i don't want really happening to the global economy with my next concert no holds barred look at the global financial headlines. is a report. coming up this hour on our t.v. he's the man who knows how to stir up a controversy and today we can we expect julian assange sent the cyber world buzzing yet again this time by addressing the u.n. general assembly via video a wrap up of his speech coming up. and that's not the only thing that has the internet world talking it looks like the cyber paranoia might just be justified after all america's financial institutions are facing d.d. o. s. attacks allegedly coming from iran so could this be the makings of a war that's far through the wires.

good evening it's wednesday september twenty sixth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm christine and you're watching our t.v. well moments ago wiki leaks co-founder julian assange just spoke to the u.n. general assembly via video link at the event strengthening human rights many of you watching we carried it live right here on our t.v. and a songe really covered a wide range of topics but most told him this is a prose that the u.s. cracked its intelligence chief. who would. the us knew was a tool. to take the real. it must come as a surprise to all of those egyptians who heard vice president joseph biden declare

that hosni mubarak was a democrat and the jewel in a silence was a high tech terrorist. songes live speech aired during the event which was hosted by aqua dorian foreign minister ricardo patino ecuador of course has granted a songe asylum though he's been holed up in the ecuadorian embassy in london for several months now as he tries to figure out a way to get out of the country without being arrested as and is wanted for questioning in sweden on allegations of sexual assault and has made very clear that he fears going to sweden not because of questioning but because he worries he could then be extradited to the united states just because the director of national security and human rights for the government accountability project she's also the author of the book traitor the whistleblower and the american taliban she joins me now and just let me just get your initial impressions of this speech it was very powerful it was not only chock full of first amendment nuggets but a songe was able to draw

a stark contrast by holding up the mirror to what president obama said the other day about democratic principles and freedom of speech and he also was able to speak very eloquently about bradley manning yes certainly so many things discussed here one of the things a lot of people were speculating is that assigns wanted to make sure people knew his story and knew it kind of in contrast with what we're seeing going on around the world as expected i guess you could say julian assange when pretty hard on the u.s. . as you mentioned president obama spoke yesterday at the u.n. you know talking about human rights talking about things that are important values to this country. but signs criticized the president for you know cracking down on whistleblowers just on this is your category let's hear some of what assad had to say on this well the hold on one faction of an industry. is employing tool which. a national weight of secrecy a national regime discussion

a regime where any government employee revealing sensitive information to a media organization can be sentenced to death life in prison or it's been hours and journalists from the media will want is a scene with them so let's talk about this people who aren't familiar with all the whistleblower cases that happened with us on talking about he's talking about the fact that president obama has brought more prosecutions under the espionage act against people who are whistleblowers for allegedly leaking or mishandling classified information than all previous presidents combined and not only that he has recently made it a platform of his reelection campaign a plank in his platform and joining the sons pointed out the utter hypocrisy of obama are preaching the values of a free and open democratic society while at the same time waging this unprecedented

war on whistleblowers and i think this was exacerbated by the fact that today we learned that the u.s. air force counter intelligence had designated julian assange and wiki leaks as enemies of the state and let's talk about that and we and we can put up we have a screen grab of the article published in the sydney morning herald as you said declassified a u.s. air force counterintelligence documents released under the u.s. freedom of information laws and basically they reveal that the u.s. and wiki leaks are enemies of the state so this isn't just a strange title for something or a designation this means that you know military personnel for example who communicate with a songe communicate with or try to support wiki leaks could be at risk of being charged with communicating with the enemy how serious is this serious serious we actually saw in. case of state department employee peter van buren someone who

linked not leaked to wiki leaks but linked the state department go after him with both barrels and threaten at one point espionage act charges now while that case has been resolved there have been a number of other people who are not spies but with who have been charged under the whistleblower protection act i mean who been charged under the espionage act including bradley manning including john kiriakou including stephen kim and jeffrey sterling thomas drake of course those charges around this time last year what was really interesting about that clip was that you know in calling him an enemy of the state they whether they realize that or not designated wiki leaks as. media out with a publisher and

a media outlet and that's significant because if we'd be leaks can be deemed an enemy of the state then so can the new york times and any other paper that reprinted wiki leaks and so can anyone who reads that information who comments on it passes it on or themselves becomes a supporter by needing to wiki leaks or. perhaps a bradley manning defense fund that's so interesting i hadn't thought about that it's almost you know that term that's used in the national defense authorization act that's so controversial the associated force. anyone that reads this or publishes it and as you said the new york times as several other publications certainly talks about wiki leaks all the time every major publication every major news outlet around the world has has referred to were reprinted it in some way shape or form that is a very good point i want to get to something that you talked about that that's really important i'll be honest julian assange seems to be a little bit tortured based on what has been going on with bradley manning he

reminded everyone listening that bradley manning has now been locked up in prison for eight hundred fifty six days now it was one of the first things he spoke about in his speech tonight the last time we heard from his and by the way i believe was when he was on the balcony of the ecuadorian embassy saying thank you to ecuador we just learned that he would be granted asylum he came out and gave a speech also of course mentioned how important it is to be aware of bradley manning's case. let's play a little bit of what he said about manning tonight. it is alleged it was there in baghdad in two thousand and ten that he gave to wiki leaks he gave to me and it is alleged he gave to the world details that expose the torture of iraqis the murder of journalists and they detailed records of over one hundred twenty thousand civilian killings in iraq and in afghanistan he's also alleged to have given wiki

leaks two hundred fifty one thousand u.s. diplomatic cables which then went on to help trigger the arab spring. this young soldier bradley manning so this is just part of a timeline really that a songe gave a life story of bradley manning introducing the world to him to you know his family story who he was born to this is an american he reminded people that while manning has been in custody for eight hundred fifty six days i think he said that one hundred twenty days is the legal maximum under the military uniform code of justice so there are a lot of discrepancies here pointed out bias on yeah i i thought first of all anyone who says a song has only about a song is wrong during the balcony speech that you mentioned he went and mentioned two of my clients thomas street and john kiriakou and in this most recent speech

she spoke in depth about bradley manning painting a very human portrait is manning has done what he's alleged to have done. painting a really human portrait and a sympathetic picture of manning and how really he was serving the public interest but somehow we've made julian a son and bradley manning into the enemies of this state and apparently society is the victim which inverts the usual paradigm because actually with blowers expose fraud abuse and illegality in order to help the public interest so i thought in a very masterful way he brought that into sharp relief tonight in his speech. also went into great detail naming these several oregon organizations that he now knows have been investigating wiki leaks he named the department of defense centcom

the u.s. forces in iraq c.c.i. you and of course the most major one being the department of justice u.s. grand jury talk a little bit about these investigations. and how much is out there right now that we know what evidence is there that in fact a songe and we can leaks are being investigated but it's i have heard from so many different sources now it's pretty clear that there is a grand jury or more than one on the sun and definitely talk about there being secret indictment of amazingly the twenty something federal new york county i was counting you know because the usual suspects like the cia and the f.b.i. and the department of justice with all the other investigations that were going on it's amazing i think we've devoted more power manpower to trying to catch julian a son just than we devoted to trying to catch osama bin ladin which is really astonishing that we had

a manhunt for both of these people who could not stand in starker contrast from one another one clearly intended to harm the united states and the other has been intending to help the world and make information free and public rather than secrecy but there's been such a clamp down here in the us i was glad to see a songe call out there's agencies but also i hope people pay attention to the fact of how much what we're reminded time and again by both political candidates are limited taxpayer dollar and resources how much is being spent in going after songe and in prosecuting bradley manning i think that's a really fair point that a lot of people probably don't think about how many resources are going to. to this man who the co-founder of a whistle blowing website that's it now as an enemy of the state in the same category as members of al qaeda in the same category as the taliban insurgency so

it's really interesting when you think about you know kind of when you when you put it in this light talk a little bit about just sort of the bigger picture here what it means that a songe was able to speak. at the u.n. general assembly i think it spoke volumes that he was able to and he did he very much started off his speech by thanking the u.n. as you know if it were not for the u.n. they made it possible for him to get asylum asylum was granted pursuant to your universal declaration of human rights. so it was a very powerful message that he was able to speak but also it stood in some such sharp contrast to what obama said the day before and the glaring absence of talk about wiki leaks or manning or the word whistleblowers that is something that has not been discussed by either. by either romney or obama it is

conspicuously absent from the from either of their conventions and it's been such a major part of the expansion of the secrecy regime in the us that is not only i mean just as we said julian assange obviously is not osama bin laden you know thomas drake and john kiriakou are not robert hanssen or alter and change their whistleblowers not spies but they're being prosecuted under the espionage act for being enemies of the state the most serious charge you can level against an american and here they've taken that and apply the same thing to you in the songe yeah very very interesting as you mentioned critical of obama and his speech called a defined speech with lots of fine words but according to a songe those words didn't really have anything to back them wrapped up his speech before actually taking some questions by saying it's time for the u.s.

to cease its perch persecution of wiki leaks a really interesting speech that we'll be talking about for several days now just appreciate you coming here on such short notice to sort of break this all down for us a really significant evening i think. thanks so much great thank you. and so i had an r.t.a. i forget tanks and aircraft carriers the internet might be a powerful tool to cause problems for the enemy i will tell you why the next war could be fought and cyberspace from.

here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that we americans call a dollar. i'm sorry i missed the guy who cares an awful lot about you sir are a fool you know what that is my libertarian self doesn't want you to listen to featuring me on limbaugh all the christian point you. can see there's really

nothing to. say no for you to distract us from what you and i should care about because there are profit driven industry that sells a sensationalistic carbon. he calls it breaking news i'm having martin and we're going to break that.

mr. pepper spray just burned your eyes right right i mean it's like a derivative of actual pepper it's a food product essentially. it's much stronger than anything it's you buy a lot of. thousands of times we're stronger than any kind of body of ever put. well we were just talking about the very busy day today at the u.n. general assembly that included a talk also given by iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad he spoke about the failed system of capitalism and of world conflicts also not surprisingly very critical of the united states and its allies meanwhile at medina john's government is in the midst of carrying out a plan to severely limit the use of internet in iran it would block google and in

place create its own domestic internet network and this is interesting for several reasons but one is that it was iranian hackers who were allegedly behind several hack attacks of big banks here in the united states according to an investigation by reuters iranian hackers conducted multiple denial of service attacks of websites we're talking bank of america j.p. morgan chase and citi group over the last year let's talk more broadly about some of the repercussions of what's happening now in iran and what the threat of cyber security attacks by iran it could mean for the u.s. team car senior director of strategy and free press and joined me earlier. well i mean it's it's interesting to note that you know the first real or first well known instance of a cyber security threat actually occurred when when we hacked into an iranian system in the united states placed a worm in their nuclear facilities that that disrupted their centrifuges and so

this does have precedence and so it is playing out you know iran is coming after us there is of course this video which has inspired instances of censorship in pakistan is shut down you tube iran is now shutting down google and other other means for people get access to this so this is all playing out and it's been playing out over several years now i think it really became heightened during the arab spring when we saw a lot of people using the internet for political purposes as far as is apparent hack attacks on the financial sector apparently those behind it say they carried it out in retaliation for sanctions put on iran to what extent do we think that this could contain more hack attacks from iran. i'm not sure that we're dead it is a serious threat is a threat coming from other places i think you'll see in the united states that the president is weighing in executive order that would give the administration more control over what they call critical infrastructure to shut down systems in case of

a. cyber attack and i think what the real concern there is is is with iran to some extent but also with china china has there been several is that were chinese hackers has gotten into the systems into government systems and so there is this this notion that cyber security threats are coming from all sectors right now and and the fear is that our government will overreact in putting down clamps on the internet taking control of what they call critical infrastructure like the network whenever there is this perceived threat from the outside and we have to make sure. that they're telling us the truth that these threats are real because the internet is an important tool for people to do good things as well absolutely and you bring up this executive order certainly parts of this coming from the president's office has been released or leaked out and the reason for it of course is because congress has not been able to pass any legislation dealing with cyber security they almost

got through so putting people earlier this year that of course got voted down after several major web sites like wikipedia states internet blackouts that really got people angry. certainly it also has made lawmakers like senator joe lieberman come out even stronger than before in favor of the need for immediate cybersecurity legislation i want to show you a letter that he wrote to president obama just this week he says the danger is real and intimate imminent yet we have not acted to defend against it he says we know our adversaries are already stealing data valuable intellectual property and exploiting our critical infrastructure those systems that control things like water electricity transportation finance and communications therefore i urge years. you know your executive authority to the maximum extent possible and to defend the nation from cyber attack i think you bring up a really good point tim that that we don't know everything that's in you know the executive order here and that it's possible it could go too far what are people

like you and others you know in the cyber community around the united states what are what are your concerns our concerns are exactly that that it will go too far and cut into our civil liberties and and censor speech and and and make the internet a massive surveillance system that that could be shut down on a whim and so so there have been a number of times there was kill switch legislation which it which had been proposed a while back it never actually made it to the floor that was killed in a furor of controversy an outcry from the internet freedom community and then you as you mentioned we had the people in sopa legislation which was which was killed as well there has a there is a bill called cispa cyber information sharing and protection act which has passed through the house senator lieberman has a senate version that the white house seems to support i don't think we're going to start moving anytime soon especially given the political climate with the elections

coming up but there is a real interest in washington in amongst us i very powerful cyber security industry to push this kind of legislation forward so that allows them to take greater control of the internet and importantly to kind of profit from the sort of government contracts that would come out of a heightened level of cyber security and when you talk about the the fear being heightened as well i want to put up on the screen for you from the financial services sector they now have sort of a threat level that there that they put on their web site and you know the cyber threat level you know they're showing it and you know in some cases i think this week it was elevated or even up to high so it's really interesting i remember. back in the days after nine eleven we used to do this around washington d.c. you know the threat level today and how it's different now we're talking about cyber threat levels. it's just really interesting because that is something that can get people sort of riled up and perhaps even enough to rally behind more

stricter legislation but let me switch gears to him and talk about the future of the internet and the question which is a question a lot of people want to know is who in government the u.s. made pretty clear this week that it would not surrender control of the internet to a united nations agency but how do we move forward here how do world leaders sort of navigate this question well we move forward to use a somewhat wonky u.n. term by creating some sort of a multi-stakeholder environment where these sorts of decisions about who governs the future of the internet are not decided by governments there's a proposal that's going to for the i t the international communications unit that that actually is supported by russia and china and other governments that would allow this body to take control of the internet in ways that we may not like and the problem we have with any of these sort of top down ideas is that they don't take into consideration this vast and now politically engaged internet community

that has a say as well so anytime there is an attempt to govern the internet in this way they have to do it from the bottom up and allow those of us with very engaged in the issues of internet freedom and free speech to have a say is certainly things that all parties involved here are working from a place with no precedent so they're all sort of swimming in these murky waters together tim carr senior director at the strategy of free press thank you you thank . well let's talk now about the presidential election and take a closer look at governor mitt romney's tax returns and we know what you're thinking that's what everyone else is talking about in the mainstream media when is our team need to go there when we actually found somebody something that not everyone else is talking about argy correspondent was wall explains looking presidential nominee mitt romney finally released his much anticipated two thousand and eleven tax returns the three hundred seventy nine page return shows he paid a tax rate of over forty percent though there's debate over how that number was

calculated his tax return also reveals ties to his cayman island investments and the performance of his goldman sachs funds but perhaps the most important yet overlooked item on his two thousand and eleven tax return is romney's foreign investments and mitt romney family trust return shows romney purchased shares in two giant russian companies romney invested in russian energy firm gazprom and russian internet firm yandex the largest search engine in the country the records show romney invested over a thousand shares in both countries tax records also show romney sold both shares at a loss last september right before the presidential election season kicked off but what's puzzling is that the presidential hopeful took interest and invested in a country he recently bashed. to russia this is without question our number one geopolitical foe they fight every cause for the world's worst actors that's right

drumming invested in a country he apparently views as america's number one enemy in fact romney's rhetoric on russia is consistently hawkish so if you want to run for the highest office in the united states and that verbal attack a foreign country you may want to keep your investments close to home and washington liz wall r.t. . all right guys it seems like something we only see in science fiction movies but the days of driverless cars have arrived and not surprising they've landed first in the golden state of california thanks to california governor jerry brown and google governor brown was at the google mountain view headquarters yesterday to sign s.b. twelve ninety eight legislation which creates a legal framework in safety standards for autonomous vehicles on state roads and highways now there wasn't any laws really against them before but now google and the governor have their own law anyway so here's how this works basically google has taken toyota prius says and lexus r.x. four fifty s.

and outfitted them with a bunch of equipment multiple cameras radar sensors and laser range finders to be able to see other traffic on the road and surprisingly the sophisticated software uses google maps to navigate now you still have to be in a car there has to be one or two people in the car but you can bring a book or your i pad or your latte and let the car do the driving of era levy's google vehicles have already completed three hundred thousand miles of test drives under a wide range of conditions they've been even on some of those twisty turny roads in san francisco and they've had no accidents well actually they've had a few accidents but only when humans were at the wheel that's going to do it for us here for this evening but for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r g america or check out our website r t dot com slash usa and if you're not already you should follow me on twitter at christine.