oh. tonight on r t r your first amendment rights under attack in boston it looks like exercising free speech free speech puts a target on your back for police spying i had a disturbing report about boston law enforcement surveilling activists. these programs are really balance really give you real context and background they tend to mobilize you think in a certain way not to be critical of what the u.s. government is doing and its lights camera of military action hollywood box office hits do more than entertain moviegoers these films can be powerful motivators when

it comes to fueling american attitudes especially feelings about u.s. adversary is to look beyond the glitz and glamour to show you why some see hollywood as a propaganda machine. unless there is yet another dark spot on america's image abroad this time u.s. contractors caught on camera drinking and doing drugs while on duty a look at the case and talk about the bigger picture when it comes to contracting help. it's thursday october eighteenth eight pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching our t.v. . well we talk a lot here at r.t. about the growing surveillance state so maybe what's happening now in boston shouldn't come as a surprise the american civil liberties union has gone ahold of documents and tapes showing that the boston police department has been spying on activists this after

the a.c.l.u. sued for access to the information on behalf of five activist groups and what they found is that officers have been monitoring and collecting information on political protesters many of the groups they've been keeping close tabs on are well known like veterans for peace and code pink now the story hasn't made national headlines but it's certain controversy in boston here's a look at some of the local headlines you can see there the boston police accuse of spying on anti-war groups another one their groups fault boston police for surveillance well here's a quote from a.c.l.u. the study entitled policing the center states quote when law enforcement officers start investigating protected ideas rather than crimes they threaten our right to free expression and assembly protected by the first amendment of the constitution and article sixteen of the massachusetts declaration of rights unchecked political surveillance our lawsuit uncovered undermines our core values by chilling the speech of people who wish to participate in our democracy which is

a lot of all exercise that our government should encourage and promote i'll discuss this in more i was joined by kate crawford privacy rights coordinator for the american civil liberties union i first asked her of the boston police department has taken it too far. what's happening in the city is really disturbing and you know if you talk to activists who have been out on the streets protesting war for ten years protesting on behalf of immigrant rights or workers rise they'll tell you that this is not a surprise. the boston police department has clearly been monitoring political speech for some time in the city what we didn't know was that the city was filing so-called intelligence reports with headlines such as criminal act home sec domestic way billing these groups as extremists in these intelligence reports so called we didn't know that and we also didn't know the extent to which this

so-called intelligence division of the boston police department is monitoring not simply the protest but also the internal dynamic of these of these organizations so for example commenting on two thousand and eight the discussions in the anti-war movement on the left in this country remarking about internal debate over whether the anti-war movement should come out really strongly against obama or wait until after the election this information has absolutely no bearing to any crime to any threat against anyone in the city this is purely first amendment expression and not only just that but the boston police department retained of these documents in violation even of its own guidelines and you'll find in those news reports that the boston police department says is we did see a computer glitch and that they discovered this in two thousand and eleven they discovered it because we asked for the documents it might never have been

discovered that these documents were being retained in violation of the d.p.p. own guidelines had we not sued for these records and you know finally i'll just say that when one one of our clients was interrogated by the boston police department after a civil disobedience arrest she says she was. interrogated by the f.b.i. d h s n a member of the boston police department asked all sorts of questions about her political associations that had nothing to do with iraq. after that the elegy her lawyers asked the boston police department of public records requests for a record of this interrogation they said they didn't have it they said that no such record existed well the records that we reveal that we got back as a result of this lawsuit show that demonstrably false they actually do have a record of that interrogation and you can read it on our web site and a.c.l.u. m. from massachusetts dot org and you know what i just want to say that this country is really in tough straits as far as the economy is concerned so what the boston

police department is doing is both wasting our money vital public resources and they're doing it to spy on plec to. protect political speech which chills fundamental democratic values this country and really undermines everything that we're supposed to be about now you said that through this information that was obtained through this lawsuit these protesters have been labeled extremists was there any information in these documents that led that showed any criminal activity at all. there were references to civil disobedience arrests. and there were reference there was some reference to a named anarchist black bloc participants. engaging in some sort of you know a totally unsuccessful five acts of violence not connected to any individuals but about our clients in particular the five piece groups and four individuals about whom we requested records the arrow there was zero in those files derogatory

information about any kind of violence or future plans to commit criminal activity a couple of our clients were arrested for civil disobedience those are trespassing charges and according to the boston police the only rules they are allowed to ask questions about the trespassing charge those questions might be for example how long did you sit on the floor you know. why didn't you get up when the police told you to get up those questions do not include questions such as who do you organize with when is your next political meeting and so on and those are the kinds of questions that they were asked now if we do have some interviews conducted by the a.c.l.u. let's take a listen to them and we'll talk about it after. everything we do was being seen as being monitored in some way. but in that scary they can be very scary he's officers asked me. oh you must recognize us we come to you protests i think that people

are scared to steer this kind of italy this fear of being called a terrorist or being scared of being seeing over the place it takes risks to be a democracy we all have to take those risks if the police or law during those who are shooting the wrist. so kind of going along with the with what these activists have sad how does this police surveillance how has this instilled fear in the people in boston and do you think it's scaring people away from exercising their first amendment right and practicing their freedom of speach. yes i do unfortunately i do think that that's the case and it's not just our clients who would say something like that i was very it's very clear to me that when the boston police department which is charged with keeping the public safe with our money is using its resources to intimidate and harass political activists based purely on their political views and their first memon expression of course that creates fear

and distrust of authority in this city and in the state. you know as a great example of how that how what we found can translate into real world problems for people is the intelligence sharing that occurred between the boston police department intelligence unit and the f.b.i. the f.b.i. i mean seen the number of terrorism watch lists the system around who gets added to the list very a paik you cannot find out if you're online affirmatively they won't tell you the only way to get off it realized after trial and error is to sue and then magically you just are suddenly able to fly again they never confirm or deny whether whether you're on the left this is happened to a number of people in this country who were purely they were purely expressing their political views these people are not criminals at all and they were labeled as terrorists and put on no fly list it happened to a famous actor mark ruffalo who was involved with and i fracking work and help

promote the film deathlands he found himself on a no fly list as a result of his first memory expression so absolutely i mean there are a number of concrete ways in which this can actually really hurt someone i don't have too much time left but i do want to ask you do you expect the book the boston police department to be held accountable. you know we really hope so and if it did feel you guys are druthers yes because we're not going to give up here i mean you know this is a big there's a lot of press in the city today and a lot of people are talking about what's going on but we do not intend to rest here you know is in business important just to shine some light on surveillance but that is only the first step the second step is to address the problems that we've uncovered and i would encourage anybody in the city or the state or even nationwide to join your local a.c.l.u. because the more people we have on our side pushing the stuff the more likely it is that will resolve these problems all right thank you so much for coming on the show

and telling us all about this lawsuit and what the a.c.l.u. is a is doing about what's happening over there in boston that was kate crawford privacy rights coordinator for the american civil liberties union thanks so much all the new hollywood thriller argo is a big hit at the box office but some critics say the movie glamorizes the cia while breeding resentment toward iran at a pivotal time between iran and the u.s. but this one be the first time hollywood has been accused of beating the drums of war are teaser mungle and who has more. he used a million american citizens to be held as hostages for hollywood's latest thriller takes movie audiences back to the iranian hostage crisis of one thousand nine hundred seventy nine the plot surrounds a cia mission aimed at rescuing six americans who escaped the takeover of the u.s. embassy in tehran and hid in the canadian ambassador's home the film glamorizes the cia's secret mission to bring those six americans home however the portrayal of

a brave american mission with the backdrop of violent muslims is troubling for some especially at a time when tensions between the u.s. and he ran are high. if you look at all the propaganda being fed to the american public right now in terms of iran we have movies here coming out argo we've got the mainstream media over saturation of coverage of the iran situation hollywood is typically labeled as liberal but critics say the industry has been more than willing over the years to create villains out of u.s. political foes and typically raise american intervention abroad as always just patriotic these programs are really balanced really give you real context and background they tend to mobilize you to think in a certain way not to be critical of what the u.s. government is doing forming the people of chad death to america all who belong to hollywood entertainment has historically followed u.s. policy well reinforcing stereotypes of political enemies from the russians during

the cold war it was the first american corruption of guns. could actually. more recent depictions of villainous middle eastern terrorists. this kind of if is used just as a backdrop and for entertainment when the real life implications want to being a lot more sinister journalist than middle east analyst he believes popular films and t.v. shows combined with the misinformation in the mainstream media can be a dangerous mix a poll of americans just two years ago found seventy percent of americans believe iran already has nuclear weapons this new season of homeland actually begins with an israeli attack on nuclear facilities as as the main plot point to kind of set everything in motion two days ago israel palm five nuclear sites deep inside iran i had to listen out of news of klein and other members to retaliate against the west

as nuanced as that show may think it is it actually winds up reinforcing a lot of stereotypes that. we constantly see while to run in other middle eastern cities are constantly shown as centers of violent extremism it is unlikely hollywood will be making an upcoming blockbuster critical of the cia's torture and redemption program hollywood provides the images while politicians provide the arguments as u.s. politicians continue wrapping up their fear mongering of nuclear threats and evil dictators hollywood script writers will be hard at work beating the war drums to create. one of the shows they did fire in los angeles lindo r t. let's talk more about how hollywood partridge is a more actor areola and is going to join us in just a moment but first let's take a peek us on his work. thank you really so the

story. tonight. here was she. actually in this picture. well joining us now is the man you just saw there really of all of joins us from our l.a. studio ilia welcome thank you very much think for for me so i want to ask you one how much power do you think hollywood hasn't shape in people's views about current events or i think it's a very powerful source i would say it's i think it's a trauma it has a tremendous power and it depends of course especially on the younger audience. you would they're just forming their worldview and i think it's how they would you know could could shape the view of the people very strongly and now this film argo

this. comes out at a time when there's a lot of tension between the u.s. and iran could this contribute to kind of demonizing the country and shape the way americans feel when it comes to foreign policy toward the country. i think i think so because. it's every any controversial topic is. going to store some emotions some opinions but that's also the job i think the job of the filmmaker you keep you have to you have to keep your hand on the pulse of the times or so to say you can you have to be. you cannot just to be passive and i think it's a very you know interesting and challenging topic and but but definitely i think it's you will you know will won't go on nora's i mean that's that's the

truth so do you think hollywood cares about what's happening in the world or is it all about bringing in the big bucks in the box office i think of course the bottom line fortunately or unfortunately. because hollywood is pretty much the only movie industry in the world that makes money the all in a lot of countries pretty much besides india bollywood films are supported by the government big hollywood stands on its own they don't ask for money they so but that also creates certain challenges and expectations and of course i think the bottom line the bottom line is. making money at the same time being interesting in controversial and exciting but i think the bottom line it's a business that's right it's

a big business but it's kind of interesting because the two kind of intersect in this film are there where the cia relies on people in hollywood to help them with their ploy and they make this this fake movie do you think there is a connection here in the u.s. between hollywood and the government. there i. you know i don't want to just talk for the because i. don't know all the specifics . i think still hollywood it's imaginary it's based on the fact obviously but the art and the films it's not life so the reason the reason you know it's a certain level of exaggeration and in every movie cannot just be. exactly the reverse so i think with that you know come certain. you know deviations from the plot and. i don't think you know me personally i don't think there is

a connection between that you know between the government how would i know i know. the government you know it's very helpful some sometimes you know they help with. like you're the film my friend was in this film. the medal of what was and. it was recent a couple of months ago and i know the it was about and it was about the navy seals not medal of honor but valor i think the forgot the name exactly but i know the navy they don't donated the you know the. boards and certain equipment and it was it was donated for two filmmakers so in the way there is a connection. ok i see what you're saying there. if you ask you do you think about it or do you worry about it personally when you're playing a role and a film may be if it's

a historical film or something that is about a current could relate to what's happening currently in the world do you think about how your role could play into this bigger picture. of course i think but the first i look at it as my and my job as a job as an actor to create. a real person on the screen on stage that's my task i don't look. of course i stay in to know what's going on in the world of what is the news but but as an actor my main task is to create a real character whether it's a scary character or a sort of say bad character a good character but it has to be believe a bull. and i hope it will to some degree affect the audience in why way to what and one way or another i think that's

ultimately it's the goal of a filmmaker an actor an artist to touch people people's hearts if they if they hate you that you know as a bad guy i did my job and that that's right that's right and from my understanding you do play the bad guy in quite a while is there yeah the action is there. well i think also i think also hollywood always i mean it's a natural thing all that has to have a villain has to. always there's got to be otherwise the movie they're going to be not going to be interesting you know it's to have about is simply of the positive guy you know always have to be whether it's a russian german. you know middle east i mean is it is this is the nature of the drama if you look at the plays of she you know shakespeare they're great villains was written in. it's always you have to

always have to give it. your way and don't get rid of the accent it suits you well and your characters as well as that little actor really of joining us for elie studio going to very much they still can do. we turn now to a couple of troubling stories us switching gears about criminal waste of government defense funds this week in san diego seven men were sentence after reportedly admitting to a fraud and corruption scheme before navy officials and three defense contractors pleaded guilty in march to a conspiracy where the contractors gave the navy men over a million dollars worth of gifts and this includes everything from cash to black screen t.v.'s to home improvements in addition to their to their prison sentences each defendant is required now to pay restitution to the department of navy along with other financial penalties meanwhile a video recently released by a.b.c.

show security contractors in afghanistan partying themselves into oblivion getting drunk and stoned even shooting up on prescription drugs these are the same guys that are part of a forty seven million dollars government contract to train the afghan police force well for this for more on this i was joined by j.d. to chile managing editor of reason twenty four seven news i first asked him why there isn't more oversight over defense contracts take a look. well you said yourself there's billions of dollars flowing through here there's so much money flowing if you're here but overseeing it all is absolutely impossible clinton billions of dollars being spent on wars in afghanistan iraq. operations elsewhere and in africa you know north africa and so forth along the way people can start skimming money off and then money is going to be substantial because so much money is flowing through the works now we just looked at

a few examples there some of them are particularly humiliating but how much do you how widespread do you think this this problem is. well in terms of the money i think that the corruption is extremely widespread in terms of drug and alcohol use i think it's also enormous that widespread that's always been the case in military settings the difference now is that we have little video cameras and people who are offended by this rightfully offended but to record it and we can see that they went on in afghanistan and went out and vietnam went on a world war two soldiers have always gotten drunk and they've got to hire whatever's available because they're alternating between boredom and terror and it's just a case of some strong rich environments relatively few women to modulate that were you know if that is going to modulate the word europe might not and then don't indulge themselves because they sense. that it is there any indication of just how much money go with down the drain from these bad the feds contracts. well in this

case i think there were several million dollars worth of contracts at stake and about a million dollars in bribes in return that would seem to be a relatively i mean it's a decent return millions of dollars and the return for a million dollars this is one case where there are costs we don't know exactly how much it was going on obviously the catch with the catcher that we heard but when they do not assume that a lot of this happened there's a lot of money at stake and people can get a piece of that and that's a huge fine we're going to argue that corruption is a long certain is a long time game dating back to the civil war when they so rotten pork and beef to the union army you know nothing really has changed since then now it's prepackaged meals and replacement parts but it's the same game all right so if the long running and widespread problem and we're seeing that we are seeing these specific examples of government waste to be picked due to these government contracts. is this a place for gov and government officials to lock what they're talking about making

cuts. well i would hope so and you know the problem is when you have so much money at stake a million dollars in bribes is a tiny percentage of what's actually being expended by the u.s. government and there's going to be corruption at any time is money being spent at least a little bit of it yes they should look at this we don't need people being bribed to return for useless contracts the reason these bribes are being offered is because the contracts wouldn't otherwise be proffered he used his companies these companies are buying businesses that would another wise so yes meaning the taxpayers again we're filthy rich and we shouldn't accept this but it's going to happen because there's so much money involved the so much money available some of the going to try to take a piece of that so yes the government should be looking at this. a lot of j.d. to be telling managing editor of reason twenty four seven news. series of violent clashes have forced residents on the syrian lebanese border out of their homes armed militia in lebanon apparently as machine guns to attack the syrian army

across the front here triggering a tough response argued with the calf and is on the ground in syria with more. training for war getting ready for battle and possibly their deaths these young recruits are preparing for what their instructors call a campaign to rid syria of tyranny. some of these soon to be fighters haven't even held a gun until now. this is the first time i use weapons there was no need for them before the revolution now we carry weapons to get rid of assad. weapons have yet to topple the government of president bashar al assad but they're flowing into the country with ease it's a trend that has some officials worried dorsal provide arms to either side only a contributing to for the majority and the risk of unintended consequences porous borders with its neighbors make the flow of arms almost impossible to stop and lebanon's town of is one of the main gateways behind me is the way to one of the

illegal border crossings between lebanon and syria weapons fighters and supplies go in to syria while refugees fleeing the violence come out but by no means is this a safe or easy journey frequent shelling as well as a large minefield on the syrian side of the border crossings like being a deadly gamble a gamble that lebanese sympathizers of syria's opposition are more than willing to make. this is five thousand dollars thirteen hundred eighteen hundred and two thousand in tripoli r.t. spoke to this arms dealer whose business was booming. or contact me every day we have a revolution next door for sure we will help them topple assad will be doing. the weapons may be easy to come by the harder part is understanding exactly where they go a classified report uncovered in the new york times reveals that many of the arms sent

to syrian rebels are ending up in the hands of hardline islamic jihad one of the leaders of the f.s.a. said yeah we admit that we. infiltrated by jihadist jihad these are coming. from all over the muslim world but we don't know exactly. back in syria both in the training camps and in the battlefield rebels talk of high hopes for a bright future. i hope that there will be free elections that the syrian people will be able to choose that they want and that we will win back our rights freedom of expression and political freedom exactly what that freedom looks like may depend on who's getting the guns. you see captain of r t lebanon that's going to wrap it up for tonight check out our you tube channel you tube. our america you can also follow me on twitter at liz wahl for now have a great night.