well just recently we got a sense of just how many contractors boots are really on the ground or no latest census by the industry group professional overseas contractors there are currently one hundred ten thousand private contractors working in afghanistan far outnumbering the sixty five thousand u.s. military personnel that remain in the country now while some people argue that more contractors instead of troops is a good thing others allege this outsourcing is just a way for the u.s. government to have vade its legal obligations blackwater ring a bell to anyone but this insane amount of private contractors isn't disturbing enough according to the government accountability office the pentagon can't even track what they're actually doing there so let me get this straight there's almost twice as many contractors as troops no one knows what the hell they're even doing and people wonder where our tax dollars are going this blows your mind to join me and let's break that said.

because of the secrecy surrounding the government's killer drone program it's nearly impossible to report on an exact body count of those who've fallen victim to it however the first time earlier this year senator lindsey graham disclosed that forty seven hundred people have been killed thus far by u.s. drones although graham allege that the number includes only terrorists the american public has never been presented with evidence to back that claim up yet sixty five percent of u.s. citizens continue to support the use of drones to fight terrorism according to latest gallup poll one reason for this level of support could be the level of extreme detachment people have with the program to many it's out of sight out of mind what about for the drone operators the people who are pulling the kill switch themselves recently one of these individuals spoke to n.b.c. and described what it's like to kill a person via remote control. when the smoker. there's there's

a crater there he's missing his right leg and i watch this guy bleed out and it's clear enough that i watch him he's grabbing his leg and he's rowing like i can almost see the agony on this guy's face and eventually this guy become the same color as the ground that he bled upon and so he loses heat you watch him die yes it was. you know how people say that drone strikes are like mortar attacks artillery. artillery doesn't see this artillery doesn't see the result of their actions i was brandon bryant and he's personally responsible for taking part in exactly one thousand six hundred twenty six targeted assassinations all while sitting in an office chair half a world away but what's perhaps most chilling about his testimony is how unbelievably nonchalant and cold he is in the retelling of his experience or even describe taking pleasure in the execution over sixteen hundred human beings. start

feeling bad about this program and why why did it start to eat away at your because i watched that respect for life had become an assassin i had become heartless and it like you felt like you were a hit man not necessarily i just felt like. sociopath if you want to say that i wanted to kill these people and these were bad guys these i mean we had their a list of their accomplishments underneath them but instead of being like man i like these guys need to die but i'm really sad that we have to execute extreme measures i was like man i can't wait for these guys to die. wow guys watching this makes my stomach turn in my blood boil first of all bran and do you ever stop and question your orders or wonder why the people you were killing weren't given a day in court and furthermore why did it take having the blood of over a thousand people on your hands before you even began to feel guilt i'm sorry but i

don't believe all these people brandon killed were bad guys we now know that the criteria for targeted assassination is simply displaying a behavioral pattern and being within military age the truth is that drone strikes have been a tory asli low success rate and more often than not end up killing the very people the us government claims to be protecting so how many more thousands of people have to die before those behind the drone controls realize that they're not liberators they're just glorified murderers. looking for yourself or she or anything like that. today marks one week since the start of the trial of u.s. army private bradley manning bringing back to life the issues his case represents but as millions around the world watch this trial evolve new attention will be paid

to the other man who defines the story joining us on the founder of wiki leaks and the person who made it possible for manning to release the scores of documents these events and the relationship between these two men are now documented a new film called we steal secrets the story of wiki leaks here's a sneak peek. into government's got more information. systems to the site. in confidence and said hey i'm teaching secrets. the plan says that the release of these documents are potentially severe and dangerous scare the hell out of a lot of people how we're going to stop it and how far is it gone already the sort of. stuff and you found some things in computers the weather in your proof but i see it being framed in a vise you techniques for this idealistic am something else in the world out of

this. documentary is not stirring up a lot of controversy among freedom of information advocates who say the film is nothing more than a hit piece but unfair and fairly characterizes songe and wiki leaks so here to talk about everything from assad just portrayal to the future of a man who's now an expert in hiding i'm joined by michael ratner attorney for julian a song for wiki leaks and president emeritus for the center for constitutional rights michael thank you so much for coming on. it's good to be with you so why are people so unhappy with the portrayal of wiki leaks as songe in this film. well you know we're unhappy with that for a couple of reasons let's start with the title we steal secrets the story of wiki leaks when wiki leaks is a publisher and a journalist they aren't that they aren't the people or the publisher who quote stole the secrets the person accused of that is bradley manning if you want to use that term and so it already puts a publisher and a journalist into the same pocket in the government of course wants to do that as

the person who they're claiming actually took the material so they're making julius onj into a coconspirator with bradley manning he's not that's been the government's theory that was their theory if your listeners probably are aware your viewers that they went after james rosen and his subpoena the fox reporter who they subpoenaed his records on the claim that he was a coconspirator so the movie starts with that title it then when it talks about bradley manning it implies and says actually well julian assange your wiki leaks persuaded perhaps bradley manning or he was fishing for this that's the exact theory of the government's trial at fort meade i was down there last week i saw the opening of manning's trial and the government puts on the board well wiki leaks had this list of documents they wanted bradley manning was taken direction from julian assange they have no evidence of that so in that sense the film is dangerous because it implies that my client in the center for constitutional rights client

julian assange and wiki leaks are actually in some kind of cold conspiracy with bradley manning which is not true the second thing he does is it does a lot about motivation and it doesn't really address as much as i would like to see or should be done is the political motivation of both bradley manning and julian assange instead it talks about all of bradley manning's trials and tribulations his gender issues and all of those things not really focusing as much on what is his political motivation i was in court when bradley manning testified about his political motivation and it was incredible it was one of the most moving political . bateman's i've ever heard the film that's not fair to that with regard to julian assange of course it accuses it has all kinds of character negativities about julian assange it's not a fair film in that sense at all to either of them and i think about it when i think about what's going on now and now we have a new incredible whistleblower of course. edward snowden and i keep thinking that's really great it's important he's come out with his political motivations he's made

a beautiful statement and are we going to see a film about him well you know what happened when he was a child and is this what's motivating them or is it is motivation complicated by that lee should we accept what people are saying about their motivation that they have political reasons reasons of wanting democracy and freedom for their for their reasons for exposing government criminality michael good point about james rosen coconspirator charge i mean it really is a slippery slope there and for this film to toe that line is disturbing to say the least or talk about the same filmmaker who made an around the smartest guys in the room i mean that film didn't shy away from controversy why do you think the filmmaker decided to tow the establishment line on the narrative. you know i don't understand it one thing i do know that in giving these interviews after the film he basically says that whistleblowers are alienated they're lonely etc so perhaps he really thinks that perhaps it was the fact that he couldn't get an interview with

julian a songe and he was making this big important film about julian assange and wiki leaks and he couldn't get the interview and maybe there was just that personal some personal issue that he had with julian but here's the position i take you have these people like bradley manning heroes julian assange heroes jeremy hammond who is the person who we who leaked the stratfor e-mails the ones on the private intelligence company and now you have edward snowden and in my view those are the people who are our heroes and are being subjected to incredible government repression our job when an oppressor attacks them really. it's to stand up for the people who are telling the truth and not to start getting into you know these cut these crazy kind of issues of motive it's like talking i mean that those kind of motive it's like talking about martin luther king and saying well you know he was accused of having affairs martin luther king that is not where i want to see people go right now it's not right to go there right now these people are our heroes they're under the gun each one of them look where they are bradley manning's been

in jail for three years jeremy hammond for over a year and is going to be forced to plead as forced to plead guilty to a possible ten year charge julian assange is likely i think more likely than not facing indictment in the united states and that's an interesting part of this film i think that's underestimated by a great deal in the film by giving he says what is julian worrying about y. z. in that embassy there's no charges in the united states i would ask the filmmaker how does he know there's no charges one of his lawyers and i think it's more likely than not there's a grand jury there's witnesses called and they don't reveal sealed indictments until they have the person in custody and until they do that how can give me say there are no charges so you have these three people you have snowden sitting somewhere now maybe it's hong kong i don't know where but they're under the gun of this government right now and they're under the government under the gun because their truth tellers in a situation now where we're seeing incredible repression of truth tellers

whistleblowers and publishers and journalists and they're being hit with a sledgehammer by the government and now is the time really for us and all of us to stand up for truth telling in this country thank you so much for doing just that michael ratner president of the center for constitutional rights attorney and for joining us on hand we can mix appreciate your time thank you abbi. i think i was going to take a quick break but when we get back we'll look into the n.s.a. leaker edward snowden. technology innovation all the developments from around russia. and the future covered.

i would rather ask questions to people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on r.t. question more.

the media world was forced to cover the biggest intelligence leak in the history of the national security agency the disclosure published by guardian journalist glenn greenwald uncovered two giant data collecting operations focusing on the phone calls and internet use of every single american citizen and also exposed prism a government program that has direct access to the servers of corporate firms such as google facebook and apple and uses this access to keep the servers under constant surveillance while after the controversial contents of the leak were being

deliberated the shocking news of the leakers identity was just revealed twenty nine year old n.s.a. contractor edward snowden and a bold unprecedented move snowden came forward to identify himself and explain his motives in an exclusive interview with greenwald he said he was not able to live with the fact that he was helping create a future where there would be no privacy no internet freedom or basic liberties for people around the world he also described the chilling implications of this widespread surveillance. doing anything wrong you're being watched and recorded and the storage capability of these systems increases every year consistently by orders of magnitude. to where it's getting to the point you don't have to have done anything wrong you simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody even by a wrong call and then they can use the system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you've ever made every friend you've ever discussed something with

and attack you on that basis to sort of derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrong door indeed but unfortunately because of this recent disclosure snowden tension he faces serious charges which he accepts as part of the choices he made while many are prick. i mean snowden is a hero others have been quick to prescribe a swift persecution of the young whistleblower big patriot act supporters like senator dianne feinstein went on record calling for his harsh prosecution as well as richard haass president of council on foreign relations who treated snowden made us less safe by revealing one way we track suspected terrorists it's likely some will find other ways to communicate now right that makes perfect sense because i'm sure that terrorists don't already know that tracking communication was a way to get caught meanwhile greenwald has been making the media circuit debating against the argument that snowden's leak caused

a breach of national security what we disclosed was a great public interest of great importance in a democracy but the u.s. government is building this massive spying apparatus aimed at its own population and it harms nobody anyone who wants to say that any of these stories or disclosures have harmed national security i defy anybody to say anything that we publish does that in any way the only people who have been harmed are those in power who want to conceal their actions and their wrongdoing from the people to whom they're supposed to be accountable so who did the leak really hurt to gain some insight on the real implications of this case i spoke earlier with kevin stole a journalist with firedoglake i first asked him why the average american should care about this latest leak take a look. here for the same reasons that edward snowden happened to care about the material because he came forward and shared this information because from the inside he was seeing that the n.s.a.

along with other national security agencies was transferring the world into a massive surveillance state as tom drake an n.s.a. whistleblower described it to me these are stasi like programs on steroids and i think given what he saw he was making a decision about how he wanted to have a future where he could live in a society that has. motiv com of privacy when you were on the internet or when you had connections to electronic devices that give the government an amazing capacity to track you and has been what's revealed taken what was previously authorized by the patriot act to new extremes and if so how. the author one of the authors of the patriot act representative jim sensenbrenner actually wrote an op ed for the guardian and commented after seeing this top secret court order from verisign that this was not the intent of the patriot act when he wrote

it that the order to seize all of these calls from verizon customers was not targeted and specific at all and he wasn't sure what law enforcement purpose what legitimate law enforcement purpose it would serve and sweeping up people hoarding all this data the n.s.a. has is hoarding complex collecting everything just for the purpose of the fact that they are able to collect it without any objection from congress. or the obama administration or the fact that judges in the judicial branch won't oppose it's something that i think people who are involved in supporting the patriot act actually do have some problems with than i as one of the things about the patriot act also is that a lot of congress people say hey you know you hear obama say that these people were all fully briefed but only about eight individuals inside the congress get to know the nature of these programs and i think i heard him talk about how the patriot act

had knocked probable cause down to reasonable basis so it's kind of changed the definition of that and now this new leak is kind of showing that it's morphed into spying on just everyone i mean they don't even have to have a reasonable basis obviously denounced by so really taking into the most extreme up most extreme measure possible kevin the president of the council on foreign relations richard haass has been weighing in quite a lot he recently tweeted why is the media using sympathetic word whistleblower for edward snowden who leaked secret n.s.a. program he broke the law and made us less safe so kevin as we know obama is making sure that the entire program is kept secret as you mentioned very few people are in the loop courts have never been able to decide whether or not this is legal how we also know if it is indeed. the court that does decide if it's legal the pfizer court actually makes their rulings in secret and the public never gets to get much of a glimpse at all into how they're making these decisions and so yes haas can say that

he doesn't think he's a whistleblower he doesn't like the people that are being sympathetic or how the media is characterizing him although i will mention that the associated press has made a determination that the wrongdoing that edward exposed is hotly contested so they're not going to be using the word whistleblower to describe him same as for bradley manning so i think that whistleblowers do break the law and we have to recognize that there is no way for people in national security agencies to make some of these disclosures that edward made with out by a leading the law but what he did by coming forward and doing this interview with him greenwald of the guardian who had been doing this story is he had made it and took responsibility for making the decision to disclose this material and what he said in his interview is that when you're going outside the democratic model and you're making this decision to unilaterally release government information that you

have access well you have to explain yourself you have to tell the public why you were doing this and they have a right to know why you made this decision unlike government officials who go to newspapers like the new york times or the washington post and release secret information all the time to advance their agenda but don't they are not transparent about the reasons for why they're sharing this information with the public eye like panetta i mean leaking information out one of the seals involved the raid that's fine double standard there. so far we've heard nothing but vehement denials from all the corporations that are supposedly allegedly involved in prism in this whole program i mean if the cat's out of the bag why are they denying that this is going on kevin. all of them have signed nondisclosure agreements or some kind of secret agreement behind closed doors that they aren't supposed to share how they're involved there are individuals inside of these companies that don't know only

a handful of people and some of these companies like google facebook others you know they are not involved i mean sorry they are involved but you know they know that they're not supposed to share this publicly and so what you get is these official statements by these heads these spokespeople who are just denying that they in fact were ever a part of this and right now you're covering bradley manning's trial at fort meade you're actually in the car because you can't use your laptop on the base people everywhere are coming and comparing snowden to bradley manning however snowden says that he's different because unlike manning he spent months meticulously filing through every document using his expertise not make judgments about what he thought to be made public to not harm anyone do you agree with this assessment. he also said in the interview that manning is a classic whistleblower and was disclosing information that was in the public interest or for the public good and i think it's telling that

a lot of the media has been selective in their coverage of those statements giving a lot of weight to the statement about selecting documents and less weight to the statement about manning being a classic whistleblower and i would just say that both of these men are young individuals bradleys twenty five years old snowden's twenty nine years old it's clear that you know being part of this younger generation as i am they were looking at the future that they wanted to live in this country and they had incredible access to information and when they were able to see the abuses the wrongdoing the misconduct that a lot of individuals inside of government take for granted and it has become normal to them i mean keep in mind manning he knew the other soldiers got used. to incidents like collateral murder happening in iraq all the time and same with snowden i mean you can hear him describe how the way that the n.s.a. conducts the surveillance and how they talk about conducting this surveillance is

that they don't have any respect for the civil liberties that a lot of people wish to enjoy in this country so i think overall there is far more similarity between the two and their decision to ultimately disclose information than there are differences and give and i want to play you something that really stuck out to me and snowden's interview with greenwald in which he talked about his biggest fear. the greatest fear that i have regarding the outcome. for america of these disclosures is that nothing will change. people will see in the media. all these disclosures they'll know of way. government is going to grant themselves powers unilaterally. to create greater control over american society and global society but they they won't be willing to take the risks necessary to stand up and fight to change things you

know when you hear someone who is risking his whole life everything that he's done to put this information out there kevin do you think that this is exactly what was needed to finally get people to wake up and start caring about their freedoms and privacy. it takes the act that snowden engaged in to get somewhere close to reconciling with how this government is transforming the world into this you know massive surveillance state as i described earlier in the segment the congress is a part of this the obama administration wants this the judges aren't going to challenge this the employees inside who can see what is going on on a regular basis are the ones that it falls upon to tell the public what they are seeing within the walls and within the halls of power the people in the press they're not pursuing this as aggressively as they should even though i think they

know intuitively that there is this incredible concentration of power in the executive branch with them claiming the authority to you know not only transform the world into a coup into this massive surveillance state but you know to declare the world a battlefield for fighting a war on terrorism and it's not surprising that a symptom of it is that they feel they can collect information and track every single individual especially foreigners and treat them like subhuman beings so i think that it does take edward snowden showing us exactly what people are capable of if they just stand up for principles and truth and as going on created courage is courageous let's hope indeed this is the catalyst for something much better than you so much kevin us thought firedoglake prepared time. that's it for tonight's show you guys be sure to join us again same time tomorrow.

nobody chooses to be homeless no one chooses to me and i'll solve. isidro's for the show to. get in the six pm get out six b. six a if. they were. trained in school. and i'm not too bad name either class people and. there's no word against the word. it's tough to think about all of them comes in. and to know that many may not have only been the last. should never in me but there are also due to foreclosures that never should have.

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but at least. breaking news here on r.g.p. hundreds of. squared to be big demonstrators guess and want to canada with a crew from are. among those caught up in the action. on the streets and online as supporters of edward snowden the man who blew the whistle on america's mass internet surveillance operation called for him to be pardoned as he disappears from his hotel in hong kong which was hoping to avoid prosecution. and more peacekeeping forces i headed to mali in a bid to bring stability to the volatile region and mounting criticism over the french military operation that many say only made things.