and would need tracheotomy and as you know in the u.s. health care system nothing comes cheap trick out of his own days cost about one hundred sixty thousand dollars a pop this alleged conspiracy between doctors and management is not the first of its kind at this hospital and administrator and five doctors have already been charged for medicare fraud for giving and receiving kickbacks not only is having a hole punched in your neck for money disgusting but it may also be lethal because patients at that hospital in chicago are three times more likely to die than patients at other hospitals from tracheotomies throughout the state now how did the f.b.i. find out about this with three employees ratted out the hospital and worked with the f.b.i. to make a lot of incriminating voice recordings these people risk their jobs and possibly much more to do what was right and i salute them reading out evil is no wrong deed but that's just my opinion.

as a. pillow and welcome to cross talk or all things are considered i'm peter lavelle whistleblowers in prince but we are told every society needs them to expose the excesses of those in power the reality is very different though if you're someone like bradley manning or edward snowden you literally take your life in your own hands the message is clear obey and be silent or face di. consequences.

to cross-talk whistleblowers i'm joined by elizabeth going team in washington she is the co-director of the liberty international security program at the brennan center for justice also in washington we have michael cohen he is president of the national whistleblower center and in london we cross to charlie wolf he is a writer broadcaster and political commentator cross-talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want to listen if i go to you first in washington d.c. or whistleblowers an endangered species right now no not at all ok i think there will always be in every society people who are going to come forward if they have something to to report you know but the costs are pretty. high and getting higher to the costs are getting very high if you look at someone like bradley manning i don't think it's it's not easy to imagine a situation in which someone has been more harshly treated by the criminal justice

system and yet that did not prevent edward snowden from coming forward and even from identifying himself so i think right there that's proof that even aggressive crackdowns on leaks are not going to prevent them from happening well listen if i can stay with you do you think that mr snowden learned from bradley manning i mean he's changed the tactics a bit. i'm not sure if i don't i'm not able to speak to that i don't know if i'm from bradley manning or not what i would say is that i think of anything. crackdown on leaks it may be skewing the leaks that we're seeing toward the more extreme and large scale because if you're going to give up everything if you're going to give up your freedom give up your life as you know it you might as well go for broke ok michael what do you think about that going for broke it looks like both these men have done that but what you have is in december. all the laws of protected national security whistleblowers to go forward were wiped off the books so there's really no avenue and yes when someone is raising such serious

concerns at the head of the national security agency is lying to congress where else are you supposed to go then to the american people who need to have that to bait to see if their government is in fact on a student living up to the dreams that our founding fathers wanted it to so whistle blowing requires a balance and when you have someone who is morally. in the hot seat and doesn't believe they can believe go forward with what their government is doing they will become whistle blowers and as long as they have an understanding of what a free society is and they want to add to a free society and that's been the history throughout our nation and nothing is going to stop that what what is happening is the laws are becoming more restrictive and and the definition of national security is broader and broader to the point where you can you can't talk about anything without being threatened with going to

jail and that's not the whole mark of a free society turnley it seems like the system is broken here from what we just heard because who do you go to. go ahead go ahead and let me preface first let me preface first place saying. as much as we may end up debating and shouting at each other before the end of the broadcast in essence i think we're probably as americans all in general. yes there is a need for whistleblowers we may define whistleblowers differently or whether someone like edward snowden makes that determination or not but yes you know i think we all support whistleblowing we all support being free citizens in a free country and guarding our constitution and guarding important article zur or amendments like the fourth amendment on search and seizure but i think there are huge of difference the nuances of difference i don't think whistleblowing used for instance there's a story here in london that you may or may not be familiar with a whistleblower disk come out this week his name is peter francis this man was working as an undercover cop in a very famous murder trial against a young man was

a racial killing stephen lawrence and this man francis was employed by the met to go undercover to work with. sort of the anti capitalist groups and what have you and to then spy on the lawrence family to gather dirt to smear them well this man is not sitting in a prison he's a hero and as a country and it's not a national security is it i mean that's a different kind of whistleblower isn't it it's well it's an important it's an important it's still holding government to account it's holding a very important one of the government the police force to account now i think in the case of mr snowden at present i don't see any malfeasance i see someone with a policy disagreement which is fair enough we all have the right to speak on those i haven't as of yet seen where there has been an abuse of power and i haven't seen the need for why he has stolen documents which at the end of the day is what he has done he's not exposed to anything he's been under under an oath is as a contractor the u.s.

title law and he's broken that oath and of scotland it off to china and to russia so you know again if he's worth his salt as a whistleblower this is a man that should be standing up on the steps of the capitol building ok listen if you think he could have done that here you can say ok listen please go. i'm not sure i understand what you mean. when you say he hasn't exposed anything i mean we can argue about whether he exposed in the right way we should we can argue about how to handle information that is contained in classified documents that might reveal some government wrongdoing i didn't take notice and he said he didn't expect oh i you don't have to tell us what it is he's going to have let's let it go higher authorities well don't have to do is have a reasonable belief that with the information you're just closing where deal some kind of government wrongdoing i'm an attorney who has spent a lot of time thinking about and looking about section two fifteen of the patriot act he absolutely had a person absolutely could have

a reasonable belief that the mass collection of all of americans telephone records goes against the plain language of section two fifteen of the patriot act there's simply no dispute that that it is reasonable to question the legality however you come down ok michael you want to jump in there go ahead and there's going to my two of us go to my call everybody most important for our time to go ahead michael hold up most importantly he raised you raise a concern that the head of the national security agency mr clapper general clapper made false statements to congress and the only way the american people have the right and the ability to judge if that is true is the release of those documents he engaged in from what i can see as an american citizen quintessential first amendment freedoms that i need to know to make sure my government is not abusing its power if someone can lie to congress but he has to get away with it without having. the constitution is above that oath and the problem is there

has to be about the constitution and all of that was our first growing look at the law. which always have been stripped away there is no balance if when government gets so corrupt that it's spying on its own people we need the american citizens with the nuff integrity to come. forward expose it and as long as we have we will be a free society the day they hide behind the trappings of law to keep the truth when the american people. should lose is a big bundle of freedom charlie go ahead jump in but look part of charlie look at the case very carefully i have not seen you may not like the program and its a fair policy debate but this is something that came under the bush administration a republican administration was then carried on after a normal hot election by a democrat a ministration it's had oversight of the congress it's had oversight by the judiciary so the constitution is what's supposed to protect us in the law. we. are

going to lose the people we have in power not all of it i haven't seen yet any abuse no you know you may argue as to what is protected. information what is not my understanding telephone records still phone numbers is not protected under the fourth amendment so until i see something that sort of has a mass appeal going to get a recession then yeah go ahead go ahead jump in let's make this let's make this concrete let's make this concrete section two hundred fifteen of the patriot act allows the government to get a court order to require a telephone company or any other company to produce any tangible thing as long as that thing is relevant as long as the government has reasonable grounds to believe that that thing is relevant to an authorized foreign intelligence or international terrorism investigation i have not heard a single plausible argument for how every americans telephone records every single

one of them is relevant to an authorized foreign intelligence investigation i know this was signed off on by a secret court which heard only one side of the story only one set of facts and is not subject to appeal i know this was signed off on by the intelligence committees who have a history of signing often with the executive branch. secrecy that does not if those facts do not make it legal ok charlie you want to react to that. well you know again we also have to realize that i still fall by the constitution and the law of the land and i have been disturbed by this but also you have to understand the thing peter you're going to secrecy secrecy secrecy well yes there has to be some secrecy there has to be a real there has to be counted i believe we're going to have to be a curious situation about accountability oh well again you're accountability is the oversight from the judiciary so i think the conditions of the net what what disturbs me what disturbs me is why mr snowden would find it necessary to go off to

places like china or to russia which is well that's something that's. quite a trip down the freedom trail is really it's to changing the subject that's all you know there are nearly there oh it's a little return on what we're going to hand i think we're going to want to go a little bit would jump in elizabeth going i am not saying that everything that edward snowden did is just fine i am not saying any of that what i am saying is that this country badly over classified information keeps things my chief secret and there is no legal method right now for somebody who comes across government misconduct in a classified document to bring that to the public's attention and that is a major problem for transparency and accountability and the rule of law in this country or i'm going to jump in here we're going to get i was short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on whistleblowers stay with our.

well into the coos month high tech means could help whether it be the latest laser cutters on lifesaving heart valves russian innovators are working hard to keep you healthy person companies it's been a winding road from car simulators to cutting edge training systems for others it's been a lifetime of work along the mysteries of the skull cool check it all out on technology update we've got the future cover. they were ready to do anything for their country to me to try out it is to love the country more than yourself if you join

the military for any other reason that you're probably not to have a good day they were tools in the hands of the state now they live remembering the past which is impossible to get rid of. the war. but our ever good people get hurt. and i've heard good people empty silent. a lot. but would prefer not to be sometimes i feel like. i should have died over there. because. i saw some people who died and. there is cheaper than therapy. is eve.

to. welcome back to cross talk where all things are considered i'm peter all about to mind you were discussing whistleblowers. ok at the end of the first part of our it was quite heated there michael you want to jump in and say something so please do. what you have is

a system in which every law that protects the disclosure by national security employees has been stripped from the books there's just no would legitimate way for them to be able to do it without giving up their jobs and being harassed and and ultimately maybe thrown in jail on the other hand if you are leaking the same type of classified information but you're doing it for the administration to bad mouth people as was done with during the bush administration and to justify the invasion of iraq then that's fine and there's no meaningful investigation me and you don't go to jail it's a till congress put on the books meaning for avenues for these type of important national discussions to take place. you're only going to shoot the messenger and that's that's what our government is telling us let's just shoot the messenger because we're happy with doing that because that's the best way we have to keep the national secrets secret even when the american people has the right to know of them and that's we need to change the playing field the national

whistleblower center has been trying to get meaningful legislation passed for decades it's time congress stepped up and said yes here is the right way to release this type of information that won't damage national security but will let the american people know what they know the real truth ok charlie that seems quite reasonable the problem is it's going to charlie to be fair go ahead charlie says i don't large part i agree with what he's saying and you know one of the problems we have right now is there is a level of hypocrisy when you look at the last four five years of the obama administration where if it's something to do with killing osama bin laden and giving the president a bit of a raw raw that gets leaked to the press very happily but if you're james rosen a fox of the associated press you're being listed as a flight risk and a coconspirator so there is a hypocrisy coming out of the obama administration and on top of that when you have also the scandals with benghazi the i.r.s. on spending the i.r.s. on the five seasons that there's a law. scandal surrounding this white house so you know i don't blame my. panelists

here for some of the things they're saying you know and i don't blame the american people for not trusting their government over things like the n.s.a. i personally from what i've seen don't have a problem with it but i agree there has to be a way where there is a true need for a whistleblower because i don't want some like michael snowden going to china where his computer is probably getting hacked and we're endangering the lives of people we have out in the field were endangering our reputation as a country i think there's a better way to do this elizabeth jump in go here about to tell you let me go to madison karen i will if your speculations go it's go to elizabeth. so you said you haven't seen anything that you think is problematic i'm curious so it is your belief that every single american telephone records are relevant all every one of us our record telephone records are relevant to an authorized foreign intelligence and international terrorism investigation ok because that's not the case and section two fifteen if you're going to answer the question charlie answer the

question well again to me i don't see telephone records as protected as protected information if they're listening to the conversations that's another deal and i understand why the net has to be so what i mean there is a discussion there i grant you that but when you're dealing with terrorism and you catch someone like a messenger two years down the line and you're tracing back numbers you don't know what the relevancy is until after the fact it's like the situation with c.c.t.v. cameras in this country they're everywhere i don't like them and they don't necessarily prevent crimes but if you have something like the july seventh bombers or as we have with even in boston through the use of a private camera from the lord and taylor building that sort of brothers after the fact at least that they were able to go through that so the i can see was i hated by statute as you have a level i feel comfortable with it i'm sorry well i think it's probable so harsh it's all probable cause my leaving the statute if you have a good reason it's not probable cause probable cause is the fourth amendment but

the fourth amendment is not the only law that applies to the government when it comes to telephone records you're right the fourth amendment does not protect telephone records that's why congress stepped in and passed section two fifteen of the patriot act which does protect telephone records you can't get them unless you show that they are relevant now what i hear you saying is you don't that's ok you're comfortable with getting records even if you haven't already shown relevance even if that violates the statute you're comfortable with it if it's necessary if it helps that my understanding is the record sounds like the records are being held they're not being use. until there was a need unfortunately i mean if i knew who the terrorists are some i mean listen here's the conundrum unless i knew who the terrorists are going to be three years down the line well that's assuming everyone else no terrorists then that's assuming everyone has a hair it's going everyone's are terrorists then joe i'm not no no i'm not i don't want to leave my sister they don't have to. move all

encompassing go ahead mike and the war on terror and terrorism that will cause anything your entire life it's just one big terrorist investigation from beginning to end and that. what you need is boots on the ground you need people with real intelligence skills to go in and find out what the real risks are investigate them that's how it's been done throughout history and instead of just snooping up everything and sticking it in some super computer and start writing i'll give them to figure out who's doing what you see on television that's just for the sake of snow well if you're sorry what you're seeing on television it's never going to go to everyone else that's a fallacy charlie go ahead jump in if the government wants what did i do with it you see it was just going to happen at the n.s.a. i don't i don't believe the collection of data is the same as the snooping of data because there was a gated event out there this one sentence there if the government wants to collect

everything now and then look at it later it should say so openly and get congress to change the law to allow that to happen the problem is that the law says that the government has to file in it an application to the court in which it demonstrates that the relevant exists already for each thing that it wants to obtain that's what the law says if it would be better for the government to collect everything and then search later there is a process for that it's called amending the law the government can go to congress and say we need to change the law to allow this but in this country there is something called the rule of law you don't just violate a statute because you think it's ok dia and i were a little bit tara listen let me ask you what you think the government wants to do that does the government want a conversation to debate on this issue. it doesn't seem so when the movie not seven years it's done everything in its power for seven years the government has done everything in its power to prevent

a debate on this and that's the problem if we can if we can talk about these things openly if we can come to a consensus as a society what we want the law to say within the construe the constraints of the constitution i agree right now courts have not held that the fourth amendment protects telephone records they may change their mind there are some indications that that is starting to change but i agree if the law needs to be changed let's have a public debate a democratic debate let's not have a secret program that flouts the plain language of the statute michel jump and go ahead. i agree completely you can't have a situation where you have the government have access to all these files and what is the safeguards to make sure that they're not accessing them improperly testifying to congress and when if you're lying when you're testifying to congress to me that's a threshold question if it was a blowers coming forward to say someone has lied to congress then they need

absolute protections to be able to come forward with the information to to prove that lie that's the right the american people have that's what from i can tell what what mr snowden has done and at that point you have to have a fire wall says if you cross this line america won't throw you in jail because we have a right to know we're a bigger nation than that the government should invite mr snowden back find out what he has to say. thank him and come up with a meaningful way to move forward whatever mistakes he made there were no roads that he could where he could follow he didn't know what he was doing he's the first one to do this type of thing and he should be identified as a picture of it was a blower and allowed to move forward in a way that protects the government's interests and the people's right to know charlie it seems kind of reasonable. well if he'd come back and i think the door is open and it wasn't because

a passport away from married him self. when i mean understanded going. to do anything. he can't even travel now but he have started wait a minute the man of scar did with state secrets after he had taken an oath now there are routes he should have taken now if you want to say that he made a mistake whole k one is a mr snowden through his representative contact either the embassy in russia or contact the state department or what have you and say i'm willing to come back and then yes you know we could have find a senator on a on a subcommittee and say i'm willing to testify before grant me immunity that's possible let us let the senate or the congress grant him immunity if he has something to say and bring him back i would love to hear what he has to say but i'd rather he was saying that he is here as an in washington d.c. as opposed to taking four computers worth of sensitive data the gold one of the greatest hacking nations in the world and have that information sensitive

information exposed to the chinese that to me is just plain dumb ok it was worth your head. got the last word elizabeth i'm trying to i'm trying to figure out where to start by it he knows exactly what would happen if he came back to this country because he has seen it happen repeatedly this administration has prosecuted six people for for disclosing information to the media and none of these cases were that people twining affirmatively to harm the united states and yet they've been prosecuted under the espionage act which is intended for spies and traitors so mr snowden and again i'm not expressing any opinion on what he did what i'm expressing an opinion on what you said which is that somehow it would make sense for him to come back so he can have a nice conversation with people and congress and maybe the great munity. you have to look at the real thing to say yes or no they're not going to say he's going straight to jail the guy has a worldwide reputation i can see he's going to be spirited away

a lot of the prisoner you know you were number six all right number two all right folks i knew this was going to be a good debate made it really was and i thank you very much we've run out of time many thanks so you might get some washington and in london and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember cross talk. you believe we will. interview.

clay is the perfect material it's a lie you make just a small change and you get a totally different result. what a pretty top knot you have. this is a little complicated. it's like geometry we start by marking out the incision lines as a guide. it's very intricate work where my life has changed a hundred percent. from the field operating table here more than just a very small table as long as i had

a flashlight and a working battery and i had a good enough environment to work it. was among them along with some other terrorist leader as. she was if he's reminiscing about the past he's looking at you at the same time he's somewhere else. and when i watch this. it doesn't feel like me it's whole. it's someone totally different someone i don't know. real damage in. complexity of this oil spill was not something you just by looking at dirty birds we have between four to five million people in this directly affected area of the coast and it's pretty clear why it's not being reported because b.p. can't afford to have a reported all along the gulf coast are clean they are safe and they're open for business if b.p.

is the single largest oil contributor to the pentagon the us war machine is heavily reliant on b.p. and their oil this is a huge step backwards for the marker see it's a step forward. corrects it is toxic as it looked like. it was and it was not a picture that either the government or b.p. really wanted to have out there i don't want dispersants to be the agent. of this you know. we speak your language. news programs and documentaries and spanish more matters to you breaking news a little eternity of angles keep these stories. for you here. the spanish find out more visit.

and i say whistleblower edward snowden remains hidden in the moscow airport because her quest for asylum in ecuador is still up in the air while relations between the u.s. and ecuador appear to be souring more on that story just ahead to tell the twelve in the bradley manning trial still facing prosecution under the espionage act bradley manning state remains unclear arcee is out for me for another day of testimony and details are just. be careful where you chuck you're going to do the perp walk in the u.s. there's been several activist arrested for chalking on sidewalks to express their concerns look at that issue later on in the show.