congress tries to cripple the rugs nuclear ambition with one round of sanctions after another but even defense secretary leon panetta admits they're not working as intended as a political ploy or a last ditch effort before military intervention some answers ahead. and if you thought the kurds were closed on u.s. cyber legislation get ready for act sue the u.s. senate is where our play takes plays from fears comes new cyber legislation we'll tell you about the latest assault on your privacy and also take a deeper look at the cd dealings of the n.s.a. . and k. street near match in the age of the internet even the way in which people lobby

congress is getting a high tech face what 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. tuesday july thirty first ten pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching arts. but we begin this hour with the 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 offense secretary leon panetta has said the same issues are not stopping iran from pursuing its nuclear ambitions so what can these new sanctions really achieve jamaal of the policy director for the national iranian american council broke that

dowd take a listen. the new sanctions are really just a continuation of the old sanctions effectively they're tightening the screws on some of the sanctions that are already in place there's clear they're closing certain loopholes so-called loopholes they're imposing new sanctions on companies that ensure 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 a targeted human rights saying sions against iranian regime officials who were

guilty of human rights abuses they did this a couple of 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 just cite that there are some lawmakers that say that these sanctions the existing ones they don't go far enough. what do you

make of that 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 the cyber warfare and the covert warfare that we are now engaged in with iran but what they wanted this bill to do was to actually sanction every single financial end of the 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 sanctions 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 which i think is

really the what precedes military warfare. i do want to bring to the something that u.s. secretary of defense leon panetta this is what he had to say about sanctions he said quote what 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 signy are saying today in the this that the way to achieve this is 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 policymakers are being asked to decide do you want economic

warfare or miller. very 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 iran now i know a lot of people consider a sanction an act of war and could that be what this is could be to ramp up sanctions be a last ditch effort before military intervention there 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 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 a 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 all could be just for show and their selections is that well right now everybody's thinking about their campaign everybody is 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 sanctions he's passed and he's really you know compared to what the romney campaign is saying they're engaging in this sort of

return. oracle 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 to 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 that president obama's stance and republican presidential candidate mitt romney in terms of their approach to our 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 and the 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 it is attracted to some people that sanctions can actually harm people to the extent that regime change something on the table they want to ask if not sanctions what other routes can lawmakers go well lawmakers frankly should. give the president the political support for diplomacy and the legal support for diplomacy instead of passing bills that make it harder to waive sanctions 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 but that's not 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 take some measures to actually exempt food and medicine from the sanctions make sure that these are 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 intended effect there but jamal very interesting thanks so much for coming on the show that was jim olive day he is the policy director for the national iranian american council well we've been updates and i had on julian assange on to the swedish government has rejected a request by ecuadorian officials to interview a songe in the u.k. that's according to the wiki leaks twitter feed the whistleblower has been held up

at the embassy for the past six weeks seeking asylum in ecuador he's trying to avoid being extradited to sweden over sex crime allegations but his ultimate fear being sense of the u.s. are to correspondent laura smith has more from london. according to this the wiki leaks twisted feeds 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 to come to london and question him here and they've never done that so this is an ongoing thing i guess maybe what his legal team and indeed the ecuadorian diplomats felt could be different this time is that the invitation isn't coming from just us on himself it's coming from a novice state so he's got another state operating on his behalf so it's almost like it's on equal terms 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 diplomats have been working on behalf and seeking assurances from the u.k. sweden and the us that he will be extradited to america if he does go to sweden they've received no response or they've also been trying to get the u.s. to either confirm or deny that legal proceedings are a grand jury having been been subpoenaed in the us again no response from america. has been holed up now in the in the ecuadorian embassy here in london for 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 it's very cramped in there it's only a small embassy is no outside space at all and of course if he does step outside the embassy he's liable to be arrested by the british police his mother has been

quick all this week to plead her case and she says she's extremely worried about the state of his health she says he's under extreme stress in the ecuadorian embassy and he's been under long term extreme stress for the last two years while these this case is being going on and he's. really living in conditions similar to detention and that was our 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 poll wiki leaks in the public eye as never seen before and we will continue on as this story develops fairly innocent as mother arrive next door on monday and as we speak in our crew is in ecuador follow me to the developments from inside the country there's much more information coming so stay tuned. for 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 them ensuring that all the civilian agencies not the national security agency are in charge of our nation's now cyber security systems the next one they're ensuring data isn't shared by 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 carve outs for free speech and terms of service violations out all of this sounds great but privacy advocates are still skeptical to talk more about the cybersecurity bill aaron swartz founder of demand progress joined us earlier 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 haven't explained why we need to send you know even of a civilian agency to monitor all our cyber communications against in the same nonexistent. i mean how would you compare this ballot to other some of our controversial pieces of legislation you know a lot of sopa pipa at the latest to pass the house so it's closest to suspect in 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 mentioned 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 approaches about 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 which groups like the n.s.a. have been funding the creation of vulnerabilities in our computer systems and exploiting them for their own purposes in till 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 american. air and 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. it's infamously been one of the most ferocious groups spying on americans collecting data about americans building huge databases and drawing that try and collect all sorts of mature. you know from a tweet or e-mail records putting more material 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 into the cyber hack cyber terrorism and. would you say that there shouldn't be any oversight whatsoever to put safeguards in to prevent against potential attacks now like i said i think it's really important that you stop cyber attacks and the way to do that is to make our cyber systems more secure to close the border abilities that allow attackers to get it but the problem is the government's doing the opposite they are funding the creation of vulnerabilities they're offering rewards for people to find and build motor abilities and misses them and give it to the u.s. government when the u.s. government can launch fiber attacks in other countries as long as u.s. government is paying people to create vulnerabilities we're not going to get rid of the problems 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 going to work around it by saying well yes we're going we will 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 that bound to fail and i do want to mention 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 freedom then 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 are still a lot of concerns areas of concerns within this legislation i mean it's great to see senator wyden doing that and he's brought a lot of attention to this issue which basically is that the government claims they can spy on all of our location without a word because it's just our location and it's not anything private of it's an absolutely ridiculous argument that the argument. so ridiculous they refuse to make it publicly and we've only been able to hear about it because senator wyden i was

with the classified information and he continues to push the used 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 break 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 at this was recently at a hacking conference over the weekend but many aren't buying it i mean what do you think is this is this an outright lie well i think we have an n.s.a. whistleblower saying he was playing word games with the troops you know i think if you really pin him down a moment info yes but not 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 little blowers again and again have alleged the n.s.a. is collecting enormous amounts of information about americans 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 nor millions of n.s.a. bureaucrats taking notes on all of our conversations doesn't change the fact that they're recording them or keeping copies of them and they're searching through them all right so you know we saw so we saw we saw sister now we have this cyber security bill that they're debating today and 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'd like to see is some movement in a positive direction we have spent so much time trying to get rid of the worst aspects of these bills get rid of the most user engagement that we've seen and

there have been improvements made on those firms but what we are starting to see in this those small positive improvements 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 a face for that long multi-page thing that i don't think anyone ever reads if you violate that the government's position is that the 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 on facebook that's a crime that they can throw you in jail for certain draft of the bill would change that that's a positive step and we need to see more steps like that like senator wines amendment and so on but instead what we're seeing is not positive those small positive because attached to overall it's about the all right erin appreciate you coming on the show that was eric schwartz the founder of demand progress. well the biggest names on the internet are teaming up in hopes of influencing congress meet

the ied team that's made up of facebook google amazon and e bay they're forming a new trade organization and they say they'll prevent the advocate policy and legislation that's in the best interest of their users the internet association as it's called is set to launch in september and according to their president their mission is to lobby for quote a political solution that will push for protecting a free and open internet so what this new lobby really all about to discuss this and more i was joined by time you waste technology journalist at tech man walking take a look. at well a lot of people i spoke to for this story i wrote we talked about how this is something that was really overdue that the internet has been around now since one thousand nine hundred four and there hasn't really been a lobbying group created just for internet large businesses so i think that's really one of the most important things. now could we expect that the decisions in the interests of these gigantic companies are going to align with those of their

users. well i'm not sure what's going to happen and we haven't actually confirmed that these are the companies and the there's been country confirmation but it hasn't officially been announced it won't be till september but it all sources you know indicate it's google and yahoo and amazon and the need for the major members but what kind of reaction there's going to be i don't know if that can be really decided. ok i guess i guess it's something we're going to have to wait and see but you know these days it seems like most business says they depend on the internet whether it's for communication for promotion for sales everybody is connected in one way or another so how can this lobby really impact all businesses both big and small well i think it's important because right now there are plenty of lobbying groups for all kinds of different organizations the world of computing or groups like comp t.i.a. and other lobbying groups but there hasn't yet been really in a group just for retailers on the internet or businesses on the internet and i

think that's huge there's a national retail association for brick and mortar businesses and that's a usually powerful biz a lobbying group and i think that kind of thing is really needed for things like and the amazons the yahoos the base of the world because they have uniquely different needs they don't have stores they crossed every single state line in the united states and every order around the world and that to me is really important that here in the united states where many of these companies are based they have a lobbying group that can help you know discuss their specific needs with legislators in this country that we've seen as serious legislation aimed at regulating the internet in one way or another you know. the latest. and a lot of critics say that these lawmakers are are trying to legislate something that they don't even fully understand do you think that it's necessary to educate

lawmakers about the internet. yes that's a great point liz one of the things that one of the folks that i interviewed for my story for you he said was that you know there are still legislators are still members of congress who still think the internet is a series of tubes i mean i know it sounds ridiculous but what people don't understand with the internet is people don't understand the history of the internet how it happened and why we now in two thousand and twelve i've been using it since about one thousand nine hundred four as a consumer tool i mean i remember when this was something that all of us discovered back in ninety four ninety five it seems like it's been a while but you know it's what's twelve years is not that long a period of time to really learn about this well they certainly seems like it would be in everybody's best interest for them to get up to date on what the internet really as and you know all of this say you know kind of touting the benefits of this but i mean what would you expect the biggest companies in washington to fight

for amy and these are that they have a lot of power i mean facebook google have a lot of power and so i mean could that be dangerous in a way well that's that's very true but i think one of the things that could really come out of this is that companies like these as i said before they have a lot of things that happen over from state wide amazon for one amazon is having fights around the country as far as sales taxes state by state a lobbying group like this can help perhaps explain to you know lobbyist to congress i am a zone's position you know at this point there are states across the country who are starting to collect taxes on amazon purchases right now that's a that's a huge leap hot topic across the country and we're going to see more of that i think and i mean i guess we need this is just the beginning of it so what kinds of policies exactly do you think that they are going to be advocating well i think it

will be policies i mean to do with how these businesses can do. the work they do from state to state you know this country the united states because it is fifty states and then those states each have separate governments it on a federal basis some of these things may have to be decided because you know there are specific issues i mean to do with state to state interstate transit things like that shipping and all and all kinds of things like that i think that's probably the key the key issue although i also heard in my report from some of these sources that you know there are other issues as well taxes and how they can do special you know deals with governments to say build plants and in places or shipping facilities things like that there's a lot of tax related kinds of things that they will there's i'm sure there's that organization will lobby for on behalf of these companies and the president of this company has pledged to help protect you know the privacy and really advocate for you know the best policies that are the interest of their users are you confident

that they will in fact do that well i don't know if the lobbying organs are to me a lobbying organization is going to lobby on behalf of its members i don't know if it's going to lobby on behalf of all of us you know consumers so consumers will want to watch what this group does just see how it affects them out if expertise is they make from these companies how it affects how they deal with companies like yahoo or google or you bay you know it's going to be one of those things that you can consumers are going to want to see what happens and then there's the whole issue of political contributions now we're going to see political contributions formally through a new group which all of us will have to watch for because that's worrisome and in the political world and i was taught our technology journalist at tech man walking and that is going to wrap it up for tonight from our in the series we covered check out our you tube channel it's you to dot com slash r t america we post all of our videos in a fall there or you could check out our website it's our dot com slash usa and you

can also follow me on twitter atlanta's wall for now have a great night. r t is the state run in an english speaking russian channel it's kind of like al-jazeera. russia today has an extremely confrontational stance when it comes to us. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through it's already been made who can you trust no one who is in view with a global missionary see where we had a state controlled capitalism it's called.