playing the waiting game six months ago today julia songe walked into the ecuadorian embassy in london seeking asylum we'll have a report on his time inside the embassy and what's next for the wiki leaks co-founder. gunning for rights since the mass shooting in newtown connecticut the gun debate has been thrust back into the spotlight so will there be new gun restrictions here in the u.s. we'll debate that issue ahead. and to the surprise of exactly no one time magazine named president obama the two thousand and twelve person of the year so is this ritual of naming whoever wins the presidency the person of the year just

a big waste of time. it's wednesday december nineteenth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you're watching r.t. six today marks the six month anniversary since wiki leaks co-founder julian a songe took refuge in the ecuadorian embassy in london to refresh your memory as songe was granted political asylum in ecuador in order to escape extradition to sweden where he is wanted for questioning about sexual assaults allegations six months and still this man remains in the middle of an international political standoff between the u.k. sweden the u.s. and ecuador arcee correspondent ana stasia churkin takes a look back at what the past half year has been like for julia songe. at least i have a voice. prisoners rarely even have a voice six long months and counting in

a tiny room in london's ecuadorian embassy and joining us on to keep himself busy there been many messages from weeks in. interest between them and we are always going. to create individual privacy as well as exposing corruption which is kind of the secrecy continuing to really secret cables put out not one but a million documents in the year two thousand and twelve they try to cut off all his funding he's continued to function they haven't been able to arrest him and he seems to be doing quite well. addressing the world from his balcony speaking to the you won to new zealand history did not begin in december two thousand and ten and one hundred thirty did not set himself on fire so barrack obama could be reelected and publishing a book on cybersecurity just some of the results of the last six months showed

a lot of focus and determination to be so productive and be a bully productive i'd say while being sensually imprisoned in the ecuadorian embassy he still has a hand in the game and it's a good thing to have a team message is publishing more wiki leaks material that is far more important than the press or even the book not that these are all important that is of course the difference. between being in a swedish prison. being and the ecuadorian embassy supporter say a sundress diplomatic asylum is a major achievement in itself this actually prove that the united states of america is pursuing julian in such a way that a sovereign nation considered it a great enough to grant him asylum british authorities have warned assad that he cannot leave the embassy and actually travel to ecuador because they will arrest him if he tries. the u.s. is rubbing its hands that the sons will eventually have to step foot outside be around them to sweden for questioning for an alleged sexual assault and potentially

extradited to america to face trial for really think the production of what we queue leaks has released is just one percent of what washington classifies in a given year last year washington classified ninety two million documents that's a quarter of a million documents every day clearly the balance is way off on the side of extreme secrecy apart from a personal fight for freedom of thought and has sparked a conversation with much wider implications in fact for the global population about whether we want to live in an era of truth change there and seen the rule of law or whether america will continue down this coast of acting as a rogue nation in terms of real national security which i care about profoundly as an american this case is meaningless i mean nailing julian assange is fighting him keeping him locked up or getting him sent to guantanamo or even to

a normal federal prison this does nothing to enhance our security i think we can make has been profoundly good for american security and for american national interest simply because we now know what our government is doing creating rules of his own that may turn into a game changer as powerful as the united states is and the united kingdom we're in a different world that we're in a world where big power doesn't necessarily decide the outcome of every single dispute asuncion wiki leaks have no plans to stop releasing classified information paul is reluctant to talk to you he says. it will. make headlines. just. after six months at the embassy a fan just case provides crucial insight into how our world will for look moving. forward julian will be remembered for what he did you know someone who was quite

courageous. decided to make these documents available once he had them to the was that he initially tried to do it in collaboration with some of the leading use those in your in the united states even if this were to end tomorrow somehow they join us on in wiki leaks have already done an incredible incredible service to us and shame going forward will not be about what julian assange has done but about the fact that the major media in this country and essentially abandon him and are not supporting his struggle for freedom to massage agrees and in a way what's happening to doing this on a particularly important except that it is part of a much wider process and if that you took enough parties you know. given the pace that things are moving at right now join us onto a likely spend the holidays and the embassy he'll be giving a christmas base to supporters at the ecuadorian embassy in london tomorrow evening . it's just it's been just five days since an unspeakable tragedy forever changed

newtown connecticut several of the children and teachers have been laid in their final resting places and more funerals are still to come in the following days as president obama mentioned in his speech at newtown high school this is the fourth time in his presidency that a massacre like this has happened each time the conversation inadvertently turns to gun control laws and every time little if anything comes out of the debate but this time this time is different perhaps because so many of the victims were children with no way to defend themselves now president obama has announced that he will be appointing vice president joe biden to lead an interagency panel discussion here in to discuss this issue here in washington d.c. the president also addressed nation just hours ago about the subject. if those of us who were sent here to serve the public trust can summon even one tiny iota of

the courage those teachers that principal in newtown summoned on friday if cooperation and common sense for vale then i'm convinced we can make a sensible intelligent way to make the united states of america safer stronger place for our children to learn and to grow so we here at r t one of to take the time to take a critical look at gun laws in the u.s. and ask what can be done to curb gun violence in the country to do that i was joined earlier by jim soko we act and kevin powell kevin is the author of the new book barack obama ronald reagan and the ghost of dr king blogs and essays i started off by asking jim who is pro-gun what a solution to curb gun violence is if not gun control here's his response. they shooting back the mass shooting twenty years virtually all. of the

democratic national convention which might as well be. called target rich environment. victims of mass shootings able to. the common denominator in all the. latest video. talking about the numerous. the be pointed out two hundred. of. him i want to go ahead and stop you right there i can't help but to bring up two instances where that theory just doesn't hold water first is for hood where major nidal hassan killed three people and hold on the me finish and i mean that was on a military base kill those people that had weapons to defend themselves in the second instance i want to bring up well i finished second and says i want to bring

up is that during the chaos of the tucson arizona shooting represent a representative gabrielle giffords there was an armed person on that scene who confused giffords aide for the realist assailant and almost shot him while that aide was actually tackling the real assailant jared last night so how are more guns going to increase our safety in a mass shooting situation. people actually being killed. for good believe it or not the military. in the area where the shootings occurred everyone says well the military. allowed. on the military. i live. in georgia i go there all the time our loud. side are a lot of where the shooting occurred those tournaments. are so i have to

correct you there was a shooting about two or three days ago in tech that in the movie theater two people kill an off duty police officer into the. by the guy had. also the organ all shooting all right kevin i want to go ahead and get you in here if we're talking about making a lot of gun purchases illegal does that mean that the only criminals that will be able to get their hands on these weapons are people that break the law. personal thank you for having me i just think it's really tragic that we're talking these children these little children were murdered in cold blood in connecticut about putting more guns out there steadily megan since that incident happened seven states including the state of connecticut have had an increasing gun sales over the last. five years and we need to deal with the basic fact there's this nine hundred

sixty eight when dr king and bobby kennedy were assassinated a million people in our country because of gun related deaths we all have which about nine thousand gun related deaths a year which is far higher than any of the developed country in the world working with countries like england like germany france and cetera we're talking about this but we have three hundred million guns in america but also the population of three hundred million people so it's one gun per person and it's more guns are actually the solution to deterring shootings of any trial and it would have this problem in the first place so it's a false statement to make that this is going to stop we actually are more people. in the response. to print court decision time two thousand and five waited five point five us to have a rock versus give dollars date that the police have no legal obligation to provide protection all the connecticut shooting of the police showed up twenty minutes after they boarded and upon making visual contact that's one issue to decide to

and that's why you know. the thing about it is we're getting doc and. all these murders that occurred i got with the criminal for getting a lot of the criminals got on the black market we know the government has done a poor job by putting guns and i have a cartel and providing weapons to al qaida and others but beyond that he's not talking about the two to have million incidents per year that. firearm in my case my favorite one of a bit the ramble. gun

violence has gone down since one thousand and seventy just a kind of piggyback off of ten point what's more is that poll after poll shows that americans favor background checks they favor the idea of a gun ban on felons and the mentally ill but they still believe that americans have the right to bear arms so is strict gun laws are strict gun control really even the feasible not just the only issue we live in a culture of violence i mean as i'm listening to your guest and i respected the pain but i really also respectfully disagree with my knife sort of things you saying you know he's part of the problem which is we're advocating more and more violence and so what i'm saying is that we have to examine as american people and society that we live in where we think that this is the only way to deal with

conflict of any kind i mean you know john let's talk about if a woman is right to put a hole in someone's head i mean you know let's also deal with the fact that most of these mass murders have been committed by men we have a high level of domestic violence min against women in this country and many of these men have actually pulled out guns and women over their heads and part of the lingo down the list a range of things that have happened and so what i'm getting at is that we need to examine the culture of violence and the issue of gun control and how we define manhood in this country because it's just kind of cowboy mentality that he's expelling that is absolutely unacceptable and then we also to talk about issues of mental health and mental illness in this country it's all of those things together not one thing and you know for folks to say well it's our second amendment right in the constitution well there was also time in the constitution where we know that women didn't have the right to vote and have any power that's. when there was slavery that was legalized in this country so it's some point in our history we've said over and over again you know what enough is enough we need to change and we have children children babies being murdered in cold blood i mean i need us to we

need to think about this is no different than the floor of the girls were bombed during at a church in birmingham alabama and one hundred sixty three. we can understand that without it still would be jeopardized but it's not a controlled. we need sugar so the country and jim can i can get your sponsor all of those things that that kevin just said well you know i agree with him part with some of the things that you know there's a variety of factors majority of the climbs have been committed by men but you know i do have to say that i don't want to be labeled a radical on it i'm going to quote one of the founding fathers the strongest reason for citizens to own firearms and protect against tyranny in government you know the very fact that i hold this is a real way. to deal with the other room. and i have high pet name is basically we have to take back our government you know the whole thing

about it. was just our population becomes an inflated population and the roots of gun control the very beginning of gun control laws were started when the black americans were freed with the thirteenth amendment and wanted to prevent black people from having the ability to defend themselves against the k.k.k. . that was kevin powell activist and author of the book barack obama ronald reagan and the ghost of dr king blogs and essays and also jim soko yakka constitutionalist and freedom advocate. and we have liftoff earlier today the russian built soyuz spacecraft blasted off from baikonur cosmodrome in kazakhstan its mission to carry a new crew to the international space station the additions to include astronaut tom mashburn from the u.s. russian common at roman romanenko and canadian agency flight engineer chris

hadfield exposure once there the crew will join three others who have been manning the one hundred and billy one hundred billion dollar research center since october this launch marks a bright spot in recent rough patches for the russian space program just last year a program meant to collect the oil samples from mars successfully launched but failed to make orbit another mission involving a cargo ship carrying supplies headed toward the space station failed to leave the earth crashing instead in siberia for the next five months the crew will take on undertake two spacewalks and continue to research aboard the space station itself the crew is slated to make it to the i s s this friday. well still ahead here on our team can the u.s. a lock you up without any due process the battling the battle over indefinite detention is playing out in the u.s. congress will have an update on the issue in just a moment. here

is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that we americans call i don't know. i'm sorry i mean the guy here is not what you sir are you know what that is my son you want to listen to featurism me on liberal the christian. concealer. you know that we're going to distract us from what you and i should care about because they're profit driven industry that sells a sensationalistic garbage he calls it breaking news i'm having martin and we're going to break this but it's.

welcome back it's one step forward and two steps back for civil liberties advocates in the u.s. today last month the senate approved an amendment that would bar the military from detaining american citizens suspected of terrorism indefinitely without a trial the move was a guarded as a huge surprise as well as a confidence booster for groups who have been working for years to end indefinite

detention but just yesterday lawmakers in both the house and the senate dropped the ban also known as the feinstein amendment during their negotiations for a new defense authorization bill so is this the end of the indefinite detention discussion as we know it earlier today i was joined by a tangerine bolen she is the founder and director of the revolution truth and also one of the plaintiffs in the case against the measure and she joined me earlier to discuss this issue. unfortunately today's developments surprising but not necessarily if you was not the most ideal amendments that were not a few signs we were going to wear on the bench really and one of the lawyers representing you carl mayor he had put he had said to the business insider yesterday i want to re a quote from you really quickly he was upset about the congress decision to nix the indefinite detention ban he said as president abraham lincoln who so many of these

politicians profess to admire said you can fool some of the all some of the all of the time you can fool all of the people some of the time but you can't fool all the people all the time from day one we have said that this issue will be decided in the courts from from day one advocates of freedom and liberty have prevailed in federal district courts and we will pursue this fight to the supreme court if we have to do so is this what is going to come down to a fight in the supreme court well yeah we hope so if we leave it be if you will or if you would like to win there and leave it we don't win there and we certainly hope the supreme court case a critical case so it may go away that area. and the n.e.a. is approved every year though i mean getting his case to the supreme court is going to take so much longer than that so what can really expect to change and what kind

of timeline to really expected to change in. well you know the upside i want to fight about our case is that it is an expedited so unlike most other cases of this nature we are being seen very quickly and we expect to be in a field court in early january and possibly in the supreme court sometime shortly thereafter so a lot of attention has been allowed in this country and around the world and as the government has been in court i don't know which law to use to indefinitely detain you. and the a right now and of course we aim to stop that and we will give up this fight that at the level now as i mentioned the band did pass an initial a sixty seven to twenty nine in the senate was a feinstein amendment disregard of this time in your opinion. well that's a really good question and i think the answer to that falls out of the really opposite ends of the spectrum here i think that republicans although they pay lip service to the idea of not. getting us that is as they're fighting this you they

all they they all always they're on the side of national security in the sense of completely stripping us our right of our right the democrats i'm not sure i don't know whether it was the vague language that bothers them because we made quite a to do about that bad language or whether they lost their political will so i don't way neither side of congress is really standing by any by the u.s. constitution i do want to mention though i don't know if you saw that r.p. but we had a few groups just because rates on our behalf but government accountability project which represented thomas drake the n.s.a. whistleblower and william binney and also the core mafia center which represented a family friend at the families who were interned at the japanese internment camps during world war two they both agreed on our behalf of a very powerful to read i highly recommend your i and three that i would like to thanks for the information and earlier in the interview you said that it's not really two steps back so you're talking about the feinstein and the hair what

wasn't right about the fly inside and that what didn't do enough of in your opinion well there were some unfortunately so many things wrong with it i think feinstein meant well but she should have consulted that a strong civil liberties attorney prior to the writing about amendment so while it was highly discriminatory you know they provided a legit coverage to u.s. citizen and not residents or tourists or other foreign nationals it also did not circulate any difference between a military tribunal and it's not going to civilian trials so although they were having a fact that it allowed people to have a trial but it got a stipulation a difference that could mean in the military tribunals which means maybe it's really is the only thing that is available to people who are indefinite in government it seems and that my seeing guantanamo. that can take care of ten years you can rot away in prison with only have us really it's not enough not constitutional so tender and we're almost out of time but it is indefinite detention just a wartime strategy or do you anticipate that it will do go beyond the war in

afghanistan and in fact the war on terror well the war on terror have done as you know graphic or temporal boundaries so unfortunately under the guise of national security and we are losing our rights in a war that really will never end and a politician who's being honest actually admit never idea so we have to find a better way to balance national security and civil liberties right now congress is not doing a good job and unfortunately neither is the obama administration all right ted you're involved we appreciate your time she's the founder and director of revolution truth. thank you well as the moment we've all been waiting for drum roll please ladies and gentlemen the time magazine person of the year for twenty twelve is the president barack obama so cute the confetti give the band the go ahead to play stars and stripes forever release the dogs ok but in all seriousness is this announcement really all that surprising to anyone i mean he's

a man who overcame crippling unemployment numbers to win back the presidency numbers is so debilitating no incumbent in the history of the country has ever won under those circumstances has a president who respond to health care system put the one percent back in their place and killed osama bin laden so working out all those things that are really come as a surprise to anyone that he won well as it turns out it's possible that none of those factors actually contributed to his winning time's person of the year nomination it could be the sheer fact that he won the american presidential election and that that qualifies him for this honor we look at history to set the precedence president obama of the title back in two thousand and eight after his first election before that george w. bush was time's person of the year in two thousand and four and also in two thousand in fact every election year since one thousand nine hundred two has

resulted in a u.s. president being named person of the year with only one exception president bill clinton earned the title in one thousand nine hundred two but was surpassed by aids researcher dr david ho as the man of the year in one thousand and ninety six so call it predictable call it surprising but whatever you call it chances are you probably will be reading it and you'll know that the oval office is still the highest position in the land as well as on the magazine stands. and that's going to do it for now if you missed any part of today's shows here in locke we post all of our interviews online in full just go to youtube dot com slash our team america and check out our website r t dot com slash usa and don't forget to follow me on twitter it's at meghan underscore lopez to their web team wrote an interesting article about how the twitter how twitter is to set a new account of the hacktivist group anonymous so don't.