i'm john king this washington with breaking news being seen and watched around the world. nsa leaker edward snowden's sudden departure out of hong kong is our lead. he's currently in moscow. wikileaks is apparently helping him. he's facing espionage charges for leaking information about the government's surveillance program. cnn has resources around the globe tracking the story . we're tracking down information this hour. let's go first to phil black from the airport in moscow. phil, we know ed snowden is

there and we know the ecuadorian government has said he has applied for asylum. what else do you know? >> reporter: that's the latest news, that the ecuadorian government says he has officially applied for asylum. we've seen a lot of activity on the part of diplomats from the ecuadorian embassy here in moscow. we can see and have seen the ecuadorian ambassador's car parked here outside the airport terminal where snowden flew in earlier today and we believe he's in an area only accessible to passengers in transit. and the two of them are meeting there as we speak. john. >> and phil, obviously -- the russian government has not respond in any way to his

arrival here. they have said all along that they would consider that asylum claim on its merits. but since we know that he was inbounds here and arrived here just a few hours ago, there has been no official response of the russian government. so we don't know what its thinking is, whether it has any intention intention whatsoever of attempting to enter support him, whether the he can with ecuadorian intervention provides him with any cover. because no word from the russian government whatsoever. >> and you're aware of the sometimes heavy hand of the putin administration when it comes to issues like this. they know mr. snowden is a top prior difference tity of the wh has information that russians would like to have in their possession. is it plausible based on your experience that mr. snow deny i go snowden would pass through and the rush shap government would take zero interest?

>> reporter: i think you're right russia would be very interested in speaking to him. but the question the russian government is facing is are they prepared to deal with the fallout that would hit them if they tried to take advantage of snowden's presence in this country in an overt way. if they try to debrief him, if they try to look at the material he's carrying with him, that would upset the united states. and that is also something russia is prepared to do, but whether in this case and deal without and diplomatic relationship, i think that is the question. to what september they would be prepared to offer him any assistance. >> phil, we'll check back with you as soon as more information becomes available.

as he nettoted, russia would fa diplomatic outrage from the united states if they helped snowden. nic robertson has more about snowden's departure. >> reporter: the hong kong government says they weren't given the right legal documentation from the underto meet their requirementses to issue a provisional arrest warden for edward snowden as the united states asked for. and for that reason they say without an arrest warrant, edward snowden wasn't on a watch list, he was a free man free to leave the country which is what he's done. one legal expert we've talked to here who has been watching snowden's case very closely has said he's shocked at what the hong kong government has done. he said all the government needed was to know that though deny owing was in hong kong and that he was wanted by the united states for prosecution in the united states. those were the minimum legal

requirements that needed to be met. and he said as far as he could see, those were met. so not only has hong kong allowed edward snowden to leave by not arresting him, they have also said they are now writing a letter to the u.s. government to find out about edward snowden's allegations of cyber hacking of china's computers in hong kong. so really a diplomatic standoff being ratcheted up. hong kong not only letting snowden leave the country a free man, but also questioning the united states over his allegations of nsa cyber hacking here. >> nick robe robertson in hong . someone who has spoken to snowden is joining us.

bart, knwe know he's in moscow. do you know anything about his intentions about asylum in ecuador? >> i prefer to talk only about things that he said to me earlier when he was describing his motivations and intentions. >> go ahead. >> those were this. he wanted to make public enough information to enable a public debate. and he wanted to do so in a way that might inspire future whistleblowerses as he saw himf it do the same. and he said there had to be a happy ending. not many people would risk as he risked having their lives destroyed. he wanted to show that there is a way that you can do it and find acs asylum in a democratic country and live out your life. >> you've been reporting on these sensitive issues for some time. glenn greenwald spoke with us and he says this was the only way.

based on your experience, was there another way, could mr. snowden have gone to somebody in congress, gone to some law enforcement agency, i know that's a stretch, could he have found some other way to do this without taking it to this level where the united states government says he's a felon, not a whistleblower? >> it's not for me to judge what could or would have worked. he clearly made the judgment that that wouldn't work. and there's not a lot of good precedent for using the internal inspector general reporting methods when it comes to matters of sensitive national security. i can't think of one example in which someone was able to go that root. t route. the whole idea is that this takes place this secret and an internal investigation would also take place this secret.

he was trying to bring about a public debate. >> and as he tries to find safe passage, from your conversations with him, do you know what else he has? do you know when you see general alexander, when you see people at the white house, when you see the chair of the intelligence committee stepping forward and saying he has dramatically damaged u.s. national security, do you know what other secrets he might have? >> i've never commented on anything like that and i think i'll stick with what i've said in public. >> let me ask you another question. you've covered these issues for some time. i was struck this morning general keith alexander was on abc's "this week" and he was asked how this happened. mr. snowden worked for a private company contracted to the united states government and the general said they will develop some way to track the system administrators, that they are now going to develop that, and that they are now going to go to partners or a buddy system so nobody is sitting alone who can

access and steal, take this information. when you hear the general say that, does that mean that there could be another, two, three, four, five, six other edward snowdens out there who there taken this information from the workplace, highest secrets of the united states government? >> i suppose it could. it is surprise to go hear that general alexander does not think there were sufficient auditing procedures in place. i suspect that the nsa has a very good idea of what he has taken because the systems are at minimum set up to audit, access sensitive material. and it's probably developed a pretty good idea about how he took it. it's interesting to me that they want to lock things further down. of course they do. but the more you lock down information, the less likely you are to find it when you need it

or less likely it is to get in the right hands when they need it. so's a tradeoff that the nsa and other intelligence agencies have faced. >> bart, i think the number one question here as we watch this drama play out beyond mr. snowden's travels at the moment, but more globally, is who do you trust. he said that someone like him, a single analyst sitting at the desk, could, a metaphor, but flip a switch and listen to any conversation of anybody in the united states. he said even the president of the united states if he had that number that e-mail address or the like. nsa says that's not true, that no single analyst has that power. from what he shared with you, do you know the answer, who is telling the truth? >> i can't verify the answer on that. i think his most important point and the point he was trying to make here was that once these capabilities are in place, there is only either a policy decision or a few lines of code that

stand between going through an elaborate sort of verified process and going to -- tapping in to any single person's communications. and he's concerned about the development of a system or apparatuses that at the push of a button, at the flip of a switch, could listen to anybody based on rules as they may change in secret in the future. >> bart, appreciate your time and your insights. thanks so much. when we return, snowden requests asylum in ecuador, but will they take him. ncer) born w energy cycle... cats. they were born to play. to eat. then rest. to fuel the metabolic cycle they were born to have, purina one created new healthy metabolism wet and dry. with purina one and the right activity, we're turning feeding into a true nature experience.

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...and we inspected his brakes for free. -free is good. -free is very good. [ male announcer ] now get 50% off brake pads and shoes at meineke. we continue to track breaking news. edward snowden was this hong kong. now in moscow trying to gets a sigh l asylum in ecuador. we continue to track the story. joining me here in washington to discuss the fallout, dana bash and jill dougherty, tom fuentes. tom, let me start with you. he is in transit in moscow. so he's officially not in russia since he's passing through the airport. the united states government has made clear it wants mr. snowden

rushed. if the russian government wanted to cooperate, is there any question in your mind they could grab him and turn him over is this. >> the question is whether he's illegally in russia. if his passport wasn't revoked, there is no requirement for the russians to turn help back over to the u.s.. >> no requirement. >> no requirement to hold him -- well, there would be no legal authority to hold him. if in fact state department did revoke his passport last week which i heard they did, then he's traveling around unless wikileaks or someone has somehow arranged for him to have a passport from another country that none of us are aware of at this point, but if the u.s. passport was his only passport, then he's not traveling legally and even though he's technically not entered through his passport control, he still is in position where they could grab him and have him deported back to the country of his citizenship or deport him back to his last country that he entered from

which in this case would be back to hong kong. >> in a drama that involves a lot of secrets, a lot of agencies that years ago some weren't even publicly acknowledged, we have this remarkable development that the ecuadorian foreign minister has tweeted out that this man has requested asylum. why ecuador and does the united states have any hope of stopping ecuador or convincing ecuador not to take him? >> relations with ecuador are not particularly good, but not really bad. the president is a socialist kind of chavez mode. but i wouldn't say they have bad relations. it's just that you have again those three countries remember assange of course is there, and you also have the three countries originally that were looked at, venezuela, ecuador and cuba, all kind of with the same approach to things. so it seems as if you take

assange at his word, he said go to latin american countries and that's indeed what he's going to do. >> mr. snowden says the government is lying. he says when the national security agency and administration tells that you it can't check your personal phone call, that it doesn't have that information available, that it can't monditor your e-mail, tha a rogue analyst can't flip a switch to get that information and you've had both national security agency, members of congress saying he's lying about his ability, but there is a question of trust here and credibility. not only about what mr. though den is saying, but whether these agencies can protect their own secrets. is there not? >> absolutely. and just the fact that the nsa director was out testifying publicly before congress and actually on television, on a sunday show, is a big deal and it shows you the kind of effort that they know in a they have to try to make to try to deal with that trust and credibility issue that they have. listen to what keith alexander said about this this morning. >> the system did not work as it

should have. he betrayed the trust and confidence we had in him. this is an individual with top secret clearance whose duty it was to administer these networks. he betrayed that confidence and stole some of our secrets. we're now putting this place actions that would give us the ability to track our system administrators, what they're doing, what they're taking. >> and one of those systems that they're putting in place is what they call a two-man rule. meaning if you are a contractor, you can't just be sitting there by yourself looking at data or maybe in edward snowden's case downloading the data to take away because there will be somebody looking at you. and then the question is why wasn't this in place before. makes your head spin. >> and forgive me to put to the man who has worked in law enforcement, you have general alexand alexander, a decorated damn good public servant. but when he's out there saying 11 years after 9/11, so 10, 11

years into this program, we're now developing a program, just know going to the buddeddy system, just the other day bob mulller, again a man who deserves a medal for the stress of his job, saying, yes, we have this drone program and now we're going to develop the protocols. the public statements from people in these highly sensitive positions, tom, don't inspire a lot of confidence. >> no, and i think in this situation, and it was my understanding that they have very adequate and extensive audit trails when you access something. and i know when i was still trying to access data when i was in the fbi, thumb drives can't be placed in and it's tracking anytime you you download to a dvd or thumb drive or another computer. there is a trail created that it was you individually who logged in and removed that data and what the data was is also tracked. so for him to say now they will develop that, i don't understand that. i don't know what's been going

on over there. because the way every system i tried to work work there was an extensive audit trail to track what was taken. >> it feeds the worst fears of people who say these programs developed after a more risk tragedy here in the united states with the best of intentions to protect the united states from another attack. but the worst fear, once the government starts collecting the information, it gets bigger and bigger, you contract it out, they're not in store if you will and that opens up to abuses. >> that's true. and i would question answering questions in a public situation. if you can't answer the question, don't make up another story. i mean, we saw the attorney general in a hearing recently asked a question and he said right back to the senator this is not the place for me to answer that. and i'm not going to answer it. and most of these hearings, when they have these briefings with the intelligence committee, they're secret briefings. so when you see public testimony being given or going on a talk show and giving that out publicly, didn't be on a show and lie. don't go on the show at and you

would or say what the boundaries are. >> as critics of these programs, one of their problems now they say is when people tell them these things, they don't believe them because things they have said in the past have turned out to be either flatly not the true or somewhere in the gray. >> and that speaks to the issue of trust. from my approach on capitol hill, what we're hearing constantly is there is oversight going on. we as members of the senate intelligence committees, we are overseeing this in an incredibly specific and detailed way. mike rogers says if everybody had this oversight, everybody would get a huge refund check every year. but the problem is we have to that their word for it. we don't know that what anybody is saying is true. trust deficit really hurts everybody. >> when we come back there, are questions about whether the state department has revoked mr.

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breaking you news on the status of edward snowden, the nsa leaker trying to make his way to ecuador. >> a source familiar with the case does confirm to drn that his u.s. passport was revoked. so it raises immediate questions how did he get out of hong kong and how is he traveling around the world. at least in moscow. >> tom fuentes, what does that mean? he's a man without a passport. >> the possibilities are that even despite the law, twhe two countries may have agreed let him get out of hong kong. i think that's probably what has been going on, a lot of back channel activity between the two countries of china not wanting to appear to egg early take advantage of the situation, both sides have a number of economic equities with each other.

neither side wants to poke a stick in the eye of the other one. so if he just gets out of dodge, they're happy with it. and i think that's probably what happened is that the chinese absolutely did not want him to be given asylum or allow him to defect there. or in essence create an open situation where they're taking advantage of gaining intelligence from the u.s.. obviously both countries do it, but it's an open secret. >> so if he has no passport at the airport in moscow, can ecuador give him a passport, grant asylum without any documentation? >> and i think that having dealt with these extradition issues and there is no treaty with russia, but having dealt with the international fugitive cases, countries can have agreements in place, extraditions and agree that we're absolutely going to do this and the fine print says unless we don't want to. unless we want to find a national security loophole or some other issue. so in a way, ecuador is in a position to do what they want. russia can do what they want. take him into custody or say

move on. >> would it have made any difference if they had done it from the beginning or is this just proof that there are rules and then there are rules? >> there is the political side to this. if everyone wants to wash their hands, just kind of let it happen, let him go, please, then it wouldn't have made much difference. they're not saying precisely when it did happen. >> let's check into the white house. dan lothian. the president has seen this man he wants very much extradited back to the united states. the president says he's undermined u.s. national security and the full weight of the justice system should be brought to bear. what is the president doing as this unfolds? >> reporter: we don't know exactly. we know he is here at the white house, not commenting publicly on this case. but we know from justice department officials that there are conversations ongoing not only with hong kong but also with some of these other

countries that potentially could provide some kind of safety for mr. snowden. we do know that they have reached out cuba, also to venezuela and he can came dok e. clearly this is an embarrassment for the obama administration and they were fairly confident here that hong kong would have extradited snowden back to the united states. just yesterday tom donilon said they have an agreement when it comes to this and he was confident thousnowden would be extradited. so it's a diplomatic mess for the white house. >> and are they saying anything at all-hf tom fuentes making the point if he's technically not in russia because he's at the airport, but given the heavy

hand of the putin government, if russia wanted to help, we think they could. are they saying anything at all about potential of trying to find a way to improve the putin relationship by getting help here? >> reporter: they're always trying to get the relationship improved between the united states and russia, but nothing from the white house up on capitol hill. we're saying this is just another example of putin essentially poking the u.s. in the eye. i mean, it's another example some believe of sort of putin's attitude toward the united states and using this case to sort of show the united states what they can do. so i think right now there are a lot of ongoing conversations that we simply don't know about happening behind the scenes. not only with hong kong, but with some of these other countries in south america that could potentially be a home for

though de snowden. >> we'll be back in just a bit. when we return, my next guest is not surprised if snowden finds safe haven in cuba or venezuela. [ female announcer ] the only patch for the treatment

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breaking news coverage continues. joining us joe johns. joe, we're sitting here in washington, d.c.. snowden is at an airport in moscow. they want to extradite him, bring him to justice. what can they do? >> they've been trying to get hill back and so far it hasn't worked very well. the bottom line on the justice department is when he was in hong kong, they did what they thought they were supposed to do. they put out that warrant and said get him. and the hong kong officials, whether they were just asking questions to try to buy some time or whether they actually had real questions, we don't know right now. we don't know the time line. end of the day, the united states justice department was working on trying to answer those questions around friday night or so and now snowden is gone. so it's a difficult position for them. they say they want to talk to hong kong. they want to have some discussions because it creates real concerns for them about

their relationship. but it's a real big pr problem for the u.s. justice department. and people who watch movies have seen how certain persons get snatched off the streets and brought back to the united states. can't do that in this situation i'm told by a lot of legal 1k3er79s because it's already a pr nightmare and that whole question that sort of goes over top of all of this which is persecution of whistleblowers here in the united states, that is an overlay. so you can't just treat this guy anyway because the world is watching. >> the world is watching. among those watching is one of the leading republican voices in congress on foreign affairs issues especially the countries where mr. snowden wants to seek asylum. joining us is florida congresswoman. thanking for joining us. i want to start with this issue that joe johns was just talking about. the united states justice department says extradite him to

hong kong. hong kong says, oh, he left. beijing says, oh, he left. now he's in russia. there is a question of whether he'll be allowed to move on. what does it say when my words you have leading developments like china and perhaps next russia playing uppontius pilate? >> we pretend everything is hunkydory when it is not. now if he finds himself in ecuador, people will say, well, that seems like an all right country because the leader there doesn't say as crazy statements as castro or chavez when he was alive, but he is just as anti-freedom of press as the other dictators wannabees. there are very few press

freedoms in ecuador and now he'll look like he's the defender of a whistleblower. well, this guy should come back to the united states. let him face the consequences and let this play out. but to go to enemy states because that is what china, russia, cuba, venezuela, potentially ecuador, these are countries that don't have the friendliest relations with the united states, but interestingly i think this a great point, is that these are countries that violate press freedoms every day and yet he's seeking political asylum in those very countries where he if he were to pull a snowden in these countries, they would jail him immediately. >> his argument through people's spoken to including glenn greenwald is that he has no choice at this moment. let me ask you this question first. we are told the state department has reached out saying do not let him in and if he does arrive there, please expel him and return him to us.

do you have any confidence that that would happen or if he gets -- he's at the moscow airport. if he's getting paperwork from ecuadorian diplomats, is he gone? >> i have every confidence that he will give these countries every part of the information that he has at his disposal, that these countries will use it against the united states, that i don't question his motivations. that's up to him. but what i do know is that i know the leaders of the country and the way that they operate, and that is against the people, against basic freedoms that this gentleman is supposedly advocating for. transparency, accountability, freedom of expression to the people. where in china, russia, cuba do you see those espoused as leading values. they're espoused in the united states. let him do what he did and let the process play out. but these countries will use that information that he will undoubtedly give them against

us. so i think this is not a public relations nightmare for the problem for the united states. i think this is a national security problem if we don't have these countries cooperate and they will not. >> help us understand, if you can, i assume you've received some of the briefings. what does he have? >> well, i'm not going to give out any information that we've gotten in the briefings. but if he feels compelled to give information to the people, and this is supposedly what he has said he wants, he's upset with the united states having a surveillance program that has not been revealed to the american people, yet he gs to the very countries that have at best very tense relationships with the united states, and that countries that do not value press freedoms whatsoever. so why are they allowing him to go into these countries? they're getting something out of it. ecuador is not doing it as a humanitarian gesture. they want information. what will they do with the

information? they will use it against the united states. he'll give to madura in venezuela. he's a puppet of the castro brothers. this won't play out well for the national security interests of the united states. >> sober words there. when we return, a look at snowden's efforts to seek asylum in ecuador. [ panting ] uh... after you. ♪ [ sighs ] [ male announcer ] it's all in how you get there. the srx, from cadillac. awarded best interior design of any luxury brand. lease this 2013 cadillac srx for around $399 per month, with premium care maintenance included. i'm gonna have to ask you to power down your little word game. i think your friends will understand. oh...no, it's actually my geico app...see? ...i just uh paid my bill.

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the latest on our breaking news. mr. snowden is this moscow, he flew there from hog congreng ko. he's faseeking asylum in ecuado. with me now is tom foreman, he'll tell us about his global flight around the world. >> let's look at how this broke down. this is where he traveled from, from hong kong up to moscow. and from all appearances, he's trying to create not only physical buffers around himself, but perception buffers. look at the statement fromm iw i

wikilea wikileaks. they say this is a whistleblower who exposed evidence of a global surveillance regime conducted by the u.s. and uk. they're trying to help him to get into a democratic nation via a safe route. they're presenting him as a man truly on the run from forces beyond himself that may not be fair. let's look at where he is. the airport here, one thing that i haven't heard a lot of talk about yet that i'd like to hear some of the thoughts on the panel on, he's at the airport. what if the goal isn't ecuador at all, what if the goal is simply the ecuadorian embassy which doesn't take that much for the russians to take him out the back door of the airport and for him to simply move over to another place like julian assange did and have a holding place for a period of time. i don't know if that's in play. but it could be. it's one of the ideas. bear in mind, if you look at the nations in the world where we have treaties where we can have people brought out, basically everywhere over here, we have a

treaty for extradition. we have treaties for extradition in here, a numb nations out here and all over in here. but that's just a sense of where we have some of the treaties. a lot of the other places we do not. however, it's always important to bear in mind even the nations we have deals with, if they don't agree it's a crime, they don't have to send the person to us, if they don't like our penalty. and in our country the penalty for frtreason can include the death penalty. they they can say that's reason not to not let him go. an interesting point is the notion that ecuador of all places is hardly a champion of free speech. a strange marriage here to think that would be the country whether the embassy or the country itself would be the place he winds up. >> fascinating perspective there. tom foreman, thanks so much. joining us from havana, one of the places where some people

think it's possible, possible, mr. snowden could head is patrick oppmann. we're told he's trying to get to ecuador. has there been anything said by the castro government in cuba and is havana potentially a pass-through point? >> reporter: all afternoon we've been talking to cuban officials and so far they just tell us they're monitoring the situation and no announcement to make. but cuban officials have been watching this case for the last few days taking some delight and embarrassment of the united states. i even had one cuban official ask me could this really be really that -- snowden to them is too good to be true, that a former nsa employee would be spilling secrets in such a public way. so we're hearing now that the united states is reaching out to cuban government, ecuadorian

government, trying to get help. and if he does show up in one of these country, these are countries that even while they say they would like a better relationship with the united states, they realize this is an opportunity to embarrass their adversary and it seems at least for the moment they won't pass up on the chance to gain all this intelligence and really cause even greater embarrassment for the united states government. >> patrick, we'll stay in touch throughout the day. let's get back to our conversation. jill, diplomacy is your business. you've worked in many of these places throughout the world. >> and hong kong. >> when tom foreman talks about wikileaks, they talk about protecting him after he exposed a global surveillance regime. patrick talks about the governments celebrating what they believe is an embarrassment to the united states. justice department saying help me and being told no.

how bad is this from a prestige standing point? >> i think it's very bad. because on every level, i mean, just the charges that snowden is leveling against the united states are very bad. and you've seen the chinese saying we are very disturbed by these reports that they are hacking into our systems. rub shan russians have been critical. you have the way the u.s. almost looks like cops and robbers, maybe intention am or not, looking as if they can't especially find this guy or get him. and then in a pr sense, it really damages the u.s. reputation as a country of democracy. these countries, russia, china, use that. and throw it back in the united states face to say this is democracy? doesn't look like democracy to

us. it's very bad. >> and we should always be smart in our business and say we don't know what we don't know. and we don't know what conversations are going on to try to make this happen. but you from a law enforcement any time you try to expose or shine some light on some of the nefarious stuff, they pull out the 9/11 card and say you're undermining our national security. has he significantly dramatically undermined the national security? >> we don't know the extent of what he's taken. we know some of that. he's in a position to do tremendous harm. whether he's taken more than we know about. he has harmed everything. the reputation and confidence of the american people and the world is important for the national security. we want them to share

information and we want them to trust us. even just disclosing this material and exposing the inability of the u.s. to maintain this program as a secret program, that's already damage in and of itself. >> we know we have treaties with people and we have agreements with people. sometimes they're forced, sometimes they're not. sometimes somebody finds the sem semi-colon or loophole. in your experience trying to track down when you're at the fbi, have somebody oversea, somebody that fits mr. snowden's portfolio, want to extradite him. he has no passport. they stripped his passport. he's sitting in an airport in moscow, is there some legal standing for the russian government may say to the diplomats from ecuador say, i'm sorry, we're putting him on a plane to washington. >> if the russians are notified officially by state department his passport is revoked and he doesn't have any other valid passport at the moment, they can put him on the next nonstop

flight moscow to new york. they have done that in the past. >> if they have been notified and they don't, what's that say? >> they can find loopholes and excuses and all that. the reason there's no extradition treaty between the u.s. and russia is because the u.s. didn't want it. we didn't want them asking for extradition of political dissidents or someone considered a political person rather than a criminal. the fact there's no extradition treaty in place and we've turned them down many times, you get into the back and forth of it. these international law enforcement issues become political, become extensions of foreign policy. they get wrapped up in the diplomacy issues. i think what happened with hong kong, i'm convinced, this is my opinion, back channel there was a discussion between the u.s. and china to allow them to save face, let him go, get him out of town. >> if that's the case and if mr. snowden gets to place like ecuador and gets away, they may

regret that. edward snowden, when we return, in his own words. 20? new purina one beyond has 9. the simplified purina one beyond. learn more about these wholesome ingredients at purinaone.com

when edward snowden went

public revealing he is the source of nsa leaks, he explained to "the guardian" newspaper why he did it. here is edward snowden in his own words. >> when you're in access to these agencies, you're exposed to a lot more information on a broader scale than the average employee. because of that, you see things that may be disturbing. over the course of a normal person's career you'd only see one or two of these instances. when you see everything, you see them on a more frequent basis. you recognize some of these things are actually abuses. when you talk to people about them, in a place like this, where this is the normal state of business, people tend not to take them very seriously and move on from them. over time, that awareness of wrongdoing builds up and you feel compelled to talk about it and the more you talk about it the more you're ignored and told

it's not a problem until eventually you realize these things need to be determined by the public, not by somebody who was simply hired by the government. >> i'm john king in washington. thanks for spending time with us. breaking news coverage continues with fredericka whitfield at the cnn center. fred. >> hello, john. thank you. i'd like to welcome our viewers throughout the world. these stories top iping this ne. nsa leaker edward snowden is on the move. he's in russia and wikileaks, who is helping him, says he is headed to south america. we have reports around the world coming up. one day away from the statements in the george zimmerman murder trial, accused of shooting and killing trayvon martin, coming up, what you can expect to hear in the courtroom. some of paula deen's fans are not giving up on her despite her racial comments. we'll tell you what they're