we should have a political system work candidate can claim to champion working people while that same person is secretly betting against america through tax avoidance and tax haven abuse democrats in congress tell mitt romney to show them the money and it's a tax return that is but it's just another case of the pot calling the kettle black it looks like transparency isn't congress's strong suit and we'll tell you why. and what would you do if you came home to find your place of ransacked and the locks changed so the jury of us would freak out and call the cops but what if the bank that did it even though you paid your bills on time if there's anything you can do we'll tell you about the wrongful foreclosures happening here in the us next. if

u.s. military officials cringe during the week and weeks info drop they sure aren't going to like what's coming next the hacktivist group anonymous has set up its own file sharing website so what can we expect from their web site paranoia. it's thursday july nineteenth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm abbie martin and you're watching. starting off this hour while the clock is certainly taking to the two thousand and twelve presidential elections and people on both sides of the party lines are adding even more pressure to the race just as things are heating up president obama's bid for reelection is on track to be outspent by the romney campaign a first for any incumbent president and it seems like mitt romney has plenty of money to go around both in his personal and political life thing is we may never know about it until now every presidential candidate has revealed their tax papers

but mitt romney refuses which is democrats really with rhetoric he wants you to show your papers but he won't show us here and. if you know joe biden you know he's quick to talk and even quicker to act he did release his taxes for public scrutiny in fact we have him right here but it seems like democratic senators dick durbin and levin want more transparency from public figures this is what durbin had to send the senate floor yesterday morning and reference to a new piece of legislation selectively titled the financial disclosure to reduce tax haven abuse act that's why i introduced the financial disclosure to reduce tax haven abuse act of two thousand and twelve i introduced this months ago it would require candidates for federal office in certain federal employees to disclose any financial interest they or their spouses have in an offshore tax haven we should have a political system work candidate can claim to champion working people while that

same person is secretly betting against america through tax avoidance and tax haven abuse now without this bill the american people will not know whether a candidate is taken advantage of foreign tax havens to avoid paying his or her fair share. that irony of course of all of this as i'll see you representatives are calling for more transparency on tax documents and any of them are willing to do it themselves and in fact only seventeen out of the five hundred thirty five members of congress have disclosed their own records total so where is the transparency in government and why are some pressure to reveal their tax returns while others downright refuse to break us all down i was joined earlier by wilmer leon professor at howard university take a listen well i think in this climate in this day and age with individuals now in politics making believable amounts of money it is embarrassing.

for many individuals such as mitt romney to be talking about the common man and to be talking to people to be talking about the middle class

financial blog brown and root and how much money he made off of the of the the invasion of afghanistan evades in iraq if we had known about former president bush's financial withholdings we would know about his interest in the carlyle group and how much money did george bush make off of the invasion of iraq and afghanistan so these things to me are very very important i don't think that senator levin goes far enough because he talks about presidential candidates but he we also need to understand what a vice presidential candidate is going to be what their financials are what i mean as you mentioned before seventeen out of all of the members of counters right now that now now for for example for the democrats to be calling for this and then

d.n.c. chair in congresswoman debbie wasserman schultz not even wanting to disclose her her line i guess is let's hear that really ok right from her. are you the best attack dog on this particular issue concern you've never released your income taxes absolutely i'm not running for president mitt romney is running for president or are you going to show now are you not i dial a phone financial disclosure required under the law mitt romney is actually the first candidate in modern history to only release one year of a tax return so what message is this sending the dancy chair on the debbie wassermann schultz is a hypocrite because because she has not said that. mitt romney is violating the law what he's doing is not following common practice so what she needs to do is come off over high horse and if she wants mitt romney to release his tax returns then she should have no problem releasing her isn't for her to say i mean i understand her legal argument is valid but this is a political issue not

a legal issue so if she was good for the goose is good for the gander if she wants mitt romney to release his tax returns when he is legally not required to do so then she needs to do the same thing he would advocate all every elected representative etc now maybe maybe as a rule as a member of congress or of the senate maybe they don't have to go back ten years but but in this particular issue since she is the one making the request that she needs to follow her own her own her own logic and let's let's take a look at some of the figures just in the administration and general and members of obama's staff we have thirty six members of president obama's staff are delinquent with their federal taxes total and taxes owed eight hundred thirty three thousand dollars and total taxes owed by all active and retired federal employees and military personnel well over three million dollars i mean. what kind of example do

you think it's that's when you hear the average american struggling to pay their bills and the i.r.s. is coming down hard on you you know you better believe that you better watch out of you skip out on your income taxes and here you go i mean to get yourself a tax evader i was just going to say timothy geithner is a tax evaders and if i was a tax evader i would not be sitting at this at the in this seat talking to you right now there is a double standard in this country and unfortunately there aren't enough middle class americans that are outraged about this to make to make this the issue that it that it needs to be this timothy geithner should not be sitting in the seat that this that should have been such an embarrassment to the administration that they should have found someone else other than timothy geithner. to fill that seat it's . you know if you go back to and this is an issue also as relates to the republicans and if you go back to some of the founding documents of this country if

you go back to fit the federalist papers in federalist number ten james madison was concerned about factions he was concerned about interest groups. that were going to have a greater personal interest in legislation than what was in the best interest of the american people and this is really what we're we're getting to the crux too so for those conservatives who want to be strict constructionists and read the constitution for this for this is an issue that they should be championing because this gets to the core of what james madison and many of the other founding fathers were really all about they were about public service they were back when the country was founded they weren't expecting congressman to serve eighteen twenty twenty two years and develop. personal wealth off of the issues that they legislate this was that that's why. members of congress are for two years that's why senators are there for sixteen why do you think there is this double standard

then with i mean when they're allowed to kind of get away with doing things that the average american isn't because those who pay the piper call the tune so those now who are in legislative positions have been writing law for their own benefit and they have been benefiting many of them have been benefiting financially at incredible rates well above what the average american citizen is making and and many of them aren't paying their fair share of taxes so this is clearly a case of many in congress who are looking at their personal best interests and not legislating in the public interest it is a very interesting double standard and thanks so much for coming on my pleasure they joined us to howard university professor wellen wilmer leon. how would you feel if you worked forty plus hours a week for fifty weeks

a year to pay your mortgage on time that on your much deserved vacation you come home to a house that was broken into your possessions smashed family heirlooms stolen pets missing and the locks changed well that's a similar scenario to what's happened to over fifty homeowners in the us when their homes were mistakenly identified as foreclosed and yet this isn't an isolated incident their party service contractors are hired by fannie mae and freddie mac. as well as big banks to make sure vacant homes are protected from vandalism instead because of lack of oversight sometimes these big contractors and break in occupied houses and conduct the vandalism specimen selves terrifying homeowners who have done nothing wrong so why is this happening to break it all down i'm joined by ben homan senior financial writer for the huffington post you know i found my report putting found dozens of cases where homeowners allege that contractors working for some of the biggest banks had broken into their houses ignoring what would seem to

be obvious signs of occupancy lawns mowed. utilities turned on cars in the driveway that kind of thing very interesting in one case a woman come home came home to a clown drawn on her garage door with the words another job well done. you know when their job is to kind of prevent vandalism it does seem counterintuitive to kind of conduct these kind of vandal like acts on these people's houses. well i should say that for you know i found these lawsuits and most of the lawsuits allege that in addition to breaking into the homes some you know items were stolen possessions were destroyed that case that that woman's i claim her possessions were had been strong about her front yard and smashed the sledgehammer in addition to the vandalism of the garage but on top of that i think what happens probably much

more frequently is simply that a home a contractor comes into an occupied house and changes the logs or. winterize it against you know potential future damage and those cases in most instances you know homeowners are not going to file a lawsuit you know often their actual already battling to pay interest in their house so you know i think what i found were sort of the worst of the worst cases but that isn't me but it suggests that there's actually a much bigger problem that's not being reported which is you know. someone might be at home again i found i found an example where a woman was actually at home when the contractor came in and so it just it just raises a lot of questions about oversight of the contractors sure as you mentioned you know there's probably a lot of cases that haven't been documented aren't filed in this lawsuit so what do you think that does when people are already you know battling to keep their homes but they are paying their mortgages and coming home and facing this sort of intimidation. well you know i report on housing for the huffington post and i think

for a lot of homeowners who are going through foreclosure or late on their payments who are trying to get a loan modification trying to stay in their home it's already a you know a very stressful and traumatic situation sometimes they battled the banks for years trying to get some resolution and you know if you add on top of that this fear that someone could come in your house why are there why you're not there you know even if it's just changing the locks you know sort of takes away your sense of security . indeed and talk a little bit more about the oversight ben. you know one would hope i guess that there is oversight from these institutions to these contractors i mean how is this happening what is the chain of command there and that's. well it's a great question i don't know how much oversight there is you know one of the issues in this sort of more broadly speaks to the financial crisis and the lack of

accountability in general in terms of how foreclosures have been then aged but. you know these contractors are often local local employees of a big contracting company or to the company as i did to find my story or safeguard properties and living processing services and then those contractors and turned are and hired by the banks which are in turn hired by you know whoever owns the homeowner could be fannie mae or freddie mac. so you've got three or four layers that separate. the landlord not the right word the the mortgage holder from the sub contractor who's out there performing these and these inspections so it's just not clear whether you know anyone's really paying attention. i will say that recently if the inspector general of the federal agency that oversees freddie and fannie has suggested that they're looking into sort of this lack of oversight more broadly of contractors although they didn't

specifically single out this type of incident so what can people do if it does does seem like there is little accountability. other than the statement that they released where is the accountability what can people do to fight this what are people doing to fight this. well you know that's again if you're forty five days late on your mortgage these property inspections start in the fannie and freddie rules and they sort of what freddie and fannie and freddie say sort of governs the mortgage industry as a whole they say to start these poverty inspections and and you know let's just be clear there is a value to somebody driving by at least occasionally checking on a house that's in foreclosure in the fog. to make sure that it hasn't been abandoned because you know abandoned homes can become the lights on the neighborhood you know swimming pools could be uncovered longer at mode and in fact there's been complaints the big contractors aren't properly shoring up abandoned homes to which is sort of the other side of this i was ben homan senior financial

writer for the huffington post. all right an update now on a story we've been covering this since the very beginning the fate of the info drop website wiki leaks and its founder julian assange hangs in the balance all this in retaliation for dumping hundreds of thousands of u.s. classified military documents and now the infamous leaks from the whistleblower organization may be coming to a halt that's because wiki leaks is nearly out of cash the group says its funds will run out in a couple of months unless donations drastically increase the organization has had difficulties raising funds since visa master card and pay pal among others have caved to u.s. government pressure to pull its avenues to donate through which many of the cried as an act of corporate censorship. to counteract its financial blockade wiki leaks is now saying that it can accept donations through a french nonprofit rerouting money through france's funder for the defense of net neutrality meanwhile for one month now wiki leaks founder julian assange has been held up in the ecuadorian embassy in london still awaiting on

a decision to grant him asylum if he is indeed extradited to sweden chances are that it wouldn't be long before end up in u.s. custody but for now everything rests on ecuador shoulders president rafael correa after his administration has said little about if and when asylum would be granted meaning that of course when it comes to the fate of joining a songe patients as more than a virtue it's all we have as a global community await the decision. paranoia and may not sound like the name of a trusted source for government leaks but it is otherwise known as potentially alarming research and animists intelligence agency paranoia is the new face of anonymous but we can be exploding down on the lack of impact from anonymous hacks members of the lose hacktivist collective decided to launch a wiki leaks esque website to host massive data leaks in a user friendly fashion so what does this mean for wiki leaks the internet and the future of transparency barrett brown founder of project pm joined us earlier to

talk about the new site here's his take well it's one of these things that come out of anonymous. they're very heartening this is exactly what's needed what they do essentially sort of provide one more option to go who have acquired information or whistleblowers or otherwise you know one of them and it's something. in which they know that that information will be. very liberally release to the public as opposed to some of. some of the decisions which exist which have been controversial in the lead community slowly believe portions of it differed. some time in the cage and. what they've done so far and they're also pretty good start they not only have a least large group of emails from a company called data but i've also gone through categorize them by by you know

topic and. found some of the more important interesting leaks is the name made them block and contention and that's that's something that really needs to be done in the media environment in which leaders have to work. yeah as you just mentioned it does seem in the past that the leaks have been done where it's just a massive amount of information that it's just almost impossible to sort through or takes a very long time so what they're doing is more kind of categorizing making it more user friendly for people to really access the data. and wiki leaks has done the same thing in some of these this is just you know this is you know not everyone is going to send their leads to exactly and this is by jim another option and also sort of acts as an addition to the leaking aspect they also do a couple of the more technical background things that need to be done with this and leaks like it's very emails making sure those are available because you know someone has to do that and they've stepped forward and done that which has been

very hard and also hosting. the m.r. which. does something very similar bilderberg nation on the best reduces regard i mean you know and you know so what we're seeing mostly with anonymous so far at least people are claiming to be anonymous is these really high profile hacks takedowns this is different though this is this is where people are submitting information to then right. that's the stuff only one of the options they're supposedly us and so are they are they game know if they are going to be hosting any sort of hacking that they did in cells or is this most likely to be within the you know that legal parameters where it says there are there the receivers of information that people get them i don't know i don't have any indication one way or the other if you know. if what their plans of the future i think that's playing that by ear there are still people and or the call anonymous who do most of them

sends on acquiring information of public that that belongs in the public eye whatever means they choose to do so and when that happens all this is and there's a number of options they have and this would be one of those options paranoid and if they do so they would be you know generally assurance this would be released perhaps in a different way that i might. that my that might occur because someone else or they don't put themselves entirely you know one of the one of the important things here is that there is there's a lot of sort of monday dynamics to go into making sure that information not only gets dumped and just you know added to the great you know ocean of information already exists but also receives attention from the journalists who are willing to make use of themselves. barrett it seems like it like a great idea to supporters of wiki leaks who say you know that's that's great let's get another web site out there the more the merrier more options for people to submit to but it does seem like there is some members of anonymous who are out odds

with the wiki leaks or at least their twitters that there was kind of some words spoken between the two people who are running the twitters where we can exist and if there is sponsible free to be kind of doing this without really secure measures to do so why do you think that they're kind of at odds about this new site they need these incidents happen a lot. in this case you know one person has or not this is the first was. that in fact. by name but i don't it's hard for us the only people around the time that have been. so the fact is that expanding its options by which the options of the measures will have huge are right now what they want. and you know just a dumb e-mail accounts and use whatever they have. so it's obvious twitter all isn't often so. discussion on these issues but sometimes these

conflicts arise in response to the base and it's unfortunate that. one hundred forty characters certainly isn't a good form for debate most of the times a very i mean we just mentioned earlier that wiki leaks is losing a lot of funding with the new you know the blocking of all these big. a visa master card pay pal of course and they're really seeking donations they're saying they might have to shut down eventually if they if they don't get donations in the near future would you think that this will be a problem with paranoia it doesn't seem like they're really asking for donations why do you think that is like a lot of groups like this they do it so the coin donations. well you know we can make another. i'm tremendously impressed not of pressure and sort of covert attacks of various measures that we that we know of self are and its authors understand what they're having problems through that particularly in terms of fundraising as

you mentioned they're opening up options for that that will hopefully help them to my tenants else paranoia and a lot of other sort of the michael groupings of anonymous they tend to set things up such that i you know i don't have a lot of overhead so money won't help me going to should you know someone is out there spending his own money and keeping up servers and there's a lot of great people involved in this and that's why you know it's important for them to get a fair hearing when it comes to use of the car on twitter when you know having failed in some security realm you know they're doing a very necessary job right now and it looks to me like. but aren't there still a massive amount of people working to sort that information and categorize it like you said they are kind of doing a similar thing and then we can examine is it really that last seven overhead or are manpower really going the operations well. as it is now with this this first

major releases and you know there's a great deal nation there and anyone down bogeying tired that for a while and you know themselves send in sex you know find something interesting or sort of get it back to the people by the. and then within paranoia they have a number of people who are themselves more homelike in that process and you know it's all this is something that requires assistance looks like you know i mean obvious they can always use more people trusted people to come in the box and on the server and say you know i would like to know download these things and then information that's pretty easy process a lot of the other experience in the last couple of years so i don't i think it's something that's i think we're seeing is viable crowdsource research and assimilation is a viable. strain of activists and i think more experimentation of the sort so what about the people behind paranoia i mean we know now this high profile

case of joining us on bradley manning i mean we're seeing his fate unfolding before our eyes now here in fort meade and then you know joining us on just now facing a lot of pretty serious things going on right now what do you think's going to happen i mean it's pretty easy to to find out who is behind websites or who is really gaining access to information in the technology age that we live in there and do you see anything happening with this web site of the people really facilitating this project. everyone who engages in this process any portion of it is some risk because. governments and certain companies u.s. government about these things it's even more dangerous for leakers even people with experience in the n.s.a. part of the justice who wrote. in the ones to bring its information about things like the n.s.a. wiretapping you know that they were found out about it and so it's. everyone is

subject to a degree of danger on that front that's why. it would be great for people so that outside that or this kind of things to. donate to what river groups or big money. they tensions of the information comes out the very least make sure this risk doesn't go for nothing and if. that's the part the supporters and the rest that it's always up to the individuals involved and. it does seem with the war on whistleblowers only time will tell thanks so much for coming on and giving your opinion that was bare brown founder of project pan. that does it for now for the latest information on the stories you saw today and a few that we didn't have time to get to go to our you tube channel youtube dot com slash r t america or check out our website r.t. dot com slash usa don't forget to leave us your comments feedback.