forgot me is it. coming up on our t.v. he might just be the world's most sought after man but in a say leaker edward snowden is nowhere to be found hong kong politicians are telling him to get out while american lawmakers tell him to come home and face the music we'll dive into the snowden saw go ahead. bradley manning is on trial the whistleblower could spend the rest of his life in jail for leaking u.s. government secrets an update on that case just ahead. and california san i know for a nuclear power plant is now shut down closed after mounting safety concerns but is it still a potential but it is still a potential hazardous nuclear waste site on this plant its environmental and economic impact and the people who live near it coming up.

it's tuesday june eleventh time magazine washington d.c. and you are watching r.t. well we begin this hour with the fallout from the revelations that the u.s. government not only has the ability to monitor your phone and your computer records but that it has been storing them in mass here's the latest information and i say leaker edward snowden is currently in hiding he was last seen in hong kong and is believed to be in that area still unsurprisingly booz allen hamilton has announced it has fired snowden for violations of the firm's code of ethics and policy meanwhile there has already been some international fallout as a result of these surveillance revelations germany's chancellor angela merkel has said that she will raise the issue of n.s.a. eavesdropping on european communications when she meets with president obama next week also the european. union has issued

a complaint about all of this spying here to break down the very latest on this case i'm joined now by michael brooks he's a producer for the majority report he's in new york as well as jesselyn radack she is the national security and human rights director at the government accountability project here in d.c. so michael let's start with you first of all let's talk about this international fallout that we are starting to see should we expect to see more of it in the days and the weeks ahead. definitely and i first of all hired meghan and hi jessica i think you'll see it in two ways we're going to continue to see i think this kind of pushback from europe on the sort of civil liberties and monitoring questions although again it will be interesting to see the level because we already know that the u.k. government as an example is pretty complicit in this program in some respects so let's kind of see what's disclosed about maybe the level of information that european nations have had about these programs to begin with but i think you'll

still see some pushback from them in that regard and then i think in the other states that probably have some questionable records in these areas as well like china probably some pushback and calling us out for hypocrisy frankly since we like to lecture on these types of issues ourselves that's a very good point now in just telling me you were yourself are a whistleblower you have seen this firsthand experience it firsthand tell me because what we have seen in the media recently is that the people talking about wessel blowers are people talking about leakers people talking about american enemies so can you define the difference is there a clear difference between leakers and whistleblower absolutely mr snowden is a classic whistleblower he revealed gross waste and illegality patent illegality what america has been doing in tikrit violates two significant federal

laws the patriot act and the foreign intelligence surveillance act unfortunately as is a case in almost every whistleblower scenario as soon as someone finds out who the whistleblower is they start focusing on that person and trying to go after them in other words shooting the messenger rather than listening to the message and it should be no mystery to anybody why he would flee because as you can see people at the highest. rules of our government are talking about precluding him guilty before he even charging him and launching a worldwide manhunt for people like him and julian the son worldwide manhunt like the one for osama bin ladin now meanwhile michael in response to all of this information coming out a few lawmakers have actually come out and said that they want to rein in this program the surveillance program just a bit senator angus king said that congress should think of ways to limit the amount of data spying these agencies actually conduct senator dianne feinstein has now asked james clapper to review and quote refined these n.s.a.

processes and limit the exposure to american private communications but my question to you is why is this only happening now with now that the public has found out isn't that the point of the legislative branch to keep the executive branch and others in check well that's exactly right and the legislative legislative branch has consistently kind of abdicated their responsibilities in this regard with some exceptions like senator wyden and senator udall and a few others they've kind of willingly ceded their authority on this and i think it's particularly. ridiculous in dianne feinstein's case because she's called for extraditing snowden she's made very hawkish and blanket statements about this program but now she's saying that there does need to kind of be additional oversight which is it's a very good point now just when our team had a chance to sit down with the wiki leaks co-founder julian

a songe today and he not said that he not only sympathizes with this leaker edward snowden but that he really feels like he is very much in the same position as edward snowden so let's take a listen to that. empathize i mean being very similar situation myself. trying to actively support through his interview or in other ways. snowden's plight back in october last year i published a book called so i punks calling for exactly the sorts of actions in relation to the mass of my own state that has developed united states and in a way small exactly what mr snowden is doing so it's it's very pleasing to see such concrete proof presented before the public so just as i had mentioned before your was a lower yourself and as i have seen it i've seen you all over the place lately i've seen you on c.n.n. i've seen you all over why are these media stations why are people willing to

listen to you now listen to what you say now well that's a good question because i represent for n.s.a. what whistleblowers who have been saying exactly the same information for three years now you've had some of them on they have war in that n.s.a. has been spying electronically both the method that and the content of all digital data in the united states and i think because we finally had an actual order and an actual person who had more recent information there was a a moment where people seem to awaken and start discussing it i feel like once the whistleblower came forward which is you know his right to do and i totally support him i think he's to roic for doing this but i knew it would launch a lot of people in you know in government. really amazing powerful dark issues that he brought to light which exhibit mass criminality

against all americans and my question is why people in europe and around the rest of the world are show angry and every american should be in the street over those close to be interesting to see how he is treated and compared to some of the other n.s.a. another whistleblowers that we've seen in the past now michael i want to take a look at the scope of what this security information is actually dealing with for american secrets now and how many people are actually dealing with it four point nine million people currently have clearance to access confidential and secret government information one point one million of them are private contractors and eighteen thousand seven hundred fifty. allen hamilton employees specifically now let's go a step above that now all of the people that have that security clearance one point four million people have access to top secret information and four hundred eighty three thousand of them are private contractors so can you talk about this i mean this is we're talking about a lot of people here who have access to american secrets and in reality any one of

them could have leaked this information so if prison that program is really as embracive as edward snowden says it is does that mean that almost five million people have the key to my digital life to your digital life. well you know i that's a really good question and i think it sort of raises the really very important things one is what are we classifying and why and getting really specific in that regard you know one of jessica's clients that i'm familiar with this thomas drake and thomas drake was really whistle blowing on basically corporate abuse and fraud in the n.s.a. in a kind of contracting process that was one thing that he was calling out of basic good government stuff so why is that classified number two i think that there's a disturbing parallel in some respects between we talked about the ninety nine percent and the one percent with regard to occupy there's

a disturbing informational. link there in terms of who has access to classified information and number three i think we see in a lot of policy areas this real faith in using contractors across the board and and quantitative methods which sometimes can have value but it's a very crude and simplistic way of approaching each policy question and you see that in this area you can arguably see it in education in some respects and that opens up a lot of room for a lot of really questionable decision making in efficiency as well as broad access to our private lives like you raise and jeff and the director of the national security intelligence agency james clapper recently sat down with an interview with n.b.c. reporter andrea mitchell and in that interview she asked him did you lie to senator wyden when you were testifying on capitol hill and i went on my person because i want to get his that his quote correct he said quote he told the truth in the least

untruthful manner so he responded in the only centrism is that really the best that we can expect from our government officials from the people who are running these agencies is the least untruthful manner i think he committed perjury frankly and should be taken to task for that an error. anything else he said about snowden it mean he's completely incredible he heard you're going before congress and should be called out on it a lot of people have been perjuring themselves here so those just quiet and credible kind of thing and finally michael according to a tweet that was sent out by bloomberg earlier today google had asked the government if it could have published the security data request that the n.s.a. had sent to it what's the likelihood of that happening very quickly. you know i'm really not sure about that i think again i think the real question is as with all of these things what will motivate how that information is handled will be politicized or not those are the real questions there's been all sorts of double

standards with regard to how all of this type of information has been handled and that's a real core part of the problem all right michael brooks producer of the majority report and jesselyn radack the national security and human rights director at the government accountability project thank you both for joining us thank you while lawmakers and the american public debate over privacy versus national security back here at home the one question just about everyone wants answered is where in the world is edward snowden in newspapers are plastered headlines like deep throat hides in h.k. and the world's most wanted man breaks cover in hong kong some are even going so far as to compare snowden's actions with those of private first class bradley manning the man behind the biggest document in american history r.t. correspondent margaret howell takes a critical look at these comparisons to see if they hold water. and as the whistleblower edward snowden and wiki leaks source bradley manning both release classified information exposing the us government secrets but if they do the same

thing will and comparing whistleblowers private bradley manning an x. booz allen hamilton employ edward snowden the two have a lot in common these two men are similar in superficial ways their age middle class backgrounds but let's go below the surface the most crucial similarity both experienced a catalyst moment that led to their decisions to expose secrets similarity number one they both had a turning point these moments in each of their lives that led to their decisions to leak classified information snowden said that watching the cia operate when posted in geneva made him wary that the clandestine organization was working towards the public good he specifically mentioned watching the cia get a swiss banker drunk and arrested him for drunk driving and in order to turn him into a source manning's turning point came when on february twenty seventh two thousand and ten he came across a report received from a subordinate the telly and manning mentioned this report the report describes an

event in which federal police officers detain fifteen individuals for printing and see iraqi literature the pamphlet in arabic amounted to be a protest pamphlet the second similarity manning and snowden didn't use internal mechanisms to voice their concerns like going to an inspector general or bringing the information to congress for investigation neither man chose that option. the third similarity the government's response the government moved in fast and furious after each leak immediately after the release of the documents the government began investigating the identity of these leakers but snowden manning are different in many ways as well number one their biggest difference snowden reviewed every document he chose to release manning didn't manning's hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables were reviewed snowden said he learned from manning and made sure he wasn't endangering the lives of the operatives it was calculated concise

specific number to another different snowden outed himself by the time as identity was out he was out of the country whereas manning was on an army base in iraq and was investigated and caught the third difference when snowden leaked the n.s.a. documents he was working as a private contractor whereas manning was still in the army that's why manning is undergoing court martial whereas the justice department is reviewing snowden's case . snowden had the hindsight of manning manning two point zero if you will he knew the government's arguments against manning these men their mutual passion regardless of the reason to expose it made them a mark for certain but at least they both had the guts to do it in washington margaret howell. well edwards most noted in trying to avoid the public eye but private first class bradley manning wasn't front and center in court today as week

two of his trial for shit off for john now is the defense's turn to question the computer forensic analysts about what they were able to find and if they can conclusively say that it was bradley manning who leaked all of it with a malicious intent to correspondent liz wahl was in the courtroom fort meade maryland today and she joins us now with more hi there lou is what is the latest that came out of the testimony today. today we heard testimony from a number of computer forensic analysts first to take the stand was a military computer analyst a man by the name of matthew berg now he talked about a conference he attended in berlin germany back in december two thousand and nine it's a it's called the here be dragons. communications conference it's organized by the chaos communications cloud now this is an annual event that brings together tech savvy people from all over the world thousands of people annually attend this event everybody from computer hackers to their computer experts now. those berg

describe that to issues were highlighted at this event net neutrality and wiki leaks we know that as he testified julian assange himself was there to talk about his organization the organization of wiki leaks and what this organization is all about and he even encouraged attendees to come forward and leak information what happened is the defense ended up cross cross it. ask him if there was any mention of terrorist attacks on mention sana made any mention of aiding terrorists which has been said that there was no mention of that you might be wondering why this is significant well as we know there are a number of chance charges against the army private the most serious of which is aiding the enemy and this could be there's a big burden of proof there to prove that manning did in fact when he leaked this information to try to to help the enemy and in danger national security and lose

how did the both the prosecution and the defense react to this kind of information . well there was a couple of interesting developments i'll tell you one one thing that sort of the most reaction in the media room today were some of there were journals that were some of his supporters was this was this testimony by a computer analyst so the really going to tell you why this is significant in the opening arguments of this case the prosecution said that they would prove that manning sent classified videos to a man by the name of jason katz now he was a department of energy employee back in two thousand and nine we're talking about an unseen video reportedly shows a military helicopter firing down on civilians in afghanistan resulting in mashed casualties now the prosecution said that they were going to prove that manning sent this video to cats back in two thousand and nine manning said that he didn't send

any didn't leak any information until two thousand and ten now today on the stand. shaver a special agent or excuse me a military analyst was asked is there any connection between katz and my client to which shaver said no so. it is important for the defense this is seen as a big victory very interesting are to correspondent liz wahl bringing i'm going to be very latest trial it's supposed to go on all summer. well it seems like the protests at taksim square in istanbul turkey have taken yet another turn as riot police used tear gas and water cannons to clear out demonstrators prime minister recep tayyip erdogan he had to quote he had quote no more tolerance for the anti-government protests that have swept the country marking the biggest political demonstration in turkey in decades protests started more than a week ago to voice this approval of the government plan to develop parts of

a public park into a shopping mall however the demonstrations have grown in scope coming to represent an opposition. alleged increased a story tarion as i'm now in taksim square is filled with columns of tear gas driving out the thousands of people who have made this place the center of their protest protesters reacted by throwing stones at water cannon vehicles as ambulances entered the square to tend to those who were injured until this point three have died and thousands more were injured in the skirmishes with the police but surely today's actions will have to affect that tally more protesters have now left tax and square. on the california now where the edison international corporation has decided to shut down the troubled center no free power plant for good this plant has experienced a slew of systematic problems with its twenty reactors over the years including a small radioactive vapor leak the santa know for

a plant has been supplying california with energy since one thousand nine hundred sixty eight and produced nothing or gee to power one point four million homes so while environmentalist celebrate california officials are trying to figure out how to make up for that loss the plant also left a five hundred million dollars bill for the state to deal with. reports. the jewels of the senate no free nuclear generating station have been a fixture of the southern california coast for decades leaks of the steam generator tubes for southern california edison to shut down the reactors but the toxic legacy of the facility could remain for generations to come the bad news is the fact that there is thirty five years of nuclear waste nuclear expert arnie gundersen helped educate the public about the safety problems at the play and explained what will happen to the waste inside the reactors in about five years it will come out of the

nuclear fuel and it's stored in these things called drop right casks so it can be air cool never go outside and they'll sit outside for perhaps forty or fifty years and the big deal there is that there's no place the ship will congress and the obama administration defunded a plan nuclear waste repository millions of pounds of radioactive material will stay at the senate over a site with no place to go use nuclear fuel is held at dozens of temporary locations around the u.s. there are still safety concerns and lingering financial issues at the shut down power plant utility company so cal edison has charge repairs hundreds of millions of dollars over the last year and a half without producing any energy yes and no for a decommissioning the plant could cost three billion dollars i mean the steam generators are supposed to last forty to sixty years and they failed in less than two years so we did not get our money's worth so we should not have to pay for any

of that done to gilmore and a million other people live within fifty miles of the plant the shutdown will force so cal edison to lay off more than a thousand workers more worries the managers at the plant will put profits over safety i'm concerned that they're just cutting the numbers and not making sure they have the right people in the right place. too. manage that waste gunderson believe the shutdown is one of the most significant events in the history of nuclear energy and the industry is very concerned now the citizens realize. they can do with maybe more citizen action the show more nuclear plants for nuclear plants have close in the u.s. this year in california it will still be many more years before this scenic ocean front is nuclear free in los angeles remote valley in the r.t.e. while biotechnology giant monsanto has won yet another major legal battle against

organic farmers the u.s. court of appeals has thrown out a lawsuit that would preemptively prevent monsanto from suing small farmers it traces of its g.m.o. crops are found in their fields the court ruled that the farmers have no reason to try to block monsanto sense there have been no previous cases of this actually happening tell me break it all down as steve burma's he is the founding board member of the farm to consumer legal defense fund steve thank you so much for joining me now the court said that it wasn't a case because nothing like this has ever happened before but should the judicial system be more proactive in preventing these types of lawsuits. well we were certainly disappointed at the we're one of the thirty or so co plaintiffs in this matter and we were all disappointed in the fear of the court to actually even hear the case however it was encouraging that even such a powerful player as monsanto could be buttoned by the court in this way in other

words they basically promised to the court that they would not keep on suing small farmers who have just a trace of their g.m.o. patented genes in their field but steve let me stop you even right there let's talk about this word that trace amounts of monsanto seed how much are we talking about here and how can they determine that well they do these d.n.a. type testing from samples of the. product in this case probably sorie or corn. and they sit months santa has been doing this and saying aha there's a little bit of our stuff in your field and therefore we're going to sue you for patent infringement and that's the promise they had to make not to do that kind of de minimus attacking which is really just to strike fear into a small firm years now as i understand it the court has ruled that the website of monsanto will be enough for that promise that they will not say these small farmers

with trace amounts but let me play devil's advocate here for just a second there are been cases i guess of farmers in using or modifying monsanto saying it's if this suit went through what would it have lost monsanto money how would they be able to differentiate between accidental cross pollination and purposeful violation of a patent. well. the facts and circumstances of any case are what happens in a trial so if monsanto was going to prove. that someone intentionally did something that's one thing. but these accidental pollen drift are what we're happy that the court addressed and that's a significant improvement over what happened in the district court and if monsanto keeps doing this we'll have another day in court they may yet have another day in court if the group decides to appeal this to the supreme court by the way that's

still an open process but it sure now i do want to draw another kind of comparison here we've heard the phrase preemptive release from liability used with monsanto before but that was part of the agriculture appropriations bill with the so-called monsanto protection act which protected bioengineering companies from lawsuits over their products so if affording the protection to big companies why not also for that protection to all right nick farmers well i'm not. very familiar with that aspect of the farm bill i'm not sure that's been passed yet. a lot of these things are still in play and i agree with you that for what's good for the goose is good for the gander all right steve feminist founding board member of the farm to consumer legal defense fund thank you so much for joining us sir thank you and that does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash our team america check out our website artie dot com usa.

technology innovations all the developments around. the future right. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for langley you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom hartman welcome to the big picture. on. morning news today violence was once again flared up

flippantly these are the images before all of that and seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations are all today. please please please. please

. good afternoon and welcome to prime interest i'm perry i'm boring in washington d.c. let's get to today's headlines. never underestimate the wrath of a shareholder scorned investors and of fannie and freddie are suing you as the government which took control of the mortgage giants in two thousand and eight and exchange for a one hundred eighty billion bailout dollars the treasury got to keep all quarterly profits go in forward as well as high dividend payments alleged by the plaintiffs to be serious so this might be the shareholders a last chance to recoup their money now that administration and visuals have talked about winding down the mortgage giants fannie and freddie already returned fifty nine billion dollars to the treasury after opposing.