it with. coming up on our t.v. breaking news n.s.a. whistleblower eric snowden is facing espionage charges tonight the washington post reports the u.s. is spiled a sealed criminal complaint and end up look at that story coming up. the expanding surveillance state has given serious bank to defense contractors so much of the government's intelligence gathering relies on private sources to go through data collected a look at how big surveillance leads to big bucks coming up. just days away from the student loan interest rates doubling a group of senators are trying to come up with a deal to avoid that increase but will it happen more later in tonight's show.

it's friday june twenty first eight pm in washington d.c. i'm margaret how well you're watching r.t. we begin tonight with breaking news the washington post reports that this evening the u.s. officials have charged n.s.a. whistleblower edward snowden with espionage u.s. officials told the post that federal prosecutors filed a field criminal complaint against the now thirty year old who handed over a series of government documents to the media revealing secret n.s.a. surveillance programs in addition to espionage he's also been charged with theft and conversion of government property well for more on this i was joined a short time ago by political commentator sam sax and abby martin host of breaking the sat i first asked sam what these charges mean for snowden. well this is what snowden was expecting i mean he went to hong kong he's been very vocal that is he's fully expecting the government to come down hard on him like they've come down on all whistleblowers over the last few years especially the obama administration but

snowden has a leg up on a lot of these whistleblowers mess of fact that he released these documents he made himself public he went out he made his case for why he release these documents so this is going to be played out in the public eye on like say what happened to bradley manning who was picked up never had a chance to defend himself in the public eye and has just been sitting in prison that's going to probably complicate the government's case against snowden is that we know why he did this and there's a lot of support behind him doing this ok laviolette citizen you do you think that this is a surprising move that the government would decide to pursue an s.p. in ours and asked me last charge at this point well i say i'm just snowden himself during an interview with the guardian said that he expect to be charged and as the knowledge acts that he kind of predicted this and of course i mean look at the obama administration's track record snowden will be the eighth person now charged under this archaic piece of world war one legislation more than any other president combined i mean it's just amazing you have ellsberg and drake daniel ellsberg one

of most famous whistleblowers of all time saying that this is the most important leak in american history but you know what we're just was a trust obama just trust them he's doing the right thing. by writing him our it's and let's talk about it to you what does this mean for potential extradition from hong kong to the u.s. could that possibly happen it could very possibly happen in hong kong has an extradition treaty with the u.s. there is an exception in that treaty for political issues and. this is with snow to being charge into the espionage act that's a political crime it could be construed at least as a political crime by hong kong or by beijing which has a lot of influence here as well so we'll see what happens but really as i said this is the eighth time that a whistleblower has been charged. by the obama administration under the espionage act and they have yet to ever secure a convention couldn't picture him with e.s.p. to their operate here you know doing this in just the fact that they're pursuing an

espionage act is going to further complicate this case rather than just sticking to the charges you mentioned like stealing our property and using government. facilities or whatever then i can just add one thing you know bradley manning's case even they can't even really prove that he's aided the enemy really that would hold even death and it has been i mean we're talking about very serious charges that hold at least life in prison or even worse i mean so this is a very serious charge ari fleischer the stooge for president bush the cheerleader tweeted the other day is like real whistleblowers don't leave the country overly r.e.c. you expect whistleblowers and just stay here and just face life in prison i mean this is the mentality this initiation when you see obama of course charging him if he has been hijacked it's just insane totally ridiculous well again at the mockers the sorry i want to actually seem to have something that will michael hayden was on our to you a few days ago and he said that he often wanted to tell these things to the american people he wanted the american people to know what we're doing on their behalf because he thinks that they would be happy with what they're doing it is

very much debatable but what hayden said is he didn't he didn't know of a way to do that without endangering the country without giving out information that people were trying to catch that's the crux of all this the government so far has been unable whether it's thomas drake john kiriakou or right now with the bradley manning trial show how any of these leaks have resulted in espionage or have hurt americans the national security of the united states that will be the big issue moving forward if they can prove any of this ok sam so let's take a back to the white house's motivation do you think that this has anything to do with that information that came out with a businessman who had the plane who was tied to wiki leaks was ready to charter it to help snowden do you think that that's coming on the heels of that. it could the government's been investigating stay. since all this came out the eric holder is said the day after snowden revealed himself he said there's an investigation ongoing. n.b.c. news is reporting that the white house has said that the reason why this these

charges were delayed is that they were working with hong kong to make sure this fits within the extradition treaty which suggests that it's hong kong as is likely willing to hand over snowden if they've been working with the u.s. authorities before these charges were released but iceland may not even be the best place for snowden going to join saying they're just tweeted this today as you just said do not come to iceland they can have some advice for edward snowden she's a wiki leaks member in the parliament and right now she said do not come here we have a horrible track record of turning away asylum seekers don't come and conservatives are are back in power. all right abbi so what sort of impact do you think that this could possibly have on the guardian or other journalists who are still publishing snowden's leaks it's very dangerous climate it's a slippery slope because we've seen james rosen with fox news being almost you know accused of being a coconspirator just for doing his job glenn greenwald's definitely the line of fire right now you've already had people calling for his prosecution who are public officials i mean this is not a laughing matter it's not

a joke this is something very serious that undermines the foundation of our democracy when journalists are going to be targeted or could potentially be targeted for doing their job and we saw look at all the wiki leaks debacle media organizations that were just simply publishing the leaks could also under some caviar outs of this ridiculous law could be charged as well for aiding the enemy so really where is the line drawn thanks to snowden's revelations we know how this investigation is going to proceed the n.s.a. is probably collected all of snowden's information using these programs like prism to go into his inbox is find out who has been associated with goes to glenn greenwald or whatever other reporters he's been working with go through their inbox is find out and then from there you can just go into trucking today the nation broke a story about how people affiliated with wiki leaks have. were forced google was forced to hand over their information to the government as part of that investigation because we're running out of time i want to give this to abbi abbi how do you think that this case is going to work itself out you know in regards to

other whistleblower cases is this one going to be different no i think this is the last one on a long string of the horrible examples of just how much of a guise of a democracy that we live in i mean we're attacking the people who were supposed to be protecting on obama's campaign trail he stressed how important whistleblowers are to the nation and principles of democracy and really we're living in the guise of a democracy it's really turning into a more authoritarian state than ever before when you're attacking people who are trying to bring light to criminal activities within the government and the sam always good to hear from you both that was breaking the set host abby martin political commentator sam sacks thanks margaret you all heard by now the n.s.a. spying on its citizens but just who actually is carrying out their dirty work it turns out u.s. contractors are making some serious bank in the surveillance game companies like raytheon and booz allen have been paid by the government to spy on you just how

long is the n.s.a. been farming out their spies jobs defense contractors that make the spy community our major players in cyber security our teams are among the lindo as more. it's now become an all invasive twenty four seven security complex. the leaks by edward snowden every privacy concerns worldwide over the national security agency and who it's tracking they've also shed light on the influential companies behind the u.s. surveillance state so this is an enormous state complex with a lot of money changing hands snowden's former employer booz allen hamilton is in a scrutiny for its close ties to d.c. insiders like director of national intelligence james clapper does the n.s.a. collect any type of data at all i'm millions or hundreds of millions of americans. no sir. it does not. not wittingly. james

clapper used to work for booz allen hamilton now in the his predecessor who previous director of national intelligence now works at booz allen hamilton that's the classic revolving door it's not just booz allen who's profiting from spine traditional defense contractors like boeing northrop grumman and as a i see are making big bucks on intelligence s.a.i.c. has locations worldwide including sunny southern california. the contract. billions of dollars in government contracts as c. is also behind the n.s.a.'s failed trailblazer program the costly and invasive surveillance project was exposed in the early two thousands so it was a lower thomas trick staggering amounts of money are being made off the fear mongering since nine eleven you now have an entire industrialized scale mechanism by which a number of contractors are feeding off and it's it's

a lot of money the contractor is considered to be one of the major private players in the cyber security industry and employs tens of thousands of people worldwide and here in california dozens of jobs are available involving intelligence and high security clearances we've seen multiple countries basically start beefing up their cyber security both governments and companies the twenty thirteen budget for u.s. intelligence is nearly seventy two billion dollars it's estimated seventy percent of that money is going to private contractors the intelligence community is bamboozling congress and the administration they are telling them that we have to do this in order to find the bad guys in the networks and i just absolutely false the top contractors who analyze data for the pentagon and the n.s.a. have contributed more than sixteen million dollars to members of congress since two thousand and seven according to research by map like a campaign cash to both democrats and republicans so with both parties this

security national security complex is deeply embedded with a revolving door that's corruption the u.s. government is defending its intelligence programs as legal and as americans except the increasing privacy intrusions contractors with friends in congress will keep cashing in on the growing market of cyber surveillance. in los angeles among the in the party are to surmount glinda joined me earlier from l.a. i started by asking him just how much money these contractors are making off the u.s. government to go through our data. well the true number of can really not be quantify when we take a look at the intelligence budget for last year here in the united states it was seventy two billion dollars and that's actually lower than at the height of eighty billion dollars which was back in two thousand and ten but when you really take a look at it back in one thousand nine hundred seven we're only spending twenty seven billion on intelligence twenty seven billion compared to seventy two billion

so since nine eleven the industry has really grown exponentially and we know how long this has been going on. yet while this really. blown up after nine eleven and with the installment of the patriot act it has really led to a lot of policies which have opened up this surveillance state here in the u.s. and really at the bottom of this is the perceived conflict of interest where we see government officials going back and forth between contractors and there's this perception that they're influencing policy they're overselling true national security threats in order to make a buck ramona i have to tell you it does look like one another example of the revolving door situation that we've seen for a while now booz allen hamilton employees are in a say and they seem to go round and round but let me ask you a question playing devil's devil's advocate here why do critics believe that private security contracts for surveillance are dangerous why would that be

a bad thing. sure well besides these these perceived conflicts of interest there's still the issue of people like snowed in others who have these top security clearances it's estimated hundreds of thousands of people have these and this all happened with the explosions of contractors being used as for hire spies so besides snowden there's hundreds of thousands of other people who potentially could have access to your personal information whether you're committing a crime or not ok so i want to talk to you now about the risk of the intelligence at the end fluence created. by these contractors what is their influence exactly on the intelligence industry sure well critics will point to companies such as booz allen northrop grumman as a i c and they take a look at whether these companies are getting these new creative government contracts because they're so effective or is it because they have those close

contacts in d.c. and when we look at those adults in say i see boeing they're both the recipient they're all the recipients of multi billion dollar deals which in the past have shown to go way over budget and many times they are just not effective thomas drake pointed out one of the biggest multi-billion the bottles they see was behind so a lot of people wondering if they keep receiving these contracts because they're so good at their job or just because they have certain names in their role is done zone always great to see you we have to leave it there that was our t. correspondent rym uncle and oh well the u.s. has pulled out of iraq and has begun the final stages of its military handover in afghanistan expensive equipment including two thousand ambush protected vehicles are being dumped or scrapped each of these vehicles cost one million dollars so you do the math but will this region become the u.s. military's dumping ground are she's not going lopez brings us that's for e. this is

a historic moment for our country. he hereby announce that as of tomorrow all security and defense of this will be led and carried out by security forces it's the moment americans have been waiting for for over a decade the moment when nato forces hand over control to the afghan government and begin the process of leaving the country but with the twenty fourteen deadline looming and the military looking to make its final exit from afghanistan what's going to happen with the billions of dollars worth of equipment remaining in the country a new washington post article sheds some light on the drawdown and it starts with the meltdown of military vehicles we've got about eleven thousand mine resistant ambush protected vehicles and ramps in the country and afghanistan two thousand which are being destroyed turned to scrap metal the claim by the defense department

is that the afghanistan government won't be able to use them won't be able to run them and so it would be more expensive to bring bring them back to the u.s. about two three billion to transport them eight to nine billion to repair them that general stein's claimed in afghanistan but as a result we're looking at a seven billion dollar waste instead two thousand of these but he myths which by the way cost one million dollars a pop will be melted down and turned into scraps sold for pennies on the dollar in fact the army plans on shipping back no more than seventy six percent of all equipment in the country but one group will profit from this waste it's a perfect couth for the defense contractors because they love it so yeah sure it destroyed the equipment in country it's terrible for the environment terrible it's a slight of it's a slight to the country saying you can't actually using temperance but then it's a great opportunity for defense contractors to build more immature more future it's a project contract workers have already begun to work on last month alone kandahar yard produced eleven million pounds worth of scrap but the obvious question is why

not leave those vehicles to the afghans and that's not the only. concern opponents of the plan have it's a huge waste of taxpayer dollars seven billion gone done no one's benefiting the americans are benefiting the afghans are benefiting so it's a huge waste of money it's a huge environmental waste because there's a lot of toxins in those m. ranch so yeah some of the scrap metal will be used on the market sold for nothing but environmental waste it's huge and in the political ways to mean it's a huge blow to the afghan people to say we don't trust you enough to provide both the equipment and the ability to keep equipment restored and maintained going forward now this move isn't completely out of line with historical precedent the military left behind millions of pieces of equipment in iraq and moved all the rest to afghanistan well with the u.s. planning its ultimate exit from the entire region the so-called graveyard of empires could soon have another tank junkyard to mark a decade worth of war and of strife in washington meghan lopez. for those of you

who are under the under the burden of a student loan get yourself ready for an interest rate spike if congress doesn't stop it interest rates for the most popular type of student loan are set to double in ten days beginning july the first they're going from three point four percent to six point eight percent so that could be a big financial burden for the thirty seven million americans who currently have student loan debt as many as sixty percent of students are borrowing money for college contributing to the one trillion owed by americans and student loans over eighty percent of that is over the federal government well senator say that they have drafted a proposal that's gaining some steam that would create a three tiered loan rate system for undergraduates graduates and a third group which would be tied to the interest rate over a ten year treasury note to discuss the student debt crisis i was joined earlier by consumer advocate steph gray i started off by asking her what congress is doing to prevent the doubling of student loan rates. well senator elizabeth warren who's

a major consumer advocate and originally had the idea for the consumer financial protection bureau she's introduced a new act called the bank on students' fairness act which would allow students to borrow from the federal reserve not from the department of education but through the federal reserve we have a department of education at the same rate that the big banks get when they borrow from the fed so right now that student loan interest is set to double on july first from three point four percent to six point eight percent that's on stafford loans which are the most common type of federally subsidized loans. for the big banks borrowing from the fed directly there is a discount window that allows them to borrow at historically wrote low rates of point seven five percent now it's absurd that banks can borrow at point seven five percent homeowners seeking thirty year mortgages are getting three or four percent on their new mortgages and students are going to have to borrow at six point eight

percent i mean students are in a very tough position right now where they can't even borrow ahead of time before this july first window change because there's no way to borrow before the school year begins there's no way to lock in the three point four percent interest rate and ultimately what this going what this is going to mean for students is that they're going to pay given the typical ten year repayment plan they're going to pay four thousand dollars more that's an increase of a thousand dollars per year in college and i think the average student could use an extra thousand dollars in his or her pocket. you know stuff you make a lot of sense to me do you think that the fact i want to talk about students and how little power they seem to be having you know do you think that students who don't have that lobbying effort in congress are they getting shafted in deals like these well there's really no incentive for the government to help students out there's no bankruptcy protections on student loans and it doesn't matter if you're broke it doesn't matter if you're disabled or facing health issues you have to.

prove economic hardship in a court of law which is very very difficult i started occupy student debt dot com a couple of years ago and collected stories from around the nation hundreds of people submitted their tales of how student debt affected them from students to former students baby boomers senior citizens all talking about the hardships they faced with possibly losing their retirements losing their homes and being unable to sharjah said bankruptcy now the department of education has teams of debt collectors are able to track down students and garnish wages garnished tax returns and so on and without the bankruptcy protection there's just no incentive for the government's help students of void taking out more debt than they can handle taking out with interest rates that they can't handle or even defaulting in the end the current federal government currently makes thirty six cents on every dollar that students borrow and last year alone they made fifty one billion dollars off of student debt lending that's more than any other fortune more than any fortune five

hundred company that's even more than google made so i mean why help students if they're banking so much off of them there doesn't seem to be a lot of motivation for congress to help out these students i want to talk to you about that who in congress doesn't want to offer this relief of even the money is there any other reason behind why they're not rallying around these kids to help. while the republican party has been. in standing in the way of student debt reform john boehner for example his daughter is actually on the board of sallie mae which is the biggest private lender of student loans in the u.s. . ok well if they don't reach a deal what could we see happen. i mean if they don't get all smelly most students will be powerless because in this country you're told that getting an education is the best possible thing you can do for yourself i mean granted there are so few jobs out there for those of us who have finished the eighty's and ninety's look at

people who haven't even gotten past the high school level you know low income students feel that they have no other choice but to you know either go to college and make something themselves or join the armed forces and tuition repayment for the armed forces has been cut dramatically as well so you know there are so few options out there not everyone is able to win the sort of scholarships that go to a plus students you know the average student so needs to be given a fighting chance to be able to go to school make something of him or herself and get out and have every payment options. thank you stuff for that i want to take you nail you mentioned earlier that you can bankrupt a student loan and you also mention that this debt makes up a trillion dollars we're running out of time here but i want to i want to ask you what advice would you give people who find themselves trapped under this debt. reach out to those of us who have been involved in the student debt or advocacy community there are so many resources out there such as forgive student loan debt

dot org which is run by robert applebaum there's a fantastic nonprofit organization in d.c. right now called the young invincibles they can help provide resources as to what to do if you're struggling with your diet and the options are available to staff we have to leave it there always good to see you as consumer advocate stuff gray. being friday a lot of us are looking forward to the end of the. workweek for decades now it seems that working in the us has gotten more intense and prolonged with benefits stagnating overtime so if you feel like a zombie tonight you may not be alone for more on that the residence for her for most.

americans who are all corporate zombies according to a new gallup poll seventy percent of americans are and motion only gets connected at work that's a huge percentage also according to the poll the least committed among us are the young and the well educated which makes sense because it means you're smart enough to realize that corporate america sucks according to census data almost forty million americans work for corporations with more than ten thousand employees we are all because in the wheel that is churning out products we are completely and mostly just connected to when he was just for inflation in one nine hundred seventy the average american salary with fifty nine thousand dollars a year and people worked an average of thirty five hours a week today the average salary has gone down to fifty one thousand dollars

a year and people are working an average of forty six hours a week which all means that americans are working harder and getting paid less we are also getting fewer benefits and now that employers are starting to implement obamacare we're seeing many companies cut people's hours to avoid having to pay any health care benefits at all and we have companies like wal-mart paying people to a little bit they. have to use medicaid a recent report to show that one wal-mart store in wisconsin is costing taxpayers almost a million dollars a year in medicaid because the giant corporation won't pony up to its own workers. we're getting fewer benefits i left pay while we work longer hours for companies that we don't care about and on top of that all we see are bosses and our c.e.o.'s giving themselves huge salaries and multimillion dollar bonuses. the corporatization of america has bred

a culture of non accountability we all work for giant corporations now and get nero there ward for working harder so with the point if we work harder the corporation benefits not us the same is true in reverse if someone has a complaint about the company that we work for it's not our fault it just corporate policy so everyone just passes the blame around. so no wonder we are all growing more emotionally fifth connected we just don't give a crap about our corporate jobs and i don't play new american because when you see that you're involved it is and your legislators have all ripped up their end of the social contract it becomes a no brainer to realize they don't need suckers work hard at corporate job. tonight let's talk about that by filing and twitter at their residence.

that does it for more on these stories we've covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america check out our website at r t dot com slash usa you can also follow me on twitter at m underscore j underscore how old and don't forget to tune in at nine pm for larry king now with special guest harrison ford talking about his acting career and so much more for now i'll have a great night. the worst you are going to. find out of a. radio guy and for a minute. i want. to give you never seen anything like this until a. good

afternoon and welcome to prime interest luckily i'm bob english in washington d.c. area and has a day off and here is the story we're tracking today lord help.