it depends on the freedom of citizens to speak their minds and assemble without fear. the rule of law and due process that guarantees the rights of all people. president obama speaks about the freedom of speech at the u.n. general assembly but considering the past year in particular the case against p.f.c. bradley manning and wiki leaks founder julian assange is this a case of do as i say not as i do i get the feeling take a look at this that mitt romney has not been in too many too many while was all

from the roadside in terms of when you. don't believe everything you see on t.v. it turns out sixty percent of americans don't put much stock in the mainstream media coming up will ask why viewer confidence has fallen and where americans are turning. plus a group of journalists are going to head to head with the u.s. government and they're taking the battle all the way to the supreme court and we'll ask the group's legal defense why the foreign intelligence surveillance act disrupts freedom of the press. it's tuesday september twenty fifth eight pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching our t.v. we begin today with the united nations general assembly that kicked off today in new york city president obama took to the stage and spoke out on several foreign policy issues reiterating his message of freedom throughout the middle east he spoke about the inspiration of the arab spring of the power of the people taking to

the streets to topple dictators depends on the freedom of citizens to speak their minds and assemble without fear and all the rule of law and due process that guarantees the rights of all people in other words true democracy real freedom is hard work those in power have to resist the temptation to crackdown on dissidents but president obama went on to say that the regime of syrian president bashar al assad must come to an end and that the u.s. is willing to take action to ensure that the transition happens people everywhere long for the freedom to determine their destiny. the dignity that comes with work the comfort that comes with faith and the justice that exists when governments serve their people and not the other way around the united states of america will always stand up for these aspirations for our own people and for people all across

the world. and while these powerful words echoed throughout the room we question if they seem at odds in the wake of some recent events a diplomatic standoff between the u.s. and britain is leaving wiki leaks whistleblower julian assad holed up in the ecuadorian embassy in london he's been there since mid june and it looks like he'll be there indefinitely assad is wanted in sweden for alleged sexual assault but he and his supporters say it's all an attempt to ultimately get him extradited to the u.s. and face charges for releasing thousands of secret documents on his whistle blowing web site this as accuse whistleblower bradley manning remains behind bars for allegedly turning over top secret documents to wiki leaks he is accused of aiding the enemy and has been locked up for over two years supporters of assad and manning believe they are simply exercising their free speech and shining a light on government wrongdoing the foreign ministers of ecuador and the u.k. will meet later this week in hopes of finding some resolution to the diplomatic

impasse between the two countries. well at that time of year every time of this year world leaders flock to new york city to participate in the u.n. g.a. but aside from dramatic speeches and high profile appearances what actually gets done at these meetings are as a correspondent on a stasi a target that explores there is no fooling the clock every september every year the big apple turns into a beehive buzzing with leaders from all over the world. and how the streets already overflowing with tourists clogged up yes it is inconvenient for new yorkers yes it does normal traffic yes it does make it harder to get good restaurant reservations but it's also one of the things that makes new york city a fascinating point exposure hundred ninety countries make up the un general assembly delegations from those countries often made up of dozens of diplomats flocked to new york for the annual gathering of great minds don't meet the world go

round ride around in town cars and eat at the four seasons and. and i see the suits and on some of these diplomats and i think isn't that the country where i just saw forty children died last night these are the leaders of that country wearing gucci suits and eating at the at the u.n. traditionally there's at least one diplomatic point of contention from iran to libya to palestine and israel concerns rotate on this international arena but with the assembly session seen by critics as a ritual rather than a forum for real exchange deal we meet and greet and come to new york and shop and then they go home you know at tremendous cost to their own taxpayers without very much done those closely following the u.n. developments wonder if political crises will be tackled at the annual the u.n. is increasingly unable to solve even not the highest profile problems problems with

you would you would expect the u.n. to be able to play a role on this here syria is the elephant in the room syria gives them a reason to be here and they'll be lip service paid and ultimately there will be money will go and there will be skirmishes and arms and there will be auckland in asia throwing rhetoric all the raging syrian crisis maybe stealing headlines you know expected to be resolved as leaders meet behind these walls the sides on syria are so far apart there's no reason to think just bring they tried in geneva in june so you know new york in september is not easy i think is even less likely to reach any kind of a common output i think at this point the proponents of change in syria are just hoping they can win it on the ground. i t's ations passions and theatricals fly high during speeches made here they're not really coming here the idea of you know kind of singing kumbaya and promoting world peace it's in a way you know kind of show and tell a arena where people get up and say the right things but there's no follow up

there's no real urgency winston churchill once said from mitt. it's two hours long speeches are mostly broadcast in the country of the leader addressing the cases of some simply remaining obliques journalists from around the world follow their country's leaders every step meanwhile with each passing year the u.s. means she media dedicates less time to the u.n. one thing that's different this year makes it even less effective general assembly is the us election so having obama not that he's a magic man or anything but he's coming from even less time than previous years curious details can largely go unnoticed within a couple put it to us in the year and i think some of these leaders are trying to come in either by mistake or not they're going to ban ki moon is going to be greeting the coup leaders and delegates flocked to the big apple every autumn for an array of reasons to get face time for pure symbolism to wreak havoc and create scandal or to push through a political agenda but as drama and rivals at the podium it's unclear exactly how efficient this annual extravaganza actually is and i see

a trick in our party. if you don't believe everything you see on t.v. you are not alone turns out that americans trust of us media has hit a record low take a look at this recent gallup poll sixty percent of those polled say they have little or no trust in the u.s. media to report the news fully accurately and fairly the survey was conducted between september sixth and september ninth so why are americans losing the faith well there was this the individual mandate has been ruled unconstitutional justices have just got it both the centerpiece provisions of the obama health care law if in fact that's the final word on the individual mandate there could be a little bit more complicated bargaining come what do you get from a shutdown reading through this again i we are reading now that the entire law has been held and other times it seems like the twenty four hour news cycle is producing less than critical headlines. i had to get to ceiling take

a look at this that mitt romney has not been in too many too many while i was off the road side is that something here is a quick look at what president obama spent up to our areas sitting down with the pirate make sure he didn't forget to mark the international talk like a pirate day salary actually. and it actually tracks women fans are going crazy over these must have seven years alone pick ten states back to eight hundred ninety six the question for you this morning where was god in aurora the talk more about what is going on in the mainstream media and why americans aren't liking it i was joined by january the host of the young turks who just want facts they want the news and that's not what they're getting at all the biggest growth in dissatisfaction with the media and lack of trust with the media is in independence and they're entirely right because they see a media that just calls everything fifty fifty in the old days it was just the

conservatives saying all there's a liberal media bias and now what people are saying is there's also a corporate media bias there's also a media bias in paperback says in favor of politicians who they want to come on their shows so they don't aggressively challenge them and people can tell they're not stupid they look at t.v. and they go oh yeah i didn't notice any tough questions at all when all of america at least eighty three percent say that the politicians are influenced by money how often do you hear in the mainstream press senator x. or senator why voted this way or that way because he took money from this industry or that industry you almost never hear that because what i would be impolite to the politicians i interesting thing about the findings is that the decline in media trust was driven by republicans and independents what do you make of that. well look we know that the republicans have been on satisfied with the media for a long time and they have their own purposes for doing that their propaganda unit the rush limbaugh is a fox news channels don't want you to go to independent fact finders they want you

to listen to propaganda instead that's why they'll attack anything that brings you information whether it's the media whether it's professors whether it's scientists that was hacked all those people now that's existed for about thirty years but now the rest of america especially independents are waking up going hey you know what this corporate controlled media isn't really giving me the actual news they're giving me a watered down version that's not critical of either party in a significant way that's why independents are mad and of course django as you know we are in the middle in the thick of things in an election year and another thing americans that this survey found americans are less likely to be paying attention to the news about national politics this election compared to back in two thousand and eight why do you think that is. well i think there's two factors there number one they've got the memo that unfortunately our votes don't matter nearly as much as the money does in congress tonight three percent of time the person who wins has

more money so whether they're democrat or republican whether they have a certain ideology or principles apparently doesn't matter the money matters so eventually that gets to the american people they think well what am i bothering to check all this stuff out if it's decided by people like sheldon adelson and the koch brothers for anyway and they're not wrong about that and then second of all there was a lot of people excited in two thousand and eight for change and hope and then you know some at least saw what president obama did and he had some progressive priories no question but overall did not bring the big change to washington he was talking about so they too no saying no turns out we're never going to get any change is going to be the same old system where the lobbyists and the donors went so you think we're kind of seeing the post citizens united effect i think so absolutely now look remember citizens united is not what ruined our politics in the first place it was actually

a couple of decisions in the late one nine hundred seventy s. that first said corporations have first amendment rights and can spend money on politics with citizens united was it took the roof off its. put those earlier decisions on steroids and it went from corporations being able to pyaar politicians in subtle but overwhelming ways and that's why our system was corrupted in the first place so not simply being a buying them at all but an open auction and everybody is perfectly aware of it it's legalized bribery to the highest extent that's why the average american things well what difference does it make as they're going to make the decisions they're the ones that matter not a all right so we're seeing more americans are now are becoming disillusioned with the mainstream media do you think that this provides an opportunity for other outlets to kind of step in in their place. well as i do so there was actually is an article out today about how the young turks is more relevant than

a.b.c. news online and that's because that's exactly what the numbers indicate it's not just our size is much larger than a.b.c. c.n.n. a.p. for example on you tube but it's also our engagement and the level of trust the audience has with us and then it's not because i'm a great host we've figured out some tricks it's really really simple we're honest with the audience and when they see they go oh god there's somebody who's saying hey look that democratic politician or that republican politician takes money which we all see with our own eyes and then votes based on that money these things are obvious but c.n.n. and the rest of the mainstream media just will not reporters so the less they reported the more viewers we get and by the way that will encourage other outlets that maybe we should also try a truth telling that could be a wild idea because they will always follow what works of course and right now what's working is our model so hopefully we can change the media in that way. keep it out there so i mean i'm it we're seeing figures like this and we see it

gradually getting worse and i mean with this going to prompt outlets like c.n.n. or m s n b c or and the big players to change their their game to change the way they approach. giving the news. so that's a really fifty fifty proposition because on the one hand certain corporate interests don't rock the boat don't make the government mad props whatever the pentagon says cetera that you know turns off everybody and it's hard to take out those incentive structures because so many of these huge media companies are intertwined with the government and have to be polite to the government and can challenge government on the other hand they see that their audience is leaving in droves so i already see c.n.n. doing some things differently which i'm actually very encouraged by soledad o'brien ashley banfield in the mornings are challenging politicians from both much more aggressively than c.n.n. used to and i think that's a really positive development i hope that works for them in the ratings and then

they learn from that but then it comes right out of the audience are hungry for it sorry to interrupt you there at the c.n.n. is suffering the most in terms of ratings so does that kind of show that viewers are flocking to biased news like fox news or m s n b c because we're seeing that. they're not really turning into c.n.n. as much. right now when i talk about soledad o'brien and i see banfield that's the new model they're beginning to try at c.n.n. that is an issue that might be the solution now the real issue for c.n.n. is not that they're not biased it's that they're they're bland they don't anything they don't give you a conservative perspective which watch news does you might agree or disagree but they clearly give you one they don't give you a progressive perspective as current television does m.s.m. b. sees a mixed bag there conservatives and progressive cetera but c.n.n. they also don't give you the news so what they give you is the pentagon says this democrats say that republicans said that why say you very much mr saddam refer but that doesn't really help us with what is the reality every drone strike there's

a news out today standard and then where you did a report together and from a we've killed hundreds of innocent civilians in pakistan the pentagon says no we haven't winfield any and this is civilians and the rest the president who c.n.n. dutifully report the pentagon says we have not killed any civilians and we're nobody trusts you anymore that's right and we are going to be talking about that in depth and just a few minutes jank pleasure to have you on the show as always that was january the hosts of the young turks a group of journalists are fighting to challenge the wiretap law and are taking that battle to the supreme court their reporters committee for freedom of the press is asking the u.s. supreme court to allow the media and other parties to challenge vice us that's the foreign intelligence surveillance act that law allows the government to monitor international communications even if the person on one hand is in the united states the reporters say parts of this law strengthen their relationship with sources to discuss more about the effort to challenge bisaya i was joined by greg p.

leslie legal defense director of the reporters committee for freedom take a look. let me first say that this is really the a.c.l.u. case and they've got a number of plaintiffs involved including amnesty international and some journalists and then we came in as a friend of the court we just wanted to give the court more information about why journalists need to be able to maintain confidential communications internationally the more you're covering foreign affairs or terrorism related subjects the more likely you are to have to do it by phone over international calls and the feis amendments not the original fights but the fights amendments of two thousand and eight make it much easier for the government to and intercept those calls and journalists just don't feel comfortable that they can promise confidentiality in that situation and why did you think it was important to me to step in and back the journalists well because it was a general. you know it was an attempt to challenge the law by

a number of people who felt they were affected by it and they had journalists involved but we like to weigh in to talk about kind of the broad public policy arguments about how it affects journalism and what journalism needs under the first amendment to thrive and to keep the government accountable frankly let's say. you don't when journalists don't when and their fellow plaintiffs what is that what effect could that have on the under no less being able to carry out their jobs but i think it's just another step backwards in the ability of journalists to be able to make confidential promises of confidentiality to important sources. anyone who's involved in international efforts can be suspected of being a terrorist or of aiding terrorism or you know sometimes journalists legitimately need to interview actual terrorists or tears groups just to know what's going on somewhere right and left or right on the other and what have this law would have no

guarantee that they're not being wiretapped essentially right interesting so feisal was very. only renewed by congress for another five years and it enjoyed bipartisan support proponents of it say that it's necessary to fight terror so with that in mind how optimistic are you that this is going to be able to move forward and you're over the second circuit court of appeals has said that the journalists do have standing to go forward with this case the not just the journalist but everybody in the a.c.l.u. is case has standing and that's the critical threshold you have to be harmed by this statute to show that you have a right to go to court to fight it and so if that's a peled the case just goes forward and we don't know what comes next but faces a very broad law that covers a lot of things and a lot of those are absolutely necessary to fighting terrorism but when congress chooses broadly in something like this which you know originally fights or created face of courts where judges approved these kinds of wiretaps and then the

amendments took it further than that for certain kind of colds international calls even that involve u.s. citizens you don't even need to go to the face of court so they took it one step further and they didn't kind of account for the first amendment rights so it's very possible that a court could say the congress went too far just in this one little aspect so there were none of nobody's asking them to turn over the entire place act ok and you know going along with this despite technical technological advances in journalism a big part of it is there are sources i mean developing and nurturing these relationships with your sources and your sources need to trust you otherwise they're not going to give you any information so i mean something like feist and crackdown similar to this is this kind of cracking down on leakers do you think that that's what it's trying to achieve are going to cause the unintended it effect of it congress is also trying to crack down on leakers but that's a separate action so yes that's also going on they all they all do fit together

this is part of the congressional plan for. fighting terrorism they just don't buy me want to balance first a member writes as much as they should they're doing important work but they're not considering the first amendment rights of fictionally ok i want to bring up also because we've been following another story very closely it involves journalists as as plaintiffs taking the government to court or talking about the n.b.a. at the national defense authorization act chris hedges and other journalists and activists suing the government to take out a provision because they feel that it's blocking journalist from being able to do their jobs because they have to interact with terrorists and they fear that they can be indefinitely detained if they're if they're found to be you know communicating with terrorists they did enjoy some success but they did also face a lot of opposition from the white house do you fear that you could face the same

opposition and if so i mean how far are you willing to go in this fight well there's always going to be opposition and the opponents are always going to say if you're saying this law goes too far then means you don't really want to fight terrorism and so we always say it's always a matter of balancing of course there are legitimate interests in fighting terrorism but you've just got to balance you've got to carefully develop laws so they count for competing interests and you know again we are a friend of the court in this proof so we don't choose how far the litigation goes but i'm confident the a.c.l.u. will take it as far as they can all right very interesting and thank you so much for coming into the studio that was greg leslie legal defense director of the reporters committee for freedom of the press under a portion of the lead on the magnitude of president obama's drone campaign in pakistan and its impact on civilians there there apart from n.y.u. and stanford law is from and why you and stanford law school excuse me it's based on over one hundred thirty in-depth interviews with victims of drones and pakistani

government officials its findings raise eyebrows to say the least the report shows that drone strikes have killed more. our civilians and american officials have admitted it also reveals the pervasive anxiety instilled in those who live where drone strikes occur resident describe the constant buzzing above in the fear of knowing that a strike can happen any time yet not know when they'll make a robert greenwald detail some of the trauma and the documentary entitled living under drones. one of the things we found is that there are entire communities who live in areas where jones are flying overhead twenty four hours a day seven days a week at times. and these people don't know when those drones will strike they don't know they will strike. to discuss this more i was joined earlier by john amec the campaign director for brave new foundations war costs take a listen. this poor report is amazing a brave new foundation produced this video to amplify its findings it was groundbreaking in a sense they did get access to. the tourists

a difficult place to access access the fossa region of pakistan in particular north waziristan and to talk to people on the ground about what it's like was tremendous the about civilian counts the government said it's exceedingly rare that civilians have been killed as a result of these drone strikes they even say that they do they put the number in single digits as a matter of fact which is absurd based on a host of different organizations that follow these things. the probably the most reliable information comes from the movie the bureau investigative journalism which this report shows probably has the best the to sticks they take into account local news outlets news outlets of all kinds and not just the military or not just the government u.s. government spin on things it's the report shows that it's incredibly difficult to ascertain what the u.s. government and for that for that matter the pakistani government does after

a strike to figure out how many people have died who they were oftentimes bodies are mutilated beyond recognition so even if they did have efforts of these efforts to find who was there and what happened there's no guarantee that they would know who anyone is based on the devastation and destruction ok so we're seeing that the numbers don't add up do you think that the numbers were intentionally skewed to sway a public perception of the drone campaign in pakistan. i can't say that it was a coordinated campaign and i'm sure that the fact that they can control the u.s. government can control so much information in this aspect one because this is a remote area of the world and too because much too much reporting on this issue takes into account what the government tells reporters reporters or. scrutinizing what the government is telling them they often side anonymous

officials and i think it's a prime example i think of the media just regurgitating whatever the government tells them for a variety of issues understandably but the same time there has not been the kind of critical reporting that should happen on something of such a magnitude another problem is how the government classifies people in this region any mailable the age of eighteen is considered a militant so therefore they don't they don't take into account who the person was that they were actually innocent civilian but are all sorts of problems and with the accounting issues and beyond the death toll john what this report also reveals is the effect that this is taking on living residence over in pakistan this constant state of dread and fear and anxiety that is braided by having these drones constantly coming up above what about that part of their report. again if there's anything groundbreaking breaking about this report is that it is the fact that they

were able to access so many people in this very very tough region to get to the sheer horror and terror that they the interviewees the people who live on the ground related to the research is unbelievable the fact that their communities are completely fractured people are so afraid to take their children to school for fear of drone strikes if anything this report shows what has not been reported before and it's the effect the voice of the people on the ground there comes through unlike anything else that's the and it will unlike any other study your reporting has been done. that was done and make the campaign director for brave new foundations a war costs. looks like another case of police brutality of of this one is particularly shocking houston police shot and killed a man that was mentally ill and missing an arm and a leg according to the l.a. times police arrived at brian clinches special care home saturday morning after

getting a phone call that he was threatening his caretaker police say when they arrived cloche was waving around a weapon that weapon turned out to be a patton the officer matthew moran then reportedly shot and killed the disabled man and is now on administrative leave and the case is being investigated by the houston police department amid a firestorm of criticism houston police chief cautioned against rushing to judgment but civil rights groups say this is another example of police using excessive force and we're going to leave it off there for more on the stories we covered you can check out our you tube channel you tube dot com slash our team america or you can head on over to our web site artsy dot com slash usa where you can follow me on twitter at liz wahl for now have a great night.