sometimes decades with those with these predatory private student loans that we've already taken out some of us are paying ten thirteen percent those are credit card interest rates those are supposed to be on your student loans especially when student loans don't have the consumer protections that credit cards do so in all honesty whether the interest rate goes up or not it's really not going to help or make the situation much worse because frankly it can't get much worse than it already is all and president obama

acknowledged that today he was urging congress to act fast how optimistic are you that they will take action. you know there are a lot of us talking that out there are over one million people have signed robert apple bombs petition to forgive student loan debt which is supporting h.r. forty one seventy hands and clarke's bill that he's introduced so there's over a million people talking about this issue now and even more than that so you know we just got to keep talking and keep working groups like the young invincibles letting people know how how actually difficult is this for them you know when you're plugging in your student loan debt and it's telling you how many rubber duckies you're going to get with your student loan debt when you're talking about fifty thousand dollars of rubber duckies that's a lot of rubber duckies and the more people who are who know about what's going on and are able to to do something about it that's the only time congress and the lesson is if we keep talking in and keep our voices united so and we were just

looking there at the student loan debt clock that's ticking getting you know it's surpassed one trillion now how in the world did we get to this point student loan debt has surpassed credit card debt at this point how did we get here i'm sure that most of us especially struggling borrowers are asking ourselves that question every day but the fact of the matter is it's not a simple solution to a very complex problem it is definitely multifaceted it has to do with skyrocketing college college grates or tuition it has to do with compound interest rates it has to do with predatory lending it have to do with for profit universities who are scamming people you know it has to do with all of these things so whether it's just taking control of the federal interest rates or not that's not going to solve the problem so the fact of the matter is yes that does need to stop we should not be doubling the federal student loan interest rate but that in and of itself is not going to fix the problem and it's not going to make it that much worse so we're

seeing a combination of things to wish it is also skyrocketing we just mentioned the interest rates to go out. and the thing is when they graduate and they have all these loans the investment doesn't seem to be paying off because they're facing a very bleak job market you know when you've got three hundred thousand waiters out there with college degrees you know that's definitely a sobering statistic but the fact of the matter is that society benefits from a well educated citizenry so even though you're graduating with maybe fifty seventy five one hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt the fact that you graduated make sure are a little bit better of ever seeing the end of that dark tunnel and digging yourself out of that hole so i don't think it should it should be don't go to college it should be don't go to college unless you can pay for college with out student loans and unless you know that you're going to be able to pay those loans off quickly immediately as soon as you graduate so with so many graduate young graduates

now without a job many of them saddled by tens of thousands of dollars a student debt i mean how is this affecting the life choices that young people make . it is definitely having a huge effect on the rest of the economy you know personally i'm you know i'm an engaged young person i'm graduated i have a degree and you know we're thinking of putting off buying a house having kids all of those things are going to help the economy and they're hurting if we don't do those things so i certainly think that people especially young borrowers who are coming out of college with astronomical loads of student loan debt are putting off purchasing houses which is hurting the housing market so how are we ever to expect these ailing sectors of the economy to bounce back if young people are not are not investing in them and there's no there's no short answer to that that's just the reality that's what's happening that's what happens when you settle people with hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loans that

they don't spend those hundreds of thousands of dollars on homes and cars they just sit on them and hope that they don't end up completely in over their heads with their student loan debt that's unfortunately a situation that a lot of young americans are in today a recent c.b.s. poll found that two thirds of americans think there is too big of a gap between the haves and the have nots. would you say that this student debt dilemma is playing into that problem. you know i think it affects both both sectors of that you know i think student loan debt affects the haves and the have nots there's a lot of people out there who are saying i'm not paying for your student loan debt and what i would say to them is you're already paying for my student loan debt when you need to find a general practitioner doctor but your doctor graduated with five hundred thousand dollars of student loan debt and they decided to become a plastic surgeon instead that's you know you're paying for that your you know your insurance is going to pay for someone else so it's all it's affecting both sectors

of the economy doesn't matter if you're rich or you're four you're black or you're white this student loan debt problem is affecting every human being regardless of class regardless of race regardless of economic status because you know the rich and the wealthy might be paying for out of pocket they're still paying an astronomical amount of money on skyrocketing tuition isn't that a problem shouldn't they be concerned about that so it's not just you know of three hundred thousand waiters and waitresses standing outside with degrees and underwater basket weaving this is affecting everyone and you know the rich and the poor alike should still be very seriously concerned about how this is going to negatively impact the economy and lastly where i want to ask you because you are with loan reform over there what kinds of reforms do need to to be put in place in order to kind of restore the system and make it more feasible for for young americans to get a college degree affordable. well like i said this is

a huge problem and it's multi-faceted so it deserves a very complex series of reforms the reform that we are currently focused on is supporting h.r. forty one seventy which is the student loan forgiveness act of two thousand and twelve that is something that robert apple bomb and forgive student loan debt a common law reform now are pushing and supporting so right now that the only solution that has come across to us that would how realistic do you think that is i mean that's asking congress to basically white ball the student the student debt i mean how realistic do you think it is that congress would go for something like this it's actually not asking that of congress at all it's basically asking for fair repayment on a ten ten platform so you pay for ten years that ten percent of your income and then the remainder of your debt is forgiven so it's not asking for a blanket reform or blanket forgiveness it's asking basically for fairer repayment which there's nothing wrong with that i think that's something that student loan

should have from the beginning you have a fair repayment on your credit cards you have there are consumer protections that protect you in case you lose your job or you need to file bankruptcy student loan borrowers have none of that and if it's something that is terrifying to us and so i think the least we could do as americans and the least congress could do is pass something that pushes for fair repayment and restoration of basic consumer protection like bankruptcy something needs to be done because a lot of people are suffering right thanks so much for coming on the show that was re-enrolled the founder of loan reform now. well drones are set to take over u.s. skies soon now there is growing concern the public will lose their privacy to these spy planes the winners here seem to be the drone makers and much of the reason for that is the aggressive and powerful lobbying happening right now by the defense and aerospace industry are taser mongul and shows us who's cashing in and what it's

costing the american taxpayer. the drones that today have revolutionized modern warfare and are known for their seek and destroy missions over afghanistan pakistan and yemen but the drones of tomorrow will be humming over american homes there may be as many as thirty thousand drones flying in u.s. skies twenty twenty which is a huge number basically you know one every time now that congress and the president have cleared the way for spy planes to fly in u.s. skies defense and aerospace firms are pushing their way in the sea in hopes of cashing in on the expected drone business boom right now the global markets worth about according to some estimates a little less than six billion u.s. dollars but it's supposed to double most double to over eleven billion you know the next decade in two thousand and one the defense department had ninety drones just eleven years later he has an arsenal of more than nine thousand five hundred

remotely piloted aircraft with the wars winding down overseas most of those unmanned aircraft will be used to messick liefer surveillance and disaster assistance raising safety and privacy concerns why do you need drones against your citizens that's a military weaponry your police department is not your military and we've lost that distinction there they're the weapons manufacturers and weapons manufacturers know that we need war in order to be profitable so they buy congress defense and aerospace firms which build dry. i've spent millions of dollars on lobbying over the past year those efforts have helped them secure government contracts but lobbyists are also having a very heavy influence on the legislation and regulation over these unmanned vehicles but that's sort of the way it works here and they're the ones who know it best and know what they want written into the legislation and that's

a real that can be a real problem because they obviously have a vested interest with billions of dollars in contracts northrop grumman is one of the dominant players in the unmanned aircraft business spending more than four million dollars in lobbying radio and splurges nearly seven point four million on lobbying last year according to first tweet research while general atomics spent two point three million dollars the san diego based company has signed two hundred fifty million dollars in contracts with homeland security since two thousand and five the argument all the time by local law enforcement is these drones are very cheap and they're very effective. yet despite the huge potential for danger in the privacy realm for american citizens you know it hasn't really been proven that law enforcement can use these efficiently and safely anyways quite the opposite the

office of inspector general of the department of homeland security characterized the quarter billion dollar drone program along the southern border as highly ineffective recommending a halt to further drone purchases a one hundred seventy six million dollars navy drone recently crashed and burned in maryland right now and the navy only has five of those craft that they are using when you bring home five hundred more you're going to have more of a risk of more of the risk of crashes despite the criticisms influential leaders in congress are helping the defense and aerospace industry write the rules and cash in on the coming through. revolution in los angeles remote village. but it's out more about this drone revolution and who's profiting from it joining us now is ed cray s.-k. associate editor at reason dot com welcome ad so let's talk a little bit more about who exactly as cashing in on putting drones in our skies

shore i mean like the report you just said it's the same thing that is contractors that work with the defense with the defense department today they're the ones we're building them you know northrop grumman but there's also who are two drones available smaller ones obviously for personal purchasing and that's by a wide variety of companies that create those but most of the drones i think that will be used by law enforcement once that's allowed in twenty four thousand are likely to come from the same companies that are building drones being used in august and. somalia and pakistan which there are now out of this drone lobby has become a very powerful lobby so can we expect their influence to only grow. yes i mean that's the game right. you've got we've got a government that spends you've got companies that want to spend money to have the government spend on them so that's the cycle and so why exactly how many drones are

we talking how many drones can we accept to be expect to be soaring in our skies in the coming years i mean it's an exciting prospect for local police departments so so you have them their share of the permit in texas the meeting last year when they bought a drone that could be up to a good shot gun or a grenade launcher even though they didn't purchase it with that attached and there was a drone used last year to. bring him the suspect in north dakota and that's because actually now challenging the secret room in his apprehension so i think that case will and by the opening the door for more usage or somehow they say it will grow a lot of use that. the efforts will be the part means the use of drones but i expect that if they're allowed everyone's going to want them so and not just not just police departments farmers want to all count their livestock. and other private organizations we want as well and if it is opening the regulations to allow

the commercial still slow so it does seem like this is kind of a gadget of the future that everybody wants to get their hands on but i mean a you had mentioned the local law enforcement getting ahold of these things i mean what does that mean right now they're kind of used to more so on the border and what happens if local law enforcement gets a hold of these things is that the the the lank kind of blur between military and local law enforcement well i mean i think i've been learned for the last day. specially with the opening two wars in iraq and afghanistan and create a lot of military surplus that the federal government was more than willing to hand over to the local agencies and actually just a few months ago we reported a reason that the pentagon was spending some of that and asking for some of that. because they weren't keeping track of his military grade equipment and then given the problem of the government you know when they're still in the mexican drug cartels with the intent of following them though they lose track of them so i think that is it is a significant worry that the police department may not be equipped to use them but

unfortunately i don't think that's necessarily going to stun is not necessarily enough to stop them from the united states and so well as you had mentioned the wars are winding down so these drones would be used in that sickly what does that mean for the average american. i mean so right now the border patrol has about ninety rooms that they use has nine grams of they use along the border and the washington times reported recently that they're under utilized and then we see those those four thousand hours we could have gotten ten thousand the program has cost about two hundred forty million dollars since two thousand and four in the ordering of ten even though they don't know how to use them and so i think the first thing americans have to worry about is how much money you make in this because a lot of these law enforcement agencies are going to be very excited about buying a drone but then we know even though what you do with it other than that i think what's what's to be expected is that these things are going to be used to our ramp up the drug war we have a president that enjoys executing the drug war and out we've seen the last three or four years more raids on medical marijuana dispensaries and so forth and so as

especially as it starts with their restrictions on are on drugs and are not politics i think there will be the temptation to use drones to expand the war on drugs your home now proponents of drone technology actually say you know that they try to tout that this is cutting edge technology here they get the job done efficiently and at a lower cost because you have less people involved in this. debate been used to help see is a legal drug use on the border what do you say to proponents of that of the drone programs i mean there is no doubt that they are that you have certain benefits like that i think it's important to differentiate the use of drones here in the use of drones overseas overseas drones do have those benefits of being more efficient being less costly and being more precise the problem with the problem with the united states using drones overseas today is not so much upon what the technology

is the fact that the president is waging this war is on the new york times report a couple weeks ago that process for the targets of drone strikes is basically just the president deciding these people deciding that enough that someone belongs on campus you know we have given after our children up to our terror there's a character. that is what they called it that's a problem but the problem is not with the knowledge itself but now you can actually see the say the defense for money make. national security cheaper and we more efficient but the wave being done now how can we have just so many different different third world countries and look people up and kind of there's no transparency there's no accountability and there's not really a structure there that's more the problems you know it's not i don't think there's much you can do to stop the technology from developing it's not a weapon of mass destruction so it's not something that a lot of countries are going have a vested interest in opera going to liberation so it's more about creating safeguards in this and that we are absolutely seeing a proliferation now we were just seeing on the screen there is one of the new mega

drones that are unveiled could soar at eleven miles high for days at a time these things are just getting bigger and better and fancier i mean where does it end i mean they're going to they're going smaller too i don't think i think the trend is going to be further toward smaller drones they have this room now they're saying that on the other side that insects will be able to make a kind of odd you much more expensive spying in the us with a bigger drone soldiers are being called switchblade which can fit in a backpack and can be used right out in the battlefield so i think while the bigger drones may be the ones that get more attention it's actually the drones that we're going to be bothered with in the skies are probably going to be smaller coming up in. iran i don't mean to cut you off there but we are at a time thanks so much for coming on the show that was ad cray ask a associate editor for reason dot com thanks live. well an update now on a story we've been following since the very beginning the three men who drove to

chicago in may to protest the nato summit have officially in charge a grand jury handed down an eleven count indictment against these a vigil individuals including four counts of terrorism just to refresh your memory the nato three include brian church jared chase and brant vincent who allegedly plotted to attack president obama's campaign headquarters in chicago during the nato summit last month many parts of this case are coming under fire at the moment because lawyers say that illinois antiterrorism statute is ill defined now all this charges stem to come from seems to come from the four makeshift bombs that were allegedly found with the men the bombs were reportedly consisted of gasoline and beer bottles with bits of cloth into the neck to serve as fuses the men face arraignment on july second defense attorneys have said that all three men intend to enter not guilty pleas if convicted the men could.