me with my extremes are a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into cars a report on our. will coming up on our t.v. the justice department's tracking of a.p. phones that still leaves the obama administration right in the face obama has defended those subpoenas a phone records while holder tries to shield himself from the scandal more of the drama unfolding here in d.c. even after the u.s. invasion of iraq the country still faces continuous violence of the country is plagued with insurgent bombings that are taking their toll on infrastructure a look at the results of the war from inside iraq just ahead. a group of russian developers have created a new social network but what's so special about it all how about communicating with other people even if you don't speak the same language more on the network that weakens the language barrier later in the show.

it's friday may seventeenth four pm in washington d.c. i'm margaret how well you're watching our t.v. . starting up this hour the latest surrounding the department of justice's investigation in the source of alleged national security leaks be of the associated press now yesterday president obama defended the actions alluding to the possibility the information was revealed with an a.p. story regarding a foil terror plot may have compromise national security interest the other elements of the scandal attorney general eric holder who after accusing himself from the investigation was unable to answer specifics when questioned by angry members of congress well with me now to discuss more of the political fallout political commentator sam sax hi there sam so how i understand it sam the first amendment you know it prohibits government to abridge this freedom of the press and

does this action by away from the first amendment you know in terms of government gathering a piece phone records well in general that's what the first amendment is there for but at the same time it's also illegal to leak information to goes against national security that's what that's what the d.o.j. and even a straight is saying what happened here and ever since the story broke the white house has been talking about how they need to strike this balance between a free a free press that's protected under the first amendment and also cracking down on on leaks that my that might harm our national security interests and president obama was very forceful yesterday in saying that this sort of leak could kill americans abroad now the question is what we have to do to is who gets to determine whether or not this leak is is against our national security interests or whether it's a news story that the news should be free to cover ok so the media argues that because the action would reveal the identity of those confidential sources you know it also bridges the freedom of the press they're saying how do you think this a.p.

scandal is going to change the way journalists and their sources share information so this was a shot across the bow really it's nothing new the d.o.j. . putting pressure on journalists to reveal certain confidential sources this is happening for decades this isn't anything new but the vast scope by which the d.o.j. went after the a.p. and when after. a subpoena floating around subpoenaing phone records that belong to over one hundred journalists and twenty offices including right on capitol hill. speaks that we might have entered a new chapter in the way that part of justice relates relates to journalists and that's why it's so crucial to for congress to step in to kind of pass legislation to to to clarify what that distinction is how we strike that balance between a free press and trying to crack down on these leaks it's interesting that we still don't know the process within the department of justice that led to the subpoena we

know that eric holder didn't have anything to do with it at least and says he didn't have anything do with it because he recused himself from this case normally the d.o.j. has regulations in place for how they pursue this sort of information and it appears so far that they didn't really follow any of these regulations that doesn't mean they broke any laws it just means that they didn't follow their regulations in place for dealing with this sort of sort of issue ok sam this has a watergate feel to me and i want to talk to you about that so do you think that this sort of action that the d.o.j. took you know it's going to lead to fewer type investigative journalism you know fewer type leaves and those water after watergate after headlines that we were used to think you know what do you think well i'm not sure i mean we already have do have a shortage of these sort of watergate headlines here investigative journalism has been dying for for decades as well. you know certainly if there's if journalists pursuing a story and trying to get in touch with you know sources are afraid that their

phone records might be tapped by the d.o.j. or confiscated by the d.o.j. that might make them less likely to perceive these stories so it best good of journalism was on life support before the story. now it's really critical following this story ok so i understand both of the details of the scandal regarding the d.o.j. and what they've done and they're still unfolding and my gut tells me that there's more harry details in this you know what do you think is there anything else is going to come out of this that could potentially shock us well it looks like the d.o.j. is very aggressive in this case and they want to find out who who where this leak came from who the leak was and they probably only intend to prosecute this person if they ever. discover. who it was so the real interesting thing here about all this and i sat down with congressman keith ellison today to talk about this is the deal is going after whistleblowers going after leaks like it's like it's their number one job but they haven't gone after the banks in the same way that is what

your congressman is clear is that the o'jays very enthusiastic about pursuing this in this case you sit on the house financial services committee you have insight into the way banks have behaved been behaving for the last few years how do you explain this difference in the d.o.j. being so enthusiastic about pursuing whistleblowers or journalists and really not being enthusiastic at all when it comes to prosecuting certain white collar financial crimes well it's certainly disappointing isn't it i mean we used to talk about too big to fail now we have to talk about too big to jail. you have some people who literally wreaked havoc on the american economy and not only have they. not only did they get bailed out for their own irresponsibility nobody's paying the price for it and we haven't seen a rash of subpoenas dropped on wall street have we. so sam we're running out of time here i want to get at this really quickly that media shield law that president

obama has pitched to chuck schumer to reinitiate what do you make of it probably isn't going to go far enough that this bill was introduced in two thousand and seven was much stronger it was reintroduced in two thousand and ten it was weakened by then president obama and probably wouldn't have helped the air protected the a.p. from the d.o.j. subpoena in this in this case ok same we've got to leave it there more from sam just in a moment as well as the follow continues over the d.o.j. investigation into the a.p. president obama has called this an opportunity to reintroduce media shield legislation designed to protect members of the media arliss wall explains amid the justice department scandal there is renewed interest in protecting the media's first amendment rights now we see media organizations pushing for what's called huell laws to protect reporters and it looks like the obama administration is on board here's president obama talking about the law yesterday in the rose garden so you know the whole goal of. this media shield law

that was worked on and largely endorsed by folks like the washington post editorial page and by prosecutors was finding a way to strike that balance appropriately and to the extent that this case. which we still don't know all the details of. to the extent this case has prompted renewed interest about how do we strike that balance properly. and i think. now's the time for us to go ahead and revisit that legislation now the new york times has reported that senator charles schumer has confirmed his plans to reintroduce shield law legislation the senator said quote this kind of law would balance national security needs against the public's right to the free flow of information at minimum our bill would have ensured a fairer more deliberate process in this case he is of course talking about the

case of the justice department secretly seizing phone records of reporters from the associated press senator schumer first introduced the shield law back in two thousand and nine here's what it would have done it's similar to media protection laws that already exist in several states but federal shield law would protect journalists from having to reveal their sources now if the feds want this information they would have to prove to a judge that the information they want to outweighs the need for journalists right writes to keep that information secret but it's important to point out that even the shield law allows exceptions when it comes to national security issues that's why it's unclear if such a law would have helped out the associate associated press at all especially since we've heard from the administration that the leak to the a.p. was a very serious one. when we express concern about leaks at a time when i've still got sixty thousand plus troops in afghanistan and i've still

got a whole bunch of intelligence officers around the world who are in risky situations in outposts that in some cases are as dangerous as the outpost in benghazi. that part of my job is to make sure that we're protecting what they do. now the shield law did not go anywhere back in two thousand and nine this was around the time of wiki leaks one of the largest leaks of classified information in history that prompted lawmakers to get tough on those that share government secrets so tough that under the obama administration more whistleblowers have been prosecuted than any other administration combined some critics believe the administration targeting whistleblowers is intended to have a chilling effect on the media i've been saying for years that the war on whistleblowers is really a backdoor way of going after journalists journalists appear in every single one of

these espionage indictment yet they've not been quick concern munaf that the government is willing to burn their sources allows of now lawmakers are split when it comes to enacting media shield laws so we'll be keeping a close eye on what happens here forward and protecting the freedom of the press in washington liz wahl r.t. . we obama administration's legal right to wage war on al qaeda is coming under a view with the war on terror as the war on terror continues now the authorization to use military force that act a law enacted back in twenty two thousand and one gives the president the authority to use the necessary and appropriate forest when dealing with terrorism is back up for congressional review now does the need an update all the talk to me about this debate being waged on capitol hill sam sacks joins me again hi there sam so i want

to talk to you about this action of the authorization of the use of military force act than act of twelve years ago congress it says essentially that congress must approve all wars but this act which handed that power over to the executive branch the senate as i understand it had a hearing yesterday over the us where d.o.d.'s officials were a question can you tell me about this and what it means so the authorization for use of military force the u.n. math was was passed after nine eleven no congress that's their job is to declare wars. what they did in two thousand and one that was basically declare a never ending war an open ended war and give the white house the power to conduct that war. ever since then you know they're your method basically says that the white house has the authority to conduct military operations against al qaeda and associated forces and really they they can conduct this this operation and you where it is now you where these associated forces are and that was the subject of the hearing yesterday in the senate and the disturbing details that kind of came

out of that hearing was basically that the dio did do you d. feels that if al qaeda and associated forces are in yemen or if they're in congo or if they're in boston the the president has the authority to launch military strikes and put boots on the ground in these areas to fight them and the sham michael sheehan is you know he's a top tier d. official he was asked how long do does the white house have this is. already for and he said that probably ten to twenty years oh my goodness ok sam so that's interesting i want to talk about the obama administration have they used to justify drone u.s. do you think well they've used to justify generous and germ use and so is the bush administration i mean if these military strikes against al qaeda associated forces that it falls under the a u.n. math and this is this is a really you know this is where the constitution starts to get stretched a little bit and this is what i asked congressman keith ellison about to what his

reaction to a lot of this testimony that came out of your mouth about the about yesterday the senate there's a hearing in the senate yesterday with some dear dear fishel to. give a very broad and somewhat disturbing interpretation of what the gives them something that they can pretty much put troops on the ground from yemen to congo to boston as long as it's against al qaeda and associated forces and michael she had a top top g.o.p. official said that he thinks this will last ten to twenty years which are read off the will my read on those statements made in the hearing of that we are now in the area that's we have exceeded anyone's imagination as to what that authorization for use of military force was intended for what they're basically saying is that they can do whatever they want and we're members not just ok but it in it's there's language in the white paper that was leaked and associated groups so now

a lot of the a lot of the people being killed by drones who are civilians were not killed because of the kind of but because of groups that may have been connected to al qaida. so i think congressman ellison really makes some good points there about how this is kind of grown way out of control do you m.-f. and the question is this is been going on now for as you said about twelve years that this has been in place when is it going to end when can we say that we've defeated al qaeda and that we don't need open ended warfare against them that the white house has the authority to commit and that was a question i asked for congressman l. ellison would he support repeal of the math and what would that look like with that procedure look like. that or for a way that comment congress can step up their oversight role would be to repeal the a u m f and would you support that. you will you know what i think i would support they want to bill right now to to do that i'm not going to say that i wouldn't be

involved in a debate around what a new authorization could possibly look like and but i don't know what are the justifications. is it warranted but this one i think is one it's welcome out and we've got to we've got to we've got a new move to a new face congress is going to be taking up the new defense authorization act is that the place to fight this battle when it comes to cost of fighting drones in trying to rework the u.n. mouth that is that that is a good vehicle to raise these issues and we plan on you know developing some vehicles to really push back on this on this endless war program in that in that process well sam i want to switch switch our gears now here's who iraq what's shaping up to be one of the deadliest months that we've had in the past five years i want to take you to some graphs that take a look at this graph that shows the number of civilians killed in the country through april of this year now so far from

a alone it's estimated that another three hundred forty four civilians have died now broken down by year in two thousand and four twelve thousand civilian casualties were reported jumping in two thousand and five it just out were seventeen thousand in two thousand and seven the highest of twenty thousand nine hundred thirty now this now seems to have averaged just over four thousand between two thousand and nine and two thousand and twelve ok sam so you know we've broken the stone talk to me about what role the united states has in iraq what role are we expected to play now with this is going to be extremely difficult question that policymakers are going to grapple with for a very very long time it's clear after a decade of war in iraq that whatever our policy we are policy approach there was a failure and then we had to end the war that was what president obama promised when he came into office and the war in iraq is pretty much pulled most of our troops out of out of iraq but now we rocks in violence so whatever we did there we broke we broke iraq and this is going to continue you know for the next for probably quite

a long time meanwhile policymakers the united states are have to figure out what's our responsibility it is another question that i that i ask for congressman ellison here what role the united states have to play still in iraq. march we have your university of the invasion of iraq. and the very next month we have the deadliest month in five years in iraq the war's supposedly over there and the u.s. role in the war supposedly exactly and now that we're seeing all this violence what what role does the u.s. still play in iraq considering that we did bring a decade of warfare to the country i think we have an obligation to stay engaged with iraq. diplomatically and developmentally militarily quite honestly i don't i i am not convinced that we can add meaningful improvement to the situation with some point our role in iraq militarily needs to come to an inn

and even if there is horrible military or of violence going on there i mean the question needs to be raised is our reengagement going to help i don't i doubt that seriously but what i think we do need to do is to remember that we helped create these conditions and we haven't are going obligation and you know we've got to make sure that i mean if we can play a diplomatic role to help cease the violence we should and if we can certainly help rebuild this country i think we have a moral obligation to do so because we depart sam fabulous interview we're out of time we have to leave it there thank you so much for the political commentator sam sachs. well last month was the deadliest in iraq since two thousand and eight and civilian casualties continue to rise just the four morning a series of blasts at least fifty eight people dead in and around baghdad but give up tact and sectarian violence the fragile government not only faces unrest and

destruction but a crumbling infrastructure as well oh. cavanaugh has an inside look at what's happening on the ground there. it is the land between twin rivers ancient day mesopotamia modern day iraq and in baghdad there's no shortage of ways in which water is used to wash cars to clean shop fronts to store fresh meat fish before they're gathered for sale everything it seems except drinking person nobody drinks the city would say because i know it's not clean since when you are heads around the law what comes out to happen is contaminated makes us sick how can we drink can't. water is just one of the many services that still lagging in post-war iraq despite years of promises and billions of dollars spent on reconstruction many neighborhoods lack sewage systems there's no trash collection in some settlements there are barely any streets central power and sometimes on for as little as two

dollars a day this mess of wires is a common scene all across iraq it connects homes to private generators people have to buy electricity to cope with the hours of daily blackouts ten years after the war it's a symbol for much of what's wrong with the rock a crumbling infrastructure and reliable services and the tangled web of bill walker sea and corruption. the energy crisis has meant more work for. an electrician who says he now earns about four times as much as he did before the war the grid is in shambles and breakdowns are frequent but he says the government is simply not serious about fixing it. it's the citizens who suffer. in the ems not the government the services are so bob the power system has really deteriorated there were billions spent on fixing the grid but there's little to show for it. the government has promised improvements in public services but officials say it's a monumental task the infrastructure has been put in they've lifted the end of the

previous regimes and the demigods is enormous there is a need to rebuild everything that's required is tens of billions of dollars but the dollars are flowing along with them largely because of the oil that's what accounts for most of the revenue in iraq's one hundred nineteen billion dollars budget here at the colourblind reproduction doubled in the year that the open air well industry has been touted as one of the right time for that plagued by violence and rampant corruption most of the reconstruction money was squandered fraud and abuse it's a paradox that frustrates many iraqis there is one of the wealthiest few simply on earth but its people are some of the forest lucie county baghdad iraq moving on out of the latest coming out of u.k. new developments in the two thousand and six death of former k.g.b. spy alexander litvinenko a senior judge in the investigation has ruled information alleging russian state

involvement in the murder cannot be made public fighting national security concerns now live in yank it was poisoned with radioactive polonium two ten while drinking tea in a one hotel now the ruling came on the heels of the british foreign secretary william hague's after application to keep some evidence secret well our teeth pauly boyko has more. we know that the inquest has already been massively delayed from both sides and. being very slow to provide evidence from the russian side and from the british side but what's happened now is that there's been a real spanner have been thrown in the what's because william hague the british foreign minister very recently applied to keep any evidence related to the involvement the alleged involvement of the russian government and any involvement of the british authorities or how they may have prevented alexander litvinenko his death well he's applied to keep all that information secret and the coroner has had

to reluctantly graunt that request he's proposing a secret public inquiry which would allow for the inquiry to go ahead but behind closed doors now quite a few people have very surprised that this ton of events because the british government has been requesting the extradition of a russian deputy called andre lugovoy for the mud of alexander litvinenko for quite some time now but no evidence has ever really been provided as to how he was implicit in what took place and it looks like now that it's being kept secret that evidence isn't likely to be had very soon either and that's really blighted relations between russia and the u.k. andrei lugovoy out a russian deputy he actually passed a lie detector test last year which said that he was innocent he's repeatedly said

from russia that he's happy to give evidence and take pos in the inquiry those are to international correspondent polly boyko one this high tech globalized world we live in sometimes language is the only barrier to communication and getting the joke and your russian friends tweet or understanding your syrian friends wall post isn't always easy well one social media company is trying to change all that with the size taking the concept of going local to her new level r.t.s. on a style the a turkey not caught up with the team behind a social networking site during their visit to the big apple. social networking sites have all but taken over the world the racing distances providing quick information updates with hundreds of millions of active users there's only one obstacle language but this may be about to change. most but we had multilingual sticks you could communicate with the entire world all artists politicians sign up for any page and comment in your own language just the things. this team decided to

get rid of language barriers online. there are tens of thousands of social networking sites all over the world to call them limited by the language users speak the idea is to create a platform so that all nations of the world can communicate. doodoo dot com has a new social networking site allowing members to bridge the language gap with friends news articles they read or celebrity they follow online the site already has seven million users you set your language your preferred language in the very beginning and then everything that you see on the website everything that you interact with is displayed in your language so far there are three main languages of operation english russian and arabic but this is just the beginning. we want our system to include all the languages there are over seven thousand languages in the world but not all of them are available in electronic format the idea is a language we could be of swords the web provides celt was dictionaries and online translators but the goal of this website is to avoid the hassle of having to look for translation elsewhere creators say this is also an easy intuitive way to learn

new languages if you're studying a foreign language and you'd like to see the text in its original form there's always a but you can see the original text with privacy still the highest priority at the sites goal is to bring users of other social networking sites together with some of the worst we want for users of other services to be able to communicate through do a person needs to be registered on to do when he communicates on another site twitter for example if you receive responses in his native language the person receiving the answer will get it in his own language. you know me as a kid the creator say their site is also a great tool for business is looking to expand their audience abroad with a bigger goal of bringing together users from vastly different circles and backgrounds enriching their online experience and stacy churkin a new york that's going to offer an l. for more on these stories we've covered go to you tube dot com slash r c america you also follow me on twitter at m underscore j i underscore how will say tim prime

mentor of this next. is it turning into an overblown scandal or a reflection of a foreign policy poorly thought out and executed the terrorist attack on the american diplomatic outpost in benghazi last september has become a political football to attack the obama administration and hillary clinton mistakes were made but is it proper focus on the most egregious ones. download the official application yourself choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorites from alzheimer's if you're away from your television just doesn't matter now with your mobile device you can watch artsy anytime anywhere.

change.

good afternoon welcome to prime interest i'm hearing i'm boring here and washington d.c. and here's the headlines that i've been tracking all day. development than what we've coined the bloomberg eight continue to defy even our expectations our favorite shadow regulator promissory freemium so a group will now be assisting bloomberg and revamping its privacy and data standards. promissory with the same firm that was part of the botched independent foreclosure if you there's no word yet on who our promise torie will be spearheading the bloomberg you have heard bloomberg broker dealer operations are regulated by that do you see this is the very agency mary shapiro just left when she joined promised story last month. and speaking of the as you see it we're now.