today on r t silence is golden and that may be just about the only thing journalists have these days the war and whistleblowers now targets reporters will explore the implications of a muzzle media. because of what you say on twitter one hundred forty characters worth of opinions could land you on an n.s.a. watch list coming up we'll show you how your social media sites can and will be used against you in the court of law. and then later if you're planning on catching a flight in the near future don't forget to remove your shoes and your belt and secure your bank account information on your smartphone why because the t.s.a. may go through your most private information when you travel we'll tell you how.

it's tuesday july twenty fourth four pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching r t well looks like the case is moving forward for a former cia official turned whistleblower a judge has ruled in the prosecution's favor in the case against john kerry aku he is the man that made the practice of waterboarding in secret prisons public he's now accused of leaking the names of covert operatives to journalists but the defense says the charges serve as punishment for kerry aku for published publicly embarrassing the agency meanwhile congress is on a mission to silence journalists from ever publishing see classified information they want to make doing so a crime under the espionage act so what does this all mean about freedom of the press in the us and our first amendment rights to discuss this doesn't radek director for the national secure. and human rights and director of the government

accountability project joins us now does one is also the author of the book you see there the whistleblower and the american taliban jesselyn pleasure to have you on the show as always so first want to talk about kerry yaku he's accused of revealing names of secret operatives the defense argues that this is all really just an attempt to punish him for embarrassing the agency what do you think this is really all about yes i think the defense is right because he was the first cia agent to reveal that that torture was occurring and the cia was conducting it and that it was an actual program not near and proposition and that waterboarding is torture so i think that's what's really behind this and he didn't lose three motions basically on the bill of particulars to get more information about the indictment they told him it was without prejudice and he could come back if he didn't get

enough information and discovery and the motion for selective and indictive prosecution was denied but i think it serves the purpose of the judge said she found it provocative and informative and the motion to dismiss about the unconstitutionality of the statute which she didn't rule on yet in fact she said she could have telegraphed that she would be denying it but said she wanted to write an opinion which is really significant because the seminal both already on the espionage act comes from the eastern district of virginia where kiriakou is being tried. really is just one of many whistle blowers that are kind have been kind of coming under fire recently and i guess members of congress are kind of taking notice because recently they have decided that or at least some of some lawmakers are on this mission to prosecute journalists that publish classified information this is the wake of a. an article in the new york times where they publish that kill list

a lot of information getting out about u.s. attacks against iran and so now they're saying all this it's becoming public and they are not liking it they want to silence these journalists that make these things public i mean what do you make about this i mean aren't journalists protected under the first amendment to publish doesn't really i mean there is freedom of the press. fundamental part of their first amendment and i've been saying for years that the war on whistleblowers which most of these people charged with espionage under the espionage act with mishandling classified information are whistleblowers that this is really a war on journalists and no one seemed to believe that until the last couple of days congress about a month ago kind of caught on to the fact that there's

a huge hypocrisy between the government leaking tippy top level high level classified information including sources and methods with abandon while cracking down on people like thomas drake and john kiriakou who were trying to expose fraud waste and abuse or illegality now some in congress are taking that next step on the slippery slope that i keep warning about of saying we should go after the journalists to under the espionage act and they've suggested that for everyone from julian of songe to the new york times and yes the first amendment supposedly protects freedom of the press that would be the defense to raise but using the espionage act has been a very heavy handed. tool in the government's arsenal against whistleblowers and. to wrap. the press up in that is just taking an even further

crazy step but now we should mention that congress has said that they want to prosecute journalists that release information that would compromise national security and on the surface there i mean that seems like something that makes sense because you know why would people want to put information out there that would you know compromise national security or would people what people would put people's lives in danger but i mean could this i mean you had mentioned a slippery slope earlier on i mean what how how is that even defined and could ultimately be used as an excuse to go after journalists yeah i think i think part of the problem is that everything is defined as national security and they made that accusation against drake that his disclosures had harmed soldiers in the field when it turned out that he had disclosed nothing classified at all. so that's the danger and then another doing i mean really journalists if anything give

a lot of deference to the government including veto power over a number of their article of if they really think that there is some national security interest in danger and only this week as far as i know mcclatchy i believe . there are only a couple of papers came out and said they're not going to give pre-approval or veto authority to the government anymore. but they've given a lot of deference i mean they sat on the warrantless wiretapping story for a year and a half which was one of the biggest scandals of the bush administration. so i find this all to be a lot of a lot of hype and photo worry and false worries and fear mongering and again such a broad you could argue anything is going to be detrimental to national security but if it can it contributes to the public debate and public discourse in our country in the public sorry to no income. we have about drones where we have

about. actions we're taking in other countries and people would be completely appalled about. we should be having that conversation and we should also mention that we tried to obtain a statement from kerry aku but unfortunately we were told that he is not allowed to speak because he is under this gag order so so that's there's no gag order so much of the fact that when you're a criminal defendant anything you say could inadvertently create impeachable information were being used against you basically and so most criminal defendants are well advised not to talk while they're proceeding is underway all right i do want to turn now to another blow or an update to what julian us on he is still held in lockdown over there at the ecuadorian embassy in london trying to hear back from the authorities over there in ecuador as to whether

or not he has asylum will be granted but we did get an exclusive response from a spokesperson of julian a songe today wanted to read that response states quote in the meantime evidence of an imminent extradition demand from the united states are mounting it is known that the f.b.i. has gathered more than forty two thousand documents and in attempt to prosecute julian and others associate of the wiki leaks and subpoenas issued by the sea secret grand jury there are references to the espionage act of nine hundred seventeen which carries the death penalty there are more indications that the obama administration has the intention to continue to persecute persecution of wiki leaks for its journalistic activities it is all in line with the overall attempt by the administration to silence and punish severely all whistleblowers so. i mean this

kind of goes along with a son just fears the entire time i mean he doesn't want to be extra extradited to sweden he's facing questions not even charges but at this point just questions about. sexual allegations about his ultimate fear is that is being sent here to the u.s. . and it seems like that seems to be the case i think that's a well founded fear that he has she has a well under asylum criteria he has a well founded fear of political persecution number one for political opinions she has number two and that third party governments are unwilling or unable to stop that and in fact he has said he would be glad to go to sweden in her questions if he could get sharon says that he would not be extradited to be u.s. and neither sweden nor the u.s. has been willing to provide those insurances assurances and as you mention there

have been persistent rumors that not only are there a grand jury's out on songe but maybe a secret indictment as well. and that that's so first thing that would happen so i think it's good that the ecuadorian embassy is taking this seriously and the fact that they didn't rule immediately and say oh we're not going to hear it we're not going to retain the. can only be a good sign for a songe that they are taking it seriously right you know and living with us on his own has been kind of demonized for what he's done for making all these cables and documents public our air publishing base it publishing these documents basically but i mean how is that different from the new york times who had published this kill list and these other leaks that we've come out i mean they're also playing the role as a journalist doing their job. trying to expose the truth i mean what is the difference

in both situations they are publishing classified information that came from from leaks from whistleblowers there's not a significant difference the difference is of degree not kind we keep leaks or released more information and they're going to say that they the new york times and other newspapers have carefully cold cold through what they published but if weekly leaks goes down or it's prosecuted under the espionage act the new york times is next the l.a. times is next that's why you had the l.a. times do an op ed total editorial flip flop yesterday where is before they were they were against the crackdown on alleges leakers and now they're like oh let that proceed but don't go after journal was because they're finally realizing that if we get leaks is vulnerable under the espionage act they're next then. everyone

who's responding to anything that wiki leaks released would be equally as vulnerable yes and doesn't lastly i just want to ask you you know big leaks are big big leak small leaks then this has been a recurring thing throughout previous administrations why are we seeing this attempt to to silence them or to crack down. leaks now well i think after nine eleven there was a secret secrecy regime that was put in place by president bush and normally everyone thinks the pendulum will swing back. after a national security crisis like nine eleven but instead obama despite pledges of transparency has expanded the secrecy regime and that includes a huge clampdown on information and i think this is part of it i think it's a backdoor way to create an official secrets act also. limit li which we've lived

with out in this country for more than two hundred years a very interesting javelin thank you so much for coming on the show that was just one radek she is the director for national security and human rights and director of the government accountability project. well you better watch what you tweet because big brother could be watching it turns out that most requests for user data made to the social media giant are from the government what's more government officials are actually acknowledging the fact that they engaged in the surveillance of americans and the letter addressed to senator ron wyden the director of legislative affairs of the n.s.a. wrote quote it is also true that at least one at least on one occasion the foreign internal intelligence surveillance court held that some collection carried out pursuant to the section seven o two minimisation procedures used by the government was unreasonable under the fourth amendment the letter did not specify who was spied on what the reasons war

even when it happened so just what does this mean for your online privacy r.t. correspondent kareen a port in iowa has a story. in the land of social media users tweet tag friends upload and share information at any given moment in the land of the free what americans post online can and will be used against them. according to twitter of the nearly twelve hundred government requests for user data filed in the first half of this year nearly eighty percent came from the u.s. government the michael message company says it complied with seventy five percent of the user data washington requested social media in general twitter and facebook being prime examples of that are a part of an ever increasingly invasive police state in the united states it's not just about surveillance and about tracking and monitoring this is the way in which

they're consolidating control in the past year u.s. judges have forced twitter to turn over private or deleted data on users as part of investigations related to wiki leaks or occupy wall street. the ruling according to reports allows prosecutors access to tweets and additional information stored by twitter including the e-mail and ip address of a user it's more about more than just invasion of privacy it's about destroying the concept of privacy online at a recent conference called how girls on planet earth former national security agent william binney detailed the demise of u.s. privacy protection which he says has been carried out by washington for more than a decade it must of been right for. more than a week after. they decided to begin to supply you with it's

been the spent thirty seven years working for the n.s.a. before resigning to blow the whistle on what he calls the creation of an orwellian state your vote for health care is. always there. it's. true that he. at the height of his career binney served as technical director for n.s.a. s m group a branch that was reportedly responsible for eavesdropping on the world today he estimates that the n.s.a. has secretly compiled and stored more than twenty trillion files of e-mails phone calls and other data belonging to u.s. citizens when it comes to social media he says even users with the strictest security settings are not protected the reality of that is that that's not private at all if the companies don't have the government doesn't have it so either of them have it or they share with the unobstructed sharing of information is what's made half a billion people flock to social media sites like twitter but missing from the terms

of agreement is the monitoring that can be taking place as citizens are bursting their short messages into the virtual world. r.t. new york. well from on line to the airport it looks like privacy is more and more becoming a thing of the past the t.s.a. has come under fire lately for hands on searches that some say just go too far and a body is certain body searches they are beyond body searches the t.s.a. says they have a right to some or search your smart smart phones at least in some cases this is all coming to light after a manned by the name of john corbett filed a lawsuit against the t.s.a. he says they detained him for refusing to be groped and then rummage through his belongings and read through his personal items so where does the where do you draw the line and who play cards where producer plays an eight right now what's up with

you guys so t.s.a. yeah they can put you in this radiation box they do yes they can touch you all over do that also yes they can they now go through your cell phone yes soon no it really depends on which we want to look at it and which way you want to look at it which way the government wants to look at it because we all know in the end if the t.s.a. says something that means department homeland security is saying something that needs to be really hard to fight it a lot of people like mr chorley just mentioned are trying to fight it but the way it breaks down is like this if you are crossing it through it you see a checkpoint for a domestic flight to see cannot explicitly take your phone and check through your phone what they can do those what they are supposed to do is to check you for any sort of like terrorism related memorabilia likely if you can go through there or paraphernalia that i'm sorry they can go through and try to find devices or explosives nosing that they can do in the reason that they're trying to dismiss mr corbett's lawsuit is they say that they can look for things that prove that you're

trying to be someone else different ways of presenting yourself false identification false driver's license passports and stuff like that so if they can do that yes they can use the argument that they will go ahead and they will check your phone to see oh. is this really you who are these e-mails you're sending to are these addressed from yourself is this your e-mail address linked in there are these your contacts he could do that is that's what's being brought up right now the legality or for that now whether if you're flying in or out of the united states and you go through a checkpoint at a port of entry not just the t.s.a. but the department of homeland security they can and they will take anything that you have any sort of electronic device they can take it with without asking for your consent the fourth amendment does not apply here they can take it they can search it they can scan it they can keep it to they can transfer all the files they can give it to someone else and they can do that for as long as they deem necessary and also they won't even let you if they feel like it's a threat to national security you don't even get to watch them do this but yeah

they they they can do a hell of a lot of stuff right now and this is particular elegance these days because i mean with smartphones i mean you have like your whole life there your e-mail your apps you know where you everything in this wealth of information so in this modern day of our gadgets i mean this has wider implications you know if we were just hearing today that are going to go earlier today governor romney was saying that if these terrible leaks coming out all these whistleblowers they're all leaks that are coming out of the white house and he's blaming the obama administration what's stopping someone from the executive branch of flying out having their phones scanned and then the t.s.a. leaking out that that information i'm not saying that's the case that seems even farfetched for me however that it's entirely possible they can go through there and they can take all of your stuff there is actually a. really serious part of this is that they don't need to have necessarily a suspicion that you're doing anything wrong there was a case they started passing the two thousand and nine they said that they don't

need to suspicion do this two thousand and ten mr david house of the bradley manning support network he was flying back from mexico and he was stopped by the t.s.a. they let him go crossed in. i spoke with v.h.s. on the part of homeland security said hold on a second would i ask you some questions they didn't ask him anything about terrorism or blowing up buildings and stuff like that they wanted to know about the bradley manning support network and they want to know about wiki leaks nothing to do with you know what you would expect would endanger an entire airplane full of people they took him in they took his phone they took us they went through his computer they did all that and they did not need to have any suspicion if you're going into a port of entry from an international crossing they can do that right and i mean especially in the wake of all these incidents with the t.s.a. i mean that guy that basically stripped down live you know to show his freedom of speech and fight against him which is what it was

a dairy and we go yes has i guess there is a you know a glimmer of hope there apparently if that's legal then you know he's kind of paving the way for it for a change at least that's really going to see him. like audience trying to day oh but i mean for those that don't really want to go that route so i mean where does it end i mean if you don't want to you know strip down naked and and response in opposition i mean do you just comply and let these things stand back and happen or where does it end all you know we just go take the bus that's how i do most of my traveling that's nothing more relaxing just doesn't really know if you want to travel across seas no no no but one thing that you should do that if you actually nervous about not nervous but if you're concerned about someone that you don't want going through your personal information you can encrypt it you can go and you can put a password in every major operating system let you encrypt the information you have on a computer or a phone encrypted you are forced to give them a password does that mean you're not going to get your stuff back maybe but it's

it's a safe way to going about it in but i mean really the big thing here is i mean i don't want to be banned from traveling i love traveling area especially on the bus but it's if it's over it's best to just just. play it safe in there already t.s.a. is already putting their hands god knows where you know you don't really want them taking your computer to know i hear that so you had mentioned earlier that this all kind of goes down without any specific suspicion of ties to terrorism times as long as you're going to international borders that you can just be done just if any suspicion are doesn't seem like the barmaids you know i didn't know any of these so there is no there is no bar whatever if they want to do it they guess they can do it and that's what you're saying i mean doesn't this raise questions about our constitutional rights aiming at all yeah the use actually representing david house in a trial that the government tried to dismiss and it's as of last month it will go ahead

and proceed they're trying to go against the h.s. saying that they broke his first and fourth amendment rights by you know questioning him about his own personal habits his own participation in the bradley manning support network and then also illegally searching the stuff so they want to go after him for the go after the first and fourth amendment but. it's something that's going to keep progressing and luckily there's been cases where they're starting to at least listen to people that are filing these complaints one thing that is actually of relevance is the proposal that was passed in two thousand and nine that allows them to search anything without suspicion that is being up for review in august so it's been three years now next month lawmakers going to go back over it decide does this stand do you know is this work you know what we think about this you know we know that sense that was passed between two thousand and two thousand and ten something like six thousand five hundred people actually had their devices scanned reviewed by your chest while crossing over so if enough people make

an outrage and actually complain some things might change but the d h s is a very very adamant about how this is all just for the sake of security and i do want to take a. we don't have too much time left but want to switch gears a little bit i know your own article about this recently on our web site skype calls are not safe for america from the eyes and ears of the feds snooping apparently this is another. we just don't know for sure yet last month microsoft they bought skype last year a billion dollars which is you know just a fraction of what bill gates says but they bought skype last month microsoft was granted a patent to develop technology that they could implement in skype and other voice over ip platforms that pretty much says we're going to install something that will let us record anything happening over skype not just taking their chat logs and

actual video audio they can take the and they can give it to law enforcement and you don't ever have to know it's completely silent and they receive the rights to do this and when they've been questioned about it this week and last week microsoft and strife in their p.r. people are just dismissing these questions entirely so for right now we know that they can do it we know that they probably will do it but are they actually doing or a no they're not going out and seeing it but it's good archie dot com les usa the real article that was updated there are three dot com last year with a you got it read all of andrew blake's literary masterpieces are always keeping us up to date and we don't always have time to. hear our if you ever do sorry and you're like that's going to wrap it up for for this hour of the news we're going to be right back here and a half hour. the

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