in a songe as the publisher similar to the new york times similar to the guardian and all the other news outlets that then published what julian a songe disclosed through wiki leaks right there saying that it's the same thing if everyone's on the same point it's like if you have a website yourself and you publish this interview you're a publisher u.s. officials maintain that joining us on church compromised national security by publishing classified documents now as you know in america you know sometimes first amendment is trumped by national security issues when information is disclosed that could threaten the lives of soldiers on the battlefield or threaten the lives of americans here at home do you believe honestly that killing or saw a sign should face no consequences whatsoever yes that's right and so why you know the same claims were made about the new york times when the pubs print the papers it was this throwing national security it was drawing so forth and so on

the first amendment in that case trumped. the claim of the nixon administration now here you've got to ask yourself well what is the first amendment blame. the claim is that a son can be punished if in fact there is no clear and present danger to the country and if you look at the stuff that has songs published. i would argue there's no clear and present danger to the country i mean it's been three years were the danger i mean you're still here and i'm still here all claims sound terrible when it comes to national security but when you look backwards at them which is what i do in my book is the pentagon papers i look back to the facts of what happened in the pentagon papers and nobody home nothing there no damage now security you have to look at these claims with

a jaundiced eye because after a period of time you take a look at them and there's no danger as you mentioned the obama administration has prosecuted more allegedly leakers then under the espionage act then all previous administrations combined. do you believe that leakers such as bradley manning should be subject to some discipline yes i do and i would think that if you work for this organization you started leaking your secrets you probably ought to be fired i think every organization or have a control over its employees and therefore i think the bradley manning should be disciplined and i think that the twenty years to which he's agreed probably probably is a good good sentence i think the question with bradley manning right now is these agreed to twenty and the government wants to give them life and i just wonder whether that's appropriate but i do believe every organization should be able to discipline its employees ok then then do you fault the u.s.

department of justice of trying to find out who the leakers are because as you well now there's been a scandal with the d.o.j. . secretly uptake into the phone records from associate press journalists and also up to a warrant to search the e-mail account of a fox news reporter so do you defend the u.s. government in trying to find out who the leaker sorrow i think is there's two things one. we've got six prosecutions of leakers three in all is true and states before them. everyone leaks and washington is everyone's got access to massive security information i think what the obama to do is dial it back he's dob dot a back on drones six is too many though to be some discretion because once you start getting everybody some of these cases blow up in your face that's the first question and then the second question is how do you go about it ok i

don't think when the government is concerned about the behavior of its own employees to take the press and throw the press into the middle of it which is what they have done in what we call rosen gate rosen is the reporter for fox news ourselves who was subject to a search warrant trying to a search warrant on the thirty he was a coconspirator with a gentleman named cam i mean i look at you you don't look like a coconspirator to me but if you were to start covering some washington stories which inevitably were involved now security information you're subject to being called a coconspirator you know legally i could give you a song and dance but just for your viewers in terms of common sense we know reporters aren't coconspirators and we know their records shouldn't be subject to search warrants come on lay off president bush so why do you think they're doing it

do you think they're doing it to the to intimidate us journalists from seeking information and publishing sure these reports are not necessarily i mean what if they did it if they did that to your colleague here you would be intimidated or if indeed they did it to you would be intimidate the next time around they're also trying to intimidate those who who leak and i think as i said i think they should do some discretion here because you know when the president speaks to you he's leaking your thought about that because every member of agent in washington particularly the information which he's got his hands. is classified course he can declassify but it's a dummy sense to me so the impact is that we have less information we have less power you and me and the government by keeping the information secret you know there are huge you know complex they become more powerful and that's not good for

any of us now as a result of the a.p. and fox news scandals the new yorker magazine has launched a platform for whistleblowers to secretly leak information the program is called strong box and it's an open source dropbox that allows anyone to send leaked documents or messages without their identities ever being known so this way if the justice department asks anyone from the new yorker magazine where did you get this information who was your source the new yorker says well we don't know don't you find it interesting that the new yorker is now using the first amendment practices of julian a songe to protect the bradley manning's of the world right and it doesn't surprise me at all because that's what the new yorker should be doing in the digital age that's what publishers do and by the way after the bradley men who were the julius story broke the new york times said we're going to set one up and i think the wall

street journal set one up to now songes saying i mean obama saying i want to get a son but isn't this just like the new yorker the wall street journal the new york times you might as well go and get the new york times too and that's what i mean you're a to say i'm scared about during his nationalist speech on thursday president obama actually did say that it's troubled by the possibility that the department of justice investigations into leaks make chill the type of journalism that holds government accountable as a result he announced that he's calling on congress to. pass a media shield law to guard against government overreach do you think that will help do you think that will do anything or do you think that's just rhetoric well president is using. i think probably both what he said was i want chuck schumer who is our senator from new york to put the bill in so show me gets up and says look

i'm going to put it in but first of all we're going to have an exception for wiki leaks is not going to cover wiki leaks ok and then the second thing he says is not going to cover national security. we'll have a national security exception well i will say in defense of schumer that the old bill on which this is based didn't completely eliminate all national security leaks but it had a provision in there that made it very difficult to justify it so i have a question whether that is worth the camel but gee whiz my friend chilling in a sign she's not going to get the protection after we find out the new yorker is doing the same thing he's doing there are certainly certainly been some cases where journalists have abused their power a recent example is that bloomberg reporters are now facing somewhat of a scandal they've been accused of accessing private data on the bloomberg terminal to further their reporting. do you see this as

a big deal like that i think that's a big deal i mean that's a little bit like there murdoch scandal in london you know when the murdoch papers were doing the same thing they were hacking in these people are actually hacking i was posed but as it's the same same effect you've got to have privacy. for you know this but i am not defending the bloomberg journalist i think we've got to realize that we're in a new world digital world and we're going to get clear what the rules are as a so easy to cheat you've been called the father of reporter's privilege it's what do you see as the current threats to press freedom in the united states frankly as president obama and rosen rosen gave not tell you why because. this is the first time. i hate to use the word espionage act but you know national security act let's say for your viewers has been used to get reporters i mean that

really is frightening frightening because it's usually. used to get leakers and rosen's a leaky to use legal phraseology so if the bomb and ministration releases justice department thinks that they can use criminal laws to get journalists because they're coconspirators i mean honestly that's one of the worst things i've come across and all the years i've been doing this. and in closing i mentioned your book when began the interview what do you hope that readers get from your book well the purpose of the book is to learn the lessons from the pentagon papers which is hate and the president messes with national security is going to be in deep yogurt wake up america and wake up president obama the country is going to be in bad shape and president obama don't go after julian assad and call him a coconspirator that's. bad for everybody so send them out

a copy of your book. you know it's a good idea if you say mr goodell thank you very much for your time thank you for inviting me. wealthy british style.

markets why not come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's conjure up for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kinds a report on our. plate and a family jazz band together. play hijacked a plane together. send them from music to tara. twenty five years old questions still remain a. bad hijack. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear sees some other part of it and realize everything you thought you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

the week's top stories here on r.t. . police investigate the brutal slaying of. questions are mounting over britain's foreign policies fueling hate and potentially becoming an inspiration for attacks. since we see hundreds of mosques. in school setting cars on fire across the capital in six unprecedented nights of rioting they were reportedly sparked by the police killing of a portuguese immigrant brandishing a knife. and in over fifty countries across the globe to protest against an agricultural giant sounding the alarm over genetically modified products saying they're in danger people's health and the environment.