rumors reports and even more questions coming out about what or today all surrounding the high profile extradition case of wiki leaks founder julian assange on all sorts of the details and show you how it saw got to this point. plus it looks like not all of congress has sat on turning to us into a surveillance state from the eyes in the skies to the ears on the ground we'll tell you all about two bills out to regulate drones and monitor cell phones and why you should pay attention to them. the celebrity. with the people. i'm bases knew his prime time brainchild is hitting the

airwaves putting a pretty face on the ugly reality is of war but not of several nobel peace prize winners have anything to say about it we'll speak to one of them coming up. it's tuesday august fourteenth a pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching r t. we begin with an update on the breaking news we've been following this afternoon there are conflicting reports that ecuador will grant political asylum to wiki leaks founder julian assange has been held up in the ecuadorian embassy in london since june nineteenth he's been fighting extradition to sweden to face sex charges are to correspondent christine for updates us now on how we got to this point and the juliana song saga. we first met julian a silence here in washington in two thousand and ten where he unveiled the

collateral murder video at the national press club. it showed it to u.s. army pilots treating war like a video game killing countless civilians in the process including two journalists appeared in our studios later that night to talk more about wiki leaks and what he hopes to achieve with his website the first step in the fourth state is to get information out about the real world and the second step is to comment on it and to think about it but we need sources can't get this through to the public in the weeks following songe and wiki leaks were everywhere within weeks wiki leaks wiki leaks wiki leaks wiki leaks but it wasn't long before publications that originally partnered with wiki leaks like the guardian der spiegel in the new york times turned against a saw much as did many others who said he should be killed to get her for those the american people the way to deal with and they were in the end the nashik your

united states will deal with this is pretty simple we got special ops forces i mean the dead man can't leaks that this guy's a traitor a treasonous and he has broken every law of the united states he was then accused of sexual assault by two women in sweden a sign says the sex was consensual and denies any wrongdoing the founder of wiki leaks arrested by british police this morning after turning himself in he's now facing rape charges in sweden a british judge has granted wiki leaks founder julian assange bail julian assange is appealing against an order to extradite him to sweden he spent much of the last two years on house arrest in london julian assange also had a show on our t.v. well equipped with. the can change the world tomorrow where he interviewed hezbollah leaders saeed has on those rollo as well as ecuadorian president. rafael correa what the ecuadorian people think about the united states and its involvement

in latin america and in ecuador and it would be president rafael correa that would give julian assange is the green light to make ecuador his new home has gone has been living in the ecuadorian embassy in london since june nineteenth since the president said he would make his announcement after the olympic games president correa said if he does grant asylum political asylum it would be an informed decision and one made in the name of human rights in washington christine for south r.t. has been a lot of talk on capitol hill as of late regarding privacy from cyber security the concerns range from warrantless wiretapping to domestic drones it seems everywhere you turn someone or something is keeping a watchful eye but there are at least a few in congress that want to take action to defend privacy congressman ed markey of massachusetts have drafted two bills one would stop routine cell phone tracking by the government the other would require the federal aviation administration to

add state privacy protections for licenses to operate general drones steve teche a policy analyst and telecommunications expert at the reason foundation joined me earlier to discuss the legislation take a look. well we've got several things going we've got legislation concerning drones we've got concerning. wireless wireless phones and the government's ability to get records from arms on the wireless phone companies. the domestic market the other side are skewed that's the wireless bill well essentially require what would be normal fourth amendment protections when the police or law enforcement the f.b.i. goes out to get information regarding geo location it requires the government to keep to provide information about. how they're you know the number of requests

they do it requires them to. especially if they cannot really do these what what are called. cell tower drag self powered duff's where they essentially ask for information about all the communications activity that has come out of one cell sector these are kind of fishing expeditions so bottom line what what speech getting here is that's least congressional action to expand fourth amendment protections into the world of cyberspace into the world of information that's traveling the internet or stored outside someone's on someone's computer in a third party database i don't see that you've expressed optimism about this legislation before what kind of a chance the i think it stands. it's tough to assess the chance of any legislation

in congress right now. is the because we're approaching the end of the session reproaching the election. what's good is that it's being brought up up to now i sadly i think it's being ignored as the government's power and law and . really aggressive moves into these areas have gone without any sort of response from congress. any sort of popular reaction. so i think the best thing the best thing out of this so far is getting the debate started whether anything happens in this session i think is very questionable but we discussion we need to get talk we need to have need to be talking about exactly how much power the government has to just go in and look at personal information

that may be stored outside your own home outside other computers or servers all right they seem pretty skeptical that it will actually go anywhere anytime soon but some of the things you described earlier you know in terms of protecting our privacy same pretty basic seem pretty sensible so why isn't there more of a push from congress on the issue is i mean they are supposed to protect the public's interest. it's. it's unfortunate you say it's something that's going under the radar right now i'm afraid to say i think there's still a big push to show. that. legislators are strong on security it's it's why we have even though everybody kind of. a knowledge is that the t.s.a.

airport system isn't the greatest nobody wants to do anything about it because nobody wants to be soft on security. the same thing that we have with drones and with other other aspects of the patriot act is that. it's a way of showing it's a way of show they're strong on security and. it's. a little bit of i think it's a little bit of cowardice a little bit of reticence for them to stand up and say wait a minute we've got to look at what the constitution says about this. government is overreaching in a lot of these cases these things stephen that it could possibly be a problem of understanding that you know everything technology technology is advancing so rapidly that congress may be kind of stuck in the past they don't have fully grasped you know technology these days in part ironically i think i think

more it's. it is it is a failure to grasp technology but it's also failed to grasp really what the key bill these are and there's a lot of bases being put in the effect of video surveillance where you see movies like the bourne identity twenty four where really that's kind of a romanticized and very. inaccurate picture of how about how these technologies work yes there are large surveillance systems there are facial recognition systems but they don't work they don't work that way in the real world they're prone to mistakes you can build you can't you can't follow a suspect around the city from camera to camera but it looks like an easy fix right now even though i mean to cut you off for our kind of getting to the end of the show here but hopefully these two pieces of legislation provide some kind of

glimmer glimmer of hope and thank you so much for coming out of that was stephen teche policy analyst for the reason foundation layer the question for you where do you turn to when news hits the fan you might say fox or and that's n.b.c. but. fewer people are tuning in to c.n.n. as the network's ratings plummet take a look at this c.n.n. ratings from last year compared to this year twenty percent down and total daytime viewers from july two thousand and eleven twenty three percent down in prime time viewership twenty one percent down on erin burnett outfront viewers as compared to john king usa which was in that time slot last year eighteen percent down and total viewers for piers morgan tonight and thirty four percent down for anderson cooper three sixty you might be wondering why they are seeing this drastic drop in ratings let's take a look at their coverage of the conflict in syria that's been raging on for fourteen months since then journalists from dozens of media outlets have often

risked their lives to bring us pictures and firsthand accounts of the fighting that's led to what is now a full fledged civil war one of the latest accounts we've seen made breaking news on c.n.n. just this morning it was from c.n.n. journalist ben wedeman reporting from alabama. right now going in the direction of being aware of course all the fighting taking place but some of. the same at the intersection. sure that. they were going through an intersection where he says to drive fast. so what i gather from this report is that it's a frightening scene outside the car that seems very concerned the first six minutes of this report are of ben riding in the back of a van and he eventually gets out there's a few quick interviews has some tea with the locals and then drives away but wait

there's hardly seems like a news report at all especially when you see war stories covered like this here are some of our own are to reporters on the ground in syria. with the u.n. observers in it live in there's been some pretty heavy. to at the. seniors from the tightly controlled century there were. some people in their homes became their grades too and this room look human bones but at least one person. damascus which the so long had been through and they sheltered from the conflict throughout the rest of the country that's in recent months found itself the target of an increased bombing campaign anyone else. to see anyone with their cell phone. for the course of the conflict it's been hard to come to some of the areas where the fitz's fightings happening and get

a gauge of exactly what the situation is on the ground the un observers travelling to some of these areas we make it into the suburb of job using that creates the opposition that just last week had control of some of these areas have now gone underground. foreign affairs midst of all. thank you for joining us. i appreciate the effort but how exactly are we supposed to understand the complex it minute news report if you spend the first six minutes hiding in the back of a news van how can anyone get a sense of the danger in our power if you won't even get out of the vehicle now in the wake of the washington post reporting that c.n.n. this is in the wake of the washington post reporting that c.n.n. is turning to reality t.v. to boost its decimal ratings and this latest coverage seems more like a model for reality t.v. . another reality television show starring outraged critics say n.b.c.'s new

military themed show stars earn stripes and glorifies war it's a view of last night and has a cast of people you can loosely define as stars they're paired with former members of the armed forces and go through military training and missions similar to what real life soldiers go through here's a look at the trailer. these are america's boots on the ground navy seal the delta force gruber and after the olympics the celebrity will try to build their. relationship with the people doing real yards to mark burnett. there's no going back no prayer like. this is at the stars on the monday after the. well it's being sold as a way to honor our troops but many don't see it that way including a group of nine nobel peace prize winners that say the show is trying to portray war as amusing and entertaining they go as far as to call it war propaganda and

they wrote a letter to the chairman of n.b.c. calling for the show's cancellation here's a quote from that letter states as people who have seen too many faces of armed conflict and violence and who have worked for decades to try to stop the seemingly unending march toward the increased military ization of societies and the decency to zation of people to the reality is an consequences of war we had our voices and our support to those protesting stars earn stripes we to call upon n.b.c. to stop airing this program that pays homage to no one and is a massive disservice to those who live and die in armed conflict and suffer its consequences long after the guns of war fall silent but to help us discuss this i was joined by a longtime peace activist civil liberties advocate in one thousand nine hundred seven nobel peace prize winner jody williams i was watching the olympics and it kept playing over and over and over the trailer. and every time i saw it i got

increasingly angry. and i decided that. i was sick of doing nothing to protest the miri between hollywood and the pentagon when you know weapons paid for by tax dollars are offered to hollywood movies for example in order to make it more realistic i just see it is propagandizing i see it is an attempt to desensitize people as we said in the letter and i decided i organize my friends nobel laureates and by the way we're now up to ten mohammed yunus just joined on today organize them didn't sign a letter to protest that we were going to call for the cancellation and we're going to ban you i guess mention watching the commercials for the shell you know playing out throughout the olympics what is the significance of that playing it during the olympics this widely watched international event well even if you go to their

website they like in what they are doing to competition like sports and so it's had such a huge audience obviously they were trying to get as many people to think about the show to think about so so cold here with some of the military i think it's also. used as a recruiting tool as well as propaganda for war now n.b.c. touts the show as quote paying homage to the men and women that serve in the u.s. armed forces and our first responders. how do you feel about that description i think it's a lie. if you go and watch the show i forced myself to watch one hour of the two hours last night because i felt like if i was going to be talking against it i should at least see it i really think that the producers and directors should hang their heads in shame i think that these celebrities if that's what they are.

who decided to be in this show really look at what they're doing should hang their heads in shame general wesley clark who ran for president of the united states and knows what real war is is actually hosting this joe the the most exciting if you will if you like war and violence moments are the trailer if you go into the show itself it's profoundly boring it takes forever they keep doing it over and over for team so you know there's the soldiers coupled with the many celebrities and they go through the same routine for clients in the show and there's no risk to their life whatsoever it's a joke and they certainly as staring outrage in our team actually spoke to some protestors outside of the n.b.c. studio in new york city wanted to take a listen now to what some of them had to say. we think it's it's an insult

to the american people and especially to veterans and i happen to be a navy veteran to trivialize war. it's a horrible phenomena but it's part of the american culture of war and no insurance and so it's understandable but can you imagine when kids see this show and they see it is people using live bullets they don't see the blood they don't see the bodies blown apart and you had touched upon this earlier jody and kind of want to elaborate on what those protesters were saying there that this program i mean a seems to glorify war but doesn't portray the whole picture and war of course is deadly and horrific and not all glory it's true it. for example the teams are supposed to attack a watchtower if they were attacking watchtower in enemy territory there would be an

enemy sniper or machine gun in the watchtower firing at them there's nothing there is a prop so they blow the prop up and then they crawl under bird wire but no one shooting at them they're just crawling under barbed wire. and it goes on like that over and over again and there was one of the celebrities if you will who said that they were in the line mission that's a total lie there's something lie about that mission it's a it's a fake mission and how they can pretend that that is honoring soldiers who actually do die soldiers who come home without limbs soldiers who come home so psychologically shattered that they commit suicide is a beyond me to understand i think n.b.c. should be ashamed and can you talk a little bit more about the dangers you had mentioned earlier that this seems to be a trend in the blurring of the war in reality the reality of war with entertainment

what are the dangers of turning war and entertainment well i think we've been doing it for an awful long time i mean hollywood supported world war two for example look at the films of nazi germany to you know raise up patriotism when they started attacking the countries western europe and the soviet and russia at that time it's not a new trend i think i think the problem for me now is the insidiousness of it in the united states. it's so in some ways so subtle and in other ways so blatant that you can't escape it every time i see like jets flying over a sporting event and i ask myself what is the place of u.s. military flying over the super bowl or whatever that's taxpayer money first of all

those jets are not i mean why are they what do they have to do with sports it's over and over and increasingly they find ways to make you know military and patriotism a bigger part of the u.s. because they have a borderless war with their war on terror they take it wherever they want and they the u.s. citizens to be willing to support that so you have to glorify war jody i know that you as a nobel peace prize winner have been fighting to reclaim the meaning of peace can you elaborate on i am sure peace is not cool but you know my lord peace is not a dump flying over rainbow it's hard work every single day the absence of our conflict is merely you know the the bare minimum one needs to be able to build the possibility of sustainable peace which is the basic needs of the majority of humanity being met like just

a decent house. possibility of employment so live a family can support themselves it's basic education for the kids it's the accent still here i just keep thinking and i believe this in my total soul that if the basic needs of most people were met there would be a hell of a lot less time with the world because we would be fighting for resources and. all right jodee thank you so much for coming on the show really appreciate it that was jody williams longtime peace activist civil liberties advocate and nineteen ninety seven noble peace prize winner looks like credit card companies are turning to court to collect their debts but there's a problem there lawsuits depend on documents that are incomplete or inaccurate among other problems one judge who often presides over one hundred such cases each day as a means that ninety percent of credit card lawsuits are flawed this is exactly like

the robo signing that got servicers into trouble regarding mortgages and foreclosures now why would financial institutions think they could get away with something like this for some answers i spoke with lauren lyster host of our capital account and she broke down some of these fraud cases take a look. ok well what we're talking is a lot of the same things that sound very reminiscent of what we've been hearing about foreclosure practices and the illegal foreclosure practices of banks what we saw all of the allegations that were supposed to be wrapped up with a nice bow in that twenty five billion dollar mortgage foreclosure settlement that we heard about remember that well all of those same processes only a lot of them were banks don't have the proper paperwork they're not following proper rules proper legal requirements and trying to get these debts from people that they claim that they're they're owed them by the banks are doing the exact same thing this is according to new york times which an article on this so it sounds in many ways like what a repeat of what we've already seen with the foreclosure crisis in fraud just

transferred now into a different industry with collection of credit card debt by big banks named in the article american express citigroup and discover financial going to court to recoup their money but not having the proper paperwork well it seems like this is the you know all black and disregard for the law what makes them think they can get away with this what would make them think that they couldn't took a bunch of money million dollars settlement may sound like a big number pay twenty five billion dollars is a lot of money for your eye lids more than we'll ever see in our lifetime but we're talking about the biggest things all coming together that is a small price to pay for a wife and their slate clean crossan their t.'s and dotting their i's and getting away with these kind of practices but you know i asked neil barofsky about this earlier he's special and former special incest specter general of tarp we just came out with a new book bailout and he can probably answer better than i can with more authority at least from having been on the inside working with wall street in washington as

to why these banks was guilty they can they get away with this let's take a listen. in part it's because of the toothless settlement that resulted out of the bank's misconduct in the robo signing with the foreclosure fraud you had a settlement that had almost no accountability money that was being credited to the banks for a whole bunch of conduct that they would do otherwise no criminal prosecutions whatsoever in attending it other than they now it's minutes of some show task force the banks here that and that's empty deterrence and that task force that he mentioned we haven't heard a lot from we certainly haven't heard about any big cases that they're going after criminal cases and so you know mr brock you get to a lot of things that i hear from many gas money experts in that we believe which is that there really has been no major punishments in the wake of the financial crisis that would make banks think that they don't want to do these things so that they can get can't get away with these crimes and you know what do we say lauren these

cases that what with the bankers and the banks they seem to be civil. not criminal what is brought to think about that well we did talk about that and he does believe that the lack of criminal prosecutions is a problem and one thing that i thought was really interesting that he detailed in his book and that we talked about in our interview was the lack of desire for criminal prosecution see barofsky comes from from prosecuting a new york the southern district of new york a very well known region where he prosecuted the resco fraud which is a firm that went bankrupt and he prosecuted the c.e.o. and the president he's been involved in these cases he goes to washington he's overseeing tarp and they build a case around a guy who is committing fraud they have an airtight case or at least he says their agents did and the d.o.j. was afraid to push forward with it and and his read was that they weren't. they were uncomfortable with with going after such a high profile case and maybe had had as much experience doing that i mean i guess

someone brought he was used to that when he was working for the prosecutor's office . that was lauren lyster host of the capital account and that's going to do it for now but for more on the stories we cover check out our you tube channel you tube dot com slash arts humira that you can also check out our website that is our t.v. dot com slash usa and you can also follow me on twitter at liz wall we'll be right back here at ten pm see that. a lot of american power continues. might actually be time revolution. and it turns out that a killer drink a starbucks or surprising him greedy and.