violence from the police for more on the legal rights behind the occupy wall street movement i'm joined by michael ratner professor president emeritus of the center for constitutional rights and co-author of the new book hell no your right to dissent and twenty first century america michael welcome back. nice to be with your tom it's always great to have you michael really appreciate your your insights and knowledge on this the first amendment specifically protects our right to peaceably assemble and protest for we you know. what is a petition for redress of grievances in the government and that was where i was going is against the government the ninety nine percent of women some see it as directed against the banks others again against the government whatever i mean where is there a is there a line here where you have the right to protest against government action but not against bank action for example you know if you can you can protest against any of those actions you're right and the first amendment is really unfettered you have an absolute right really to both write what you want to assemble as you want and then to petition the government or just in general t

here how does how to how does the american legal community respond to this what's the center for constitutional rights to for example well we need to we need to look at our options and see what kind of challenges are opened. in and we try to stop killing beforehand saying that the u.s. government couldn't kill him unless they showed he was an imminent threat and the judge there decided that his father didn't have standing to bring the case and that it really was up to the chin up to the executive and not the judiciary to decide whether it could unilaterally kill someone in hiding abroad who is determined to be an operational member. but they're you know we have to look at our options and see what kind of challenges are available ok maria thank you very much for being with us today there are still a lot of questions unanswered here which are unfortunately seems to be a common theme in this decade long so-called war on terror. the people have spoken after the great find out just what americans the g.o.p. are really looking out for in our weekly rubble. and. what drives the world the fear mongering used

agreed to training their officers and will be involved in that training as well as the center for constitutional rights was which was involved with our lawsuit along with the a.c.l.u. will be involved there's an a.c.l.u. chapter there the reporters committee for. the reporters committee for freedom of the press it is absolutely critical as we move into these next conventions that will take place in tampa and in charlotte. and in covering these protests that are happening that's why we held the press conference announcing our landmark settlement right in the midst of occupy wall street downtown from where i am right now it is a message to police departments around the country that they will have to pay if they abuse journalists if they are engaged in unlawful arrests at all and in a marvelous and important message to be conveying amy we in we have. about two minutes in the break here you started to mock or see now in a war and peace report back in ninety six you've been doing this kind of reporting before that you were director of before that. not motived you motivated you into that work who is amy good

administration is hiding behind state secrets much like the bush administration did when the center for constitutional rights of the a.c.l.u. represented his father in a u.s. court the prime motivation for them representing him was to say to the government if you're going to assert the right to kill one of your own citizens we demand to see the evidence against him and that case was dismissed on state secret grounds and so the obama administration saying we have this evidence we just can't show it to you because it's too sensitive and you think there's any chance that they might release that information now or that you know if there were another way to take place they would be able to claim state secrets anymore because let's face it they already went and killed it. i you know i wouldn't expect to see any sort of mother load of proof against anwar a lockie i mean the fact is that president obama is not going to be under any pressure from anyone that matters to his administration to produce such evidence he has normalized policies that would have been the source of scorn and denunciation from liberals the thi

in your chapter in the book you refer to the fact that the aclu and the center for constitutional rights have brought a lawsuit challenging the president's alleged power to engage in targeted killings. you have some perspective. one final point. john is taking the position that too many courts have taken in assuming your fourth amendment rights to privacy are not violated unless or until the unconstitutional privacy invading information communications that have been seized from you is used or misused against you, leaked into the public domain, used in a prosecution. some of us believe you have a right of privacy, to be free of government interception and the aclu has gone to court arguing that there's a concrete harm even if we don't know that the information is being used. the mere fact that you believe your subject to governments' buying has a chilling effect on communications. our clients in those cases include researchers who do work on terrorism or in countries where terrorism is rampant. include journalists who have written about the war on terrorism and lawyers who are defending p

know, john in your chapter in the book, you did refer to the fact that the aclu and the center for constitutional right have brought a lawsuit challenging the president's alleged power to engage in targeted killings. i think you had some sympathy, at least from some perspective, and then just one final point. john is taking the position that unfortunately too many courts have taken, in assuming that your fourth amendment right to privacy are not violated unless or until the illegally unconstitutionally privacy invading information and communications that has been seized from you is used or misused against you. leaked into the public domain, used in a prosecution. some of us believe that you have a right to privacy to be free from government interception, and the aclu has gone to court arguing that we have standing, that there is a concrete harm even if we don't know that the information is being used, that the mere fact that you reasonably believe you're subject to government spying, has a demonstrable chilling effect on communications, and our clients in those cases, included academic researchers who

. >> do you know that the center for constitutional rights and the aclu tried to get permission to represent awlaki? and his father had asked them to do that. but they needed to get permission from the treasury department so that they could challenge his being on this targeted killing list. and the administration, the obama administration refused to let them represent him, to not even -- he couldn't even have the aclu representing him. >> well, i would send those questions, or take those questions to treasury or justice. i don't have anything on that for you. >> what do you think constitutional law professor barack obama would make of this? >> i think he spoke about it today. >> sorry, just one more time on this. can you just explain more broadly under what legal authority the u.s. government can kill an american citizen abroad? >> i think i've had that question. it's not a question, taken out of context, that i would have an answer to. generally speaking -- and i'm certainly not going to answer a question like that in any way that relates to the events of today. i'm not going to talk about

right of center state historically. >> that's true, i fought it as you probably know as well for a constitutional provision, defining marriagetionship between a man and a woman. we almost got that, only one vote shy in the legislature of being able to take that to the next step, but ultimately would have required a vote of the people. but, yeah, i am pro-life and would prefer to have the courts decide that individuals, rather that states have the ability to make their own decisions with regards to abortion. >> mike: because the pro-life issue is one that was, i think, a much bigger four years ago because we didn't have all the economic crisis, there are still concerns that some of the social conservatives have. would you be a pro-life prison? what would that mean for you? how would you give some assurance that that's not an issue they have to worry about if mitt romney is the president? >> well, i'd make sure that the progress that's been made to provide for life, and to protect human life is not progress that would be reversed and make sure that the justices that go to the supreme court are justices that have a conviction t