charly corporations rule. the u.s. is facing some serious heat from leaders in the middle east or call of action to halt all drone strikes or u.s. officials are not quite ready to put down the trigger so why is america flying past the resistance. and we live in a social media society but should sites like twitter be forced to reveal the names of people who set up fake accounts will dive into the topic of internet freedom versus user privacy and millions of homeowners across the nation continue to drown in their underwater mortgages believe there is a relief program which could save owners up to one billion dollars so why is the federal government refusing to throw this much needed lifeboat.

is wednesday august first five pm in washington d.c. christine and you're watching r t well one of the most central components to modern day warfare is of course the use of drones the industry is growing so fast they have hundreds fewer drone pilots than they need and they're even lowering their standards to make it a little easier to get a job in the field of drones drone strikes have been responsible for the deaths of several high level members of al qaeda about additionally have killed countless civilians women and children included in turn the drone strikes have served as one of the top recruiting tools for militants now pakistan's ambassador to the united states at her country will continue to demand that the cia stop its drone strikes. the whole drone program is seen as does the relationship at every juncture and we honestly feel that there are better ways now of eliminating guy though in which has

been done with our help and we have been doing that consistently with a heavy lifters in this relationship and to talk more about all of this i'm joined now by scott horton contributing editor for harper's magazine hey there scott to the u.s. being criticized once again being called upon by pakistan and the use of drones what do you think the impact of this will be in terms of policy. well the big question is how serious is this process going to force is this issue's come out many times before i think we now know through some wonders that came out the course of the last two years that present evidence for injured into a secret agreement with the united states back when he was in power under which he gave us forty or the use of drones polluting setting up a room based on terror. and and this agreement included sort of protocols for harald strikes could be carried out of the pocket from the government

but it also stated. that the u.s. had the approval secret and noted that the pakistanis would deny that they ever approved it so we know that that arrangement existed for many years and we know with exist as a continued under the civilian government what's changed since approximately a year and three or four months since the attack on the bob is that the government of pakistan is now really turned against the use of drones and to be much more serious in its opposition to it and we see this coming out of the civilian leadership as well as the military leadership that changes the dynamics entirely of course the u.s. drone base in pakistan was shut down that much more difficult for the u.s. carry out the aeration but also the legal promise of legal authority for these drone strikes to occur when practiced withdraw it but i think still most observers

would measure of skepticism about pakistan because it is clearly the case that some of the drone strikes are occurring with the authority of the pakistani government or others are not well let's put aside just for a moment some of the criticism coming from pakistan and look simply at the drone programs we have on. on one hand drones are really being responsible oh ok well let me go back i don't want to put these numbers up quite yet we have drones being responsible for the deaths as i mentioned earlier of some high level al qaeda officials so and it really comes at a minimal price to the life of u.s. boots on the ground so that's one of the things that people behind these programs really cite as a good thing on the other hand we've heard time and time again including from some of our you know friends and allies in places like pakistan and elsewhere that when these strikes happen as this is the number one recruiting tool to get more people

to come onboard against the u.s. talk about how these two things balance out in terms of the drone policy here in the u.s. even within the u.s. intelligence community struggles are very far so we have a number critics there that these are in search of a strategy that each district individually may be successful they make if there are appropriate targets they may produce but you have to consider this in the broader context so i was affecting the political situation on the ground in iraq and stuff ours is affecting the perception of the united states and i think what we've seen over the last few years is that this is was to a demonization the united states and we can now work across the political spectrum and pockets. from the from the people's party to the to the clarabelle groups and one thing that unites fired spectrum is congress nation of the drone program

and the u.s. the way the u.s. is using the number of number of civilian casualties and also the mistake the right is this is this is really i just say that the country and its wars are what u.s. relations with the pakistani intelligence and military so there may be practical successes in the united states. but right now it does not look strategically like that. so a lot of people are. world where's your national security adviser of obama. years in office. for you purpose drone program in pakistan was not successful and he's one person has spoken publicly about this very number of others behind the scenes who left the same opinion and let's broaden this a little bit because it's not just of course the drone program in pakistan it's not just the cia drone program the drone drone use overall is growing and i want to put

those numbers currently the u.s. military actually has a seventy five hundred drones drones make up about one third of air force aircraft and the average drum for those of you don't know it convenient and read a milk carton from sixty thousand feet away so scott real quick let's just talk about numbers like this and what they tell us. well i mean you know it's affected the way for the u.s. to find the truth and difficult for rain like the border zone between afghanistan and pakistan it would allow the u.s. to be active there with the very very modest what friends and personalities very few people on the ground who may have to maintain and service the ground so i think it's highly valued by what smoldering intelligence community for those reasons but you know we're still going to come back to the question the probably used to be effective as and you know we talked about. we can also look at the way groans have been used in afghanistan across the front here where

a number of the strike you know wedding party other the billion gatherings farmers in the field instead of errors you know successful strike strikes that actually a correct argot don't really guard that problem. but the mistaken strike certainly and real quick i want to put up something i found because a good strategy or bad strategy it seems to me at least the drones are here to stay there for us has about thirteen hundred drone pilots or is about thirty three hundred less than it needs and this is a web site or rather i found a website that shows a bunch of job recruiting tools and on the job web site it shows how just how many job openings there are for aerial unmanned aerial vehicle pilots or instruction instructors so i mean what do you think this mean that this is here to stay oh i think in a huge way think we're where are they really just at the threshold now of the very

dramatic expansion in this drone industry we're going to see this domestically in the united states and probably in europe as well dealing with things like crack bricks and roll and police support and so on so if we don't have thirty thousand drones operated over the territory of united states and i think that there's i'll be surprised. all right scott horton turning editor for harper's magazine always good to have you on the show thanks so much we wish you well today marks the eight hundredth day of private first class bradley manning sitting in jail manning is accused of leaking classified information to the whistle blowing web site wiki leaks now we've been staying on top of some of the pretrial hearings that have happened but we want to spend part of today actually also looking at the man behind wiki leaks julian assange and a son has spent the last seven weeks inside the ecuadorian embassy in london awaiting word on whether he might be able to gain asylum in ecuador since first unveiling wiki leaks julian assange has been somewhat of

a controversial figure but now it's clear he's even making some waves within his own circle last night a battle erupted over twitter when one of the few people who has met both a songe and bradley manning started criticizing us on the comments are in reference to a fake new york times op ed and former new york times executive director bill keller and wiki leaks took credit for the hoax that fooled many across the internet and so then this tweet from david house said as long as wiki leaks is controlled by a song as the shortcomings of the songes leadership will continue to put wiki leaks supporters at risk and then a joke about obama another man associated with wiki leaks then tweeted in response david house attacking wiki leaks i think and have thought for a long time that he is probably a confidential informant a snitch or worse and i also wrote people ask me how i feel about david and now it's a matter of public record i wish him luck with his legal cases and nothing more. meanwhile julian assange his mother recently told the associated press she's worried about her son's health she says her son has essentially been in prison like

circumstances for the last two years now ecuadorian officials have said they will not announce a decision on the asylum request until later in the month after the olympic games in london have wrapped up. let's talk now about a case that has rocked the world of twitter involving a british journalist criticizing and b.c. so the independent journalist a guy adams was joining in the chorus of several others criticizing n.b.c. for the olympics coverage and adams gave out the corporate email address of an n.b.c. executive and b c which actually part partnered with twitter for the olympics was notified by twitter and then suspended adam's twitter account after being told he violated the twitter rules the case was covered extensively including by forbes magazine and i want to speak now twenty of those journalists who wrote about it forbes dot com contributor michael humphrey. hey there michael i know your article was called that twitter guy adams and the cost of being a user so let's start there what is the cost of being

a twitter user well the coast being that user as opposed to being a customer is your it was march that were users of were not in flippers were voting . for the policies that twitter and so we just have a little. you know there was a big protest and i do think that made a difference in the end of the day but you know we have to get used to this this new model we're used to having to say about things that we are in the things that we use but when you're a user. is is basically have to become the you know it's interesting the way you know when twitter first came about it seemed to me at least to be sort of an alternative to mainstream media but now we see you know it's partnering with n.b.c. and becoming just as corporate as some of the other sites what do you think this impact is of its new role. well you know i mean i looking at it from twitter's point of view they've they've built up this huge infrastructure of one hundred

fifty million users and that's great and it does make for an incredible experience of getting getting a word out ways that we've never experienced before the way it happened in iran the way it happened in the arab spring but of the other hand the question of who are twitter becomes how do we monetize this how do we make a business out of that and when that question starts going to the conversation that it changes the experience they have to figure out a way to make all this used to matter in terms of a business model once you ask that question then you're talking about ever does in your partnerships. the things that we were talking about when twitter was a new platform that was very open and really wasn't worried about and then you see that a lot of companies they build up their audience and then they ask the question you know do it. feels like the facebook model too and we should mention it's not just to these corporate partnerships twitter like social media like other social media

is often beholden to a law enforcement agency so there's another case i want to bring up this is what somebody who's twitter handle and was unsteady doric land seems to be parroting steve auckland the chief chief executive of northcliffe media and that media company said that the spoof tweets are obsessive and offensive and an e-mail by twitter to the account holder that was recently made public have a twitter is obligated to respond to lawful the lawful process and will do so on august first that's today so essentially twitter told this user that it was going to give his or her personal information to authorities and guess what twitter has now renamed on that promise and is refusing the order so i'm wondering if perhaps we're going to see a new chapter here with social media saying you know what we're not going to respond to every single request by federal. authorities you know when you've seen that no other cases as well i mean google has done this as well and i think it's

about setting precedence because all of this is so new and you know i think it's important to remember that there are a lot of social media sites and the big search sites want to word were created by idealists who are sort of if i think having fights within within themselves about these questions i mean i think twitter wanted to be a place for expression and doesn't necessarily want to be a place where law enforcement goes in and starts looking for information and so you know i've wouldn't i wouldn't compare these companies to the classic sense of the corporation on the other hand you know all of those pressures are going to be there and you know twitter is known for its data if twitter is shown anything it's the power of data us just talking about our lives and our opinions about things there's going to be a lot of pressures on that data for years because i think it's a really good point and it seems to me that we sort of reach some some unchartered

waters that pretty soon some things are going to have you know have to be navigated through that don't have precedent and part of that is speech i guess i'm wondering what you think and some of the research that you've done they've done. do you think we will start to see more rules about what free speech on twitter actually is you know this is a part of the story that i just don't envy i don't envy these companies in this regard when you think about the question of speech you're talking about a global question here in the united states we had this out our own way over a couple of centuries but of around the world this question is evolving maybe in many different ways and these companies sort of have to know these answers everywhere so yeah that that that question is going to be is going to be for many years a critical around the world in. it could be interesting if they could start a debate about what speech means globally in

a way we've never had it before and in that way i'm almost i'm almost an optimist in this regard but when you add those two elements together you know there's the question of governmental pressure on that speech and the question of corporate pressures of as we age you know as a rock and a hard place and it's going to be it's going to be really tough for these companies to keep their integrity it is really interesting as you mentioned twitter does sort of span the globe we saw the role it played in places like egypt and the arab spring but i just want to push a little harder because yes twitter is dealing with countries with very different rules about speech but i would argue you know the us has some of the most lax rules about free speech and yet it seems to me that that could change with things like facebook and twitter we use the term protected speech but how is it protected when twitter is then giving it to you know giving your personal information to law

enforcement agencies. and the u.s. government well and you know you could ask that of a brand new varieties and right after nine eleven as well things that we absolutely expected to be private conversation were being wiretapped you know and and and so back question is it isn't the new or even and where expectation of privacy is is really a truly expected one thing i would say about this where the users are going back and you don't expect privacy on twitter i mean. we learn that rule over and over and over that when you expect that what you're saying is being protected meaning way you know you're you're bound to make a mistake twitter is a public square and as long as people misunderstand that you know they're going to they're going to run in the expectation they're going to their expectations are going to run into reality. that will always make it feel like. that

and you know a lot of that i think is about the misunderstanding of user her. you know what twitter is just one example. even the way we email those or other questions where expectations are different and those those are you know that's when activists really rise up and say our speech is meaningful you know the freedom of the speech is meaningful to us on these forums as it ever was in our living room or in the square and we just have to keep fighting. yeah not only is it not one hundred percent correct but protected there's also a chance it could be around forever you know when you tweet something that just doesn't go away thanks for being on the show michael humphrey forbes dot com contributor thank you. so i had here on our t.v. underwater and drowning quickly millions of americans are facing that prospect when it comes to their mortgages so why isn't the federal government helping to look into the issue and just

a moment. and what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to be breakthrough had sort of b.p. made who can you trust no one who is you know view with the global machinery see where are we heading state controlled capitalism is called fascism when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more. than a client of american power continue. things are. might actually be time revolution. and it turns out that a killer drink at starbucks is a surprising radio. welcome

to the capital account i'm lauren lyster. well since the financial collapse of four years ago one of the biggest issues in this country has been the bursting of the housing bubble and the large number of foreclosures that have happened as a result depending on where you look for info nearly one third or one fourth of all homeowners in this country are underwater on their mortgages take a look at this map from june of this year the dark reddish color represents the area hit hardest by the foreclosure crisis that's in parts of the south the midwest

and the west so what's the solution here well some of them calling for the federal housing finance agency which oversees fannie mae and freddie mac. to give the green light for a program its principle reductions to be offered to people who have been late on their payments as part of the home affordable refinance program it's a way to cut the principal and therefore the monthly mortgage payments for those who are struggling well the f.h. f.a.a. has just given their response they will not in fact take part which means many struggling homeowners could in fact drought i want to talk more about this with anthony randolph so director of economic research at the reason foundation hey there anthony i guess first as want to get your take on this decision. oh i am so sorry we cannot hear your audio is not coming through us hopefully we can come back to you right now i know i should mention almost all economic institutions from the u.s. treasury to several others have actually supported the decision and yet the f.h.a.

. has not it's certainly been something that a whole lot of people have been talking about have calling for in calling for solutions to just about everywhere you look in this country there are neighborhoods with those signs out with the overgrown grass the boarded up windows and of course this has an impact everywhere let's move on now i guess we don't have anthony's audio there we don't have it yet so let's talk about keeping it state secrets it's a big business here in the u.s. in fact the federal government spends billions of dollars every year trying to prevent the public from knowing what it's up to parties going to have explained. keeping government secret is expensive business according to america's information security office last year the u.s. spent around thirteen billion dollars on classification that's twice as much as it spent ten years ago and more than the entire budget of the country's environmental

protection agency for instance the u.s. government keeps way too many secrets even even government entities responsible for evaluating these things like the office for government information oversight. these offices that may have done studies and said well you know a lot of this material doesn't need to be protected so it's in many ways it's a huge waste of money u.s. security agencies regularly fight in course to keep volumes of decades old documents classified like the files on the cia's bay of pigs operation in cuba when the u.s. tried to overthrow fidel castro in nine hundred sixty one but the sharp increase in secrecy over the last decade is due to america's expanding counterterrorism programs rather than unclassified historical files the powers of the national security state has acquired under president obama is greater than any time.

during the cold war period the government indicted only three people for disclosing classified information however the obama administration alone has prosecuted six government officials for leaking information to the press more than all other passive ministrations combined and thomas drake was one of them it was a senior executive of america's largest intelligence agency during the bush administration he blew the whistle on fraud and abuse with regard to the agency's secret surveillance program it's a great was charged under the espionage act much of what's happening now particular my case it set an extraordinarily chilling message that anybody who i was a senior executive the government had a very high position n.s.a. . it sends an extraordinarily chilling message that you speak out if you speak up we're going to hammer you and we're going to hammer you hard because look what we did to mr drake but after a public outcry last year the government dropped charges against thomas drake in exchange for him pleading guilty to a misdemeanor as misuse of

a government computer speaking truth to power is very dangerous in today's world the power elites. those in charge they don't like dirty linen being aired. they don't like the skeletons in the closet being seen. and they not only do they object to it they decide to turn it into criminal activity national security journalists say the government always has and always will leak information deliberately to advance their own interests and it's not all leakers that they're after the primary that's what i would agree looking at here is the national security state is stretching back is becoming much war repressive in regard to its response to whistle blowing by you know individuals who. oppose policies that are being carried out or who oppose simply abuses of power or the obama administration spending record amounts to keep it secret coming down hard

on the kurds and yet thousands of classified documents are making their way onto the web the internet has taken leaks to a whole new level but it seems the more fear net reveals the more upset the government becomes about secrecy i'm going to shut down in washington r.t. . we want to apologize for our earlier problems with audio we had anthony randolph a with reason on we do want to have him back later in our show it's really important the topic that we're talking about and that is the way to deal with the foreclosure crisis in this country which is still a very real crisis and certainly we expect it will be an issue discussed in the upcoming debates with presidential candidates and some of the candidates for congress as well so stay tuned for that for us here now that's going to do it for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r.t. america and you should want our web site r.t. dot com slash usa they cover

a lot of the stories that we did and also some that we didn't have a chance to get to and you should of course check me out on twitter and find me my handle is at christine for sound thanks so much. of american power continue. things are so bad. might actually be time for revolution. and it turns out that a killer drink at starbucks has a surprising radio. i'm

lauren mr. a. put a picture of me when i was like nine years old i. get a highly fragmented thought. he was kind of a yesterday. i'm very proud of the role that he has played.