maybe this time it was just a bad thing there is again your interest rate will be united we talked about the army let me. the pretrial hearing for a p.f.c. bradley manning continues to unfold and we are finally getting an in-depth look at the prosecution's case up for debate today whether the accused wiki leaks or was a whistle blowing on military and justices or aiding al qaeda the latest on that case next. and we've heard a lot of criticism over president obama's pick of chuck hagel for secretary of defense but perhaps the more controversial appointment the nominee for cia director has been overlooked i had a look at john brennan's questionable history from drone attacks to the kill list

and bush era torture tactics. and a new study finds that homicides have actually increased in states that have an act of the stand your ground law this law give americans a license to kill will debate this smoking gun just ahead. it's tuesday january eighth eight pm here in washington d.c. you i'm liz of all in you're watching our team. well begin with the developing story accused whistleblower bradley manning is back in court this week the former army private accused of the biggest classified document breach in u.s. history among the slew of charges manning is facing is aiding the enemy and just moments ago the military judge presided over the case the judge agreed to take a hundred twelve days off manning's eventual sentence this is on grounds of manning

was subjected to unlawful pretrial punishment today the big question debated can giving classified information to wiki leaks or the media in general be considered aiding terrorists prosecutors in this case say yes but the defense says that's not the case because the sensitive information isn't being handed over to al qaeda members directly from marti let producer andrew blake joined us earlier he's been following the case very closely and brought us the latest on the judge's ruling colonel denise lind who's been presiding over these pretrial motion hearings for the last few months she finally gave her decision in regards to whether or not p.f.c. manning is going to have any of his eventual sentence reduced specifically because of the treatment he was subjected to while he was at the military brig in quantico virginia for around eight or nine months going from two thousand and ten and its use two thousand and eleven when when manning was picked up in baghdad i believe back in may two thousand and ten he was taken to kuwait and then brought to

quantico and it was there that he was subject to conditions that the united nations special rapporteur on torture said these are you know this is actually tantamount to torture and the defense attorneys representing bradley manning have have been trying to get the courts this to take a look at actually what he's been subjected to while he was there when manning himself spoke before the court last month to go up and actually draw on the ground you know just his tiny six foot by eight foot cell and show how little interaction he really could have with the outside world and that you know solitary was with the defense wanted to say ok. he should be relieved because it's been over nine hundred days now and the trial itself is actually yet to start the court martial will begin in march so with today's decision colonel lynn said that one hundred twelve days off a p.f.c. is manning eventual sentence will be erased because of the eight or nine months he spent in quantico and as you had mentioned human rights groups manning supporters they hadn't called those conditions equivalent to torture it seems like the judge

at least to some extent agrees agrees with that to some extent i mean i was to listen in the courtroom this just happened a few minutes ago but from what we've seen from witnesses who were in attendance the judge actually looked at the whole time frame where we're manning was at quantico and said well there were some instances where i would consider it pretrial of unlawful pretrial punishment other ones not so much so that there was one instance i believe from april first or able to twentieth two thousand and eleven manning was largely stripped of his clothing while he was you know kept in this six foot by eight foot cell and she said ok well for those twenty days he will grant you those twenty days there's other times where he was kept as a prevention of injury status or like a more protective way of classifying the detainees to. keep their rights from existing and so for all in all she said one hundred twelve days are going to be gone but of course the trial itself has yet to start we might see you know who knows that

a learning guitar is against him as they they were not dropped the most serious of which is aiding the enemy and that of course could carry a sentence of life behind bars when you compare for months those one hundred twelve days that doesn't seem like much embarrassment as of right now he is actually looking at as of today. life in prison minus one hundred twelve i'm not sure how you not hear that or that i wasn't something it doesn't really add up there but we do know that manning has offered to plead guilty to less serious charges in which case there would be a much less serious that. you know back in november and december when the last round of hearings p.f.c. manning actually said look i'm willing to i'm willing to take the blame for a couple of these lesser charges is if you can you know kind of forget these other ones and we have still yet to hear whether or not a colonel is going to say ok you know sure let's make a deal that's fine but what we did find out today in addition to the hundred twelve days being taken off his sentence is that the defense wants to call in a couple of witnesses during the court martial in march to kind of testify that

these materials that he is alleged to leaking weren't really all that big of a deal if not necessarily fighting that aiding the enemy charge but it's proving the sort of the severity or lack thereof that existed because he allegedly released these materials so the defense is going to try to point to try to paint a picture that while you know if manning did release this material so a lot where was the harm where these even sensed that sensitive to begin with so we did we did hear a little bit about that today but obviously the big story which you know sadly isn't really that big is that you know he's now looking at life minus one hundred twelve days and colonel lynn did have the opportunity to go and drop all charges against him today i mean i don't think anyone expected that to happen but so it was . but it was a decision i'm not really sure what to make it doesn't look like that is going to happen in the wake of what happened today as you said the judge did have the

opportunity to drop those charges that's not what the judge did so far and this case one thing i should tell you it's really hard to tell what exactly the judge did say when colonel when it came out apparently she spent around a good hour and a half reading her ruling but because there is essentially no government transparency in this case no one with the exception of the defense counsel and the government prosecutors and the handful of people in the courtroom actually know what happened is that the court won't release the documents they won't actually you know put out a verbatim ruling they won't post it on line they won't circulate materials among the members of the press so everything that we know comes solely from what the handful of people who were in attendance could gather during an hour and a half ruling that was read by colonel and right as you had mentioned today with the banquet there's been a long series of pretrial hearings today the focus was whether or not this what manning is accused of leaking these documents to to wiki leaks and

a media organization whether or not that could be considered aiding the enemy. do you think that i mean is that a stretch. if colonel in decides that taking taking material that is not classified and handing it to a journalistic organization for perhaps eventual publishing if he says that that is equivalent to actually. essentially taking up arms and supporting al qaeda that is a terrible news for anyone and charlie. you know that's not the case because it wasn't directly handed over and even if the lawyer who did you know the defense are going to try to put this case up that well ok if you did have these things over what's the big deal if they're not that still the state department has not been able to say ok yeah there's big big damage to all these cables going you know julian assad will tell you that the collateral murder video helped end the iraq war so. take that for what you will right a very important case some some big developments today and of course we'll continue

to follow the developments and do andrew appreciate you staying on top of it that was our t. web producer andrew blake makes with well there's been a lot of media controversy surrounding president obama's pick for secretary of defense but we want to focus on the other nomination here's president obama praising john brennan as he announced his nomination to be director of the cia yesterday one of on the subject of patriots. let me say a few words about john brennan and john brennan the men and women of the cia will have the leadership of one of our nation's most skilled and respected intelligence professionals. well brennan's record working in the cia is worth talking about and it's been reported that he has been a strong supporter of bush era torture tactics brennan has also been in charge of overseeing president obama's drone campaign some things you should know about

brennan he is the chief counterterrorism adviser to president obama he was he withdrew his name from consideration for director of the cia in the first obama administration there's over concerns over his support for the use of torture by the cia under president bush he has overseen signature drone strikes in yemen and he has authority on obama's so-called kill list so what does this nomination mean for the cia and the us is foreign policy future earlier today i was joined by michael brooks producer of the majority report i asked him could this nomination be seen as a chance to talk more about president obama's drone campaign and can we expect the senate to publicly debate this and bring the issue to the forefront i think that the best case scenario for this nomination is that it might lead to some actual conversation about the drone program and sort of shed more public light on it

unfortunately i don't think that that's what's going to happen in the senate i think brennan will get pushed on other issues in fact just a couple minutes ago senator graham i think as threatens to put a hold possibly on his nomination around benghazi so i think you know you might see other issues i don't think this issue is going to have as much scrutiny as is definitely should. why not but there are important issues of course the drone campaign very controversial why don't you think that it will get more more scrutiny more discussion in the senate. well because unfortunately i think there is a kind of broad political consensus on this program doesn't have that much public interest stuff the moment it actually is pretty popular with the public i think that just reflects more on how little is known about it in the way the kind of stories around it are selectively weeks it seems like this very kind of

antiseptic thing. you know takes care of u.s. security without investing too many resources people don't know some of the kind of other broader implications of the program like a lot of civilian casualties and potential challenges as executive power and things like this but you know republicans. are not likely to be attacking president obama for kind of executing a really hawkish and aggressive foreign policy talk to democrats you know i think that there's a there's a partisan components of this of just sort of falling in line behind your president and i think that that's why you see as much scrutiny as there should be and just want to bring up some interesting statistics or figures here you know we're just the first week into two thousand and thirteen and the drone war in pakistan there were there were there have been six strikes. just eight days into the new year thirty five people dead as a result of those attacks i know that you said that you didn't really have much

faith that the senate would would be talking about this drone program but i do want that the a.c.l.u. is an organization that is calling on the senate to discuss this this very controversial program and i do want to bring up a quote from the a.c.l.u. here as part of their statement they say quote the senate should not move forward with his nomination until it assesses the legality of his actions in past leadership positions in the cia during the early years of the george w. bush administration and in its current role in the ongoing targeted killing program so the a.c.l.u. is saying brennan's nomination should not move forward until the senate determines whether his past actions of war within the law do you expect the senate will in fact do that so far doesn't seem like a very confident. i'm not confident about that but i do think that what you might see in some of the questions that surrounds of in gaza you if we could get out of the sort of partisan narrowness of that issue you might start to look at brennan's

possible role in leaks around national security successes in the obama administration and i think this brings up something really important because the administration has been unbelievably aggressive in going after whistleblowers. throughout the entire course of the administration and at the same time there's also you know certainly somebody has been leaking and certainly some people think it's been brennan himself the process of u.s. foreign policy victories drone strikes and things like that so if you get into some of the issues around his possible leaking of national security classified national security information and some of the double standards around that that might yield some interesting areas on which he could face some really heightened scrutiny and actually bring up some really important issues interesting michael in addition to the drone campaign another controversial aspect to brand in history as

a has his support the extent of his support over torture techniques used under the bush administration what about that michael do you think that the senate will be examining that. senator mccain mentioned i think it will get some profound three attention that's another issue where you know clearly this is ministration in the kind of consensus in washington it was to move on after you know in two thousand and eight and it hasn't really been on the radar it's another area where it should be brought up you know it's also unclear you know bred in really kind of self-serving lee when he was skipped over for head of the cia in two thousand and eight because of these same issues which were more on the kind of front burner at the time he released a letter where he said hey look i was a big internal dissidents against torture against enhanced interrogation was at the

cia obviously pretty self-serving but i think in some ways we'll never really know because a lot of these things are still classified right of course he. they his role under the a bush administration now obviously looks like he's going to play a big role as as the head of the cia director of the cia michael does this signal that there is this kind of continuity from the from bush to obama that their approaches are now much different terms of foreign policy. yes and no i think that what you see with these nominations with a goal of defense brother that the cia and i guess kerry secretary of state is this is really what obama's foreign policy is it's very different from bush in the sense that there's much more of a skepticism of conventional military force there is more of an emphasis on diplomacy but all of the kind of hard power military stuff is getting

outsourced to things like the drone program cyber warfare and things like that so there's still this real. emphasis on on using military power but using it in what they perceive to be a much more politically low cost and cost effective way to project their influence militarily but not get us involved in the same type of entanglements of a conventional military response so i think there's some positive things about this and i think there's obviously some really negative things about this but it is a new obama foreign policy and you're kind of seeing it outlined here really clearly probably more clearly than ever has before interesting michael really appreciate you coming on that was michael brooks he is a producer of the majority report. also had here in our c.n.n. news studies to as states that have stand your ground laws have a higher homicide rate this by guarantees that it will make cities safer i'll take

aim at the issue in just a minute. it

is actually i am.

as the country is embroiled in a debate over gun control we want to turn now to a controversial gun law referred to as stand your ground a new study finds that homicides increase after states adopt the law it's by texas a and m. university and it was conducted from two thousand and two to two thousand and ten during this time more than twenty states passed castle doctrine and stand your ground laws the study found a seven to nine percent spike in homicides in states that implemented the law part of the study states quote results indicate the laws do not deter burglary robbery or aggravated assault in contrast they lead to a statistically significant eight percent net increase in the number of reported murders and non negligent manslaughter earlier i was joined by cliff schecter

progressive political strategist i asked him how the stand your ground laws expand legal justification for using lethal force. in terms of the stand your ground laws i mean look the beauty has always been in our society and you know a democratic republic really going way way back that if you could for a tree and do it safely that that was your responsibility that you're you know you're not you're you're not it's not one of these the mentality that you know just just. respond with force and hope for the best you know and that's what this the stand your ground was essentially say that you have the right to just again stand your ground and you know you don't have to try to retreat responsibly and you can just start firing and it's no shock we've seen cases like the trayvon martin incident a more recent one it happened in a gas station where someone was shot for playing music too loud and there could be

the justification people can literally almost start shooting and just claim that they think someone might have out of gun on them and there isn't the responsibility to retreat is gone and it's been it's been really terrible. the. justification and the states that have the stand your ground law is self-defense this is what you hear in court do you think that that that that is is over a year. and a standard i'm sorry go ahead are you going to say do you think that that that justification is over you to justify climes. oh absolutely look and mean we've always had the right to self-defense i mean that's the essential again going back to the democratic republic since we were founded you have the right to self-defense if you are in danger of bodily harm you can defend yourself and you can do with lethal force if you ask you just that expectation before was that you would retreat if you could and now what you're doing is you're creating

a culture that says to people you can just you know pull out your gun and shoot don't worry about whether you can you can retreat safe place so you don't cases where someone said well that guy looked like they had a knife even and shot them it's just i mean we're expecting more of our police officers we expect more from them and we're now seeing the spectrum citizens in terms of her strength come up people that are not trained often because of the requirements of some states for concealed carry are almost nonexistent and that's going to create an atmosphere where there's going to be more shooting and people killed and that's what happened there is that advocate your ground law are going to say you know what if somebody comes into my house that automatically i feel in danger and therefore he was invading my property invading my privacy and invading my space i feel like i'm in danger and therefore i have a right to protect myself what is right that cool first of all the stand your ground laws are much more strained version of what you're seeing here part of the castle laws which talk about you're out there you don't have to be in you're out you're literally standing on the street where you can retreat in any direction and

you know there are other states that move beyond your house to your car or any other property of that so first of all it's created concealed carry murders that did happen before terms of you're out again i think most people who don't enjoy the thought of shooting somebody else would say if you can safely call the police if you can safely get away from a situation you should do that often you don't know who it is and it's created a number of situations where people have walked into the wrong house accidentally because they've drank a little bit too much and been shot at you again is specks our culture in a way that we're never going to. people but if you're in danger of bodily harm you can not protect telling somebody as they should should be the last resort that's exactly right it should be the last resort absolute right to protect yourself but it should be the last resort all right earlier i spoke to a reporter by the name of neil mccabe he is a gun advocate and i asked to get his perspective on this study let's take

a listen to what he had to say i think it's it's kind of dangerous or unfair to people to take some a large study like this and i grant there's a lot of it i mean that's an in-depth study it's what forty three pages long and so i'm not saying that they didn't do the work but they're also individuals who have the right to defend themselves and their families and that's something that's you know part of our bill of rights and so yeah it could be that there's an uptick in homicides but that still doesn't mean i shouldn't be allowed to defend myself and my family just going to ask your response. well against the right to defend his family if it endangered bodily harm and families in danger. if we're talking about the actual study i you know sound like he was questioning it and this is sort of the common conservative tactic they want you to close your eyes to all the available evidence evidence to tell you that there's twenty you know that the chance you'll get murdered in louisiana the state with the most gun versus why the

same belief is seven years seven times more likely that a study done by the university of pennsylvania school that the genealogy saying to get a gun to have three times more likely you're going to die of gunfire than you're not going to die i mean all i could look at the port arthur massacre in australia where in one thousand nine hundred six they had a mass killing and afterwards they passed all sorts of gun control measures and they haven't had one mass killing since and in the end the suicide rate going down fifty nine percent and other gun violence has gone down i mean you look at the examples of other every way i think other industrialized country has done it outside the united states if you look at the state within this country and if you look at individual studies coming from the university of pennsylvania the harder part of school of medicine i believe it was emory university and others will show you that with guns around there's much more chance that you or your family are going to be in danger if you want that right you have the right in your home but i think that means we have a right to heavily regulate who gets those guns and have universal background checks you know ban assault weapons which you know hunter and anybody protecting

themselves need and license and register in those farms like any other industrialized country has done the ones that tend to have fifty or one hundred murders by guns a year as opposed to eleven thousand or ten thousand a year we have here. another argument that we are hearing clever from the n.r.a. walling other advocates that the solution they're saying that the solution is arming our teachers putting armed guards in our schools and that's going to protect our children all in school that the answer what do you think about that approach. i have two kids in school right now and i honestly think that the terror lines are low that they like you that there is anecdotally a teacher is arrested in burlington after they found threatening youtube and they found a stockpile of guns and ammunition he was talking about how the school defenses weren't good and he was going to do what he need to do is the guy that was going to shoot up a school in vermont if you want the typical stuff we didn't we can go back to what

i just talked about which is if guns are more prevalent they're going to be more people killed and many more innocent people killed it's different when you've got training people and even in cases when you're in warfare sometimes soldiers will tell you they don't know there's friendly fire death all the time police sometimes shoot innocent people in the least they are trade we're talking about people that aren't that well trained you know having guns in a classroom situation with innocent with kids running around i mean again i don't see how that can make the situation better so the answer to wayne la pierre is not to have a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy or the guy just to not have the bad guy with a gun against every other industrialized country in the world has found a way to do that outside of the united states because it's very common sense there are plenty of studies that tell you to do it and get guns out of the hands of people that shouldn't have. knows cliff schecter a progressive political strategist and now for a story from the happiest place on earth disneyland of course is a theme park where all your dreams come true or at least what that is what they

claim so in the spirit of making the most of your time at the theme park the folks at disney have come up with a way with a way to make your state easier and this is what they came up with it's a bracelet as you can see part of the magic plus program designed to cut down on your wait times for park rides disney claims the program set to cost the company between eight hundred million and one billion dollars is part of an effort to make visiting the park less of a hassle so patrons would wear the bracelet after giving disney their info but here's the catch and exchange forgetting to cut the line you would also have to give personal information including credit card number the bracelet would also keep tabs on you in the park and keep track of any or all items that you purchased so is cutting in line the price you're willing to pay for being monitored just something we thought we should let you know and we're going to leave it off there but that is going to do it for now for more of the stories.