flight to freedom and a whistleblower edward snowden's waiting for a plane to an eventual safe haven i think fled hong kong to moscow. and his refuge may be granted by ecuador which says the thirty year old request for asylum all orchestrated by the whistleblower group wiki leaks. will chase him to the ends of the earth bring him to justice. washington is on the scent the white house warns the western hemisphere against helping the runaway days off the full wrath of the espionage act against mr snowden.

it is a busy day for news here on r t a pleasure to have you with us today i'm live in moscow let's get straight to it right now. and i say contractor turned whistleblower edward snowden is awaiting a flight out of moscow which is thought to be destined for cuba and it's leaving in just a matter of hours here arrived in the russian capital on sunday having fled hong kong with washington in hot pursuit. the airport standing by for us here on good morning to you poor mr snowden as far as we. put. yes good morning to you rory well as far as we understand edward snowden does remain here moscow's sheremetyevo airport in the terminal building behind me as you say here just after five o'clock on a sunday afternoon on a commercial flight inbound from hong kong he was greeted by the ecuadorian

ambassador and three hours after landing the confirmation came that he had sought political asylum in the south american country. we still believe is mulling over whether or not to grant asylum to edward snowden he is expected to just remain in transit here in moscow as you say before flying in cuba a little bit later on this afternoon but to really put this story in context to rewind and see what's happened over the last twenty four forty eight hours or so really over the course of the weekend because it was on friday that the charges against edward snowden were made public for the very first time now the complaint was filed by the u.s. government on june the fourteenth but as i say the charges only were made public on friday now the charges include theft of government property. communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified intelligence now the final two of those charges both come under the espionage act and carry a maximum of ten years in prison so edward snowden now knows what he's up against

and knows exactly what he faces if he does indeed return to the united states and on saturday the u.s. government began extradition proceedings against edward snowden they were in communication with the hong kong. the hong kong authorities initially said they were prepared to work with the u.s. government to extradite edward snowden to the united states but they needed guarantees that the charges against him were not politically motivated in the fact that he has been allowed to leave the chinese territory would suggest that those guys. not met were led to believe he's not traveling alone he does have representatives as you say legal representatives from wiki leaks traveling with him because it's wiki leaks they were the pound he broke it the entire deal securing his safe passage from hong kong eventually hopefully on snyder's behalf to ecuador by both moscow and havana and it is also wiki leaks who have attempted to broker the deal that will secure him they hype asylum in ecuador all right.

thank you. well as snowden has apparently spent the night at the have the airport hotel located well within the transit zone let's now cross to across one and you've got a pretty good offers out the terminal very close to the hotel where you go to the morning to you mr snowden just wearing a. good morning and i'm actually standing in the terminal. airport this is the only terminal which receives influence flights coming from hong kong so this is the place basically where. edward snowden arrived to rebound quite pm on sunday accompanied by week two weeks of representatives well pretty much at by this at this stage this is the only precise information we know about them since they never walked out bill stewart's which you can see behind me there this is the arrival or there's speculation that they might have been greeted by

a diplomatic corps which two thousand theoretically to another area within the airport itself most probably the transit zone and well the biggest questions for now is where is mr. snowden because no one saw them leave the airports perspiring as either and well. it's very possible that he is in that transit zone and then there is speculation that he may be staying at this capsule fellow or there are also reports that he may be in this launch since. on sunday the airport was visited by the ecuadorian ambassador to russia who held this meeting inside the i feel on which in the transit zone when he left the airport he was accompanied by several people but no one could confirm whether or not mr snowden was one of them and while the ambassador himself failed to comment

whether or not he was meeting with mr snowden so it's still quite a mystery but so while there is speculation that the former cia agent may be waiting for a flight. to cuba and this is according to reports in the media which quote the main source from an air force and so this flight leaves at around two pm moscow time oh i thought he was going to have a confirmation on mr snowden's next leg of the journey but your to. hold the last place on mr snowden snowden was cited or check in with you throughout the day you going off thank you. now it's noted a journey since he set off to expose the extent of washington spying will mark a whistleblower odyssey of sorts or may twentieth he began his trip by flying from hawaii where he worked as an n.s.a.

contractor from hawaii there all the way to hong kong and over the next month he dominated headlines with revelations about the true scope of u.s. surveillance ultimately encompassing about of the entire planet's on sunday though without warning he boarded a flight heading from moscow that was just a day off to washington requested his extradition and next he reportedly set to fly to the cuban capital of havana which will serve as a transit point possibly there from cuba to venezuela he'll go and then perhaps the last leg there the final destination of ecuador possibly that will be his safe haven in ecuador does say it's a considering edward snowden's request for asylum a plea reportedly organized by wiki leaks and for more in quito stake in all of this let's not talk to our tease lindsey fraud's who is our ecuador's embassy live for us right here in moscow lindsey good morning to you can you explain to us what exactly it's acquittals role in all of this. well

rory would appear at this point that ecuador is responsible for safely conducting mr snowden through to his final destination now as we've reported earlier this morning it appears that mr snowden is not going to be visible to us journalists perhaps any time soon this morning everyone's waiting very much to see if he will be caught in transit by our cameras or even by our watchful eyes but one thing is for sure that the embassador of ecuador to russia has definitely made his appearance known at that airport r t make contact with him yesterday as he. was leaving the embassy has asked if he had any comment on the situation he said he does not that was when he got in the car and at last she was shortly thereafter seen at the airport talking to journalists saying that he was

like looking for edward snowden and it was then later that evening that the tweet was found online by the foreign minister ecuador saying that mr stoughton's a request for asylum was being processed as a rule but now the u.s. and ecuador do have a joint extradition treaty but it does not apply to crimes or offenses of a political character other the u.s. justice department has made no secret of the fact that it will seek cooperation from any government that mr snowden does end up it means you would have also we're hearing reports of it all to you that mr snowden's being accompanied by wiki leaks advisor any truth to that as far as you know. yes it's reported so far that he is being escorted by sarah harrison one of julian assange his closest adviser she's been with the organization for over two years and she has been accompanying him she has helped to orchestrate his safe passage out of hong kong

into russia and through to his final destination so it's something that wiki leaks has made no secret of the fact that it is always of course advocated the protection of whistleblowers chilliness on just being sheltered by the ecuador as we speak but what is interesting is that wiki leaks has reasserted itself in the foot of consciousness of the media of got the governments around the world and of citizens everywhere by its it's a very close relationship with this particular case it's usually more an arm's length and it's really embracing this this action taken by edward snowden in sort of a new way it's very surprising for a lot of people assume we're going to be keeping a very. close eye because it's not known what his intended destination is so far what is plans are and how close we came to leave. how close of a relationship with the leagues one had with mr snowden and his case after today.

it was one of the friends there outside the ecuadorian embassy here in moscow thank you. well the american was a blow is awaiting his asylum verdict the army but a talk from the free bradley manning support network explain why ecuador has become such a popular destination for those being persecuted politically have very large. numbers of asylum like fifty some odd thousand not necessary political refugees but i think also that the genius one has also helped make a safe haven for those that are persecuted politically and i think it's a wonderful watershed moment were there is that concert of africa to protect edward snowden i think it's a very good initiative is a great deal an irony of this whole story normally during the cold war they would be traveling to the u.s. and not via russia to countries like cuba and venezuela but this might perhaps set a couple things into motion and inspire ecuador to become more of

a safe haven for press freedoms i just don't think that you're going to silence this generation these these people are from the internet they're born there the they did digital natives and i think that this is a very very interesting trend very courageous young people stepping up and speaking truth to power and i think that they're just not going be able to plug the leaks you know now the united states is doing all it can to do rail snowden's quest for freedom as washington makes its moves on the chess board american officials confirmed the whistleblowers passport was revoked before he left hong kong all of that in some sort of a time but they would hope he would want his travel plans all these guy nature can report on the steps now the u.s. is willing to take to put snowden on trial on its own soil. u.s. officials confirm 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 time or because they made a decision to overlook it we know that the u.

was has put a lot of pressure on hong kong to arrest in the days and 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 on 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 messenger edward snowden back to the message to the revelations that he has made demanding an explanation from the u. was because these were evolution shows that the it was a lie that it has been doing the same as what it accuses 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 is the freedom trail is not exactly china russia cuba venezuela so i hope we'll chase him

to the ends of the earth bring him to justice and let the russians know there will be consequences if they harbor this guy and i was listening to former director of the cia saying over russia and china are going to use this meaning snowden to embarrass the u. 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 i want to get him caught and brought back for trial and i think we need to know exactly what he has. he could have a lot lot more the debate in the u.s. media has shifted to this chase moche to this captain. mouth 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 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 and here dossier we spoke to attorney and historian gerald holden who explained why he believes u.s. attempts to put a spoke in the wheels of the whistleblower will most likely prove to be

unsuccessful. well if you listen to the congress persons appearing on sunday chat shows today united states more with think so they're breathing fire threatening measures just short of nuclear war if mr snowden is not speedily dispatched back to new york or washington united states for example routinely excepts on its territories citizens fleeing cuba without passports i would also say the united states routinely receives on its soil those it deems to be political dissidents who do not have passports so i don't feel that moscow is hands are tied with regard to mr snowden not having a passport. and america's attendance to get its hands on edward snowden are actually turning against washington and helping to boost public support for the dissident that's according to medea benjamin co-founder of the pacific group code

pink. the way the government has reacted to this is making snowden a hero here out there are countries around the world they're making a huge deal out of this and they're giving him a platform to team you 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 the movement to pressure the u.s. government to. kind of activity. or let's get some perspective here in r.t. a snowden is the seventh person the obama administration has had in his crosshairs over leaking sensitive data let's have a closer look at exactly what sparked america's outrage here on r t and basically he disclosed documents showing the n.s.a. has access to shoot streams of internet data including e-mails or chat rooms and

videos from large companies such as facebook and google and the u.s. government used the secret foreign intelligence surveillance court to gather an extensive range of information from the phone service provider to rise them you also revealed how both mainland china and hong kong have been the victim of hundreds of cyber attacks by that of us because according to his 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 british women rights activist peter tatchell he believes is the u.s. government and not snowden who should end up being punished here. 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 complete and utter hypocrisy when the united states is spying on its own citizens and citizens around the world on a massive scale without proper governmental into strict oversight that within the united states or other countries around the world. and as governments use all their powers of the disposal to pry into the lives of ordinary citizens worldwide a people are trying to protect themselves seeking out services that shield their personal information this has led to a veritable boom of digital encryption let's get details now his arteries were in a portal. in

a post prism world some are losing and others are gaining google for arise 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 still 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 keep 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. is just i mean it's not growing every day percentage of. growth in most 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 station you travel just 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 mine were somebody 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 to protect their communication from a government that's been accessing and story data for years reporting from new york . heartache. and. you believe they would have would have to be a major overhaul in washington before anything changed on it abandon any of its spying. well we should look back to the church hearings back in the seventy's when all kinds of illegal activity by the cia and the f.b.i.

came to the white there were hearings there was legislation and then after that of course they continued to do with it upgraded their capacity to do so so unless there's a fundamental change in the actual power of the united states and unless there's a press that develops in the united states that's critical and interested in investigating what goes on we're going to know about it but it's going to continue . well evidently the snowden leaks have shown in the not just the american government but governments around the world have an insatiable appetite for your private information and as a result when i get off the top call right now basically well what do you think of personal and private information being stolen and stashed away by governments around the world let's see how you're voting for this hour of the dot com while the numbers are changing every al but still the vast majority saying that spying on people is absolutely unacceptable other kika his right down to the pink sixteen percent of all voters saying well you know what i don't want to cost my vote

because then i might become a target by some sort of espionage and some kind destine operation by a government around the world just about seven percent saying you know what collecting private information is justifiable if the authorities are looking for terrorists and just down to the bare minimum there's nothing wrong about it if they're taking your private information if you've got nothing to hide and what are you so worried about r t dot com right now we're still taking your policy on the biggest story around the world right now here at all to dot com it's where you can get involved right now. oh i still to come here i'll see i'm back in half an hour's time with more news but next it's sophie shevardnadze i want to carry seclusive in diffuse live from moscow this is auntie i hope to see you safe.

i would rather ask questions for people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on our t.v. question more. of . a welcome to crossfire for all things considered on people of all what

is the state of the global economy and where is it going and why are economists using the term the new normal.

hello and welcome to sophie and co i'm sophie shevardnadze and today we're talking about government secrets and whether the public has the right to know. the information society age and an atmosphere of conspiracy when governments declare the leak everything secret. yet deep into private lives. opposing it publishing the facts the concern everybody by standing up for what you believe democracy is blowing the whistle could have you labeled a patriot or a traitor is keeping a dangerous secret the new patriotism can a security state with hearts and minds the cia chief is in the front snowden there is sounds to escape the system. edward snowden has been labeled

a traitor at home but polls reveal many americans some forty percent believe he should not be persecuted there's a real global debate going over whether snowden is actually a hero to discuss that i'm joined by a man who ran the national security agency former n.s.a. and cia director a four star general michael hayden it's really great to have you on our show tonight thank you very much so in your opinion is snowden a hero or a traitor. well he's certainly not a hero and i don't think he meets the legal definition of being a traitor according to our constitution but he certainly has done a very very bad thing and i think he's also a very troubled young man so perhaps truth lies somewhere. in between the two extremes you pointed out what do you think it could be a chinese fight dick cheney seems to think so.