coming up on r t today president obama spoke at the national defense university speech centered around counterterrorism tactics around the globe we'll have an update on the speech and what it means when it comes to drones pantani mowbray and more. a man suspected of being connected to the boston bombers was fatally shot by f.b.i. agents law enforcement claims that the suspect actually attacked them during the questioning more on the shooting and the suspects relationship with the boston bombers ahead. u.s. marine veteran brandon routh was detained by the authorities after he posted critical statements about the government on his facebook page now the veteran is filing a civil suit for what he claims to be a wrongful detention will speak with his lawyer in today's show.

it's thursday may twenty third four pm in washington d.c. lopez and you are watching r.t. president obama delivered an important counterterrorism speech at the national defense university in washington d.c. today the speech comes at a time when the public as well as lawmakers are questioning the tactics the obama administration has continually used in the ongoing war on terror those tactics include the president's drone policy as well as indefinite detention so did anything new come from today's speech well to help me break it all down i'm joined now by political commentator sam sax and david remes he's a human rights lawyer david thank you for joining us let's start with you did we learn anything coming out of today's speech well i can't speak as an expert to everything he spoke on but i don't think that we got very much new from him on guantanamo it was disappointing that he endorsed indefinite detention it was disappointing that he said he'd go back and re were you the yemenis to send home

and most of all it's disappointing that he can to new. to blame congress for his inability to transfer detainees back to their home countries or third countries he simply isn't willing to show the kind of political leadership that's required president obama addressed several issues through this hour long speech that he gave today let's play a part of what he said about guantanamo bay since we're talking about it and given my administration's relentless pursuit of al qaeda leadership there is no justification beyond politics for congress to prevent us from closing a facility that it should should have never been opened. today. so sam he laid out several plans of action when it comes to guantanamo bay what did

we learn what are his plans moving forward well i think you're right i don't think we've learned much new he he basically brought everything back to square one and he made up the ground that he had lost over the last few years as far as lifting the transfer ban to yemen he put the transfer ban on you know in two thousand and ten. as far as bringing you know setting up military tribunals in the united states this is stuff he's already proposed he he's backtracked from his promise in two thousand and seven really in two thousand he was running for president and now he seems to be trying to make up some of the lost ground he's made in the last few years but nothing really significantly new to move it forward to close the facility and the president is not being truthful when he says that congress is preventing him from doing it congress gave him and now with the national security waiver to do that to start releasing some of these. prisoners and he's chosen not to do that whether it's because of the he's afraid of the political consequences of that or whatever he's chosen not to do it in our congress now at the same time david the president did make it seem like his will is that the whim of congress has really made it seem

as if his hands are tied want to quote comes to guantanamo bay what do you make of this i believe that he's justifying his lack of action on guantanamo he does have the authority under a national security waiver provision of the relevant law to transfer detainees when he believes that it serves the national security interests of the united states to do so clearly it does with respect to these detainees including the yemenis one only has to look at the effect that it has on our international standing and the goodwill or lack of it in the muslim and arab world to see why it would be in our interest to send them home and he did say that under president bush some five hundred nine. people were actually transferred but when it comes to his administration he started with i think sixty seven before congress reined in on him and actually stopped that from happening so sam what about the idea of the people that he says we cannot prosecute he talked about these people who we just don't

have evidence against people who the evidence against him has been compromised or is inadmissible in court to be say can we actually plans on addressing that no not at all i mean he vaguely alluded to this military tribunal process and of course a lot of these people via evidence against them was was obtained. through either torture or enhanced interrogation or whatever sort of coercion that would be permissible in court he i believe he said something very like once we begin the process then all these other things will be worked out as far as these other other prisoners go but i mean really this is a giant question mark of what to do with these individuals and it's a mess that you know has been created out of creating guantanamo i mean it was supposed to be this kind of legal netherworld in cuba there in guantanamo bay and now it's coming back to bite us eleven years later we still don't have any idea what to do with these individuals and the problem is that oftentimes it seems these days that we are weighing the idea of putting people indefinitely in detention

we're says the idea of killing them with drones it really seems like it's one or the other and the way that president obama and others have put it out so let's talk about drones president obama says that he uses them as a last resort and that congress agrees to each and every single attack that he has used against drugs and that they're just a necessary tool of war let's take a listen to what he had to say in further detail for the record i do not believe it would be constitutional for the government to target and kill any u.s. citizen with a drone or with a shotgun without due process nor should any president deploy armed drones over u.s. soil. now sam at the same time he was speaking about anwar lockey before he said that he said yes once somebody leaves the u.s. and they become an imminent threat then yes that's ok do you see a dichotomy here it will not comment was a clear swipe at rand paul and other conservatives who kind of made

a bit of an absurd issue that drones are going to start striking people are going to say it's going to be really believes that's going to happen but it would it's distracting from the major issue and that is that drones are killing innocent people around the world and also radicalizing populations all around the world and he mentioned in aurora locky and he devoted significant amount of time in his speech to talking about what or under what circumstances he was targeted the process he went to to target and where a lot of he would shows that you know the white house is listening to a lot of people who are bringing up these concerns especially about in the world and you had mentioned civilian deaths obviously this is a huge part of it but he did say that civilian deaths come with any a part of a war and that if you compare it to history he says that drones cause a much fewer deaths than say was saw in afghanistan in iraq and in vietnam a significantly fewer david can you talk about that yes i'm against drones for the reason that many people are for them it makes it easier to engage in war it makes

it cheaper it surely decreases civilian deaths over what they would otherwise be if we were dropping bombs on them as we didn't viet nam that's the appeal of drones it still raises the moral question of whether or not we should be targeting people with drones. yeah i mean the president did lay out this new presidential policy guideline in his speech something he said he signed yesterday and it's unclear whether or not this is a real policy shift from the last few years to moving forward and we do know that drone strikes are down around the world since two thousand and ten. it whether that's because we've taken out a bunch of targets and don't have as many targets is that we need to take out or whether it's a result of sort of a new policy that wants to take kind of greater care and not. inflicting civilian casualties there remains to be seen but you know that could be news moving forward if that's the case if they are going to try and in which you know strengthen these

guidelines over over drone strikes and finally president obama was heckled a couple of times during his speech let's take a listen he he we went to. we went on. about. the voice of that woman. is worth paying attention to. obvious obviously. obviously i do not agree. with much of what she said and obviously she wasn't listening to me in much of what i said but these are tough issues and the suggestion that we can gloss over them is wrong. so that was medea benjamin she's a code pink founder of vocal advocate against drones really protesting it there do

you think that because of the fact that american polls one after another have shown that americans do support drones do you think people are listening to president obama over protestor sam will start with you well with the president says that we should listen to have been germany's she's been practicing and she's been in these regions that have seen where these drone strikes of have taken place she knows the consequences of them so you know and when it when he says that she wasn't listening to him while she was talking about it or a walking sixteen year old son which he wasn't talking about it all that's why she brought it up david your overall just final word here my final word is that i fear that this speech will lead people to conclude that these problems have been solved and will put the issues out of their mind and it'll be another five years before we hear about guantanamo once again fascinating discussion thank you guys for coming in and weighing in political commentator sam sax and david greene seems a human rights lawyer. on now to the story of

a chechen immigrants who was shot to death in florida by the f.b.i. twenty seven year old eve argument of was being questioned by the f.b.i. and local authorities about a triple homicide that happened back in two thousand and eleven it is the same triple homicide that authorities believe may have been connected to the boston marathon bomber tamerlan sort of federal law enforcement agents say the man attacked and stand the f.b.i. agent during the questioning that's when law enforcement officers opened fire killing two todashev and the brother were friends from mixed martial arts training authorities say was not a suspect accomplice in the boston bombings however who knows what more information will come out from this for more on this case in the law enforcement actions in the moments that led up to the suspects death i'm joined now by. a law professor at texas was leon university shahar thank you so much for joining us so first of all can you give us

a little bit more insight into this man. well he seems to have been to sociate it's unclear whether he was a close friend or just. a far the older brother between we were involved in boxing or martial arts. in boston and. had moved to florida for reasons that are unclear so the may have been in common than the news reported that. he was a suspect and appeared to be about to sign a confession about a triple slaying they're going to burn in boston that appeared to be perhaps a gone wrong it's unclear details are other than will be people were killed and they were found the way of marijuana going on the bodies so he also had a few incidents where interactions with law enforcement a month before he was killed he had an altercation in

a parking lot where the father and son will be and he fought the son in the cars and be unconscious in. a minute going to the hospital so youth ministry was a bit checker in terms of use of force so let's talk about what happened after that once the f.b.i. officers got into that house and started questioning him first of all as you said he had a history of violence has been arrested before second of all he's a professional mixed martial arts expert do you think that enough precautions were taken in order to question this man or could there have been some more precautions that could have avoided a violent outcome like this. well we know very little about what happened. as the only source of information is the f.b.i. and presumably it's not in their self-interest more of you know too much information putin since there is now investigating into this that because this

would possibly be a case of excessive force in violation things prosecution rights so the question is why did the officer need to use their full force which is general we something of last resort and principle. whether they actually will or that it was necessary so for example in self-defense or defense of the person if he had for example. brought a gun and was about to be officer of a gun the officer if he. was about to be sealed or shot you could shoot back out or necessity would probably be considered a reasonable use of force as opposed to excessive use of force but it's unclear whether he in fact had to get really know once of the people the gun but there was some. talk about whether he will night but when the f.b.i. retracted that incident we were exactly what happened so there is certainly

question as to whether shooting him was the use of excessive force because even if were an example if you had punched the officer it's not common or it could possibly be reasonable in a necessary to shoot someone if you in defense of being punched hughes who we are supposed to mince words so hard as we really don't have that much time left there was a few people that actually came out and said that he might have stabbed officer that that officer might have a sustained period and the hospital but none of them were life threatening but now that the suspect is dead what what happens now what can we possibly learn that he could have revealed in the future. well to the extent that you knew about the boston bombings. an intelligence source. even if you knew directly about the boston bombings he may have known about other associates of the older brother or possibly even younger brother so i think he's certainly

a lot of the new knowledge and sort of students that they. were even knew about. but also there's just a concern as to whether or not. and whether or not this is acceptable notwithstanding if you had been charged with someone else that was some larger. associate law professor at texas was land university thank you so much for that analysis very. well a few months ago we told you about the case of brandon rob he's a twenty six year old decorated marine veteran who served in both iraq as well as afghanistan he was arrested and put into a psychiatric institution last august for some incendiary facebook posts. like my right. here's video of brad and rob's arrest he was detained without charges and was ordered to spend up to thirty days in a psych ward but that court order was later dismissed now brandon robb is suing the

government for infringing on his first amendment rights yesterday i spoke with his lawyer john whitehead he's a constitutional attorney at the rutherford institute and i asked him to go into more detail about brandon's arrest and what has happened in the your sense. well he was arrested for facebook was. then taken into custody and then eventually put the mill ospel. and so the facebook posts were basically his complaining about where the government was operating it was again arrested and cuffed behind his back he actually called the police and said one of the charges they said always a charge of the in front. so we got him out of the mill hospital about a week and we had a judge actually rule who release team that there was no credible evidence whatsoever to hold him and so within this last eight or nine months that we've been preparing for this lawsuit so what legal team and we follow the first amendment fourth amendment case today in the federal district court in richmond and a false imprisonment case so he was arrested for his first remember the activities

and he was searched and see. without probable cause the government did not even have a search warrant because they did not have enough evidence to get it there is no evidence him ever owning a gun in fact he doesn't own a weapon so obviously he wasn't dangerous and so i see this case basically as a shot across the bow to in the government before you do this you need to follow the constitution and you need to do your work your homework don't go around harassing veterans and we'll get to your alonso in just a second as you had mentioned u.s. circuit court judge alan sharratt eg knowledge of the fact that the authorities had broken brandon robb's first fourth fifth and fourteenth amendment rights was there any sort of apology issued. on the fact i had veterans groups of calling around the country this is happening to other veterans that i've been taken into custody but the f.b.i. is actually showing up their doorstep saying we're investigating text messages e-mails the national security agency contacted one veteran said it read as e-mails

they were concerned so this is a national phenomenon begin the rock cases basically saying if you don't do this you're going to get sued so talk about the lawsuit what is the law saying they are currently filing an. who are you suing what type of reparations are you hoping for in this case we're showing. the police officers the f.b.i. the secret service a psychiatrist who did a short examination of the mob he was in jail and some other employees of the so-called commission that had. been. arrested basically and taken into custody. again we're hoping that they read and while we get some compensation they put him through hell in a mental hospital and the is whole family was traumatized and also we're asking that the gun government be enjoined and we cannot harass them anymore so that's the basis of our lawsuit i do hope i think we have a case here. i hope it puts these fellows on notice their wealth or it's

a lot of lays it taken over the whole the constitution. as i understand it brandon rog's facebook postings that were so controversial were actually spotted by operation vigilant eagle what is not and how was your client actually spotted from it well basically operation vision eagle is a program that was put into effect by the part of homeland security right after cardinal issued two memos right wing extremism left wing extremism and the right wing extremism memo that veterans are actually mentioned returning veterans as being people who need to be watched you know their government when i read those memos a person i thought was oh my gosh i'm guilty of it to anybody would be an extremist if you if you disagree with the obama administration so best but operational vision legally as it's a way to say that they want to do surveillance or returning veterans watch them if they get out of control basically anti-government sentiment they can be

investigated and possibly civil exhibit a militia so are you saying that the u.s. government is targeting veterans as possible extremists. oh yeah they say if you read the right wing extremism memoir a commentary on our website relevant or you can read that but you know it's very clear vessels are actually mentioned as possible extremists and by reza middle actually the word extremists and terrorists are user changeable a so you could come to the conclusion that you could be a terrorist would be returning veteran like right or wrong and he's very vocal about how he disagrees with the government your extremist may be a terrorist now as you have mentioned earlier sense come to brandon to the fence i understand that you've had a lot of other veterans come in and reach out to your organization and speak about some of our experiences would you say that this is a common occurrence or just a few exceptions a common occurrence in fact we recently had a fellow who e-mailed. about things going on secret training exercises and the next

day the national security agency showed up and threatened to deport me he came into my office weeping so this is very intimidating. and it makes me angry. we don't go around him a virgo send people overseas to fight these wars we don't want pretty much criminals and women return and that's the purpose of this lawsuit basically to help brenda but also to help get a government off their backs john hope my viewers understand why the target veterans what could this have possibly done what were they going for in your client's case. i think years ago look here in oil the question is why is the whole the security department security buying four hundred fifty million rows of zero point well if we don't know that there is a paranoia over the government there of this think maybe could actually really resist but most of us i thought do that all of the get go and resist those but they've been overseas actually and certainly don't like the drone strikes and all things you see in that they come back with a very upset and they want to get very very local restaurant homes to be one of

those out of there as well please keep us updated on this case as far as well as future cases that come up john whitehead constitutional attorney at the rutherford institute thank you for joining us. the latest now in the war over words that being the ongoing battle between journalists and the government over where to draw the line when it comes to the first amendment all week we have been telling you about one case after another of journalists claiming that the government is infringing on their rights be it the associated press versus the department of justice or the case of fox news correspondent james rosen also out this week the a.c.l.u. has filed a lawsuit on behalf of two editors from the online libertarian web site antiwar dot com the lawsuit claims that the f.b.i. was unlawfully surveilling the ben so much of the journalism community and the public make of these cases for that and more i'm joined now by j.d. to chile he's the managing editor at reason twenty four seven hi there j.d.

so let's begin by talking about your article in reason you called the department of justice is actions against journalists quote creepy why is that. well they're seeking normal behavior by journalists or the classifying it as criminal behavior. in the case of james rosen in particular which seems to really clinched what's in a parent's war on the free press by your current administration their classifying his simple solicitation of information he asked for information the classifying that is eating or of bedding and acting as a coconspirator in a leak of government secrets now and the secrets themselves weren't even that impressive but even if they were if there's a secret information journalists are supposed to ask information this is what they do it's up to government officials as to whether or not to release that information if you classify the simple act of doing journalism as potentially criminal you create what i call a creepy situation where journalists are at threat just for doing their jobs so who

qualifies as journalists in this case as i was speaking about earlier antiwar dot com was being surveilled or allegedly being surveilled. we know they were being surveilled bad actually got hold of documents f.b.i. documents that were submitted to them by a reader they got hold of those documents and twenty eleven that dated back to two thousand and four the show that the f.b.i. has been looking at their web site now their activities that far back by the last two years trying to get hold of more information about what the f.b.i. has on antiwar dot com and they the f.b.i. has not been forthcoming so now they're suing represented by the american civil liberties union yes so antiwar dot com is its simple web site it's nontraditional journalism but it's certainly journalism really journalism is anybody looking at the world around them asking questions about it and writing about those questions reporting those questions there should not be a formal definition of journalist should be who should simply be acting doing journalism we all can do it and in this modern world of blogs and twitter and everything else we all can do it so we really are at threat when the government

scrutinize the journalists care and r.t. america we've been talking about the so-called war on whistleblowers but at same certainly reach the mainstream media when mainstream outlets like the associated press are targeted so can you talk about that. well absolutely the theory that the government is using the case of james rosen asking questions specifically at soliciting information is potentially criminal as one the first flowed in the case of wiki leaks you know wiki leaks is modern journalism so website based overseas a solicits information the government stuff is this really want to be released and publishes it the government says that wiki leaks by soliciting this information as an agent potentially criminal behavior they floated up in the press didn't make much of a fuss about it and now the press find themselves on the receiving end of the same period so let's talk about what president obama had mentioned today president obama had addressed the protections of journalists and his speech today and he actually said that he wants to create a media shield law first of all it was

a little bit odd to have this kind of counterterrorism speech talking about american enemies at the same time as talking about journalists but beyond that what will the shield law do and who will it protect last time with sun media shield the one that they touted last time and had a huge carve out for national security concerns in both the case of the associated press in case of james rosen and it looks like in the case of aids you were going to national security was invoked as the reason to scrutinize them so the media shield law if the one they're talking about now bears any resemblance to the last one they were it's outing would not protect anybody it would not have prevented these situations from occurring so there was a media shield law looks like a bit of a smokescreen to try and divert attention from the fact that they've been going after journalists are going after the media today to chile managing editor at reason twenty four seven thank you for weighing in thank you and that's going to do it for now for more on the story as we cover go to youtube dot com slash r t america check out our website our to dot com slash usa and i'll see you right back

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afternoon welcome to prime interest i'm harry i'm boring here in washington d.c. and here is the headlines that i've been checking today. well it's good news for homeowners because home prices are up as according to two reports today with which goal to beat expectations and good news for chairman bernanke it looks like five years of pushing on a string have morphed into a q even bullet train but how long will this last we've previously reported this week that the foreclosure pipeline has been stalled thanks to new guidance from the fed and overseas and today we'll talk to matthew o'brien about some creative legal or turn it is for homeowners facing foreclosure also prime interest producer adjusting underhill covers the recent housing protest here in d.c. and expose.