make your statement. split the words. please you plug holes through the lines. congress tries to cripple iraq's nuclear ambition with one round of sanctions after another but even defense secretary leon panetta admits they're not working as intended is this a political ploy or a last ditch effort before a military intervention some answers ahead. and if you thought the kurds were closed on u.s. cyber legislation get ready for act two the u.s. senate is aware our play takes place from ancient fears comes a new cyber legislation we'll tell you about the latest assault on your privacy and also take a deeper look at the seedy dealings of the n.s.a. . and k. street meet your match in the age of the internet even the way in which people

lobby congress is getting a high tech facelift their mission find political solutions to protect a free and open internet we'll find out how they're planning to do that coming up. it's tuesday july thirty first six pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching t.v. we begin this hour with mounting tension with iran congress this week has announced more sanctions on the country this time they're aimed at companies that ship goods to iraq and all this is happening as questions remain over whether existing sanctions are working even defense secretary leon panetta has said the same sions are not stopping iran from pursuing nuclear ambitions so what can these new sanctions really achieve to discuss this is jamal of the policy director for the national iranian american council jamal welcome to the show so congress last year

they announced these sanctions that would target financial institutions that do business with iran now they are expanding these saying share. what did these new new limits really do the new sanctions are really just a continuation of the old saying sions effectively they're tightening the screws on some of the same things that are already in place there's they're closing certain loopholes so-called loopholes they're imposing new sanctions on companies that insurer ships that transport iranian oil there are some so-called human rights measures in here that really fall flat and you know are not actually supportive of human rights in iran but basically what this bill does is it just advances what already is the case which is that we have this what is becoming an economic embargo on iran we don't ship anything to iran but we also prevent other countries from shipping items to iran or buying oil from iran and so this is just becoming. a

bigger and bigger embargo that we're putting on and you had mentioned the human rights violations can you elaborate on that well congress passed targeted human rights sanctions against iranian regime officials who were guilty of human rights abuses they did this a couple years ago the obama administration has put sanctions on these officials their financial restrictions their travel restrictions and frankly i think that this is the type of sanction that actually is beneficial to actually target the folks who are behind some of the abuses but in this new bill they're basically doubling down on that and this is a kind of a small piecemeal part of the bill whereas the majority of what the bill does is actually impose these restrictions that are blocking medicine from getting into iran that are blocking food and humanitarian products from getting into iran there isolating iranian students who want to study abroad and so when you actually add them all up the human rights measures fall pretty short and it's sort of

a joke to say that this is advancing human rights when you're punishing people on a humanitarian level like this and you know despite that there are some lawmakers that say that these so. the existing ones they don't go far enough what do you make of that you know really what the aim was for a lot of folks who supported this was to put the switch on economic warfare i think what we have in place is it constitutes economic warfare and it dovetails nicely with this cyber warfare and the covert warfare that we are now engaged in with iran but what they wanted this bill did do was to actually sanction every single financial energy inside of iran to make it legally impossible to send any goods to iran or for iran to send anything out what we already have though is that in effect it's impossible to send items to iran for instance there are food producers here in the u.s. who they can't find a way to actually sell their goods in iran even though the same is technically exempt food products because we have this ambiguity and banks are unwilling to

facilitate these these transactions so really it would it would make law what is already in effect and which is being called economic warfare and i was i think is really what precedes military warfare. i do want to bring that's something that u.s. secretary of defense leon panetta this is what he had to say about sanctions he says quote well we all need to do is to continue the pressure on iran economic economically and diplomatically to negotiate and to ultimately do what's right and joining the international family. sanctions if this is that the way to achieve this the secretary he says that sanctions are working in the same breath that he says we need more sanctions i think everybody in washington understands that we're not going to get to a solution to this problem by just imposing more and more sanctions i don't think

there's really honestly anybody who thinks that this is the trajectory to a diplomatic resolution with iran what they acknowledge i think for a lot of these folks is that we are now in a position where paul. the makers are being asked to decide if you want economic warfare or military warfare and so the folks who actually do support a diplomatic solution are choosing between these two bad options and then you have folks who you know like the defense secretary really are protecting the president who has invested a lot of time in these sanctions and doesn't have a whole lot to show for it other than the serious humanitarian crisis that's emerging inside of iraq now you know a lot of people consider sanctions in an act of war and could that be what this is could these ramp up sanctions be a last ditch effort before military intervention they really could be what i think what is happening now is that the obama administration doesn't want to see military action on iran they don't want to see israel go in there they don't want to have to

you know green light strikes on their own but we're in a situation where until november it's going to be impossible to actually do anything that is perceived as looking weak on iran even if you know it's a matter of getting real the iranian concessions if it involves waving the same sions you know romney congress they're going to attack the president as being weak and so really what they're trying to do is slow this process down so that they can get through the end of the election and then have the maneuverability hopefully to actually to actually negotiate to actually leverage these sanctions and so what we're seeing is this slow drip of every two weeks they announce new sanctions and congress they pass a sanctions bill before they go home and everybody appears to be doing something that is tough but really is designed to buy time and the hope is that in buying time or not actually making it more likely that a military strike happens in the next few months so you're saying that this could be just fresh out and this election season well right now everybody's thinking about their campaign everybody's looking to go home and campaign off the sanctions

build a campaign on how tough they are in iran i think president obama is looking to appear tough in terms of the same since he's passed and he's really. you know compared to what the romney campaign is saying they're engaging in this sort of rhetorical battle but articulating the exact same policies at the end of the day nobody's actually talking about any approaches that we haven't already tried that haven't already basically failed and the types of tough decisions that need be made about do we want to find a diplomatic solution or do we want to continue down this road to inevitable confrontation and i mean in your opinion how would you contrast the stance of president obama's stance and republican presidential candidate mitt romney's stance in terms of their approach to handling iran i think that the obama administration has been more willing to talk about the diplomatic track i don't think that there's actually substantively that much different although i would look to some of the advisers in the romney camp folks who have supported terrorist groups like the any

k. folks like john bolton who have advocated openly for bombing iran and the real question is what happens when mitt romney takes office is there going to be a greater focus on the military option and you know i think it's an open question right now in washington do folks actually see sanctions and the u.s. policy towards iran as one of regime change or one intended to bring iran to the table for a diplomatic solution i think that there are folks in both camps who actually think that we can impose so many sanctions on the iranian people that somehow they're going to be compelled to rise up against the regime even as you have human rights defenders and democracy defenders on the ground in iran saying look these sanctions are undermining us they're punishing the core of our movement here in washington and it's attracted some people that you know sanctions can actually harm people to the extent that regime change suddenly on the table unless they want to ask you if not sanctioned what other routes can lawmakers go well lawmakers frankly should.

give the president the political support for diplomacy and the the legal support for diplomacy instead of passing bills that make it ha. order to waive same sions in exchange for iranian concessions pass a measure that actually gives the president the flexibility to do that and encourages him to do what is actually in you know the us his best interests and the international community best interest that's what they're doing now and they're also you know in the meantime they can take some measures if they really support human rights in iran takes the measures that actually exempts food and medicine from the sanctions make sure that these aren't being blocked to make sure that internet communication tools are blocked by the sanctions but in the world of campaign politics that's not what's fundraisers and so congress isn't doing that certainly these sanctions are affecting a lot more people than the the intended effect there but jamal very interesting thanks so much for coming on the show that was jim olive the he is the policy director for the national iranian american council we have an update tonight on

julian assigned to the swedish government has rejected a request by actually dorian officials to interview us on in the u.k. that's according to the wiki leaks twitter feed the whistleblower has been held up in the embassy for the past six weeks seeking asylum and ecuador he's trying to avoid being extradited to sweden over sex crime allegations his ultimate fear though is being sense of the u.s. and the correspondent laura smith has more from london. according to the wiki leaks twitter feed they have rejected the invitation without any kind of meaningful explanation and i mean this is doesn't really come as a particular surprise ever since this case began almost two years ago now. has been offering for this week jill dougherty's to come to london and question him here and they've never done that so this is an ongoing thing i guess maybe what assad and his legal team and indeed the ecuadorian diplomats felt could be different this

time is that the the invitation isn't coming from just us on himself it's coming from another state so he's got another state operating on his behalf that almost like it's equal to it really begs the question does the swedish prosecutor really want to get to the bottom of this case it certainly looks as if she doesn't and if not then of course why not. meanwhile dorrian diplomats have been working on julian us on his behalf and seeking assurances from the u.k. sweden and the u.s. that he will be extradited on to america or if he does go to sweden they've received no response on that they've also been trying to get the u.s. to either confirm or deny that legal proceedings are your grand jury having been subpoenaed in the u.s. again no response from america. has been holed up now in the in the ecuadorian embassy here in london for the weeks he fled citing human rights violations to avoid extradition to sweden on these allegations but no charges of sexual offenses

and he's under quite trying circumstances very cramped in there only a small embassy is no outside space at all in the course of people step outside the embassy he's liable to be arrested by the british police his mother has been in ecuador this week to plead her case and she says that she's extremely worried about the status while she says he's under extreme stress in the ecuadorian embassy and he's been around a long time extreme stress for the last two years while these this case has been going on and that he's really living in conditions similar to detention. and those are to correspondent laura smith with an update from london now r.t. has been covering this story since the release of the collateral murder video which put wiki leaks in the public eye as never before and we will continue as this story on this story as it develops julian assange his mother arrived in ecuador on monday and as we speak an r.t. crew is in ecuador following the developments of this story from inside the country

and there's much more information coming out so stay tuned. while another cyber security bill up for debate today in congress this time it's the cyber security act of two thousand and twelve the bills aimed at regulating the internet has stirred a lot of controversy recently but this one has the white house standing behind it and this bill appears to have some very positive provisions let's take a look at a few of up the first one there ensuring that only civilian agencies not the national security agency are in charge of our nation's cyber security systems and sharing data isn't shared with law enforcement except in very specific limited circumstances and ensuring that data collected through cyber security programs can't be used to prosecute other unrelated crimes and the last one there carve outs for free speech and terms of service violations. now that all sounds great but

privacy advocates are still skeptical to talk more about the cybersecurity bill aaron swartz founder of demand progress going to surlier today here says take. well i mean it's certainly good that they've made these improvements to the bill and like you said it has a lot of protections for privacy that weren't there before but there's still the fundamental question of why we need a bill like this at all i mean obviously if we are going to have a bill it's better than it has privacy protections than the previous bill which you know actually trampled on privacy in all sorts of ways but the government still hasn't explained why we need this and you know even of a civilian agency to monitor all our cyber communications against some sort of nonexistent threat i mean how would you compare this bell to other some of the more controversial pieces of legislation so. says the latest to pass the house so it's closest to suspend that it's the same basic idea it's about letting people share cybersecurity information more easily but it doesn't have some of the

most egregious provisions in that bill like you mention it has safeguards in place in response to the popular uprising about the bill but what it doesn't do is it doesn't change the fundamental approach of the bill it still says what we need is another government agency was job is to collect information about americans in order to stop some sort of terrorist threat from the internet and doesn't attack the real problem of cyber security threats which is that the government groups like the n.s.a. out been funding the creation of vulnerabilities in our computer systems and exploiting them for their own purposes until we stop that until the government stops funding cyber security holes it seems a bit ridiculous to say that the solution the cyber security is more spying and collecting more data about americans but what are the implications of transferring that power away from the national security agency to a civilian agency. well that's certainly a huge improvement i mean if you look at the track record of the n.s.a. and. it's infamously been one of the most ferocious groups spying on americans

collecting data about americans building huge databases and dragnets that try and collect all sorts of material you know from our tweets story e-mail records putting more material in hand is really frightening and taking it away from the n.s.a. is a huge positive step but it doesn't mean you know at the end of the day it's one government agency or another government agency it doesn't solve the underlying problem now there are these ramped up fears there and you know cyber attacks cyber terrorism. would you say that there shouldn't be any oversight whatsoever to you know put safeguards in to prevent against potential attacks not like i said i think it's really important you stop cyber attacks and the way to do that is to make our cyber systems more secure or to close the bomb or abilities that allow attackers to get it but the problem is the government is doing the opposite they are funding the creation of vulnerabilities they are offering rewards for people to find and build

moeller abilities in the misses them and give it to the u.s. government so the u.s. government can launch cyber attacks in other countries as long as the u.s. government is paying people to create all the abilities we're not going to get rid of the problem and so instead of actually addressing the underlying problem which is that there are these holes there are these vulnerabilities in our computers the government's trying to work around it by saying well yes we're going we hold open but we're just going to watch them carefully to make sure only the u.s. government uses it that's a strategy but bound to fail i do want to magic you know senator ron wyden he has kind of been at the forefront of all of this and trying to advocate legislation that would protect internet freedoms and he plans to introduce an amendment to this bill that would prevent warrantless g.p.s. tracking so aaron i mean it looks like there is still a lot of concerns areas of concerns within this legislation yeah i mean it's great to see senator one doing that and he's brought a lot of attention to this. if you which basically is that the government claims

they can spy on all of our location without a war because it's just our location and it's not anything private of us it's an absolutely ridiculous arguments an argument that's so ridiculous they refuse to make it publicly and instead we've only been able to hear about it because senator wyden has access to classified information and he continues to push the legislation to fix the loophole that the government has simply invented out of the net now and as we had mentioned earlier what this bill does it transfers power out of the national security agency to a civilian agency and a lot of controversy surrounding what exactly the n.s.a. has done in the past and if they did compromise people's privacy and constitutional rights want to bring up a general keith alexander he came out recently and said that the n.s.a. did not maintain files on americans he says if that happened that it wasn't intentional this was this was recently at a hacking conference over the weekend but many aren't buying at i mean what do you

think is this is this an outright lie what i think we have an n.s.a. whistleblower saying he was playing word games with the truth you know i think if you really pin him down a moment and say oh yes they're not on a list we just have a database with information about all sorts of americans but you know that's that's a distinction without a difference the fact is as whistleblowers again and again have alleged the n.s.a. is collecting enormous amounts of information about americans the putting it all huge databases where it can be searched and information about any one of those can be pulled out the fact that ok today the n.s.a. isn't pulling all of the individual files with the names on it no one millions of in the same bureaucrats taking notes on all of our conversations doesn't change the fact that there were courting them if you can copies of them and they're searching through that. so you know we saw we saw. sis now we have this cyber security bill that they're debating today i know you're still you still not happy still not satisfied what would it take for advocates of internet privacy like

yourself to be to be satisfied. well what i would like to see is some movement in a positive direction we have spent so much time in trying to get rid of the worst aspects of these bills get rid of the moves to use the engagements that we've seen in and there have been improvements made on those fronts but what we are starting to see in this bill is small positive improvements so like you mentioned one of the changes in this bill is that it will change the definition of terms of service right now the government's position is that if you violate the sort of click through agreement you get when you sign up for facebook that multi-page thing that i don't think anyone ever reads if you violate that the government's position is that's a crime well there's all sorts of silly things in that agreement like you have to use your real name on facebook so the government's position is if you if you use a fake name and place book that's a crime that they can throw you in jail for a certain draft of the bill would change that that's a positive step but we need to see more steps like that like senator wyden is amendment and so on but instead you know what we're seeing is not positive bills

but small positive excuse attached to overall it's a bad bill aaron appreciate you coming on the show that was eric schwartz the founder of demands progress for the biggest names on the answer natura teaming up in hopes of influencing congress meet the ied team it's made up of facebook google amazon and e bay and they're forming a new trade organization they say they'll advocate policies and legislation that's in the best interest of their users the internet association as it's called is set to launch and september according to their president their mission is to lobby for a quote political solution that will push for protecting a free and open internet so what's this new e.u. lobby really all about nicholas merrill executive director of the calyx institute joins us now welcome nicholas so we have the most powerful cyber forces banding together what do you make of this new. i'm cautiously adopting wait and see

attitude because i'm trying to adopt in the interest of fairness an attitude of. a feeling like it's important not to prejudge their efforts before they really get off the ground. however i think it's kind of important to note that there is a kind of an obvious potential conflict of interests their. sense of the interests of these companies may not always coincide with the interests of the users so i think you know a note of caution should be taken and nicholas can you elaborate at that on that how would the interests of the company is be at odds with the interests of the users at times sure you know in certain cases the interests of the companies and the interests of the users may align but there are sort of. a problem sometimes particularly where these companies sometimes are founded on business models which are based on compiling databases on user activities and that is generally frowned

upon it as being an anti privacy kind of a practice as we've seen in the past databases will eventually be used for unintended purposes so in certain cases these companies business models may force them to take an anti privacy position. and you know a lot of them have been. working hand in hand with law enforcement and other government agencies as we've seen in the arab spring for instance. and you know we saw the power of these companies i mean especially when they were opposed to sopa and pipa they all took part in this online blackout and as a result of that you know this piece of legislation really didn't go anywhere so obviously they're really a quite powerful force but is there a potential danger in this power that they hold. one of the biggest danger from my

point of view in the market capitalization of these combined companies represent sounds from kind of a cynical point of view the american political system sometimes seems like it's based on whoever has the most money as a power being the most influence and then the situations where these corporations interests are at odds with those of the users. users may find themselves or be out funded and are gone and their interest may be pushed aside in favor of the interest of the company. now you know these days it seems that most businesses it depend on the internet you know whether it's for communication or for promotion or sales i mean it's all connected in one way or another so how can this lobby really impact all businesses you know both big and small. from my point of view some of the. some of the topics that ought to be on the agenda of the organization would be things like network neutrality privacy i would imagine that they're going to focus

on opposition to taxation on internet commerce and some of these companies are really based on commerce for example. one of the things that i would hope that they would focus on more would be opposition to dragnet surveillance which i guess as you discussed in the previous segment has become like a really huge issue politically. it's not just the and it's a but it's also domestic agencies like the f.b.i. who have been caught surveilling a lot of internet users without suspicion of a crime and outside of the. framework of the constitution and it's protections on personal freedoms. now you know when we see all this legislation some people make the argument that lawmakers are not very well informed about the when it comes to the internet do you think that there is this need educate lawmakers about the internet so they can make well informed decisions when they're you know they're

making drafting legislation that affects everybody like me and you that uses the internet absolutely i think there's a huge need for that the congress often drops legislation seemingly without really understanding the technical ramifications of the things that they propose and sometimes it amounts to kind of like a bull in a china shop scenario where the things that they propose end up kind of breaking the standards that have been working on the internet ever since its inception and clamping down on freedom frankly and kind of skipping. the rule of law and the. right to go through the court systems so a certain level i think this could be very exciting because truthfully companies like google. and you know these these big internet companies are really like brain trusts that have some of the top thinkers technically so i think it could be a tremendous thing for congress to get more of

a technical input when they're drafting legislation and lastly they're want to ask you you know the if this internet association this new association their president had said that their mission is for at this political solution that will push for protecting a free and open internet how confident are you that they well in fact pursue this mission. like i said at the beginning of the interview i'm cautiously optimistic i think that in a lot of scenarios word doesn't interfere with their business interests they may very well do so and so i am very hopeful that this will be a positive force of course at the same time i'm also glad that there are other organizations that specifically are focused on the rights of users like the electronic frontier foundation like public knowledge and many others the american civil liberties union for instance. you know i don't think we should. bet

everything on this new organization being a panacea for all the problems but it may help right will it be interesting how this plays out and just how they are able to influence legislation over there in congress nicholas thanks so much for coming on the show that was nicholas merrill he is the new executive director of the calyx institute thank you very much and that is going to wrap it up for this hour about for more on the stories we covered you could check out our you tube channel it's youtube dot com slash artsy america also had over to our web site it's our t.v. dot com slash usa and you can also follow me on twitter at liz wahl will be right back here at eight o'clock see that. and what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions it's going to be break through heads already been made who can you trust no one who is in view with a global missionary zeal where we had a state.