those years ago i'm older but we are not for all. almost three hundred islamic state fighters are believed to have fled the liberated syrian city of raka the pentagon admits that only a few suspected militants were detained as they left. the russian parliament passes a law allowing the kremlin to classify media outlets as foreign agents it calls a similar move made against r.t. in the united states. and the u.k. think tank claims that volunteers attempting to help refugees cross international borders are being treated as criminals by the e.u. . for all the details on those stories and more head to our t.v. dot com cross talk is next finding out why r.t. america has been forced to register as a foreign agent and at the top the hour my colleague kate snow and we'll bring you your a live news update so do stay with us. hello

and welcome to cross talk where all things considered i'm peter lavelle according to the department of justice the channel you're watching now is an agent of before and even hostile power all the while to deal with she refuses to explain why this is the case or even cite what laws we may have broken but something else is in play critics warn r.t. is a test case for a wider campaign of media suppression. cross talking foreign agents i'm joined by my guess we straight ahead in washington he's

an investigative journalist and co-host of faultlines on radio sputnik in salt lake city we have rocky anderson he is a civil rights lawyer former mayor of salt lake city and the two thousand and twelve nominee of the justice party for president and in london we crossed him marcus papadopoulos he's the editor of politics first magazine all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want they always appreciate i always go to the person that got up early for this program that means it's you rocky in salt lake city you know it's a long way away from moscow you know and looking at my introduction you know the department of justice for star tea to be signed as a foreign agent on the far out but they have cited no reason why there is no complaint about our put what we broadcast on this station here no details whatsoever no comparisons what we do or don't do compared to let's say al jazeera or b b c or c t n nothing we're separated completely in

a different county. gauri i can't come to any other conclusion that it is very spiteful cruel petty politics go ahead raakhee in st louis and salt lake city i think there's no question about that we're we're sitting on almost a new mccarthyism in this country and it's completely mindless if people would realize that the first amendment is really there to protect the people of this country and to promote an exchange of ideas and information and allow people the credit for being able to ferret out what they want to hear and what they can believe or not believe this impacts all of us in this country want to our own government is trying to restrict and even censor what we hear from other media and we need to hear from other nations it's

a perspective that americans have got to know and it certainly wasn't for a media that was telling us all the lies to the judith miller of the new york times was telling a very good glueing up to iraq or the washington post about just to lynch to bolster support for the outrageous war these were all myths that were perpetrated by the us media and. we haven't seen anything like that from media well from other nation what it one of the reasons what we do see is a different perspective for it perspective let me go to lean in washington that's exactly correct here because you've seen mainstream media people have stopped watching it that's not buying it stop clicking on it and they're going elsewhere because they have lost the confidence in the mainstream media that the political establishment and lead the people watching this program right now no one's forcing them to watch it it's

a choice i don't understand why the us government should determine what propaganda is and the us government should determine what choices people make go headly. well i think it's because they are scared to death they're absolutely and by they i mean the political establishment not just the democrats not just the republicans the paku political establishment both sides are scared to death that people are listening to alternative media outlets or in the media establishment as well you've got to remember in the united states i think it's six corporations control ninety percent of the media this is this is big business right and when people start listening to new media when people can go to the news not just to our t.v. and not just to up starts like the having a poster breitbart both of which i've written for but more importantly to twitter to you tube and by the way that's why we're seeing the other very scary trend now is that the tech companies are working to actually censor that media as well so

people realize that the establishment media is essentially a loss leader in other words when a guy like jeff bezos head of amazon dot com and owner of the washington bureau ilian dollar and the owner of the washington post that's right his. and a six hundred million dollars do the math right six hundred million dollars deal with the cia buys the washington post for two hundred million dollars looks pretty good deal pretty good deal pretty good deal and easy you know but you know you washington post will never talk about that ok that talk about transparency markets let me go to you because you know r.t. is being put in the spotlight and i would say a target here you yourself personally are a target in the u.k. media in there are quite vicious in their attacks against you tell us more yes from a pay to this matter has become very personal recently i was attacked by two members of the british parliament and the article they were ports was run by the

times newspaper in what in which i was depicted as a russian propagandist and because i'm a russian propagandist i should lose my parliamentary pass now it is very very callous this attack but then you know peter we are living in very sinister times in which freedom of speech and freedom of the press in britain and america is under attack it's under attack by the british and the american governments who are employing one of their most fermentable weapons their media to go after anyone in the public eye who has a high profile and who happens to disagree with what the american the british governments are doing on the international stage let me say this very clearly peter the british and the american start michelin's howitzers they hate us because of our tenacity and they hate us because of how persuasive we are and ultimately they hate us because we are exposing the reckless criminal and murderous foreign policies of

washington and london made here in britain and america is in secure it is afraid and it's doing everything to try and destroy our names they want to silence us they want to put it all back in our boxes and but the other point is this. we must be on to an illusion about who we're up against we were up against some of the most powerful yet forces in the well it's this is a contest this is a versus goliath contest bots we all know what happens when the if it's met goliath and we all know marcus we all know on this program that we're on the right side of history and they know they're on the run the site leaves you want to jump in there and watch it and go ahead go ahead yeah you have peter yet let me let me mention something let me mention what ron by the way i agree with ryan republican and i agree and by the way i'm the only trump supporter on this point nick so so much for the russian media being pro trump right. i'm in it now i'm going to i'm going to mention something that the rocky was time i want to use

a more contemporary example that's going on right now in iraq still going on obviously but syria right back in two thousand and thirteen when i was a writer for breitbart i looked into what was happening in syria and i was worried it seemed like u.s. taxpayer dollars were going to fund the quote unquote rebels who i saw were killing christians among other people and i said to myself look most americans wouldn't agree with that so i had to quit breitbart to go over i did us a crowd funded trip to lebanon to interview syrian refugees and it was obvious to me at that time what the u.s. was doing and it was obvious to me that these so-called syrian rebels were actually dangerous and i came back i was talking about the caliphate isis nobody was talking about that clearly the weapons for them came from the u.s.

now when i said that as a as a conservative who was reporting that why would i say exactly the same thing now on our t.v. or on sputnik. what's the problem there and the answer is let's explain what's going on with the sparrow thing it's very clear what they're trying to do here they want to be able to say in articles stranahan who by the way they've not sent the note to sputnik yeah yeah we're getting what they want to they they want to be able to say you know whoever larry king jesse ventura peter whatever right they want to be able to say who is required to file as a foreign agent comma said blah blah blah oh ok they want to be able to use that little for a exactly what i'm saying let me go let me get let me go to rocky that's exactly it it's the name and shame approach where they're they want the they can't fight our arguments they can't fight our arguments because they know they don't have anything in their arsenal and i would say that they've gotten so used to lying to the public

and getting away with it and then we just we hold fire to their feet and that's what they don't like and that's why they a target each and every one of us destroy our names ok because they can't destroy the truth go ahead raakhee that's exactly right they are creating the conditions to making simply the ad hominum arguments so that they can paste these labels to people and instead of addressing the merits peter if we're ever going to see any of the conditions necessary for peace between people greater understanding we've got to have more accessible media we've got to have because that's the only way that we can learn about those things and about people and events that we don't personally observe we've got to get up through the media and to the strain go. important sources of information and different viewpoints and it's going to get ratcheted up now the russian government is saying ok you're going to do that r.t.d.

we're going to do it to radio free europe and current times of the vision well we want the you know what and you know rocky what's going to happen and let me go doing this for years of course and they go to markets you know but of course when there is when the russian side retaliates it's going to be called russian aggression what do you bet marcus in london. well that's going to be one of the negative another one of the next i grievances. is a foreign agents because the russian government will have no choice but to take retaliatory measures russia at the end of the day you know how they're going to see how self-respect and stand up for itself but you know peter there's another dimension to be said. for attacks on r.t. . they have reputations could be absolutely destroyed and paypal who work for britain and america could find that their name just so badly affected that they deprived of a livelihood our money. we have to go to

a hard break gentlemen after that hard break we'll continue our discussion on foreign agent stay with. every single minute there's a new drug for some families like shaky legs. and they get a grant from some corrupt congressmen in america billions of dollars and the side effect results may. mean. what you know that the american flag isn't just because you look at that you say oh it's a form of accuracy. it's the cradle of jazz. we. know this jazz feel. the city of climatic.

alligators on the loose the crime by the. close. of street racing. the night this is. the best place in the world. welcome across like we're all things considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing foreign agents. ok gentlemen the department of justice has been given each us a vacation for its actions and forcing our t. to sign on as a foreign agent but i will read something here real quick here from the director of national intelligence that report came out in january sixth ok assessing russian

activities and intentions in recent us elections this is what i had to say about r t r t r t s reports often characterize the us as a surveillance state and allege widespread infringement of civil liberties police brutality and drone use i guess check check check all or two ok continuing here r t also focuses on criticism of the u.s. economic system u.s. currency policy alleged alleged they even used the word alleged wall street greed and the u.s. national that and some of our t's host have compared the u.s. to imperial rome i guess that's me and have predicted that government corruption in corporate greed will lead the u.s. to financial collapse. what do you disagree with that because i think it's pretty good. assessment it doesn't even mention what markets and i count a lot about foreign policy but you know i don't it's a pretty good checklist somebody watch some of the broadcast go ahead raakhee that's

a lot like what i've been saying and writing for years actually so i don't know what one of theirs or anybody could find fault with there but i will say let them point to anything that could compare with the propaganda generated by the united states government and. passed to the american people by our mainstream media the washington post's bismo story the propaganda passed on about just collapse of the soldier in iraq weapons of mass destruction and stabbed in the attack by iraqi soldiers all of it absolutely false of course you do with miller and weapons of mass destruction but now you're very few people know the story of ny your. largest public relations firm millions of dollars why don't you i had to wait can't can't sit down it was the incubator scandal ok ok if she was the daughter of the ambassador yeah i scan exactly just as any. and this

woman this young girl was the daughter of the kuwait ambassador to the united nations and all of the news media fell for amnesty international fell for president bush was going around the country touting this just incredible story where is the accountability of the us when he really there's nothing comparable very interesting here to all of you i don't see human rights groups coming to the aid of our teeth that they won't because it's political and they know it and they're intimidated here you know we've let me go to you because you know over there it's sputnik. all media outlets make mistakes we all make mistakes and we own up to them when we make them ok but what they're attacking us for is our narratives that is something different and this is they cannot tolerate a different narrative that. supports their fundamental material interests intellectual interests is that they're not very intelligent

anymore but anyway they're there and their and their friends ok and their friends around the world but when they can't they don't attack our are they can attack our narratives because that would and legitimize us by having a conversation so you dismiss all of it go ahead. well let me say you know filmmaker michael moore for instance is a guy who i'm a republican i don't agree with michael moore in a lot of issues but you talk about alleged wall street greed he's talked about there right but i i've actually worked with another filmmaker who made a whole movie going after allegedly wall street allegedly there was a very greed and a you may have heard him he's a young filmmaker named steven k. bannon now steve and i together on a film called occupy on mass and steve bannon made a film called generation zero nine people can look it up steve's of steve's a former wall street guy who's very critical of former goldman sachs guy but in the in the eighty's who's very critical of wall street and steve has come out expressly

know what i'm saying is where you get michael moore and steve bannon agreeing right on an issue i think it's something that actually you get about eighty percent of americans to agree and this is exactly why the way they look what they want to do is they want to discredit right artie's sputnik anybody who is not officially going along with that narrative so that it says to americans hey don't even listen and by and by the way we don't just see this with host we're talking about this on the fault lines this morning my radio show we have people who've told us we love the show we love to listen to it we do a morning radio show so it's fun we talk about politics we crack jokes got my co-host carla nixon he's a progressive democrat i'm a i'm a republican but we agree on a lot of stuff actually we've had people tell us peter they would love to call in

to the show just to you know be part of the show and they were afraid to they were afraid to carlin because we were broadcast in washington and they work for the government i just want you to think about that that is a chilling effect where people are not. does the gas stephen just to call it in showing hey i don't agree with it or it's very much eerie frightening it's very much like when chris cuomo on c.n.n. said don't read those e-mails all we can read it for you you will tell you what it means what a kook ok no wonder journalism is you know basically no better than prostitution right now in the united states and the well is it and i jump in markets jump in i know you always want to jump in go ahead mo brant. two point i want to make when you read that statement by the department of justice two words entered my mind how ironic or because what they described is exactly how american mainstream media conservative and liberal alike portray russia now the second point i want to make

is this and i try to make it just before we went for a break the horrendous attacks on british and american citizens who work for r.t. not only could not only could end their reputation and deprive them of a livelihood but something even worse given the horrendous levels of anti russian hysteria in britain and america there is a lot of hatred even amongst ordinary americans and british people towards russia so imagine an american nationalist or an english nationalist or someone in america or britain who is mentally unsound watching a report about how american and british citizens are traitors by working for r.t. their propagandists it is possible and i emphasize the word possible that these people could take it into their own hands to physically harm gets to go on to r.t. in britain and america or british citizens and american citizens who work for r.t.

now that is something that these repugnant politicians and mainstream media journalists in london and washington are not thinking about and i would also add this is well well as a look at the attacks look at the attacks people who appear on r.t. . opinion referred to us on educated as imbeciles and also one commentator in britain has referred to them as elementally on well no but marcus one of the interesting things is hang on here lee hang on one of the interesting things because you actually write yeah yeah most of the people that are criticizing our tea in criticizing people that come on our t. don't know anything about russia whatsoever ok that is the real poverty of the situation you know people that actually come here and meet people spend a little bit of time here they see something very very different then the black and white gray imagery that i was going to rapidly running out of time gentlemen let me go to rocky here because i think there's a really important point we all have to talk about here is that the major tech

companies are getting on their needs to please congress and these people in this which on care they are signing their own death warrant is what they're doing they are foolish they'll watch someone they'll sacrifice us but when they come for them who's going to be there they're making a very big big google twitter you tube all of that go ahead rocky and we're running out of time to go quickly that's and that's such an important point because this is all part and parcel of the scripting authoritarianism in this country we're seeing a president who is so demeaning of our own media if it doesn't go along with his point of view and now to say that we're going to choke off different information and points of view from media outside of this country this this is a horrible betrayal of the american people and our right to decide what it is we're

going to watch and listen to and read in the points of view that we want to consider and make up our own minds about these things i've never seen well the kind of foreign influence media that we saw leading up to the iraq war or the support for the. first goal for through the new year a. no no no. no no he's be one direction only the west can influence everyone else not the other way around here you know lee it seems to me listen what rocky just said right there is that liberals in america are creating the soviet union of america and when you have this when you have this hermetically cloak closed media box where you no one can penetrate it they only can hear messages they can hear anybody from the outside that is very authoritarian and very dangerous considering the level of trust the people have in the mainstream media in the united states and in the u.k. go headlee well that's why i think what we're doing on my radio show is so radical

it's not about me look we've got a trunk supporter and a burman supporter on the same show you'd think if the commercial media wanted to appeal to a big audience they want to look at the election and look at the size of burnished crowds look at the size of trump's crowds it's a no brainer right why are we the only show that does that. because neither one of us fit into the establishment narrative and i got to say let me just disagree with rocky slightly talks about to iraq slightly disagree with them where the danger comes and look the see i have been reading the history of the cia in light of the new j.f.k. stuff to come out the cia's first operation one nine hundred forty eight was interfering in the italian election right was literally the first thing that they did they spent one hundred million dollars that's history that's not propaganda that's it's on the cia website that's what they admit that they did so this history goes back actually to the foundation and formation of the cia so on i wish want to

take up on one thing that mark is said to people getting called things i've been called multiple times on twitter a traitor and i've had people say stuff like traitors get shot right. and nothing happens to the people nothing happened no no no because it's because it's acceptable when some people can use hate speech it's acceptable when they use it but not others that's another double standard right gentlemen we have rapidly run out of time fascinating discussion many thanks to my guests in washington salt lake city and in london and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember.

this is not a. he . says. years ago i traveled across the united states exploring america's deadly love affair with the gun bad guy tried to get to one of my family members he would have

. my book was published in the year two thousand more than hoffa million americans have been killed since in the us i thought. this is a middle school we go through drills and we put ourselves in real scenarios it was interesting to see who hit. on. the subject to track down each gun owner who i'd met in golf those years ago i don't know this but we are not. part of. the.

plan of welcome to worlds apart from once deemed a noble way of stripping the corrupt of the protective secrecy licky has by now wolf into a full blown weapon of mass destruction practiced as early as it is. denounced at a time when digging and releasing sense a different from ation is depressed current political tactic is there's still room for chani and whistle blowing to discuss that i'm now joined by rudolf elmer a former swiss banker turned tax haven whistleblower mr elmer it's good to talk to you thank you very much for your time you're welcome now back in the early two thousand when you tried to share with the public some of the compromising material on the practices of your former employer that it was a fairly rare thing to do but now these everybody's laking usually for self-serving

purposes but. also saying that it is for the good of the public why do you think this phenomenon of flicking has caught on to such an extent. i do think. there is a public interest in it in general. also interest from a money point of view. in respect. let's say increase. the newspapers but there is also a interest in respect of power i mean. the powerful organizations and people like to. society with information. it test changed in that respect. and industry or use information.