ecuador's considering u.s. whistleblower edward snowden's bid for asylum he is currently in transit for the night at a moscow airport after fleeing hong kong while in america will chase him to the ends of the earth. washington is in hot pursuit of snowden demanding his extradition to the states and revoking his passport staying saying he should be banned from continuing his trip. and as the hunt for snowden it continues across continents a bush era whistleblower puts the spotlight on barack obama saying the president was wiretapped when he ran for the senate.

from our studios in moscow this is r t i'm sean thomas and let's get right to our main story of the evening one of america's most wanted men n.s.a. whistleblower edward snowden is believed to be staying in a moscow airport tonight he is reportedly waiting to board a flight in the next twenty four hours after fleeing hong kong due to the looming threat of extradition to the u.s. here's our tease paul scott with the latest developments in washington's and for the man who leaked some of the country's most closely guarded secrets. one of america's most wanted men has kept the world's media guessing on a day of intrigue. the day began with reports that edward snowden had fled hong kong. to moscow turned out to be true he landed here what about five fifteen. fifteen local time. by the ecuadorian. now we are hearing that he's having problems

getting a russian visa and that he's in transit in the building behind me he was greeted by the ecuadorian. the confirmation came that was indeed the country that he was seeking asylum in the country's minister of foreign affairs tweeting that he had applied for political asylum with the country now the suggestion is he's going to fly on to cuba. to. be a transit eventually ends his journey his final destination his target destination of course. seeking political. he's not traveling alone there is a legal representative from wiki leaks to believe traveling with edward snowden on his journey wiki leaks say that they've helped edward snowden throughout the process they helped him have a safe. exit from hong kong. and they are indeed the ones who were negotiating the

deal for political asylum in ecuador he's kept everyone guessing here there were hundreds of photographers and cameramen in. the world's most famous. but he hasn't been. in transit and also rather interesting the ecuadorian ambassador as. we were expecting we were hoping that he would make some kind of official statement on this because if only official confirmation that we do have. edward snowden or the ecuadorian on. edward snowden was. still here he is set to spend the night. before i say really suggest he's involved he will not fly to cuba monday afternoon. edward snowden's exact whereabouts are currently unknown though he is thought to be still at the airport there is speculation he could be staying out a so-called capsule hotel and so i'm sure metz of you're seeing footage of the

airport right now from our news agency ruptly other reports however suggest he is in a v.i.p. zone inside one of the terminals he is believed to be waiting for a flight to cuba now the wiki leaks organization which is helping edward snowden seek refuge says he will leave for ecuador via what it calls a safe route artie's to bang months he has been following developments from ecuador's embassy in moscow throughout the day she brings us this report there was a lot of speculation and a lot of speculation and unconfirmed reports are running around the minute that snowden actually left to hong kong on his way to moscow early on a full closure on the. time the ecuadorian ambassador and a motorcade left the embassy on drew to the airport now so we haven't heard anything as yet official from the ecuadorian embassy here in moscow as to where the ambassador is or how. them but what we do know is that official statement from

there could during the embassy from the uk during our foreign minister rather say that it is indeed confirmed that snowden has launched that application or for asylum or with the government through the wire the media as well was crowding the embassy here earlier on today is because of all the one particular case that we've all been following around of julian asuncion now of course we know that julian assange is been holed up at the ecuadorian embassy in london julian assange of course has been in the background of this extradition. with us snowden right now you know it doesn't it doesn't surprise or many experts and many of the people who were out here that we spoke to saying that could be considering having snowden in the teacher we know that they've done that for julian assange so it was only i guess everybody thought the logical step would be for snowden himself to ask the

adoring embassy to grant him asylum right now he's still add to the a portie we don't know how long his paperwork is going to go and if indeed he will be able to leave would only have to wait and see if there could during government themselves to give a formal statement saying that if indeed yes they have granted him that asylum so it's still a waiting game for all of us especially here at the boreen embassy in moscow and i'm sure for the rest of the world and everybody who's been following this story the whole day washington has reportedly urged latin american countries not to offer edward snowden asylum johnny barreto from the free bradley manning support network is confident that ecuador among others would be willing to offer snowden refuge despite u.s. pressure. they have very large. numbers of asylum like fifty some odd thousand not necessary political refugees but i think also that has also helped make a safe haven for those that are persecuted politically and i think it's

a wonderful watershed moment were there was a big concert at africa and beyond of these countries russia hong kong china as well and ecuador to protect edward snowden i think it's a very good initiative i think that all these countries know that the americans are not going to let up lightly and are going to exert a great amount of political pressure to have him extradited but i do hope in this new age of south american consciousness and new freedoms and so forth that they will step up to the plate and provide protection for edward snowden washington has revoked edward snowden's passport and said that he should be prevented from traveling any further and says officials demanded that he be returned to the jurisdiction of the united states some lawmakers are urging washington to spare no effort to put him on trial in the u.s. even going so far as to threaten russia over its involvement or he's going to if you can is following the story for us from the state's u.s.

official confirmed that they have in fact revoked edward snowden's passport to stop him from traveling it didn't stop him from flying out of hong kong as we know not clear whether it was because hong kong officials did not receive the notification in crime or because they made a decision to overlook we know that was has put a lot of pressure on hong kong to arrest you know not to let him leave the country but in a statement the government of hong kong says u.s. documentation did not fully comply with the legal requirements of the hong kong law but also in the same statement the government of hong kong that they want more information about the hacking of computer systems in hong kong by u.s. government agencies something that was part of snowden's revelations so in this official statement we see how hong kong shifts the focus from the mess in. dear edward snowden back to the message through the revelations that he has made demanding an explanation from the u. was because these revelations show that the u.s. ally that it has been doing the same as what he to accuse is china of doing

policymakers here in the u.s. are doing everything to shift the attention away from snowden's revelations by focusing on snowden himself or even by attacking other countries like russia senator chuck schumer was on one of the news shows this morning saying president putin. always seems almost eager to put a finger in the eye of the u.s. and i was listening to a former director of the cia saying over russia and china are going to use this meeting snowden to embarrass the the west and what would argue it's his revelations that embarrass the u.s. not china or russia the u.s. government is clearly afraid of more revelations from snowden the debate in the u.s. media has shifted to this chase moche to this captain mouse game it's not all about how we're going to catch him so right now the media is unsympathetic to edward snowden although just a week ago some of the same journalists who are almost cheerleading for his capture now were grateful for snowden's revelations which were indeed eye opening for all

of us as far as the prospect of being caught here's what edward snowden himself said i could be you know rendered by the cia i could have a people come after me or any of their third party partners you know they would they work closely with a number of other nations and that's a fear i'll live under for the rest of my life however long that happens to be you can come forward against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and be completely free from risk because they're such powerful adversaries the no one can meaningfully oppose them. if they want to get you they'll get you in time edward snowden also said it's not government persecution that he fears he said the greatest fear that i have. about the outcome of these disclosures is that nothing will change more on that in my report america's split on edward snowden traitor or hero mixed in between but we guard lissa what anyone thinks about snowden his

revelations have shed unprecedented light on the u.s. government's massive spying program even if you're not doing anything wrong you're being watched and recorded a former n.s.a. employee william binney was prosecuted as a traitor when he blew the whistle on the government's sweeping collection of data and communications it's setting up a tele tarion state. when the government has that much information they can do those things they can use the i.r.s. to intimidate people or anything else they can send the f.b.i. . what they did to me and some others bradley manning to is being prosecuted as a traitor although it's still his war logs that the public learned about the. collateral murder it was committed in iraq the obama administration has prosecuted more whistleblowers under the espionage act than all previous administrations combined but it was a lower say it's not government persecution that they fear the greatest fear that i have regarding the outcome. for america of these disclosures is that nothing will change the administration is not trying to

convince the american people that government secrets programs are a trade off they have to make in the name of national security they always have the same stories about you know science manning is known you know psychological stories what is wrong with these people cause them to do this i mean the real question is what is wrong with everyone else from who doesn't see what they can see but whistleblowers are not the only targets there is an obligation both moral but also legal i believe against a reporter that was the chairman of the house committee on cutting teligent and terrorism peter king calling to punish the journalist who exposed the government's surveillance programs in its hunt for meeks the obama administration has already targeted its it's trying to set the precedent the communicating with the media is the same as communicating with the enemy and it's a death penalty offense recession doesn't have to go after each other or he certainly isn't up to create an environment of fear but fear stop information from

coming out here is that we're snowden's answer to that by. kone in response is simply build better whistleblower he said in washington i'm going to take on. medea benjamin co-founder of the activist group code pink joins us live from. washington to discuss this further thank you very much for being with us now before we get to the actual questions themselves members of the u.s. government have been reacting quite angrily to the news of the snowden flight let's have a listen to what senator lindsey graham had to say the freedom trail is not exactly china russia kiba venezuela so i hope we'll chase him to the ends of the earth bring him to justice and do you think the senator will get his way will snowden face espionage charges and a trial in the u.s. well he'll face but he won't be thinking we have to be grateful those

of us who care about freedon have to be grateful to these other countries who have been standing up to this county and chased by the u.s. government and giving it snowed in a place to physically be and i so i don't think he will be snatched up and brought to the united states i think he will be offered asylum overseas and i think that's a very positive thing we have to stand up to our big brother government right now and create alliances with countries around the world who are willing to expose the us dr c. now you mention the draconian chase do you think that he really needs to flee the u.s. justice system i mean i mean should he be arguing his case in u.s. court. not if you look at what happened to bradley manning who is facing the rest of his life in prison and the way that he has been treated before even in the

pretrial phase so i think we have the precedent we also have john kerry aco. former cia agent who is in prison right now because he loued the whistle about torture so i think unfortunately we've seen under the obama administration that there has been a. crackdown on whistleblowers and that no one had reason to believe that he would be the next gen he has done us a great service by releasing this information and now he has been receiving hopefully great service from other countries by being able to retain his physical freedom now the justice department brings up a pretty good point they make a strong case that saying he broke the law in fact snowden himself admits that he stole this classified information and it leaked it don't they have a case isn't this being overlooked by snowden supporters the fact that he actually did break the law we look at the law that's being broken by our government and we

also look at the future of living in a free society i don't want to live in a society where big brother is watching every every minute and if it takes. a lot to expose that and to organize and mobilize the american people then we have to break the law and briefly you know on revoking snowden's passport to the government overstepped its bounds and you think that hong kong and russia and other countries are going to honor the fact that his passport has been revoked are they going to help him. i think it's ridiculous that the government has revoked his passport the way the government has reacted to this is making snowden a hero drought there are countries around the world they're making a huge deal out of this and they're giving him a platform to teemu to expose what is supposed to be this great open free society has really turned into something very different so the government reaction

is actually feeding what i hope will be the growth of a movement to pressure the u.s. government to the kind of activity to push your thoughts on medea benjamin co-founder of activist group code pink thank you for being with us here on our team thanks and i we will have more on this story in a couple minutes here with r.t. don't go away. i think in the propaganda machine is a extremely powerful but the question is whether you are sometimes to yourself the most devastating to gun down laws of the surrounding countries especially from the likes of qatar and saudi arabia.

and you are with r t glad to have you with us let's get back to our top story wanted by the u.s. on espionage charges n.s.a. whistleblower edward snowden has formally applied for political asylum in ecuador snowden is currently in a moscow airport and is reportedly waiting to board another flight in the next twenty four hours meanwhile washington is ramping up of the pressure on latin america urging all states to deny him refuge now snowden is the seventh person the obama administration has sought to punish for leaking classified data let's get a recap of some of his major revelations that have sparked washington to fear in the first place he disclosed documents showing that the n.s.a. has access to huge streams of internet data including emails chat rooms and videos from large companies such as facebook and google and that the u.s. government used the secret foreign intelligence surveillance court to gather an

extensive range of information from the phone service provider verizon he also revealed how both mainland china and hong kong have been the victims of hundreds of cyber attacks by u.s. carriers and according to his own latest leak the u.k. is collecting and storing huge amounts of sensitive personal data from online and telephone traffic and sharing it with america peter tatchell who is a u.k. human rights activist says that u.s. surveillance tactics are outrageous and go beyond all legal boundaries. but she will deny the states will be doubling its efforts to try and intercept him and to get an extradition from whatever country they can i think the context of this is that the united states spies on its own citizens it also spies almost to dozens of millions of other countries i mean millions of people in other countries and this is done without the permission of those countries it is technically illegal

and what is extraordinary is that what snowden was employed by the united states as a spy yet now they are seeking to arrest him for spying it seems completely naive ocracy when the united states is spying on its own citizens and citizens around the world on a massive scale without governmental interests and oversight that within the united states or other countries around the world in another twist whistleblower russell tice who released his secrets during the george w. bush era says former cia head general petraeus and even of barack obama were once targets for n.s.a. snooping he also confirmed that data is indeed being stored james corbett a japan based independent journalist believes tyson's revelations didn't get the attention they deserve. while the snowden drama unfolds something that's being swept under the rug are these new revelations from n.s.a.

whistleblower russell tice who is in fact one of the people who was one of the sources for the original two thousand and five new york times story on the n.s.a. wiretapping scandal at that time but now russell tice to step forward with more information into explosive interviews from the last few days he talked about how they're the n.s.a. is in fact storing not just the metadata which has been the talking point in the newsroom so far but the content of all electronic communications that are going across the u.s. servers from e-mails to faxes to phone calls all of it being stored now at the new data center and in utah he also went on record to name names of some of the specific targets of n.s.a. spying on with the implication that this information was being used for blackmailing purposes on including senator then senator barack obama including a general david petraeus and others who he mentioned by name including supreme court justices and top ranking military and republican congressional officials so this is being specifically avoided right now and the implication is that the news

outlets are as we've seen with the snowden story and other stories collaborating with the intelligence agencies behind the scenes to repress this information but this is this is absolutely explosive and again coming from a key n.s.a. whistleblower who is right now being ignored with these allegations. and has whistleblowers such as snowden reveal governments appetite for personal data we're interested in how you feel about your private information being collected by security agencies on our website we've asked for your opinions this is how it's been panning out so far take a look seventy four percent major majority of you saying that spying on people is unacceptable and putting up private data without peoples' warning is just wrong this little sliver here sixteen percent of the pie no opinion say that the government tracks their answers and they don't want to give their opinion online and they could be tracked by secure. agencies this little gold bit seven percent justifiable if the government is looking for terrorists but not collecting

information in the mass if you will them in this small little green a sliver here three percent say well there's really nothing wrong about it and they don't worry about the government getting access to their personal information because they're not doing anything wrong anyway you can get involved and cast your vote we want to hear what you have to say at our t.v. dot com now the wavering support of many u.s. companies for the government surveillance program including the one snowden worked for has sparked some awkward questions or two he's losing confidence of looks at what might be in it for the firms themselves we know now that thousands of companies have been sharing sensitive information with the u.s. government in exchange for various benefits now this raises concerns about the extent of the private sector collaboration with the u.s. government not to mention questions about what exactly those benefits were now the details may be murky at this point but let's go over exactly what information we have companies who did hand over data to the government got

a big thank you that's according to michael hayden who used to head the cia as well as the national security agency which runs of course the prism program and mr hayden told bloomberg this if i were the director and had a relationship with a company who was doing things that were not just directed by law but were also valuable to the defense of the republic i would go out of my way to thank them and give them a sense as to why this is necessary and useful all right well what kind of thank you exactly are we talking about here well again not a lot of details but anonymous sources did tell bloomberg that leaders of the companies who handed over data to the government were showered with attention and information by government agencies in fact in some instances that meant quick warnings about the threats that could affect their bottom line for example serious internet attacks and who's behind them of. this exchange of information is supposed to be voluntary and while at this point we don't exactly have evidence that this is

not the case but while most of the companies seem to have participated simply because the government asked them for help one former c.e.o. paints a slightly different picture in two thousand and one when some telecom giants allegedly were asked to participate in an n.s.a. information sharing program one company qwest initially refused to play ball and according to court documents filed by its then c.e.o. joseph nacho as a result of that decision the company was denied lucrative n.s.a. contracts he believed to be worth fifty to one hundred million dollars retaliation he says for refusing to partake in the government's spy program so to sum it up companies that share data earned government goodwill information about threats possible classified information and of course there's concern that those who did not play along could could have been left out of lucrative government contracts course we don't have more information on this but that's person i see the point the lack of transparency about this data swap is

a major concern now it's done in the name of security but at what cost and to whom this account from the reporting for our team in moscow with snowden's revelations showing internet users being spied on globally people are increasingly turning to alternative technologies to protect their own private data. reports on the boom in the use of encrypted communications services. in a post prism world some are losing and others are gaining google for rise in facebook apple and other u.s. technology companies have lost credibility and the trust of their customers encrypted communications services on the other hand are seeing their businesses boom oh it's going crazy. you know a lot of people suspected these. the government u.s. government was spying on americans but now we have this confirmation and so

everybody is contacting us now when we've had a huge surge in orders hill zimmerman is the co-founder and c.e.o. of silent circle a global encrypted mobile service that protects users' privacy from the u.s. national security agency and big data companies we have created an architecture that doesn't share the key cryptographic keys with the servers and servers that we control so. if the government tries to persuade us to hand over something that we might have on our servers. we can't give them the keys and we can't give them the decrypted messages we don't keep logs of the of the connections between people so a court order can make us give them something we don't have however privacy doesn't come free and annual membership to silent circle cost one hundred twenty dollars the newest kid on the block is secret the mobile app encrypts voice calls and text

messages the south african company has clients in two hundred countries with skyrocketing demands recently coming from the u.s. and u.k. i mean it's not growing every day percentages. or growth. the application essentially allows you to create a new identity with a secure phone number or need to be every day and travel. going forward not just. of the. other countries. as you call it easy as you were the day meanwhile daily traffic at the search engine start page has doubled in less than a month jumping to nearly four million queries the netherlands based company doesn't store ip addresses search history or use tracking codes and it's not subject to us jurisdiction we strip out anything that would identify you and then

we submit the search for you to google on your behalf and then we get the results back from google we strip out any kind of tracking cookies or anything that might be included with that we serve the results to you privately and then we delete all records of your visit so we delete your ip address we delete your search terms and at the end of the day we have no record of anyone even having that on our website while the global push for privacy is accelerating experts say encryption alone won't be enough the n.s.a. surveillance has is worse than. worse and i thought and. i think that the technology we provide is only part of the solution i think we also have to try to push back. with public policy debates in the u.s. and get the laws to change the exposure of america's global electronic surveillance program has also revealed alternatives to all those who want to secure their privacy however in most cases people will have to pay.