i. think that. coming up on our team and it's a whistleblower edward snowden still remains in moscow where it's been hidden from the public eye the n.s.a. contend he used to claim that their surveillance expansion is justified more on the story coming up. supreme court has spoken the highest court in the u.s. give supporters of marriage equality two major wins the sights and sounds of today's historic decision from here in washington coming up. the bradley manning trial continues today and the fate of the army whistleblower manning remains a mystery the growing concerns over the trial being closed to the public. they show.

looks wednesday june twenty sixth five pm in washington d.c. i'm margaret how well you're watching r.t. we begin with an update on national security agency whistleblower edward snowden and the disclosures he leaked following revelations that the n.s.a. was collecting the correspondence of american citizens the clandestine organization released a faction attempting to explain the legal justification for obtaining that data the only problem the fact sheet isn't factual according to senators mark udall and ron wyden and an open letter to the n.s.a. director keith alexander the senators wrote that we are disappointed to see that the faction contains an inaccurate statement about how the section seven zero two authority under the fifes act has been interpreted by the u.s. government and our judgment the inaccuracy is significant as a portrait of protections for americans privacy as being significantly stronger than they are. like splitting the air would compromise classified information

according to a spokesperson for senator wyden speaking to the guardian in response to the letter of the n.s.a. pulled the fact sheet and suggested that citizens look directly at the law to figure out what kind of powers they actually give intelligence gathering agencies meanwhile the man who brought all of these programs to light edward snowden remains in the transit area in moscow's airport the u.s. issued a warrant for arrest and has cancelled his u.s. issued passport which may keep snowden stuck as he awaits an asylum decision from ecuador to discuss this i was showing earlier by r.t. correspondent most say i started off by asking her just what's next for snowden. well you know that's been of the debate of the moment over snowden being holed up here at the airport but you must understand that upon traveling from hong kong he was hong kong the chinese government did i ask for extradition papers or from the usa to him that they wouldn't extradite him to the u.s.

because the papers were not officially properly done hence they decided that they wanted to let him go on his free will he was able to travel from hong kong what happened is that the u.s. then decided to revoke his passport now whether that happened while he while he was on was it was in the air when he arrived in moscow that information we don't know what we do know though is that we can lease end of the julian assad's team had said that ecuador had helped in finding papers for him refugee status papers now what that actually means is that he's able to travel as a refugee whether that means that he be able to travel from intercontinental now that's the big question this is the reason why we believe that he's still holed up here at the mosque or is trying to sort out those papers so you'll be able to leave the country now is he going to be holed up here for the next eighteen me as well that's the that's what we're still waiting to hear what we do know is that ecuador does say that they're not going to wait until they don't make this decision as

quickly as possible they're going to actually take as long as you review the case as it was in the case of julian assange in london they said that it might take up to two weeks up to two months so we don't know as yet as to how long he'll be holed up here and what his travel plans are if indeed he is still in that transit zone and why is he in the transit zone as no one has seen him as yet ok well as i understand it the us this morning handed over the job of collecting stuff from russia to the u.s. deputy secretary of state bill burns a decorated diplomat with contacts in moscow it's not clear whether burns will fly to moscow yet or not but how effective do you think this is going to be this latest move. what you know most though has been quite clear in terms of not going to extradite snowden and to the us of a verse said that he has not stepped onto russian soil

days nothing that they can do in fact they're not even in contact with him and so they hands are tied there's nothing that they can do in terms of diplomatic solutions i mean the u.s. has been really harsh in terms of the rhetoric of the u.s. politicians saying that moscow as well as the chinese government are not cooperating with them say that they need to hand over snowden immediately but as we all know that russia does not have an exhibition treaty whether the u.s. the in fact or so you know in reiterated by of the president saying better days are us in stating that they need to hand over snowden it is absurd that he doesn't want to get involved in that in fact he went on as far as compare this whole situation to a pig in a bubble shop trying to be shed and him running around so this whole chasing around a whistle blower someone he referred to as a human rights activist someone who wanted to share information free speech as he said he says that that the u.s. a nice to just take a step back and hopefully relations will not be tarnished by this ongoing snowden

case well it sounds like and as you mentioned president putin earlier stated that russia technically doesn't have x. tradition treaty with the united states so we know that the other factors that quaver may or may come into play here as as the u.s. one snowden. did the u.s. doesn't want snowden now i want to take an example of what happened to julian assange when he actually asked for asylum as the ecuador government you stated at the door and government decision to grant him that asylum was because of the following facts that they felt that he would be asked. the united states well those charges of military and diplomatic leaks that he leaked to the media and said that he might not to face a fair trial in fact they were pretty fearful that he might be tortured and they might be he might be subjected to abuse he might be subjected to humiliation and

those are some of the words they use in terms of explaining why they decided to give him that asylum and terms of snowden should he be extradited back into the united states what kind of treatment will he get now those are some of the things that they could do an embassy is going to be thinking about in terms of will he get a free trial will he be tortured or will he be humiliated i mean the flow of who he is being called a spy is dangerous is already out so i'm pretty sure that they could during government is taking all of this in consideration when making this decision saying as we've seen in the past with julian assange saying that his human rights. he's a human rights activist and if you were to be extradited that would be against his human rights or so they would be thinking about that when they're reviewing snowden's case now whether he's going to be i mean he's still holed up in a transit zone so whatever he's waiting for right now whatever his decision is in

terms of waiting is he waiting for the storm to come down is waiting for the media to stop taunting him to stop following him around is this the decoys those are all the questions that we're all trying to figure out right now i'm sure looking back at how julian as sons and in his case went by they must of thought about it must have thought of the lives and how else to make his transition into a safe haven much a better so i don't think it's a surprise that we're finding that he still holed up here and that all of this confusion is going on perhaps as to confuse everybody else so that they could have a safe passage to his next destination which according to all sources right now could most likely be ecuador to run we have to leave it there always good to see you that was our to correspondent about motes a. the media frenzy surrounding edward snowden has reached a tipping point and the coverage has shifted from the original story of the n.s.a. program snowden has revealed his mysterious travel plans but are they focusing on the right aspects of the story he's going to to can an honest out the

a church going to analyze the media and political reaction here in the u.s. . u.s. secretary of state john kerry hinted at possible consequences that russia may face correspondence snowden saying at times russians have criminals in the u.s. there were looking for and he said the u.s. had cooperated on handing over seven of them in the past two years although if it were a russian whistleblower who stood up for civil liberties in russia it's kind of hard to imagine the u.s. handing them over very quickly especially the u.s. was not legally obliged to do so and in the case of snowden we heard the russian president say russia had no legal authority to stop him from traveling formally he hasn't crossed the russian border is a transit passenger didn't need a russian and he hasn't committed any crimes in russia moscow says russia doesn't want to have anything to do with mr stone it but it's amazing how this story which had absolutely nothing to do with russia is all about russia not much of the media here has turned the whole snowden story into

a story about putting the invite lawmakers and experts who focus on russia and putin here's for example senator mccain weighing in on the story. we got to start dealing with vladimir putin in a realistic fashion for what he is he's an old k.g.b. colonel apparatchik dreams of the days of the russian empire and he continues to stick your storm in our eye broad variety of ways this kind of narrative in the media that's focused on brochures certainly helps build up negative public opinion on snowden and eventually discredit his revelations the focus is not just on russia but also on china and you hear u.s. officials blast hong kong for letting snowden fly but what about one of these revelations the fact that the u.s. spied on chinese research center. the university here is the explanation that we heard from secretary kerry our surveillance activities on them it's our surveillance activities anonymously on thousands of chinese said no and the chinese university anonymously in order to be able to track terrorism and if there is an

act of terrorism or some linkage that is appropriate some indication whatever it is could be anywhere in the world whatever it is then you have to go to court and you have to have court approval in order to do anything that is actually name specific person specific. secretary kerry said the u.s. was spying on trying these with their sensors and universities to find carry a lot of people would find that response quite confusing china would probably not buy it so you see u.s. officials being quite of a sis on what they're actually doing preferring to focus on the messenger instead on edward snowden and here's my colleague on a theatre athena on how the media here goes along with that narrative some journalists believe the shocking us government spying scandal is the biggest story of our lifetime i sit in my desk certainly had the authorities to to wiretap anyone

from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president if i had a personal e-mail but big brother shamelessly watching millions of people in secret seems to be turning into a little more than a cat and mouse chase by the american mainstream media snowden snowed snowden going through these files. is not. what jared lee is this catch me if you can surface. was terribly sexy painting the president. some star wars in yet another hollywood blockbuster brought to you by the so-called news of the climax the fact that a major violation of privacy rights is being conducted left and right as a white doubt of this. this is a country based on no unreasonable search and seizure if you wanted something else you could head somewhere else but that was kind of in fact i think it might be in the constitution let me check yes yes it's in the constitution but all this unconstitutional nonsense is far from most of the media's focus i'm shocked when i

look at the coverage i saw there i think it was the c.n.n. show and they had a picture of the o.j. simpson car chase when he was trying to escape from the cops ten or twenty years ago i guess seventeen years ago as if that's what we're looking at right now an o.j. simpson car chase but we haven't heard a word hardly a word about the massive surveillance scheme or peoples all over the world when the historic privacy leak is covered snowden is center stage and not the substance of the n.s.a. scandal betraying your country's kind of a fashion stating that once we the national security can cardassian a guy's got it completely backwards if the media then meds made snowden came card ashjian of the world right that that that they have created that they have made that intentionally as an alice in wonderland first comes the verdict then the trial with pundits eager to shoot the messenger we need to get very very serious about treason and oh by the way for treason as in the case of bradley manning or edward

snowden you bring back the death penalty he could be the worst guy in the world let's say he made charles manson look like tom hanks let's say they found his girlfriend edna did and he ran around flick and babies years just to watch him cry all right let's say he was the worst human being it would have nothing to do with the fact that our government is spying on every american that is the story i'm questioning whether the reporter who broke the scandal with snowden as his source should be punished along with the whistleblower why shouldn't you mr meanwhile be charged with a crime to news reports focused on snowden's girlfriend what's curious she also packed everything up and left for the mainland to pointing fingers at any other government. but their own whether china or russia has been able to sort of suck out that knowledge from those computers while he's been in their countries of voiding the issue at hand seems to be a priority it is true that the big stories that really affect the nature of the

united states and what our government really is are stories they want to ignore the media coverage of the n.s.a. scandal olet must test for journalism that most are feeling instead of cleaning up their act and dwindling ratings networks are busy looking for bad guys elsewhere instead of looking the real villain in the face while a media war breaks out over supporting or hating edward snowden as little airtime as possible is actually dedicated to the spying on unsuspecting citizens itself the biggest privacy leak in recent u.s. history has shown the media to have little ability to deal with complex issues instead indulging themselves in a manhunt yet again but then again this shouldn't be too shocking when the finger pointing every now and then is paused it's stories like this that fill air time. or . i'm going to archie new york. the supreme court issued a historic decision this morning on the defense of marriage act the ruling called

doma unconstitutional saying it didn't offer equal protection under the law so can almost actual couples now have their wedding cake and federal benefits too. went to the supreme court this morning and she has that story. they were the two hundred same sex couples across the country have been waiting to hear for nearly two decades struck down the supreme court ruled five to four today that the defense of marriage act is unconstitutional it was a decision that paved the way for another two word phrase i do for getting married i guess fair enough i have my parents' house in massachusetts but were legally getting married in d.c. now gay and lesbian couples in twelve states and the district of columbia have the same rights to federal benefits like social security and joint tax filing as their heterosexual counterparts it's

a decision that impacts over one thousand federal laws on family benefits but for many of the supporters outside the supreme court it's about more than money we pay first class taxes and are still treated as second class citizens in some states around the country as well it needs to be equal it's time and it's bigger than gay rights i want to go beyond just a statement of gay marriage my lover and i venture to the twenty six years we're entitled to everything anyone else's but we don't need their endorsement of our lovemaking none of their business that's america really revolution we need right now it's nobody's business if you're a consenting adult not to tap my phone not to go after my e-mails to worry about my suchlike none of their business that's why i'm here for the hundreds gathered outside it's about equality i have always pictured it just me walking down the aisle and seeing my groom then when i realize that. that kind of question all of it because i didn't feel like i would be able to do that i felt

like i was never going to be accepted but that i would never have the chance but with this it just it reassured that dream both the ruling itself and the way people who gathered outside receive the news prove how much things have changed since doma . was signed into law back in one thousand nine hundred six but where the supreme court decisively ruled in favor of gay rights for doma it punted on proposition eight a law voted on by the people of california that made gay marriage illegal in two thousand and eight the justices punt reverted back to an appeals court making gay marriage legal in california now crowds outside of the supreme court today are obviously very elated very excited about both of the supreme court's rulings however they are approaching this with cautious optimism realizing that this is only a small step and they will long walk but for couples across the country that long road ahead is worth the journey it's taken a while as you look back in our history african-americans went through struggles

women went through struggles for getting equal rights and no we're not all the way there on all fronts we're all getting there and so there's this is a huge hurdle and for those who do live in states affected by today's ruling couples like amanda and carolyn now have other things to worry about instead of their legal standing it will be wearing a dress however my dress can't quite zip it up at the moment so we may you know j.p. or feather guided every other way that might not that they dislike regular be false reporting in front of the supreme court in washington d.c. i got to find some shoes yeah meghan lopez r.t. the military trial of private first class bradley manning resumes had it for me beryl and manning stands accused of violating the us being in for aiding the enemy among other charges for releasing hundreds of thousands of documents to wiki leaks are his list wall was out for me today and earlier i asked her for the latest from the trial against private first class bradley manning. today focused around these

two hundred fifty thousand diplomatic cables that were leaked to wiki leaks the prosecution has alleged that manning stole this information from a special database. and leaked it to wiki leaks manning admitted to leaking this information he that he says that he didn't steal it though we heard testimony from various state department official officials much of it was in the form of written testimony it's called a stipulation so it's basically testimony as if that person was present this is how this person would testify testimony that the prosecution and the defense agrees to they discussed at length this database called netcenter diplomacy where these cables that were taken from. what they found and interesting finding in the testimony today is that according to the testimony there was no proof that manning hacked no evidence that many actually hacked this database which is a big contrary to what the prosecution has alleged is liz was there any testimony

that would either hurt or help the case either for the prosecution or defense. i would say that's the most significant in terms of these cables that that manning had had hacked had to have stolen a car with this staff charge i would say that this is the fact that there is no evidence that he actually you know hacked this database and in order to try to obtain this information and it is a little bit contrary to what the prosecution has alleged what it seems at least at this point with the evidence that we've heard is that manning this is this is information that with his security clearance at the time that he had access to the ok why is some of the testimony why was it close to the media today. yeah that's right today was the first time that the testimony was closed to the media and therefore closed to the to the public and it was in regards to testimony by special agent david schaper we've heard of him from him before he's

a forensic computer analyst and today we went black in the media room because as we know a lot of this stuff is sensitive classified information and that's why in terms of these these cables we don't even know what these cables are and that's because it's classified so we can't even know what the subject matter is for some for some of these cables so that is the first time that we saw that that some of the testimony has been closed off to the media we're told that this may happen throughout throughout the case right what about that the rest of the trial expected to go on all summer here is what i want to ask you know about the mood outside the trial were there protesters out there. yeah i mean in the trial act outside of throughout this i've been covering this for a few weeks now manning always has his dedicated fan base right outside of the fort meade gate not too many i would say one to two dozen at most and and he does have

his following that has consistently gained access into the courtroom. boarding their trip. definitely not the chaos that you saw on the first day on the part of the trial with all the media hoopla but you do see some of his his dedicated supporters making their way out early in the morning picketing outside of fort meade maryland trying to bring support to bradley manning his cause and. where that would be seventy sixty to seventy witnesses and i have to we had our i'm going to keep you updated margret every day thank you live always good to see you that was our to correspondent was wall. when he was struck by that devastating earthquake back in two thousand and ten the u.s. responded by dedicating one point four billion dollars toward reconstruction but a new report looking at one agency tasked with implementing a large chunk of that money finds that much of it hasn't been spent and the projects are seeing mixed results the government accountability office report says

that the u.s. agency for international development or usa id isn't charge of implementing six hundred fifty one million dollars for rebuilding but nearly three years after the january two thousand and ten quake only thirty one percent of that has been spent the report found that tracking the spending and project management in the developing country has proved difficult one major project caught up in unrealistic timeframes and faulty the feasibility studies the one hundred seventy million construction of a power plant and a port which rely on one another to be viable the first phase of the power plant is completed but the port has been delayed for another two years will that report also found that the usa id underestimated the cost projections for a major housing project the original plan was to build fifteen thousand homes for between seventy five thousand and ninety thousand people but acquiring land titles and working with the haitian government made that

a complex undertaking they had reduced their building goals by eighty percent. well the report was requested by members of congress who question how well taxpayer funds are actually being spent but for with more than seventy five percent of haiti's population living on less than two dollars a day and over three hundred thousand still in displacement camps it's not only americans who are waiting for the reconstruction funds to be properly allocated. well texas state senator wendy davis started a filibuster yesterday in the in an attempt to prevent a vote on a controversy all abortion billed called s.b. five if the vote didn't take place by the stroke of midnight when the legislative session was ending it wouldn't celt a filibuster in the texas state house requires that a a legislator speak without the ability to lean on anything to support them up eat or drink or even go to the bathroom and they have to remain on that topic the whole time but near midnight other legislators called davis' discussion of the texas

sonogram law off topic that effectively ended her filibuster opening the four for a potential vote on s.b. five but the spectators in the state house just for having it as senators argue the details of parliamentary procedures protesters started screaming loudly which continued for twenty minutes creating a chaotic scene until that session ended we put together a compilation of what took place inside the texas state legislature yesterday take a look members on rising on the floor today to humbly give voice. to thousands of texans. just a reason for the bill is to enhance patient safety. but what they really do is create provisions. to treat women as though they are not capable of making. decisions. mr president.

they dream. at what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the room thank you. i am. thank. you how many thanks. much didn't i. thank. the texas senate first proclaim that it had passed us the five last night however the bill was signed at twelve

o two am two minutes after that session ended this morning the vote was considered invalid s.p. five is not law and taxes well the bill would have restricted texans access to abortions after twenty weeks and close thirty seven of the forty two texas clinics that offer that procedure well proponents of the bill say that among other things it would make abortion safe for critics call it a limitation on the right to choose abortion. well even if they scour your finances it seems that someone of the i.r.s. was not watching their spending inside the agency and the report from the treasury inspector general says that the iris employees use the agency's credit cards for one and core of the report found the between two thousand and ten and two thousand and eleven said employees made more than two hundred seventy three thousand purchases on these credit cards less than one percent of those words illegitimate

well among the prop improper spending more than three thousand dollars for a pop. machine and prizes for an employee event diet pills romance novels and expensive bottles of wine and two cases the iris credit cards were used to buy online pornography however the employer said that the porn purchase resulted from a stolen card the inspector general is still investigating whether or not that's true reports said that all of these purchases came from ninety four employees none of whom were disciplined for their actions that's going to do it for a nail 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 will see what a. wealthy

british sign. the time to. go to. market why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's cancer a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kaiser report on our. first time as a new alert animation scripts scare me a little bit. there is breaking news tonight and we are continuing to follow the breaking news. alexander's family cry tears of joy at your great things out there that the.