as the war zone in syria intensifies wiki leaks steps into the debate the whistle blowing web site is releasing more than two million e-mails many of them from the accounts of syrian officials what's in the cache of documents hard to use digging into the next. celebrating independence day by protesting against social and economic injustices in the u.s. we'll take you to philadelphia where the occupy movement celebrated fourth of july in the streets demanding change. and we've heard it before wall street got a bailout taxpayers got nothing now one state is working to help thousands of homeowners dealing with the foreclosure crisis but is it too little too late.

and it's thursday july fifth seven pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching our t.v. . while the whistle blowing web site wiki leaks shaking things up again the web site has started a syria files section they began publishing what they say are over two million e-mails from the syrian government rebels and companies that do business with syria so far they've released dozens of the files and they plan to keep releasing them over the next two months now the site's founder julian assange says he hopes the documents could shed light on what's really going on inside the country a country that has been ravaged by a brutal civil war that has left fifteen thousand people dead since the conflict started over a year ago for more on the syria files i was joined by jasmine radek director of

the national security and human rights and government accountability project we first discussed julian us on his statement that the files will likely embarrass both the syrian regime and the west's. i think that's accurate i mean from what we've seen so far and again we're talking about two point five million documents that span the time period of six years but from what we've seen so far it really reveals the west and western companies how they see one thing and do another for example we the u.s. and europe have been severely sanctioning syria and yet now we're finding out from the latest cache of emails that western companies have been assisting their syrian government in building your radio network you know and i think that we do have we have one of those emails it's between. the tele and company it's called

finmeccanica between their employees and syria selling communications hardware to the country here it is it says dear rami due to the current situation and changes you had to make please disregard the original request and let us do i think that's what's to be one request at a time this is going to damian police warehouse contact mohammad omar left the company it says please ship the following and there you can see an order for dozens of communications equipment so seems like there is a conflict of interest going on at a minimum conflict of interest and at best it's a blatant hypocrisy. and at worst i mean they're accusing a son. and look what they're doing there is this thing a foreign government attempting to benefit a foreign nation that we're supposedly trying to sanction at the same time and i

find all of this is very interesting because it shows number one the wiki leaks we keep leaks is alive and well despite the best efforts of so many countries to shut it down and number two that. much as the mainstream media wants to distance itself from wiki leaks the syria files are the front page of every major newspaper in the world right now seems a little bit ironic they're also wanted to point out that the u.s. is not clean and that's not all that american based it's called up first reserve corp apparently they own forty five percent of this come out of unsold zero energy and that is city ery finmeccanica this company that has directly been dealing with the syrian government so it shows that the us is not exactly you know they don't have clean hands in this i mean they've been working with the italian company you're exactly right and it really points to the hypocrisy and why this is definitely in the public interest to know what these governments are doing in syria

under the assad regime during which the emails were written you know experienced an uprising and then a violent brutal repression as you point out and meanwhile this organization we have julian songe in limbo in the ecuadorian embassy in london and then we have a grand jury on wiki leaks and supposedly a grand jury and maybe a sealed indictment on a song and meanwhile money is being choked off from the organization yet still you can see how important information like this is and now with the release of this information will be its own will it's only just the beginning of it just doesn't have come out they're saying over two million. how could the release of these documents potentially affect what's happening in syria i mean it's a conflict that's been dragging on for over a year now thousands of people have died how could it be as documents the release

of them affect the situation there or can they i think they can i mean i think the more sunlight we can bring to this the better and having more information and transparency out there. can stop us from from slapping them down with one hand then feeding them and helping helping urge the government heard of some people with the other hand so i think more transparency is better and it can actually call people out for what they're saying out of one side of their mouth and doing and speaking of transparency i mean this is something that wiki leaks julian assange has said that he is trying to encourage the kind of lift this veil of secrecy. and you know that is something that these documents do reveal is the truth this is these are actual communications between you know top level government people and companies and they do reveal the truth of what really is going on. and you know he has

criticized a lot and condemned but in the ad doesn't that the role of the media to expose the truth well that's supposed to be the media role the media is supposed to be because men so watchdog and not a slap dog and that is supposed to be the role of the so-called fourth state in media. and here it's functioning as supposed to evidenced by the fact that all these newspapers are were reprinting exactly what wiki leaks dead yet still the u.s. wants to go after. and wiki leaks using the espionage act and that would create a horrible press than were for going after journalists in the u.s. under the espionage act in the newspaper or publishing or or reporter that reprints anything from these wiki leaks documents so i think the media needs to make a decision the mainstream media about whether or not we get leaks is valuable to

them and all of that and says yeah. that seems to be the i.v. and evidence because we can only imagine as these leaks continue to come out that there's going to be no choice but to report on on these leaks if these leaks were. meaningless fluff or not in the public interest in knowing cared no one would report on them and they would see julian of songes or crackpot and no one would pay any attention to it the fact that they're being reported on inherently shows their worth and i mean as you had mentioned before i mean this shows that there is this unprecedented crackdown is seems that recently on whistleblowers in the us being as still waiting to be on his asylum bed over in the ecuadorian embassy but it seems like he is still making an impact even despite all this legal turmoil and all this pressure amazingly yes i mean despite the fact that credit card companies that chill doll financial support to wiki leaks and that he is holed up in the embassy

and basically can't leave than is waiting for ecuador to make a decision and despite a grand jury or multiple grand juries being out on him this organization is continuing to function which is a testament to the strength of the truth and a songes assertion that information wants to get out there and will and it's a testament to the viability of wiki leaks as an organization especially at this time absolutely and we're going to be keeping a close eye on this story especially as more of these leaks continue to come out desmond great to have you on the show as always that was just one radek director of the national security and human rights and government accountability projects and while many were celebrating the fourth of july with in this country with barbecues and drinks others were protesting the occupy wall street movement converged in philadelphia over the last five days for what they called the national gathering it

was at the heart of the birth of freedom in the u.s. their goal was to create a vision and plan for where to take the movement in the future artsy abby martin arthur correspondent brings us more now. ya. ya occupy wall street movement many recognize for its boisterous voices makeshift tents and violent clashes with police. who many have said it's on hiatus the sleeping giant isn't going away any time soon after the crackdowns on encampments across all major u.s. cities many protesters gathered to regroup and reenergize the movement. others have to look bring its message after the encampments have been wiped out. or not as visible but that doesn't mean that we're not working just as hard as we were before behind the scenes the most recent protests kicked off in philadelphia the city of brotherly love consider this is like a convention and people here are delegates for their occupy groups and i have heard

a number that there are about ninety two different occupy groups represented here this is the five day gathering for occupy wall street protesters the first national gathering in the entire country since the inception of this movement a gathering in philadelphia on independence day because they say they want to reclaim their dependents their interdependence from social and economic injustice that they see in this country this gathering is a little bit about defining what what our strategies are we really are we really about marching against police you know against police repression are we really focusing on the big financial institutions that control our democratic process in order to focus on those strategies a direct democracy tactic was formed among the participants in order to create its vision for the future we spent the majority of our time doing a visioning process which was designed to maximize communication lines so that people have the chance to participate in a democratic process where they king absolutely guarantee that their voices will be

heard it's a significant landmark for the first time there's going to be some document that will be produced that should carry weight among the movement and it should be a vision and from there we can start to see the occupy movement put together. different tactics. useful convention came to it on the eve of independence day when hundreds marched it ended with some clashes with police officers and fernando a firefighter and protester says they're in the eleventh hour and the time to act is now the american people are boiling frogs right now and they're having their rights least and so it is most important now we don't take a stand now there's nothing left to stand for. time will tell if this recent regrouping will push the movement forward abby martin philadelphia for more on the occupy movement and family i'm joined now by a room group the founding editor of the independent welcome to rune so it was

a scorching hot fourth of july but it didn't stop people from coming out that at. no it didn't it was very spirited it was very festive there were maybe about five hundred people there it had the feeling in many ways of almost like a medieval sare there were jugglers that. poets musicians and people really felt energized. but at the same time it was also disappointing in my opinion for the movement because this was a movement that was bringing out hundreds of thousands of people last fall and yet it was able to bring maybe only about five hundred people to its first national gathering and well why do you think that is a why don't you think more people turned up you know and massive numbers that we've seen in the past. i think there are a lot of factors for it one is certainly that the movement has lost

a lot of visibility because of the. mainstream media there was a brief period where there was some sympathy showed towards the movement and its ideas and goals or at least its ideas of the ninety nine percent versus the one but a lot of the media has become very hostile. one of the most significant factors is the violent police response that the media really does a report on and what we've also seen is ease f.b.i. entrapment cases to try and smear the occupy movement as terrorists but i think there's also internal problems that the carnival free for all is great but the movement does the to mature and it does need to make decisions about strategy about how to move forward there's been numerous attempts to re re occupy public spaces around the country and especially in new york city and other have

succeeded because to be able to do this you're going up against a very powerful violent state and you need force of numbers all right as you had mentioned the movement has been facing some challenges especially after the. different protests set up across the country so i know that they they're trying to focus on this new strategy to restructure gys any word on what that new strategy. well there's a lot of individual movements that have come out of occupy that are great there's really just inspiring work being done done around home foreclosure to feds a whole campaign around the trillion dollars in student debt against bags but i think a lot of the restructured its izing hasn't dealt with the fundamental problems of leadership an organization you can't just create a strategy it's who's creating this strategy and who is deciding what the strategy

is this is a movement that wants who remained very kind of politically a more thess and it needs to realize that you need organization you need leaders kind of want to throw the baby out with the bathwater is what i would argue you need accountable leaders you need transparent leaders. need leaders who are really in control of the people not say in control of the corporations and the movement needs to figure out how to construct that it can't continue to be a free for all if it wants to succeed and that's exactly at occupy the occupy movement has kind of pride is that prided itself on being the leader less movement that it's more of this collective but you're saying that that needs to change if they want to be successful. yeah i think like a great example someone told me this week and this happened at so many occupy movements at one point there were over five hundred occupy movements around the country and you would get these discussions where everyone was like well let's put the tent for the kitchen hair no it should go for five feet over here no it should

go in this corner and they would spend hours discussing you know the little logistics of of how to run these camps and meanwhile big decisions are being made behind the scenes of we're going to try and shut these particular banks down we're going to be doing these protests and so these decisions are being made behind the scenes people are assuming leadership roles and what occupied needs to do is understand that it needs to bring those leadership roles out and to the open where it needs to have a clear understanding of who the leaders are how they're selected how they are accountable to the people this is the great this is a story of democracy and in many ways and so you can continue to have this shadow play type movement where you're debating about you know where to put you know like toilets and showers but you're leaving the big questions of what is the

movement about to people who are doing it not out of ill intentions but people who are doing it be behind the scenes so it needs to start to mature politically now over the winter months we kind of the occupy wall street movement you know the letters call them especially after all the deck heads and there was this anticipation of this planned revival a comeback that we haven't atherley see and do you think that you know this well what had transpired over the last five days that. it could be the beginning of a revival. unfortunately i don't think so because the revival was supposed to happen around may day on that day there were protests in something like one hundred twenty cities across the u.s. it was sparked by a call for a general strike and of course said never happen but there were dramatic protests in some city including over thirty thousand people in new york and there was an attempt to take public spaces in downtown manhattan and i was there this to me

really and capsulated the difficulties that the movement was what happened it was a great day there was lots of activity around new york city there was something like ninety nine the labor pickets that were done and there were thousands of people at this public space in downtown manhattan but it was also surrounded by really the most one of the most fearsome displays of police power i've ever seen literally thousands of cops of every variety of bowl had had these thousands of people surrounded and i thought to myself it's like look you know if these people were really organized and they said we're going to sit here you have to come get us and arrest us that would have been an incredibly dramatic moment and i think they would have won either way either the police would have decided these are way too many people to arrest and then they retake the public space or they go arrest thousands of people and this blows up into an international news story because you

just can't arrest thousands of people peace peaceful people without it being becoming a huge story yet what happened was the show of force caused people to just start to filter away one by one because there was no organization there was no way that people were really able to make the decision that we're going to stay here and we are going to stay here whatever the police do and so this is why you know of harping on these points about leadership and organization but it really is the question facing occupy wall street right now. and thank you for keeping us updated on what's happening over there and. founding editor of the independent. well fighting against foreclosure california now the first state to crack down on the biggest bags making it more difficult for them to prey on homeowners and foreclose on bob the law would block lenders from foreclosing while the homeowner

seeks alternatives and it takes it a step further by allowing homeowners to sue the banks to stop the foreclosures from happening and the troubled housing market this could could this be the beginning of reforming the industry and could it be a glimmer of hope for thousands of homeowners that are struggling to make ends meet and keep their homes to talk about this is richard ask asco excuse me is a senior fellow for the campaign for america's future a welcome there so could this be a way to kind of empower new to empower homeowners this new law. well as the california attorney general herself said it's a start it does by giving them you know the law does several things the proposed law the governor hasn't signed he at but it does things one of ledges that allows homeowners who have been mistreated in against whom states have been broken to to see their or their lender and i think that could be very important could be

a big shift and it would be a first step you know the state's penalties for breaking the law in this bill are surely weak but if homeowners can sue and get relief under the law that could be something and so it's a step ok so you think that this is a first step possibly and reforming the industry the mortgage industry sure i mean the law basically does two things and one is it's don't break the law and it makes it more explicit what that means although many of the law breaking describe many of the things that this law makes illegal were already illegal so that's going to create some confusion you know the forging of documents what they call road signing is punishable potentially by a seventy five hundred dollars fine if that happens over and over. again but that's forgery and or perjury which is already illegal so i know there's going to be some confusion about whether you cannot still arrest people for that as a criminal act if the banker does that or

a bankers represented him but if you give people the right to sue that does give them a certain leverage that they didn't act the whole were and that's what we're counting on the other piece that the law does is it basically says to banks you can't be i was going to use a different word but you can't be jerks about this you can't string people along and take their money and pretend you're renegotiating why you're secretly foreclosing on them at the same time that you have to give them one point of contact that they can because people have been running around and given different people to talk to every time they call so it also makes it illegal to be a jerk and so you know over there in california foreclosure as a huge problem seven hundred thousand homes homeowners face for foreclosure so to what extent do you think that this new law can help struggling people say in their homes. well to a certain extent that's been addressed you know inadequately but in addressed by the major foreclosure front which involved

a number of the lenders this will include other lenders the question is will these people get the legal help they need we're talking about a lot of homeowners we're talking about a lot of potential law breaking and misbehavior you know the parts of it that applied to not being a jerk are retroactive so the question becomes will these people be able to get the legal resources whether it's lawyers that work on contingency or whatever it might be or legal way to help them keep their homes and that's the piece that people are really going to have to mobilize for now now on the other side their lenders are concerned that this will encourage frivolous litigation what do you think about that. well you know any right to sue anybody for any reason raises the possibility of frivolous litigation i don't think there are a lot of underwater homeowners out there with a lot of money to spare on lawyers to frivolously litigate but the fact is the only

way to be one hundred percent sure that there is never frivolous litigation is by denying people their legal rights so this gives people their legal rights is there an outside chance that somebody somewhere might frivolously litigate i guess but it's hard to make that more alarming argument if you're a bank that's been mass producing forged documents year after year after year now activists. say that what they want to see and this industry is more transparent say more fairness more and more protection from foreclosure as do you think that this new law. can help to achieve that sure as i was saying it's definitely a step in the right direction people will be a little bit more reluctant on the banking side of things to break the law if they know they can get sued for it but they're going to wait and see how many people actually do take action under this law and if it's very few they'll go ahead and figure it's worth the risk so it gives homeowners another opportunity to fight for

their rights it's definitely you know we applaud they have been would be a big mistake to say ok we've got our victory in california we can stand down now this is the beginning of the flight not the end of it and california is the first state we should mention that the governor still needs to sign at the head tell me it's a sign the bill that they expect other states to follow suit as a way to address the foreclosure crisis well that's going to depend to a large extent and the willingness of the public to press their officials to do this you know we're already seeing a number of states where money that was awarded to help homeowners is being used instead for other purposes to pay off. government deficit so that taxes can be kept low for the wealthy or whatever so people are going to have to stay on their elected officials if they want to see this law and even stronger laws passed in other states so that's really going to be a matter of as so many things are on whether citizens force their leaders to push for laws like this now it's been quite a while this is kind of been brewing for

a while i mean since the financial collapse and since the recession kind of sparked it back in two thousand and eight but at this point is it possibly it's a little too late. well a lot of baseball sure of course i mean and sadly it is i mean sadly people a lot of people have been illegally foreclosed upon already a lot of people were deceived in nikki lated by banks that took their money for a year or two when they had no intention of allowing them to stay in their homes a lot of people have already been foreclosed upon florence documents and there's very little anywhere including the front settlement agreement that gives them real restitution for what's happened to them. we can't go back and rewrite history although i wish we had prosecuted some some of the more egregious criminal acts that the banks committed instead of settling them out but we can't change history we can sure he'd sure the best we can go in for right and as you mentioned before

this is just just the first step the first step in the right direction but i guess what else needs to be done in order to really reform the system and make it more fair to everybody well i think one thing is nothing says reform like indictments for breaking the law so i think people ought to be pressuring the white house and the justice department and congress and everyone else where are the investigations you promised us the president announced a mark mortgage fraud task force months ago with great fanfare we see nothing we are to be the white house going to be diluted with calls demanding that something be done i think there are groups like the home defenders league which is a group i think their home defenders league dot org that trends underwater homeowners i think people should work with groups like that go to go to different web sites we have some information in our future daughter work but there are many places people can go to find out how to demand better action from their

lawmakers to funding homeowners rights. least for now this seems to serve as some kind of a glimmer of hope at least for the folks in california right it's a start right richard thank you so much for coming on the show that was richard asco he is a senior fellow for campaign for america's future. that's going to do it for now but for more on the stories we covered you can check out our you tube channel it's you tube dot com slash artsy america you can also follow me on twitter at well as of all well be right back here in a half hour. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else.