we love you for your media. c.e.o. don carty dot com. coming up on r t n.s.a. whistleblower edward snowden is located now the world waits to see where he'll head next and if he'll reveal more details about the u.s. surveillance program and updates on this story ahead. in afghanistan a daring suicide attack was launched on kabul's presidential palace now the taliban is taking credit for this bombing so what does this mean for the peace talks between the u.s. and this group more ahead. and as the afghan war winds down defense contractors may have found a new battlefield for profit the senate is debating an immigration bill that would militarize the us mexico border a look at this development later in today show. it's

tuesday june twenty fifth four pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you are watching r t well looks like the international guessing game of where in the world is edward snowden is finally over for the last twenty four hours news outlets have had wall to wall coverage speculating whether or not he had left russia and where his next destination might be today russian president vladimir putin put an end to some of those questions. mr snowden has indeed learned that in most he came in the transit passengers and remains in the transit zone. so there you have it he is still in the transit area of the moscow airport in the zone between the arrival gate and russia's passport control checkpoints president putin went on to say that the sooner snowden selects a final destination and departs from the country the better it will be for both russia for snowden meanwhile u.s. officials are demanding for moscow to detain the n.s.a.

leaker and extradite him to the u.s. and although we know a number about where he is now there are still so many questions that remain what is edward snowden's final destination why didn't he board that plane to cuba and why is he staying in the transit zone instead of interest into russia for a closer look i'm joined now by international human rights lawyer stanley cohen stan lee thank you so much for joining me now technically snowden isn't in russia because he never went through customs would it in danger his status as a whistleblower if he talks to other countries about all the information that he has about the n.s.a. rather than or in addition to making it public. well look he's he's he's a capable young man who's put his life in the in the crosshairs of the united states which is seeking his blood and if i were advising him i would suggest that he should get to the venue that he plans on going to and that's willing to accept him and then continue with whatever way that he wants to do in terms of exposing

some terribly illegal in some turban ugly practices of which he became aware in the united states now hong kong reporters asked snowden whether he took the job at booz allen hamilton specifically to gain information about the national security agency and he says that in fact he did that job he had for three months does it change his status as a whistleblower and to something more like a moral and from a legal standpoint does that matter. no i don't think it matters and i think we've spent a lot of time discussing him rather than the subject matter of the material that he has released as a whistleblower the question of whether he found himself in the job and then became concerned and wished to expose it or whether we pursued it for that reason doesn't change his status from the government standpoint nor does the change of status from his own defense team however standing let me stop you there because it would in fact stop would it not be refugees standpoint with him finally for asylum the

motives behind his release saying that's what it not. those are questions of fact that need to be fleshed out in whether it's in a courtroom whether it's in proceedings whether it's under international law the fact that there's information being leaked by both sides being pushed and debated doesn't change the fact of the matter is that it currently does every future status under the international law and it has to be played out share now from a legal sam point what is the next best move that edward snowden could make in order to avoid this jail time that he is afraid of well i'm not so sure if he's afraid of jail time i think this is someone who made a decision i think he understood at the beginning that if he were lucky perhaps the worst he gets jail time this is a government that's shown no problem with this as a nation of the last forty years throughout the world if i were representing him i would suggest that he pursue asylum request political asylum request in the country and then let the let let let it go where it's going to go in terms of litigation he

has as far as i understand it. requested asylum in two countries one of them is ecuador the other one is iceland so where does he go for now does he stay in the airport should he go somewhere else. well he's got two applications apparently pending and under international law and given the fact that he's in that transit zone he's beyond the reach of this half hearted effort by the obama administration to grab in any event and i think a viral representing him i would suggest to you wait a decision from the government then take whatever step is in his best interest in consistent with international law i mean being vilified now as a law breaker is being assumed that these engages nor sort of conduct none of it's been shown none of it's been proven what we do know is that he's being singled out by this administration the way it has on seven other occasions people for their political positions and people for in effect becoming whistleblowers now speaking about him being singled out and targeted as an enemy senator dianne feinstein said

that a real whistleblower doesn't run away after spilling the beans from a legal standpoint is snowden making his case worse or is he complicating it by fleeing the country before his disclosures were made public and well given the treatment of bradley manning given the government's disrespect of international law with julian a songe i think it's the height of apocryphally for any representative in this country to point the finger at someone who's become in a storable figure for this country a hero to say stand up young man to be counted if anyone needs to be counted here it needs to be the administration it deeds to be people like feinstein it needs to be congress that should step up and admit that they violated domestic law violated international law and stop this illegal policy we don't need any more scapegoats where they want to torture him send him to get moe let him sit in a cell naked like this demanding outrageous the standard they're preaching on high they're the ones who've created this own mess so let's talk about that let's move

beyond edward snowden do you think that first of all that he is clouding the judgment clouding the media coverage of this potentially massive story when it comes to n.s.a. surveillance sure it's convenient all of a sudden we're now focused on mr. on the so-called whistle on the whistleblower it's not about him we should be debating and discussing in arguing exploring this massive unprecedented illegal surveillance tactic that's been embraced by this administration that has violated the constitution that has violated everything that president obama said he stood for that's the issue that's the argument that's the debate that's what congress should be exploring including its own complicity the question of this gentleman is secondary the issue right now is what will americans do with the most unprecedented most illegal massive outrageous act of surveillance in the history of this country particularly brought on by an administration that claim to support whistleblowers and believe in transparency it's outrageous let's

not make him the scapegoat and when media the generation gets sucked into this debate over what he did and why as opposed to the substance of the material it's convenient it serves the government and it defeats the purpose of the american discourse which would be number one in the in the agenda right now sadly i am willing to bet that people will not be willing to have that conversation until something happens and that's edward snowden case and some type of resolution is that is made in his asylum but air national human rights lawyer stanley cohen thank you for joining me thank you for having me. well have you ever heard the motto see something say something during your morning commute on a public transit it turns out that same mentality applies to the workplace as well government documents reviewed by mcclatchy newspaper are giving us an in-depth look at an unprecedented initiative that encourages employees to spy on one another president obama launched an inside threat program of two thousand and eleven after private first class bradley manning released hundreds of thousands of classified

military documents to wiki leaks the program encourages employees from almost every federal agency to keep an eye out for people who might leak information to the public those agencies include the peace corps the social security administration that apartment of education and agriculture and much more now according to the defense department strategy for the program that was obtained by mcclatchy newspaper one of the programs purposes is to quote hammer this fact home leaking is tantamount to aiding the enemy of the united states now it should be noted that as part of this initiative president obama ordered greater protections for whistleblowers who use proper channels in order to go through and report official waste fraud and abuse however critics argue that it creates a toxic work through a work environment where no one can trust one another and that could discourage whistle blowing on the end by the way according to the documents possible indicators of people who are looking to leak information or stress divorce and

financial problems. well in his attempt to escape extradition edward snowden has gathered quite a following authorities and media outlets are trying to be the first to get their hands on him and they aren't alone artie's margaret howell explains. after edward snowden's leaks about the national security agency to the guardian and the washington post there's been no shortage of critics the new yorker's jeffrey toobin called snowden quote a grandiose narcissist who deserves to be in prison but he wasn't the only one there is another group of people out there with a very different observation of snowden and for lack of a better term they see him as well hot in some sectors of the internet edward snowden has become a sex symbol one person tweeted i moved to hong kong for other social network users have gosh that stone clad in those dark glasses is quote geek and one early tweet

read i have them in my bag now you know it's a certified trend when there is a blog going one named edward snowden kind of high has surfaced meanwhile some are making a buck off their infatuation of snowden team snowden t. shirts are being sold on e bay and more than one hundred thousand people have signed we the people white house petition calling snowden a hero how many were wearing snowden t. shirts as they added their name to the list will that we just don't know in washington margaret howell r t i want to continue on the story of edward snowden and the latest from the ground in moscow for that i'm joined now by r.t. correspondent sebag mult say she is right outside of the moscow airport and bank can you give us the latest information that you've learned about where snowden is and what his status is. well make it i can tell you this it's been a will wind of a story for the last forty eight hours right now we've just got word from

a president putin earlier on that stating that indeed it isn't true that snowden did arrive at this moscow airport instead amounts of our airports and he was only in the transit zone and has not stepped out onto russian soil now there's been obviously rumors that he might have left at the airport or with diplomatic representatives of the country of which he was seeking asylum add at the moment we've been roaming around inside be able there's a heightened security we've asked every single person we've learned from everybody who works in there to see if they have even seen a glimpse of him we know that he stayed in one of the hotels the capsule hotel inside of the hold to the airport but no one seems to know where he's been since that night the way he supposedly checked and we know also that he was supposed to be on board that flight to have vanna which was flew out yesterday but he wasn't there as journalists all around the world were on that flight and there was no way for snowden to be seen describe the scene at the airport is chaotic what is the

media presence like there and what is the presence of fear for his like if there is any. megan what i can tell you is that it has been a cat and mouse game between snowden that the authorities the media we've all just really been catching up with him it's almost like a scene from catch me if you can of the media has been camping out you know we've had trucks for the last forty eight hours just literally way gate keepers weather to see if the one of us would be able to see if a snowden is still in there now the situation has a rather calm donna this evening but during the day it was quite busy everybody's out will also questions we're looking to see if anybody knows anything having seen him do they know if he's staying inside the transit zone has anyone seen him inside the transit so everybody is speculating we early on we know that there is a one flight out of moscow to have vanna which is only going to leave on thursday

now the question is will he be on that flight or is he just acting out is all i do because so that he could take another flight via to actually do as we all know that he has of course applied for that asylum and to the ecuadorian embassy government and they have said they're reviewing that they have also given him refugee status papers now this means that they've given the impression is that his papers because of the fact that the u.s. government has retracted his possible now whether he's having problems with documents not none of us really know at this stage in time at the stage in time but we are hoping that at least in the next of forty eight hours particularly because of that flight going out to cuba in the next few days he might resurrect from wherever he is again are to correspondents abang matsuri thank you so much for joining us with that report. and after more than twelve years of finding its way

through afghanistan the u.s. and the taliban how the knowledge that they are ready to sit down and broker peace talks this move has been a long time coming coming and regional experts admit that there cannot be peace in afghanistan without these negotiations taking place but no sooner did the u.s. send an envoy to doha qatar for those talks that this happened take a look at yesterday's headlines presidential palace comes under attack in afghanistan as the afghan palace attacks three dead in kabul assault and explosions and gunfire in central kabul now as if negotiations with the taliban weren't already on unstable grounds the group publicly claimed responsibility for those attacks taliban spokesperson. said in the e-mail quote eight of our suicide bombers were able to reach the most secure area of kabul the brave. with special tactics and help from inside were able to reach their target with their weapons and

cars a number of foreign invaders were killed and wounded in the attack so how many mental setback is this over more i'm joined now by michael semple he's a senior fellow at the cia are our center for human rights policy at harvard kennedy school thank you so much for joining me now it seems like planning and taking responsibility for these tax right outside of the afghanistan presidential palace right before the peace talks that means that you're not interested in peace talks is that how we should interpret the taliban's actions. i don't think that anybody should expect the taliban to play soft their spokesman made quite clear that they are not on ceasefire yet and this is what you call a fight and talk strategy they are saying that they're ready to go into talks but they're saying that we're not going to stop fighting until there's some kind of a cease fire but at the same time with this fight and talks strategy are you really brokering a peace deal when you're outwardly attacking the people that you're trying to talk

with it i would certainly i would say that you cannot expect to go very far in peace talks on this issue prepared to go on to a cease fire you cannot be in a room talking with people if outside you or your comrades are trying to kill them so i think very very soon in this process we will get to see whether the taliban are serious or not so are you saying that the moves that they made today are evidence that possibly you know the taliban is either not serious about these talks or that they're shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to moving forward in afghanistan so far because they have not yet started negotiations they are they can stick to this point where under no obligations are still there's still a war on but i think it will become increasingly clear over time whether they are prepared to make the kind of compromises which are required for an agreement or not i think the other point is that until now the taliban have claimed to be fighting

against a foreign occupation and they can't really keep on with this excuse for very long because everybody knows foreign troops are leaving if they insist on fighting against the afghan government i think they'll probably quite soon soon run out of support for their armed conflict they have some support for fighting against foreign troops very little support for fighting against the afghan government so what should we expect to happen now a u.s. envoy was already en route for these talks in qatar are they just expected to turn around and head home these are new want to turn turn home because of this incident well. the u.s. is trying to do is to keep the afghan government board while getting the taliban on board and also maintaining the confidence of the various countries in the region that it requires for a proper settlement so that's required ambitious a process of diplomacy i think they're trying to make sure they've got everybody on board and then they sit down and have these talks and of course the talks between the us and the other taleban aren't really the important ones the important talks

are the talks amongst the afghans the u.s. is trying to set the scene for our historic encounter between the taleban the afghan government and final question is it possible in your opinion to achieve peace and stability in afghanistan without the taliban's participation and it would be an awful lot easier if the taliban decided to cooperate and see a compromise if they don't well you know the game will go on and people will look for other strategies very interesting thank you so much for joining us michael semple senior fellow at the cia our center for human rights policy at the harvard kennedy school the supreme court is feeling the heat today and that's not because as the first official week of summer justices ruled five to four this morning that a key part of the voting rights act is unconstitutional the voting rights act is a landmark civil rights era law that protected minorities from racial discrimination at polling booths it is a move that civil rights leaders are furious about even president obama said that

he is deeply disappointed in this ruling are to correspondent liz wahl looks at the bigger implications of the supreme court decision. it's a ruling that stirring a divided reaction that is deeply disturbing because it undermines and puts our democracy at risk in a five to four vote the supreme court today struck down a key part of the voting rights act of one thousand nine hundred sixty five the landmark legislation was aimed up fighting discrimination at the polls the law applies to these states and counties that have a history of racial discrimination against minority voters section four of the voting rights act required these states to get federal permission before changing any of their voting laws but according to chief justice john roberts who wrote the decision that part of the law is outdated he says coverage today is based on decades old data and eradicated practices and voter registration and turnout numbers in the comfort states have risen dramatically in the years since civil

rights activists outside the supreme court say the decision is devastating that this decision is a breach trail of the american people that there is nothing more critical. making sure that the highest court of our land gets it right bipartisan congress several times has recognized that we as a nation are better when all of us why black every color every ethnicity or part of the political process congress most recently renewed the voting rights law in two thousand and six the supreme court decision now sent the case back to congress for a view congress in this moment must take this seriously must seize this opportunity to together in a bipartisan way seek to reenact the measure that will protect the voting rights of those voters who have been born chief justice roberts used census data to show that the racial gap in voter turnout has decreased dramatically for example in alabama

the gap shrank from forty nine point nine percent in one nine hundred sixty five to less than one percent in two thousand and four but according to justice ruth ginsburg who wrote the dissenting opinion the court is ignoring history a sentiment shared by activists outside of the court is truly outrageous and disgraceful decision today also the rights activists see today's decision as you do a show overreach citing decisions by lawmakers and presidents to renew the law time and time again now the future of the law is uncertain as it's up to a divided congress to figure out what comes next in front of a supreme court list of all parties the debate on immigration reform is slowly moving forward but before congress begins to focus on a pathway to citizenship for the eleven million immigrants currently living in the u.s. without papers numerous republican lawmakers are demanding increased border security the senate approved its most expensive plan ever to bore

a bolster border security on monday with a sixty seven to twenty seven vote here's about plan includes adding twenty thousand more border agents extending the fencing at the us mexico border by three hundred fifty mile. howells and providing resources for twelve additional drones total anticipated cost thirty eight million dollars for more on this border war are to correspondent ramon galindo joins me now for more hi there ramon so how did obama's plan for immigration reform turn into a militarization of the border plan yeah and you gave us a price tag could climb a lot larger depending on how much this ends of costing but when we look at the obama administration he's been trying to put immigration reform at the top of priority ever since he ran for his first term and now he's repeated that now this became especially important for the g.o.p. after mitt romney lost and they saw that they really needed to reach out to latino voters so during this compromise talks of immigration reform in the senate it seems

however that the republicans have taken charge and have made this bill more about enforcement and less about dealing with those immigrants that you spoke of who who don't really have papers here but who are living and working in this country so as you mentioned this new amendment passed on monday which would dedicate billions and billions of dollars more for drones surveillance and manpower without really addressing the larger picture of corruption and human rights abuses at the border and really having to deal with the big picture issue of how u.s. foreign policy affects migration now a lot of pundits have said that the only way to pass comprehensive immigration reform is by including bulked up security at the border between the u.s. and mexico what our lawmakers are saying about that. that's absolutely right and really a lot of this pressure as i mentioned has been coming from the more right wing conservative branch of the republican party many of which want enforcement only and

really don't want to give immigrants any sort of chance of citizenship i mean the way that the bill is written now it would take up to ten years just to get legal residency and that doesn't even guarantee citizenship and besides that you would have to be ordered to pay taxes and penalties i mean it even has some republican senators such as john mccain wondering i mean what does it take to really get immigration reform off of the senate floor here today talking. legislation concerning beats up border security removes any validity to the argument that border security is not sufficient i mean this is not only sufficient it is well over sufficient and will be the most militarized border since the fall of the berlin wall yeah and just a follow up on that arizona governor jan brewer who is considered to be one of the most anti immigrant politicians in the country is supporting these new military

militarization efforts happening in the senate right now so it really goes to show how much this immigration reform has gone to the right since its inception now let me ask you both sides from the republicans and the democrats who are the biggest winners and losers in this from this for right immigration reform and more importantly this is this border broke up. sure well some of the same companies that we saw make a profit off of the wars in afghanistan and iraq are also set to make big money off of the contracts are done with homeland security and in order to secure the southern border we have country companies like general atomics here and california which already supplies ten drones to homeland security they're likely to get a contract for many more drones if this immigration reform does pass in fact they've already signed a sole source contract with homeland security for up to fourteen more drones there just waiting for the money to come through now we have other contractors like c b m who are going to be making billions just on these administrative costs and what we

have to remember is that there's been a military zation of the border over the last couple of decades already so companies like the corrections corporations of america and the geo group which have already made a ton of money on transporting and housing undocumented immigrants are only set to make more money off of this new immigration reform proposal and one of the very interesting things about this reform reform proposal is that it says ten years must pass before undocumented workers in the u.s. can receive payments permanent legal residency and that's only if these border security changes are in place at all so very interesting artie's correspondent among the linda reporting for us from l.a. and that does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america check out our website r.t. dot com slash usa and don't forget to follow me on twitter at meghan underscore lopez tweet me your comment story suggestions and feedback stay tune prime interest

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that afternoon and welcome the prime interest of harry and boring it in washington d c let's get to the prime headlines of today. what the frog mcgraw hill on the owner of standard and poor's is empty. roiled and another scandal but this one deals with price fixing in the energy markets a decade after similar charges were leveled at the firm and the european union just launched another and best to gauge that oil companies may have submitted false trading data to the energy division up look rock hill which is called plaid in order to manipulate prices i'll talk to tyson slocum of public citizen energy program and just a bit about the energy market manipulation. and housing prices are up according.