[000:00:00;00] live live . all right or. will he or she shall come. it's not a documentary but that didn't stop the white house the pentagon and even the cia from contributing valuable classified information with filmmakers there and the creation of the new zero dark thirty film meanwhile other secret leakers are being pursued under the espionage act well question what some call military hope ocracy. million should. shall we say.

well they may not be able to come together to solve america's financial problems a blood senator is on capitol hill sure let his i gotta be bygones when they all sat down together to watch the new lincoln movie on the taxpayers' dime none the less so why are we paying for our lawmakers to kick back over a bowl of popcorn. and get ready for another feis of side congress gets ready to head home for the holidays but before they go a couple of senators are trying to sneak a surveillance bill into legislation with just meat what this bill means for your privacy just ahead. it's thursday december twentieth four pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching our t.v. . we'll begin this hour with wiki leaks founder julian assange just moments ago a songe stepped onto the balcony of the ecuadorian embassy in london to address

a crowd of some supporters yesterday mark six months since a songe first made his way to the embassy after being granted asylum by the ecuadorian government today he said on the balcony giving a roundup of some of wiki leaks memorable moments in two thousand and twelve he also assured supporters that the mission of the whistleblowing organization was far from over take a look. true democracy is not the white house true democracy is not camera true democracy is the resistance of people with the truth against lies from top to right here in london every day ordinary people teach us that democracy is free speech and dissent for once we the people stop speaking out and stop dissenting once we are distracted or pacified once we turn away from each other we are no longer

a free or true democracy is the sum is the sum of our existence if you don't speak up if you give up what is uniquely yours as a human being if you surrender your consciousness your independence your sense of what is right and what is wrong in other words perhaps without knowing it you become passive and controlled unable to defend your so and those you love people often ask what can i do the answer is not so difficult learn how the world works challenge the statements and intentions of those who seek to control us behind a facade of democracy and mauna kea unite in common purpose and common principle to design build document finance and if in loon

challenge act now. and that was wiki leaks founder julian assange on shit still up in the air if a staunch if or when assad will be allowed safe passage out of london help likely get arrested if he steps foot outside of the embassy ecuador has called on the u.k. to allow the sun to travel to the latin american country to seek refuge but six months later the two nations remain deadlocked over the issue. all now in select theaters zero dark thirty a film the opera trey's the hunt for osama bin ladin in order to make the hollywood blockbuster screenwriters were given special access to classified information from the cia here's a sneak peek. the

recently. but some say the film does not accurately portray what led up to the capture of bin laden critics say it glorifies torture as critical in getting the information that led to the nine eleven mastermind another question why does hollywood get special access to classified information while the public remains of the dark over the torture techniques used on terror suspects testimony from guantanamo bay remains classified as well as a congressional report that details bush era interrogation methods so is the movie and the continued secrecy of torture techniques doing a disservice to the public our next guest thinks so and has written about it joining me now is colonel colonel morris davis he is now a professor at the howard university's school of law welcome colonel great to see you thank you so to start off i know that you're worried that this movie will give people a distorted view about how effective torture is why is that

a loser too young to remember back when i was younger the movie jaws came out you know the public didn't have a lot of exposure to sharks but all of a sudden after seeing the movie everyone was terrified of shell terrified and i had a lingering effect but my fear is that people don't have that much exposure to torture other than seeing shows like twenty four on television and they're going to go see this movie which purports to be based on fact you know bin laden was killed the public knows that they're going to go see this film this is going going to become their reality torture and it's a false for trial and i'm afraid it's going to do for torture what jaws did for sharks i want to read this quota from jazeera jesselyn radek she represents an attorney that represents whistleblowers she says quote this is the height of hypocrisy carioca reveal that torture was a cia program not a pastime he called waterboarding torture and he said it was wrong because disclosures are obviously of tremendous public value vicars leaks was to embellish

a controversial movie that already received unprecedented. white house and cia assisted so she calls the dissemination of information for the movie hypocritical in the face of others that were punished for whistle blowing what do you think about that would you go as far as to call it hypocritical clearly it is i mean the same is that there are good leaks and badly if it's a leak that makes the public feel good then that's a good one and i think happens if it's something that's embarrassing then the full weight of the government comes down on you and so i think that that is a valid point in you know it's as was mentioned michael vickers who is alleged to have leaked the information the department of justice is doing an investigation if you followed the o.j. investigations into torture in the destroy or destroy destroying the waterboarding tapes nothing ever comes of them usually people do the investigation get an award after for their great investigation but no one ever gets held accountable when it's a good leak or something that we like and do you do you put out

a press release the other night praising mr vickers his integrity and his value to the department defense so. i don't think you'll see him doing a perp walk any time soon right in this movie certainly if they're in a lot of controversy some will say you know what this is just that just a movie what do you think about that was true it is just a movie but it's a movie that my understanding the beginning says is based on fact and so for the public as i said i think their exposure to torture is going to be what they see on camera and on film and for many people they're going to see in this film that torture works and there's already it's i was pleased to see that senator feinstein and levin cane sent a letter to a sony pictures asking them to correct this error saying that they've seen the senate report the thousands and thousands of pages cia documents about enhanced interrogation and that it didn't work and it is

a disservice to the public to perpetrate this law. why i think it's also a disservice to the people that were involved in the program that i knew because apparently in the film it's portrayed as being you know people that enjoy abusing other people and it's gratuitous and at least my experience was that these were dedicated people that you know had a a purpose and i would certainly debate whether it's misguided but a purpose for doing what they were doing so i think it is a disservice on both sides of the ledger all right so i know that you're also a big advocate saying that now is the time to make the guantanamo testimony public why do you say that well you know guantanamo has been this black mark on our history in fact the russian president vladimir putin brought it up yesterday you know the u.s. passed a bill condemning human rights abuses in russia and he said who are you know who's the u.s. to lecture us when you've got guantanamo. so it's that lingering mark

on our national character and you go in the military commissions official website you go on yahoo or google put in military commissions at the top they will come up as the official web site on their web site their motto is fairness transparency and justice and if you did you know you can have fairness in trenton justice but if you don't have the transparency in the world it's going to be skeptical so if we want to regain our credibility and if we truly are committed to fairness transparency and justice then we can have the secret proceedings to try to hide what we did in the past right and i know that president obama said val that his administration would be a transparent a transparent one a lot of people saying that that is not the case but some senators do agree with what you're saying right now senator mccain a prisoner of war himself wants the report that you speak of to be declassified we have a clip of had talking about this. they had a lot of access to the cia fact one of the there's there's an investigation going

on about some of the information that they used and clearly i think they got the slant of those who are defending in my view what is unconscionable and that is torturing people. so those advocate keeping this testimony a related to torture a secret say that it needs to remain secret because it's critical to our national security this is an argument that you hear over and over again as justification what do you think about this argument i think it's a bogus argument you know president obama issued an order that banned in the use of the enhanced interrogation techniques which really had stopped before president bush ever left office so these techniques. that we're talking about we haven't used in years and if there's no plan we're not using them now we don't plan to use them in the future is certainly not jeopardizing our national security today or tomorrow is really hiding what we did in the past president obama in addition to his pledge on transparency signed an executive order on classified information and it says

information can't be classified if the purpose is to conceal the commission of a crime or to hide embarrassment and given that you know these events took place years ago they're not taking place today he's disclosed the torture memos that describe the techniques that were used to mean the horse left the barn a long time ago and what these techniques are so really the secrecy now is doing is hiding the embarrassment from the past and not bringing it out to the light of day and we can't you know we're doomed to repeat history of we don't acknowledge what we've done before so i agree with senator mccain this needs to be public right colonel i do want to read a part of your op ed here where you address this very read excuse me a part of this op ed where you address this very issue you say quote the fictionalized portrayal portrayal of torture in the movie as a disservice to what should be a genuine public debate on a critical issue it falsely depicts members of the cia and gaging in gratuitous acts of violence and falsely shows torture being

a facet of affective way to get valuable intelligence despite the argument that zero dark thirty is just a movie for many of the millions of viewers it will become their. perception of reality about the efficacy of torture kind of elaborating on that what do you think is the danger of the moviegoers seeing this and kind of internalizing it as reality as fact we've already seen that happen during the bush administration the american red cross has a survey every few years looking at public attitudes and during the bush administration a majority the public was opposed to torture they did a survey a little over a year ago where a majority the public is in favor of torture and that number goes up the younger the person was so you've got a generation this grown up knowing nothing but the post nine eleven era and they see things like this it becomes their reality in that that number keeps going by public opinion on on torture you know the senators mention that in their letter

that they sent to sony pictures saying that the public attitude has changed towards torture in this movie does is an opportunity to reinforce that false perception right of a very interesting kernel of really appreciate you coming on the show that was colonel morris davis a professor at the howard university school of law. when i want to another blockbuster that is shaking things up in congress the movie lincoln is a historic drama hailed for restoring american faith in the country potentially even having the power to break bipartisanship in congress here's a look. or . shall we start. well there was a special viewing of the movie at the capitol last night and it was

a star studded of thens at the screening was the movie's director steven spielberg and it starred daniel day lewis who plays lincoln among other cast and crew they both had the honor of privately meeting senate majority leader harry reid the journalist at the event even got journalists tweeting year here a few of them at rebecca berg wrote many more journos at this link in photo op than any fiscal cliff prosser who's covering the news for a.p. one reporter wonders aloud another one ad annie lowrey said details leaking from the hill retreated jonathan weisman there daniel day lewis is not that tall ridiculously skinny has short surprisingly gray hair and then it kind of goes on there meredith shiner tweeted sort of disrespectful to hold recess subject to call a chair for senators who watch movie one gallery sergeant at arms plus cap police have staff have to stay she also said particularly when those are the same people

whose holidays might be cut short through no fault of their own that's right the senate require the sergeant at arms and the capitol police to work late for the movie screening now little background the sergeant at arms is the largest and size of staff and budget in the senate the capitol police officers has a force of about eight hundred but where it's uncertain how many of them had to work overtime for this event. so as senators mingle with the stars others at the capitol attic at the capitol are working overtime just in time for the holidays meanwhile congress is embroiled in a debate over how to cut the country's deficit which is in the trillions and how to stop the u.s. from falling over the so-called fiscal cliff can the movie magic really cast a spell over congress the hope as ridiculous as it sounds is that a hollywood film will finally get the political parties to put aside their differences and work together to save the nation from economic calamity. also had here in our two u.s.

lawmakers are getting ready to celebrate the holidays and what holidays like the new wireless surveillance bill wrapped and sent with care to big brother the latest

information on new flights or regulations next. here's mitt romney trying to figure all of that thang. i'm sorry i missed the guy who cares an awful lot but you sir are a fool you know what kind of smiling terrorist cells in your neighborhood all want to be wishing to feature a tsunami on live all the christian implications can secure beliefs about it's. going to suffer going to distract us from what you and i should care about because they're profit driven industry that sells us sensationalistic garbage he calls it breaking news i'm happy martin and we're going to break this that says.

the so. i've. well congressman torrey asli doesn't get much done during the lame duck congress especially when they're watching movies on at the capitol which we reported earlier but it looks like the senate wants to act on behalf and warn this wiretapping on u.s. citizens that are overseas the vice amendments would it renewed the controversial law the law is set to expire on new year's eve and while the senate would like to renew it before the year's end it doesn't look like the g.o.p. wants to debate it this despite serious concerns from privacy advocates that say the law allows the government to snoop on e-mails and other digital communications without getting a warrant for more i'm joined now by our t.v.

producer andriana who sat out adrienne nice to see you hello live so i give us the latest on this controversial surveillance bill well essentially this is how it stands today it is expected that harry senator harry reid will actually file a motion for cloture which is essentially in layman's terms trying to table discussion of any sort of debate this however does not mean that no madman's would be attached to it in fact it's harry reid itself who is trying to push for more debate on this bill in crude inclusive he even said you know i'm sorry guys but i know christmas is important but it's not more important bill so even in you know we have the democrats even some others in congress do feel that this is an important thing that needs to be debated it can't just be rubber stamped and you know things to be able to move forward so that is the latest today and they're trying to get that passed before the thirty first and there are

a couple of amendments on there but we can discuss a little further on ok so you're talking about debate there some people don't want to debate debate it so can we expect it to be discussed before it is passed through honestly right now there are a couple of as you mentioned before had a couple of privacy advocacy groups that are really pushing people to go. oh and try to pressure their representatives in order to push for this debate people from the electronic frontier foundation the a.c.l.u. they're all pushing people you and me in order to go get active and say hey listen this is something that we need at least more transparency and we need more debate and even you know back in september the house already passed the version that's now being up to vote in the senate and even then lawmakers there were still was still an outcry there which said you know we need more amendments we need something here to reshape what is right now on the books the two thousand

a version those very interesting right so privacy groups very concerned about this bill want some discussion was can you talk adrienne to more about what exactly these privacy concerns are why should you and i or the average citizen care about this bill well essentially it's a very very. it's a very very big piece of legislation and i quote this is actually what it is and this is according to you know some of the write ups here that we've we've done in the past it's essentially the government can eavesdrop on any online or over the phone communication on any u.s. citizen as long as any one party reasonably is overseas however very you know you think it's very straightforward however when being pressured or asked for more details and how these things or these mechanisms work a lot of representatives a lot of a lot of senators have pretty much gotten of iron curtain in terms of trying to get

more information and we really what this means is the fact that all this information is being compiled all these communications between you and whoever are being put away somewhere but you don't know why they're being put away you don't know where they're being put away and what they're being used for so all of these things are just very very alarming especially or i would call it our alarming just because i. as technology continues to move forward we see that things continue to change and we live our lives increasingly more and more online so this is why you anyone should you know sort of take a second glance at this meanwhile this all of this information one of the more controversial parts can be obtained without a search warrant absolutely yep yep absolutely and it's essentially being able to get you know if you're. a spy like a skype phone call or something along those lines that can be logged tracked traced anything what have you and you really don't know why or how

a couple of the amendments that are on the table right now by senators merkley and senator wyden essentially try to tackle that try to get more transparency towards all of the compilation of information but even then earlier this year when senator ron wyden and wrote to the n.s.a. complaining saying hey we don't know how this information is being used being stored essentially they said well we don't need to give you any of that information we don't need to tell you how or why we're doing things so you know so what could be done to this bill to make it more palatable to. them oh well i mean it's essentially going to be little very small steps amendments that are on the table now essentially it's one by senator merkley essentially saying that they want more transparency in the communications of being able to access documents in order in other words if they ask the court for any sort of paperwork and they it gets denied

they need to know the reasons why and that's one the one why an essentially is trying to get. some sort of. i would like to say more of a it infrastructure when it comes to trying to gather all this information and trying to limit how much they're able to use when it comes to you know compile information on a specific person i.e. look at what happened in general petraeus probable exciter of so on and so forth very interesting and important bill with important implications for everyone's privacy great thanks for filling us in on it as our theme producer adriano the cerro. well coming up next on our t. is the capital account with or in leicester let's check in with lauren to see what's on today's agenda laura and i there live as well as you well know the fiscal cliff deal making or lack there of continues as republicans in the house were reportedly going to vote on john boehner is plan b. which obama reportedly would promptly veto if it does pass which it wouldn't pass

in the senate anyway but this just highlights the whole issue of this fiscal cliff with no resolution we've seen fish the credit ratings agencies say the u.s. could lose its aaa credit rating well gee we've heard that before liz maybe people are getting deja vu maybe this just sounds exactly like the debt ceiling deal of two thousand and eleven and you know after that the u.s. did lose its credit rating for s. and p. but it wasn't a disaster so maybe this will be the same thing maybe there's nothing to see year but maybe that's not the case so where you want to place your bet we'll talk about it in a couple minutes thanks for that update lauren that is coming next coming up next on the capital account with laura lister but that is going to do it for now for more of the stories we covered check out our you tube channel you tube dot com slash our team america our website our team dot com slash usa follow me on twitter

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