tonight on our it's he we're following developing news out of london wiki leaks founder julian assange has taken refuge in ecuador's embassy and is now asking for political asylum from that south american country we'll bring you the latest next. plus get ready for the next generation of cyber security several american companies are going on the off chance of using a system called active defense coming up we'll tell you how companies are using hackers own tools against them. and then later u.s. lawmakers are stepping away from science and toward abstinence only education and they're using your tax dollars to do it we'll show you how this ideology might be causing more harm than good.

it's tuesday june nineteenth seven pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching our t.v. . but we begin this hour with developing news out of london ecuador's foreign minister says wiki leaks founder julian assange is seeking political asylum at its embassy in london and a statement just released from the embassy of ecuador part of it reads quote as a signatory to the united nations universe universal declaration for human rights with an obligation to review all applications for asylum live immediately past his application on to the relevant department in quito and while the department assesses mr assad as application mr assad will remain at the embassy under the protection of the ecuadorian government and goes on to say that although the government is come. mr saunders application it will not interfere in the judicial

processes of either the u.k. or sweden now all of this comes just one week after the supreme court of the u.k. rejected a bed bias on his attorney to reopen the extradition case well earlier jasmine radek national security and human rights director for the government accountability project and author of this book the whistleblower and the american taliban joined me just in that last hour i asked her if this news came as a surprise take a listen. i think at first blush it comes as no surprise to most people but actually. it's a smart move by a songe and it shouldn't be a huge surprise if people recall julian assange interviewed ecuador's president. on r t. and so it has been a friendly country towards them and as you noted since they are

a signatory to the un declaration for human rights they do you have an obligation to review it and i do believe that we have a part of the exchange between us and correct let's take a listen. why did you want us to release all the cables. those who don't know anything have nothing to fear we have nothing to hide your wiki leaks have made us stronger you know that was the main accusations made by the american embassy. excessive nationalism in defense of the sovereignty of the ecuadorian government so we'll see if they're. kind of standing behind songes actions and they do have a relationship that dates back a couple of years yes and. you know as we know a son has been under house arrest for two years and now he is in the embassy in london what's interesting to me is that under the u.s.

standards for granting asylum. assad would need them he has a valid fear of persecution for his political opinions and a real fear that the government to which he would be extradited would not be able to itself or prevent a third party government from interfering and persecuting him and the united states has launched a worldwide manhunt against him so interestingly under the standards the u.s. uses i mean this is a a mess that we've created on our own by going after him with such with such vigor and such hatred and such. kill list i mean a worldwide manhunt you know i don't know if he's on the kill list the none of us know but i think he certainly under american standards would fit the criteria and for now it seems like this is some kind of

a last ditch effort to prevent being extradited to sweden and ultimately finding his way to the united states if that were in fact to happen what would that mean for him well if united states as you have been covering so much has been leading an unprecedented war against who so blowers and charging them under the very heavy handed espionage act and six of those people including bradley manning who is alleged to have leaked a series of cables to wiki leaks are all facing this these charges that are meant to go after spies not whistleblowers and so i think the u.s. would try very hard to bring espionage act charges against a staunch but that would have horrible implications for u.s. media in terms of also facing prosecution under the espionage act because so many in the mainstream media both domestically and abroad have reprinted in part or in

whole things from wiki leaks and and that's the thing he hasn't even been formally charged yet but some say that the attack on assad is also an attack on a whistleblower is. absolutely you know i think it is and he has not been formally charged sweden just want him for questioning unfortunately i mean i have seen whistleblowers have to face pretextual allegations of all sorts including criminality and espionage so i understand why he may think that sweden is trying to get him over there for all teary or reasons and i don't think it would fare well in the climate right now in the u.s. where there has been no holds barred in going after people who are trying to get information out there people who are trying to tell the truth and reveal information the government in the u.s. might find embarrassing. or controversial or illegal and julian assange is

certainly at the forefront of that and that's exactly why he has become this very controversial figure some people love him some people hate have those that are opposed to him say that he put lives in danger by releasing that information but that's very interesting because he actually i haven't actually heard a very clear assertion of that by anybody who's willing to provide their name part of the espionage act is an intent to harm the u.s. or benefit a foreign nation and significantly that is a factor that has been missing from all of these. are prosecutions and so while people have made generalized statements that oh he's put our troops at risk i have not heard a specifically tailored claim about how that has happened and ecuador in fact said

that his revelations benefited their country. all right i just want to get into what exactly he is under scrutiny for why he doesn't want to go to sweden he is being he is facing charges of basically sex charges. can sexual sex between two people are charges have even been fired and he's just facing questioning so but they seems like that is not the main issue at core here he's not trying to avoid the questioning he's really just trying to avoid extradition to the u.s.s. my read my read on that as well i think questioning given the extraordinary circumstances here could be done via skype the e-mail in a number of different ways mean it would be orthodox but it would be a way to do that i think he could you know i correctly views this as a likely pretextual attempt to get him into sweden which has

a horrible history of caving to the united states and extraditing people including those seeking political asylum. and radek national security and human rights director for the government accountability project. all hackers are getting quite sophisticated these days and now many companies u.s. companies are taking notice and fighting back and they're doing this by fighting fire with fire and hiring hackers of their own it's a budding industry called the cyber security industry and some of the measures companies have taken are controversial with questions over whether some steps they're taking are legal some companies are hiring hackers to hack into systems of other hackers almost like a hacker war so is hacking the lucrative field of the future to talk more about this i'm joined by tim carr senior director of strategy for free press welcomes tim

so it seems like hackers are in demand these days well you know i think the cyber security industry is one of the few growth industries left right now the government needs to hire at least ten thousand cyber security experts in the near future and there are estimates that. history itself needs to hire nearly four times that so so as we see hear more about groups like anonymous and there's been this tendency of the cyber security industry to respond to use examples of hacking as a justification for the growth of their business and for more clients to take them on and so that's exactly what they are expanding and making sure that they are fighting against the rats hacking their wheedle concerns with companies turning to hacking themselves in order to combat this there are legal concerns i mean there are aspects of hacking that are are legal and what these groups have done what these companies have done as you've mentioned the cyber security firm is they actually hire hackers to try to break into their network and in the process expose

what vulnerabilities there are but now they've taken it one step further where they're actually hiring hackers are using their own capacity to set traps to try to get other hackers to come to them to give them in false information to even hack into other networks so there's it's a very gray legal area there which potentially could cross the line into criminal behavior and where exactly is that lie at what point has that linemen cross well if that's the problem we face right now we are we in the united states and cyber security is such a new realm that the debt legal definitions are somewhat vague and those lines are are being drawn and redrawn there have been recent efforts in the u.s. congress to pass new cybersecurity legislation that would make for clear standards but nobody really knows whom to believe here because the threat of cyber security is a has been a boon to industry analysts so they they may be exaggerating the problem there are

members of congress who want to pass cybersecurity legislation who like to take up this idea that there's a massive threat out there so that they can push this legislation through so so the lines of what's legal what's not have yet to be clearly. on it's it's as you say it's a growth industry where where we don't really know how to apply proper legal standards that's and there have been a series of high profile hacktivists attacks you know from anonymous various other hackers now there's this recent flame virus that attacked the government in broad so does this all show the need for companies and the government to step up their protections against these attacks well i mean nobody really knows the precise cost of these cyber attacks some dollar estimates put it at a couple billion dollars others put it in the hundreds of billions of dollars and and that's the problem is that we don't really know how big this threat is in if you can't get on a sin alice of the problem it's hard then to to to create legislation one of the

things that we're concerned about at free press is that all of the fit we're fanning all of these fears about cyber security that will cause us to overreact to actually pass cyber security legislation that cuts into our free speech rights as individuals that compromises free speech on the internet in ways that would ultimately be harmful to everyone now then would you say with companies now taking this more aggressive approach has it switched now from defending themselves against hackers to going on the off chance of it has i mean i think that's what the a lot of the cyber security firms are trying to do is that they're trying to prevent this threat by by indeed going on the off and hiring some of the same hackers that they're trying to prevent. to attack other hackers and there's been increased activity at the f.b.i. and elsewhere to start to investigate groups like little sec there have been a number of arrests recently so there's so there is a lot of there are

a lot of accusations out there there are a lot of actions where these companies are attacking hackers in the hackers are responding. it is as i say its export of a growth industry that operates in the dark and so when these companies do these things they themselves may ultimately come. become as much of a problem as the hackers that they are trying to confront and address here kind of saying an eye for an eye kind of leaving everybody blind here that's actually well and where with all this in mind would you say about this is paving the way for congress to push through legislation to crack down on internet freedoms and allow for more modern online i mean you know we saw sopa pipa. and fife cell all these other bells and is this all kind of providing justification for pieces of legislation like that well we saw that recently went through the house there is an effort in the senate right now with a bill that's been introduced by senator lieberman and others to pass the senate

cybersecurity bill. and so they obviously believe that the climate is right to pass this sort of legislation again and i think we have to be very careful since nobody really knows how significant the threat is the fear is that congress will overstep in ways that cut into our basic civil liberties ok so you had referred earlier on to this cyber industrial complex you know we've heard about the military industrial complex now we hear that this cyber security complex is kind of the complex of the future who is making money off of this who's cashing in. well there are there are a raft of security firms or companies like booz allen hamilton which is just once private security firm that is recently asked to hire three thousand and seven security experts today so the cyber security industry with companies like that are making a great deal of money a lot of the tradition i mean you know a corporate a lot this is not just hacking into government governments it's corporate espionage

and corporate espionage has been around issues taken on more sophisticated means for a lot of the companies that were involved in corporate espionage a lot of these are somewhat murky titles and it's very it's very difficult to trace who exactly they are have now upgraded their services. to get engaged in this kind of this kind of cyber terrorism these types of cyber attacks against one another so many cases it's it's companies attacking companies in some cases you have individuals attacking attacking governments you have governments with the flame virus trying to attack other governments you know it's it's all over the place but there is a role in all of this for for the private sector to get involved and consult both governments and companies so now you know we're seeing both in government and government and corporations they are looking for hackers so should college students be thinking about pursuing a career in the field of hacking well you know interestingly enough i think it is a place where you can probably find work in there are interested in young people

and learning about hacking for to be both you know kind of the activists hackers the people that join groups like anonymous and group join groups like lot second and i don't know if they make a living doing that nobody really knows where they're where that where they come from but in the private sector certainly there is a growth opportunity should you be someone who understands computer technology and coding and things like this your future is probably a lot brighter than where you to be going into some other industry these days and how do you feel about hacktivists as our call that our cottage for hacking in criminal activity and then for authorities to then kind of use them as you know as an insider to hack into to get to get the secrets of what goes on behind. the hacking process well you know this a fairly common practice among law enforcement official says to turn people to to

go against their own their their own members and so you know i think that there are a lot of problems there obviously and we need to we need to figure out. who these people are we need to make sure when they if they do get arrested that they're they are being treated fairly. you know we have more clarity on where the laws are and what our freedoms are in this well it seems like hacking is the lucrative field these days ten very interesting thanks for coming on the show that was tim carr's senior director of strategy for free press. well we hear it time and time again congress needs to slash spending to cut down the deficit but your taxpayer dollars tens of millions each year are being used to teach youth that abstinence is the only way to go but is it the government's role to push abstinence only as opposed to a more comprehensive sex approach and are these tax dollars well spent we explored . in these dire financial times government must identify what works and what

doesn't even when it comes to sex education for kids and many lawmakers insists that when it comes to sex education abstinence is the only way to go we've seen a troubling sixteen to one funding disparity between contraceptive centered education and sexual risk avoidance education which is why despite these dire financial times congress is still pumping millions into abstinence only education republicans think funding into the affordable care act fifty million dollars a year through two thousand and fourteen and they pushed through five million dollars to preach abstinence in the two thousand and twelve budget so how does the average taxpayer feel about this trying to get to do something that they want to not to do some they want to do is a waste of time and kind of productive and it's not going to work with think that should this spend more money about sex education and not because absent he says i don't think it's a solution that think it needs to be balanced i think you know all the funding

should be based on one way of tackling other issues but does this approach to teaching youth about sex really work when it's forbidden you have to taste it you know. you know the way you tell not to do some they do the complete opposite study after study shows that abstinence as opposed to comprehensive sex education is not effective and in fact harmful the u.s. has the highest teen birth rate of any comparable country almost twice as high as the u.k. which is the highest in western europe these types of programs have also come under fire for the questionable things they teach but i have some great advice like you have to not invite lost so you have to be careful of what you wear like you mentioned because the girl will be thinking fashion and the boy will be thinking sex for critics this approach is a step away from science and a step back. in time they should teach about safe sex they're going to have sex

anyway just naturally doesn't. everybody you're going to go against all of human history and think that oh finally we're going to get people to stop having sex back in two thousand and ten and president obama got rid of a huge chunk of funding for programs that support abstinence only education republicans have fought to put it back on the agenda and issues like gay marriage and contraception the debate over issues like that rages on today all signs that social issues will play a significant role in the upcoming presidential election and the question remains is the government have a place in spending millions of dollars to push what they believe to be moral and washington liz wall. joining me now to talk more about this is valerie huber executive director of the national abstinence education association valery thank you so much for coming to the studio today so tens of millions of dollars each year

spent on teaching kids not to have sex is this money well spent actually there's a sixteen to one funding disparity against abstinence education one dollar for abstinence for sixteen dollars for contraceptive based education and the research is showing as a report that was just released today shows that the evidence really is building for the effectiveness of abstinence education in the science base for so-called contraceptive sex is falling flat but you know i did a lot of research on this story and what i found was that study after study showed that these kinds of programs are not effective. journal in the journal of adolescent health virginity pledges i guess or some kind of a staple of abstinence only programs not only did teenagers fail did that reduce failed it failed to reduce s.t.d. rates but also when they got into. fact said they wouldn't seek help well let's

look at the facts the facts are first of all a virgin to the pledge is not the same as an abstinence program or what we like to call sexual risk avoidance programs if you look at the holistic i mean it is a very no virginity is abstinence and abstinence program is not a just say no message what you might not know is that this is very very holistic message that includes topics such as identifying a healthy relationship and escaping an unhealthy one understanding how to avoid contracting sexually transmitted disease. even information about contraception letting students know that although a use of a contraceptive or condoms in particular might reduce their risk for acquiring an s.t.d. it's not going to eliminate it so that's why the research shows we now have twenty five peer reviewed behavioral impact studies that show that abstinence programs that are taught the way that endorses and from

a holistic approach the students are about half as likely to initiate sex. the students who are sexually experienced coming into our programs are less likely to or more likely to discontinue that sexual activity and now there are three different national studies that show our students are no less likely to use a condom if they do come be become sexually active so the research is really mounting that this is an approach that is effective and not only that it fits soundly within the public health framework that's used to address all other risk behaviors so so you do agree that kids should be taught about contraception would be taught about condoms should be taught about how to protect themselves and not necessarily just being taught no sex that's that's the only option well i think you bring up a very good point and that is absence programs do teach about contraception but what what our programs how they differ from so-called contra sept of centered programs is that we want our young people to understand the risks associated with

their behaviors for example the c.d.c. just revealed not long ago that one in fourteen girls have at least one s.t.d. if you look at those forest t.d.'s two of the four are easily transmissible even with the use of a condom so is it is sex safe enough with a condom we say no that it's much more effective and if we really want to press for what is in the best health interest of young people it's to wait to have sex or if they're currently sexually active to discontinue that activity now do you think it's the government's role or the schools are all to teach kids to wait until you're married to have sex especially you know when i was asking people about this a lot of them were saying you know if they are going to be educated i want them to be educated about the whole picture about everything that is involved in terms of these choices that you make so i mean is it the school's role or the government's role to push this or is it the parents' role well one thing that i have to take

issue with the opening segment is abstinence programs don't preach abstinence. they also prevent preach morality when we encourage abstinence until marriage it's not from a moralistic or religious standpoint it's because the social science research is replete that what is the best environment for you for children to be born it's within a solid two family two parent biological family if you're looking at those who excel academically if you're looking at prevention of poverty if you're looking at avoiding incarceration all of those things say that a young child fare is better in a biological parent family are teams going to necessarily all the way to prevent teens from getting pregnant right but but you know what if if we were only talking about physical consequences that might be good enough but here again we need to go back to the social science research and what that research shows us is that only dealing with pregnancy prevention or only dealing with s.t.d.

that's not enough because there are motional consequences social consequences all of those things that play into the decision of whether or not a teen has sex. do you really believe that if you tell a teenager you can have sex and until you're married that that teenager is going to listen you know what this is not a decision that we make for any teen and it's really disingenuous to think that any program whether it's an abstinence centered sexual risk avoidance program or contraceptive centered sex education program is going to tell a teen what to do they have to make a decision from for themselves but they're receiving all of the information they need to make the healthiest decisions from an abstinence centered sexual risk avoidance program contraceptive centered programs basically send the message as long as you use a condom engage in sex and you'll be ok the research doesn't show that to be true i

mean i do believe that comprehensive sex education also. as part of the comprehensive part of it also says hey abstinence it is the way to go completely one hundred percent no risk but it also says if you do make this choice this is how to do it safely let's look at what the most widely used contraceptive curricula really do they make a short comment in passing sure abstinence is the only one hundred percent way to avoid pregnancy and s.t.d. ads but the priority message is already assuming that teens are going to have sex is that really what teens in america are doing no. fifteen to seventeen year olds are the teens who are primarily targeted for sex ed in america almost seventy five percent of those teens according to the c.d.c. have never had sex so why is it that sixteen dollars versus one dollar for sexual risk avoidance abstinence education sixteen dollars are used to normalize teen sex rather than to encourage those almost seventy five percent to continue in the

healthiest behavior something is amiss with current policy the bulk of the funding does not go and never has gone to sexual risk avoidance abstinence education it's always been contraceptive and that is the reason why years ago president obama got rid of a lot of funding for abstinence only education the reasoning behind that his administration is that is because that the studies show in science show that this doesn't work in a more comprehensive sex ed approach is what works and what happened is republicans ended up firing back to reinstate these kinds of programs so could it be also a moral and a religious it would be but it's not let's look at the facts the facts are the reestablishment of abstinence education was a bipartisan amendment it was not a republican only it was not conservatives firing back well i mean i hate to.