as the war zone in syria intensifies wiki leaks steps into the debate the whistleblower web site is releasing more than two million e-mails many from the accounts of syrian officials will explore the specifics of the document. celebrating independence day by protesting social and economic injustice in the u.s. we'll take you to philadelphia where the occupy movement celebrated fourth of july in the streets demanding change. romney is very very comfortable with people who are like him. political political reporter versus the right wing blogosphere a washington journalist is out of a job after his comments about mitt romney he tells his side of the story to our

tea. it's thursday july fifth eight pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching our t.v. . well 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 keep and they have plans 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. go for more of the syria files i was joined by javelin radek director of

the national security and human rights and government accountability project we first discussed juliana saunders statement that the files will likely embarrass both the syrian regime and the west. 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 had been assisting their syrian government in building your radio network you know and i think that we do have we have one of those e-mails it's between and. that could tell me in 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 the minimum conflict of interest and i mean at best it's a blatant hypocrisy. and at worst i mean they're accusing. and look what they're doing there is this thing of 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 very interesting because it shows number one that we we we keep leagues 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 its called up first reserve corp apparently they own forty five percent of this come out of and sold zero energy and that is subsidiary 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 syria under the assad regime during which the emails were written you know experienced an uprising in 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 others 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 of mensa 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 the war 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 assange djoser 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 you had said that there was 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 chilled off financial support to wiki leaks and that he

is holed up in the embassy and basically can't leave and 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 by ability 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 does one great to have you on the show as well as that was just one radek director of the national security and human rights and government accountability projects a political reporter in hot water for making controversial statements reporter joe williams was talking about mitt romney's coziness with fox news and said this on m

s n b c. it's very interesting that he does so many appearances on fox and friends and it's unscripted it's the only time they let off the leash so to speak but it also points out a larger problem that he's got to solve if you want to be successful this to come this fall romney is very very comfortable it seems with people who are like him that's one of the reasons why he seems so stiff and awkward in some town hall settings why he can't relate to people other than that. well that statement cost him his job at politico and a firestorm of attacks accusing williams for being racist toward white people but williams says he is a victim of what he calls the right wing noise machine joe williams himself was here earlier today in the studio to talk about his experience take a listen well no reporter wants to be the story and unfortunately that that's where i find myself right now and i never expected to be here i never expected what i thought was pretty much an innocuous throwaway khan comment to result in such

a strong reaction but in a way it kind of proves my point the fact that there was so much of reaction on the right to what i said to the degree where they tore through my twitter account they looked at almost every aspect of my background to make me the story rather than what i was saying it pretty much proves the point that i was trying to make all along which is that very very good and very very disciplined pushback and they know what kind of result they want to listen and what do you make of these attacks that there are launching against cuba thing you of being racist against a white people what do you think about that. i've got to be careful here again because i think that generally speaking most people are fair generally speaking racism is a very is very tricky to explain very tricky to document but in order to assume that i am a racist would have to sort of gate my whole career because i've been working in majority white environments my entire life and my entire professional career practically so to be racist against whites is pretty much

a nonstarter to me and kind of a distraction from what the central issue is so do you think those comments were taken out of context i think that were taken out of context because it's nothing that no one else has already said or before with almost was common knowledge i think perhaps what triggered the far storm is the fact that i in artfully described it and me being an african-american adds that extra sort of topspin that conservatives tend to look for when they're trying to one out and root out you know issues of reverse racism which seems to be the favorite trope these days i mean could you see how perhaps that comment was could be interpreted and that way. i could it's a bit of a stretch to me but i mean we because it is common knowledge and who among us can say that we're not comfortable around people who are like us that's the very nature of tribalism of an effort to be yourself and be comfortable in the person that you are so i think that perhaps it was taken a little out of context maybe blowing our proportion i can understand why people

still said what they said that doesn't necessarily mean they were agree with you know another thing in addition to the comment that you made on m s n b c your tweets have come under a lot of. behind. the i was like that that really was going on well we have a few of those tweets we wanted to bring to light here here they are one of the drop in the mike like it was hot. obama knocks romney's c.e.o. past and first in the first two thousand and twelve campaign rally. there ok another one here. a handout jars a great upon that was in response to the obama two thousand and twelve dems target romney with the buffett rule so kind of you know plan on him kind of you know of the notion that he's the sort of touch rich person exactly exactly i did but there is one more there i think we're missing at we want to pull that last one up there.

infamous there it is there it is. yeah ok are both ok either and at romney and that is flat said or that when we. would like to say to some of these things i mean do you think if you could have taken it too far i think clearly i think clearly you know twitter is a medium where people are encouraged to play fast and fully lose i didn't have necessarily a proper decorum as a reporter considering that i was representing my organization that i regret to this day that i wasn't a little bit more cautious with my tweets particularly since it was a personal account even though it was a personal account that was viewed by political as representing me and them both professionally and and in the realm of journalism so to that i absolutely think was poor judgment i think i made a big mistake and certainly sitting here without portfolio at the moment i do

absolutely regret doing that so to say you do think i mean it you said it was in a personal capacity but i mean you know when you're a articles you're going to you're absolutely well in the air and therefore what you are saying we'll get going to exactly in public i think is a little bit on the. on the edge of his to be able to me whether or not constitute a public figure in the in the realm of say a presidential candidate or a congressman or. regular time t.v. host i mean i don't think that i occupy that space at least not yet but certainly as a representative of myself some of the soap was importation and some of it probably should have stayed in you know in the computer and not going out to the wider world because twitter the medium is the message and you're basically mumbling into a bullhorn that has a tape recorder attached none of it ever dies and all of it can be amplified or distorted given the right set of circumstances and i notice that you have sense taken down your twitter are lived it i've made. it private mainly because now i am

representing myself and going through what i've been through where i've become the story instead of covering the story which is something i've spent my career doing without this kind of controversy i think is a better use of my twitter account and even so there are still ways that people have looked to and tried to take advantage of it to try to portray me in one light or another so i think the larger lesson for me here is you know caution is the watchword when when dealing on twitter but it also again proves my point which is that the right will not stop when they believe a reporter is biased whether or not there's justifiable evidence to do so they will they will continue they will they will push they will push they'll push and they'll rally their forces to get whatever penalty they think is appropriate right down on this or and that and you had it you blame this this of right wing noise machine that's true what do you mean by that exactly what i mean by that is certain elements of the extreme right we're talking about radical folks in journalism to name some of the examples that you name some out loud. i would consider breitbart

dot com is a big media empire part of that i would consider a daily caller. d.c. fishbowl to a degree and some others that are out there that seem to have taken upon themselves to be watchdogs for the media whether or not they have the credentials to do so whether or not breitbart for example was involved in the surely sharod scandal and has done a number of things that have since been discredited they've been affiliated with some other folks who have propagated themselves as reporters but instead really have an agenda reporting is and what is that it's well known that agenda is to bully and silence and negate basically some voices on the left and a friend of mine and i were talking about this and he he said that it's like a basketball game where you keep falling in felling infalling pretty soon the ref starts calling them because they come become so commonplace and because you can't continually stop the action to track every single incident and they kind of depend on that it's fairly organized it's got a distinct agenda with. to advance conservative causes republican cause even though

they're not necessarily affiliated with the republican party tend to fall in their area of influence like i do you think it kind of works delicate ways that there's kind of this noise machine out on both political sides of the spectrum i think so i think to a degree but again i think the right has honed it to an art form because we're talking about ten years worth of everything from to make an example rumors about bill clinton when he was first sworn into office about being a philly with vince foster suicide and that never died we have brought obama continually being painted as a birth or even though there is ample evidence is overwhelming evidence it is evidence that no other president has had to produce that he is in fact born in america you have in my particular case you have them trying to portray me as a biased distasteful journalist although my record over twenty eight years you simply can't make that claim so to the greed that happens on both sides you could make that case but i think that the right is more organized or more diligent

they're more dedicated to this sort of thing because they actually have websites that do this and if you compare with say talking points memo or firedoglake or some of them they are perfectly willing to criticize the hoss's that they believe in if they don't think they're going the right direction they're perfectly willing to follow the facts where they lead the right however it seems as though they have a pre-determined destination facts be damned they're going to get there and that's what their purposes. now you are kind of facing the consequences of this i mean would you say would you go as far as to call it an attack on your freedom of speech . that's an open question that's a very good question i mean speech is free but sometimes you have to pay for it and in my case that's what's happening right now i think that. free speech and free speech bullies i guess to coin a phrase only work if there are people willing to stand up and say hey that's wrong and hey i'm going to not be silenced and say what you believe and i think that in

the context of for politico i might have taken it a bit too far for them as an organization but i think that the only way to keep this civil and to make this dial down a bit is to stand up to the bully in the schoolyard and say ok fine we're going to we're going to push back. last we just want to ask you what is it what is it's been a rough kind of council that we. should have miller leaders very you know what's next what's next for you that's a good question i'm thinking through some options right now and i've got a bit of time to sort of regroup and figure out exactly what it is that means most to me i know where i love journalism and i know that i've been a reporter for such a long time and this is what i love to do i love journalism and politics hopefully it'll work out for me i'm not too worried that i'll be ok one way or the other think i will and you know there are enough options that i can move on when i have to william joe excuse me thank you so much for coming in pleasure again and sharing your story with us that was a journalist and joe williams and former reporter for politico. and while many were

celebrating the fourth of july in this country with barbecues and drinks others were protesting the occupy wall street movement kind of virgina philadelphia over the last five days for what they called the national gathering at the heart of the birth of the freedom here in the u.s. abby martin r.t. correspondent brings us more. 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 anytime soon after the crackdowns on encampments across all major u.s. cities many protesters gathered to regroup and reenergize the movement. others have to live bring its message to 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 are our strategies are we really are we really about marching against police you know against police repression or 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. three peaceful convention came to its peak on the eve of independence day where 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 fleeced 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 r.t.

philadelphia well for more on this national gathering on a scorching hot fourth of july i was joined earlier by our correspondent abbie maher and. there's about one hundred plus degrees very intense heat kind of put a damper on just my energy level above all understandable but you know it was great to see people out there from all walks of life just in the intense heat despite the huge they were out there really giving it their all so it was it was interesting to see that and so also what was what was the message that they were trying to get out well from what i gathered from talking to a bunch of the people there after the crackdowns nationalized crackdowns federalized translate last year a lot of people said occupies dead it's over and i think what they were doing was really strategizing and galvanizing for a a vision that they can bring the movement to its next phase whatever that phase will be but over the course of five days you saw workshops speakers just

a lot of communication and dialogue about what exactly it's all about. one gentleman michael levin ten who's the founder of the occupy wall street journal of a z distributed among zuccotti when it first started and he told me you know this movement never was really about a campaign that was more a symbol to try to get the attention from the establishment to really pay attention to the message and it really did shift the dialogue in this nation and he said now you know the battle isn't big isn't about between the occupiers and the police and that's where they really need to shift it toward what is their movement really about and how are they going to strategize to get there and speaking of the police i mean what we've seen throughout these protests really harsh crackdown by police you know we've. touched on and pepper spray but was there any police resistance this time around before we got there on saturday that some of the occupiers tried to put up a tent and franklin square park and there is

a strict curfew at night and so the police were there in full force the heads work . october and there was an arrest after that though it was pretty peaceful as i did not see any sort of resistance any sort of police clashing until the very end of the eve of independence day when there was this giant march about four hundred people marched to love park was there and destination and there was actually a homicide that happened there earlier so the police closed off the whole park and so it was really a tense situation where you know these hundreds of protesters were going to there and as a nation and seen i mean hundreds of police with their billy clubs out police on horseback police on bicycles and when when that came together definitely of a lot of tension definitely a lot of shouting a lot of antagonizing but then also of a lot of just force from the police where i saw occupiers getting

a police bike smashing up against them on the fence and one gentleman was arrested simply for holding a sign and trying to walk over around where they were allowing other people to walk but for some reason because he had a sign they said he couldn't walk there it was confusing but he ended up being arrested so there were a couple of arrests last night. and would you say point that sometimes on the other side. there are reports that they are being provoked terror that they are provoking the police did you see any instances of that no i didn't all i did see was just people chanting you know why are billy clubs out were peaceful were peaceful please put them away and it did seem for a moment that things were really going to get intense but you know it was. a domestically and a that but i did not see any provocation coming from the occupiers but i mean above all i think what this whole national gathering was about it was the first national

gathering since this whole movement started where local chapters were able to come together for the first time and what they mostly wanted to do was a direct democracy action where they. really go into smaller groups start off explain what their vision what they wanted their vision to be for the movement which never has really been done before and at the end of the day they actually did have a document of kind of grievances and a vision outlined in type for the first time in the movement really was the goal that they wanted to accomplish and i think that they did so it seems like there's a little bit more organization going on. which you see i mean during the winter months there was a little bit of a low kind of came to a standstill would you say that this could be the beginning of a revival of the movement you know those only time will tell it was really interesting to see them kind of step back and say this isn't working the strategy of these encampments in perpetuity i mean that that's not going to work in the face of such a military police force nationwide so i think just seeing them take it upon themselves

to really step back and cordon it with each other totally independently from any sort of top down structure of a lot of different organizations and groups or activism so i think the tools that they're going to implement i mean only time will tell what how they're going to implement this vision or strategy but i think this is definitely the first step in we shall see right abbie able thank you so much for staying on top of this story and braving the heat for these past few days that was our correspondent abbie maher and. well 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 youtube dot com slash r t america the post dollar interviews in full on our channel there you can also check out our web site that's our t.v. dot com slash usa air web producers are busy working on stories that we don't always have time to get you on the air you can also follow me on twitter at liz wahl.