coming up on r t bolivian president evo morales his plane was forced to make an emergency landing in austria all of the suspicion that n.s.a. leaker edward snowden was on board so where is edward snowden and where is he going next a deeper look at that up ahead it's now day fourteen of the bradley manning trial it's the defense team's turn to call of witnesses to help the whistleblower states we'll get the latest from fort meade coming up. and egyptian president mohamed morsi makes a defiant speech defending his legitimacy and refusing to step down but millions are still in the streets of cairo and they say it's time for morsi to give up his presidency the latest from egypt coming your way.

it's tuesday july second eight pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you are watching r.t. well we begin tonight with more speculation about where edward snowden is and where he is heading just over an hour ago reports started coming in the bolivian leader evil realises plane was forced to make an emergency landing in austria on suspicion that snowden might have been hiding on board now bolivian foreign minister david chokher wonga said that it was a lie and that snowden was not on that plane associated press reports indicate that the plane was rerouted to austria after france and portugal refused to let it cross into their airspace president morales wasn't russia attending an energy and gas summit he sat down for an exclusive interview with spanish earlier today where he told reporters that he would absolutely consider granting snow lou snowden asylum wiki leaks announced today that snowden has applied for asylum in no fewer than twenty. one countries including some of the very countries that his n.s.a.

documents prove the u.s. was spying on including austria for the latest on edward snowden's international flight i'm joined now by political commentator sam facts sam let's start with the latest what are we getting from these revelations these these rumors this is another bizarre twist to the story but it appears that the bolivian presidential plane is grounded in austria right now and it seems like france or portugal the that denied the plane air space believes that snowden may be on on board this plane i find it. very strange that france would take such a stand denying a plane belonging to a president of a country that you're not hostile you're an ally with into its airspace and let's say it was completely convinced that snowden was somehow on board and of course as you said there these these rumors are being denied snowden that from from bolivia are saying snowden wasn't on the plane that this was a lie you know where this came from they have no idea and doors charmion saying

that this is a big deal and they want to best additions into what exactly is happening here so right now we have no evidence as to where these suspicions came from do we know i don't think we do you know president obama last week said he would not be scrambling jets or anything like bad to intercept the plane with a twenty nine year old hacker of course france and portugal are nato allies you know they didn't quite scramble jets in this instance but by denying their space they're basically you would assume that a plane flying from moscow to bloviate needs to land somewhere to fuel and that's likely what the plan was here now that they were denied this airspace they had to force the landing into into austria so yeah obama's not going to scramble jets but it looks like the nato allies may be willing to block to assist him in blocking snowden's flight anywhere if he is indeed on this plane so let's pose the conversation here and take a quick look at some of the. nations and how they're responding we are just getting

word today that wiki leaks and edward snowden have filed for asylum in twenty one different countries wiki leaks of course was helping him out he's got wiki leaks person actually accompanying him through all this so let's start with the countries that flat out said no or are unlikely to grant edward snowden's asylum bid austria ecuador iceland ireland italy the netherlands norway spain the switzerland all said that he must be president in the country soil in order to ask for protection brazil won't respond finland hasn't processed the request for and said asylum is a non issue germany and poland said his argument isn't strong enough to be granted asylum india flat out said no and snowden withdrew his requests from russia after president vladimir putin said he was to stop leaking documents now so the best of our knowledge bolivia and venezuela are the only countries that offer the former n.s.a. contractor any ray of hope meanwhile there's no information coming out from china cuba or nicaragua in terms of these government responses so as i had mentioned sam

austria was one of the countries that said that he has to be on austrian soil in order to get any kind of request through for asylum so if he was in fact on that plane could that be a huge difference in this edward snowden case well it could be only on austrian soil no. you know i don't know i don't move all issues really willing to go to austria is not a member of nato there might not be as much pressure on austria from the united states when it comes to this issue but you know there would certainly change issues in venezuela. ecuador or bolivia no seem to be the likely best options for snowden interestingly those are the two countries also that are kind of wishy washy on whether they've even wrists received asylum requests from snowden they've kind of been on the fence about the different conflicting reports of whether they've actually received some new quest which might suggest that they want to you know played under the radar until until any moves are made and finally some something that i'd. i want to bring up is that the u.s.

is currently hosting two former bolivian leaders that they had actually granted asylum to a couple of years back back in two thousand and eleven by oblivious supreme court of justice a rolled that seven former military and government officials were guilty of genocide two of them were gonzalo sanchez de la saba and the other one is carlos sanchez a better sign so could that play into this whole thing they could in this really illustrates the double standard here that the united states is committed when it comes to this issue pressuring countries like china to hand over hand over snowden when the united states has been more than willing to grant individuals and china asylum even ecuador i mean ecuador is a big issue there's two bankers who live in south florida right now who are living a very cushy life who've been charged with pretty serious crimes in ecuador and what ecuador wants the mexico to the united states has refused share and let's talk about what what what we do from here what edward snowden does from here let's say that venezuela or bolivia or one of the other host of countries that he's requested

asylum from actually grants that asylum i mean as far as i understand he can't get out of russia he can't get into russia so where does he go from here it's going to be tough i mean it's going to have to be a sneak away at any point or russia is going to have to issue him provisional travel documents i mean he got out of hong kong we learned because gore. they're saying they accidentally issued these documents which allowed him to leave hong kong and make it to moscow now in order to leave moscow since the united states has revoked his passport he's going to need some sort of provisional documents to leave the country. whether that happens or not will will say and finally sam let's go back to this airplane if just logistically walk us through this if he was in fact on that plane would that be considered bolivian territory no i mean if you're flying into another country's airspace that's their airspace this was talked about with the flights from moscow to cuba that snowden was supposed to be on the plane will be used to fly usually comes down the east coast of the united states which

would be entering u.s. airspace which would mean the u.s. has the right to come in and intercept the jet in force it down not shoot it down but you know force it to land so there was talks of having to take a deter kind of detour around u.s. airspace down to cuba so you would have to figure out in this flight for snowden this flight for asylum you have to keep into account what countries are going to be flying over because they have domain over over their own airspace very interesting thank you so much for staying up with the latest details and for keeping us informed political commentator sam sexes perhaps no one knows better of the potential fate of edward snowden if he ends up in u.s. custody than wiki only girl bradley manning today is week five of week five day fourteen of the court martial that could decide the private first class his fate and whether or not he will spend the rest of his life behind bars for the biggest document drop in u.s. history for the latest we turn now to our to correspondent was wall. today the judge ruled that the prosecution's last witness can in fact qualify as an expert in

counter intelligence yesterday the defense tried to cast doubt on daniel lewis and his expertise lewis is a defense counselor intelligence officer the judge cited his twenty nine years of experience in counter intelligence that qualifies him as an expert in that field however judge lindh ruled that he is not an expert in valuing classified information now this is important because the prosecution is trying to prove that manning stole classified documents and that these documents are some kind of a monetary value now cord was in session for just a short time today before they went on recess to a closed session and that's because much of lewis's testimony is expected to be classified so whenever classified information is discussed we go black and that media room and are on able to see or hear what is going on now lewis is the prosecution's last witness before to the defense calls their witnesses if the government were to rest its case today it's likely that manning's attorney david

coombs what motion to dismiss some of the charges the defense will oftentimes do this by saying the prosecution failed to show enough evidence they were out the course of the trial to justify the charges as we know with the most serious of the over twenty charges that manning faces is aiding the enemy defense has been trying to chip away at the government's theory that manning aided the end of the by working together with wiki leaks co-founder julian assange on to get u.s. secrets on to the internet secrets that word then accessible to qaeda and osama bin laden a key piece of evidence admitted by the judge yesterday is this wiki leaks most wanted list of two thousand and nine this is a list of by wiki leaks listing a document that they're interested in getting a hold of part of this list included up profiles of guantanamo bay detainee is manning admitted to leaking these documents told. he leads but denies that he did so in an attempt to aid the enemy now the timing of this trial is really in the

hands of the judge karna linda we are told that after today the trial will go on extended recess for the fourth of july holiday and be back in session on monday so we will keep you updated on all of the latest developments here in fort meade maryland live all our team looking at the cases of bradley manning and edward snowden outsiders are undoubtedly making comparisons between the two men were both willing to massive troels of information to the public both are being pursued by the government for espionage and a host of other charges and both say that they leak that information to serve the public good but there are also a few pointed differences between these two secret spellers to help me navigate through some of those similarities and differences i was joined just a short time ago by michael brooks producer at the majority report take a look. i think you know the similarities are clear you know they're both young young men who decided to really great personal risk expose what they

perceive to be significant systemic wrongdoing. and they both by most accounts are very intelligent very competent and good in their fields as far as we know obviously the core similarity or dissimilarities because edward snowden chose to flee the united states and as his cases kind of progressed it's become it's taken on a much different kind of. a distinct geo political calculus that breading bradley manning's case does not and then obviously going back to manning he's been the victim of really significant abuse and in the main conditions under military capture in the united states and another very big difference is the fact that bradley manning was in the military forces edward snowden who was an n.s.a.

contractor so if severus snowden is somehow extracted and brought back to the u.s. to face the criminal justice system he'll be facing a civilian court versus a court martial or a military tribunal can you talk about that a little bit. yeah i mean that's a that's a really good point and i actually think the one thing that's very significant about that even before you get to the legal implications is the fact of edward snowden this position in and of itself how many contractors we have handled in this type of intelligence i mean you could take the opposite view even and say maybe hey i don't want this stuff to be we will then you would have to ask yourself do you feel comfortable with a system that allows someone like edward snowden who you know there's conflicting reports about his senior he was and even just the fact that he was a private contractor having this amount of access. two to that information he also faces espionage charges so he's also been hit with. the most harsh charges

possible i guess other than treason so even though you know he's not a military system he's also been hit with an incredibly draco nian an exceptionally over the top charge which in some ways that elevates his point almost as much as some of his leaks about the n.s.a. surveillance program i would say and edward snowden allegedly sent out a letter yesterday via wiki leaks comparing himself to other whistleblowers he said quote in the end the obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me bradley manning or thomas drake we are stateless in prison and powerless know the obama administration is afraid of you isn't afraid of an informed public and informed angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised and should be so finally what are your thoughts to wrap this whole thing up about both of these men kind of being seen together in the same sentence as whistleblowers. well again i think that there are some distinctions i think some of the things that

snowden has had to do have complicated his his situation because it's got drawn into larger geopolitical concerns and raise other questions in terms of some of the other countries that he's had to deal with in the situation that he's in and some of the leaks he's chosen to make but fundamentally yes they're both performing a whistleblowing function thomas drake is a whistle blower and the obama administration unfortunately has taken an exceptionally aggressive stand against whistleblowers and then also. had double standards which is the other significant component of this because leaks have happened throughout about all of these security programs and when they're favorable they aren't as aggressively pursued and when they're exposing abuses or problems they are and right there that undercuts the whole notion that this threatens our security and highlights a really huge issue of accountability and democratic process which of course should

concern all of us two men potentially facing two very different fates from both being whistleblowers and secrets feller's michael brooks producer at the majority report. thank you james komi is one step closer to clinching the title of f.b.i. director but before he does president obama's pick to replace robert mueller has a few major hurdles to overcome pouring to the hill newspaper the senate judiciary committee will hold confirmation hearings next week for comi but don't expect him to glide through that process the a.c.l.u. and human rights watch have serious objections to coleman's nomination based on his support of the infamous bush talks remember torture memos excuse me when he was the deputy attorney general from two thousand and three to two thousand and five yesterday these groups wrote a letter to the judiciary committee urging members to ask me about his involvement in the approval of various enhanced interrogation techniques against terrorism suspects it said quote the senate cannot make an informed decision on whether to

confirm mr cole me as f.b.i. director without having a complete understanding of his actions at the time when torture and abuse were being used and top government officials were taking extraordinary steps to avoid criminal liability the letter references an e-mail that colby wrote back in two thousand and five stating that he concurred with a specific legal memo that authorized the use of cramped confinement while standing water dowsing extended sleep deprivation and water boarding although komi called the techniques simply awful in subsequent e-mails he did not object to lawfulness of such acts james komi is best known for racing to the hospital room of former attorney general john ashcroft to convince him not to reauthorize the warrantless spying program under president bush. let's turn now to egypt where just over an hour ago a defiant president mohamed morsi delivered an impassioned speech to the public refusing to step down in that speech the president blamed the remnants of a former regime for the rest the country is currently facing and if there is one

theme that recurs throughout that speech it is the idea of legitimacy morse. he was the country's first ever democratically elected president and he says he is the legitimate ruler of the country and that the current constitution is valid in fact president morsi says he is so convinced of his own legitimacy that he is willing to pay with his own life and his blood in order to protect it he also referenced god and his own divine duty to serve egypt in that speech morsi did show some willingness to compromise with protesters he said he was willing to consider the possibility of parliamentary elections in six months following reckless reconcile. to following talks with opposition parties excuse me massive protests continue in tahrir square tonight and show no signs of relenting after morsi speech you're looking at a live picture of those protests right now seven people were killed in egypt today

protesters are demanding for morsi to immediately step down and make way for new elections for the latest from egypt here's artie's bell true. world this is not the speech of the opposition forces like the thousands gathered here at the presidential promise behind me waiting for the president was resolute he is not resigning he's staying he said he was democratically elected and therefore village just a new president you can't repeat in this word to dismiss e he said he would go down to just to see with his life and in his own words he said his will is the will of the people another sticking point that he mentioned which will cause conflict between him and the opposition forces and also the army is over the constitution he said we must stick by the constitution made ready drafted early results in the. military's rosemount egypt these leaks to the press and in the right not in clique created a new new constitution with the president saying that will stick with the old one we expect to see conflict between him and the army as well as the opposition forces

basically if you summarize the speech the president didn't offer anything to your position to. he gave no concessions he brought nothing to the table so expect rising violence and tension and even though the president called the dialogue as he's poor as he said he's been nothing to the table meanwhile we're waiting for reaction from the army because this is directly conflicting with that to see our deadline they gave him to respect the demands of the people otherwise they will intervene to be seeing really the presidency and the army on overheads directly right now we're already seeing tension in the country already seeing violence at the moment we've had clashes between supporters and opponents of the presidency here in the capital that have left at least seven people dead and a very violent civilian and civilian conscious this is escalated now with protesters fighting the police said tear gas is being used birdshot bullets. made guns and weapons so we're already seeing an escalating violence in tensions across

the country this is in the background of violence the leader has been leading up to these nationwide protests people are fearing that we're going to see further violence on the rise in particularly off this speech which really hasn't offered anything fuel for the opposition to seize and is not of the anything to the protesters they gathered here in the main running point to really the fear is now that is going to descend into really bloody find who the president is fighting the opposition forces and the president against the army in the coming days that was artie's bell true in cairo. atheists agnostics and nonbelievers across the country now have a monument of their own to adore or around there is a celebration of secular as secularism according to the american atheist group which just wrapped up a year long court battle this week the loss of demanded for a local christian group to remove its monument of the ten commandments from a local park outside of the bradford county courthouse in stark florida a settlement however allows the monument to stand and another to be built by the

atheist group and this is the atheist statue it is a five foot long gray granite bench that picture secular quotes from the founding fathers for more on the new stuff david will scotto with the american atheist organization join me just a bit earlier and he described that monument in a bit more detail. sure well like you said it's five feet long it's granite. we wanted something that was functional that had utility as opposed to the ten commandments monument which just sits there that you look at. it it has a pillar in the back with our logo on the top which is the symbol for atheism and quotes from the founders of this country a quote from madalyn murray o'hair and also an excerpt from the treaty of tripoli which was the first treaty of the united states that says the. united states was not founded on christianity now david and there are thousands of religious

monuments across the country and around the world why it was this one of the ten commandments too much to bear and not so to make you bring up a lawsuit. well one of our members initiated this. basically our position is just that the ten commandments does not belong on public property it's a overtly religious. symbol and it has no place in government land and really this was just where we started it is could have been anywhere it just happened to be stark florida now on the other hand as i understand it you have a kind of ten commandments list on yours which says the possible punishments for things you could suffer if you broke the ten commandments and that is in fact getting a lot of criticism from other atheist groups and what have you can you talk about why they are knowing that you brought up the ten commandments at all in your monument and your group's response to those other atheists well some people feel

that by bringing the bible into our monument we're making this an anti-religious monument as opposed to a monument about secularism or celebrating secularism which is part of the purpose of the my unit but the other purpose of the monument is to show that the bible is a primitive and brutal document that people there's this this idea that it's. that the bible or the ten commandments specifically are this just kind of good moral code that we can all kind of agree on but that's not true it's very very brutal if you actually sit and read it the punishment call for death seven out of ten times and it's just it's not something that civilized people live by and finally let's take a look at the gallup poll that was conducted in may regarding american attitudes toward religion seventy seven percent of americans believe religion is losing its influence on american life as a whole but according to that same poll seventy five percent of americans said the country would be better off if it was more religious any thoughts as to why we're seeing this change i mean is it is it cultural. will it i think part of it's

cultural part of it is just better access to information with the internet proliferating people can find out that a lot of this stuff is a scam god doesn't exist and they can see that there are other cultures with many different beliefs and that they're not right just because they happen to be born the united states and they were raised christians as far as people thinking that it would be better if it were more religious that's not true we can clearly see that the people who have less religion have better lives and. as a result david misconduct were from the american atheist organization thank you so much for joining us thanks for having me i really appreciate it with the increased usage of g.p.s. tracking in smartphones and other wireless devices there's a growing sense that we users of such devices are always being tracked but that sense existed well before the news came out about the n.s.a.'s prism program and now another item may be added to the others in the g.p.s.

world of watching everything that you do for more on that the residents laurie harshness. in south carolina a company is trying to introduce an electronic license plate program the plates do something called an electro for display they look like normal life from plates but they're able to display additional messages if the state wants them to for instance the plates can be programmed remotely through a wireless connection to display words like stolen or uninsured above the light the plate number so essentially they can be used as

a shameful scarlet letter to alert fellow drivers and police the place implementation would also mean we'd never have to go to the d.m.v. again to trade in our plates they could be automatically remotely changed to a new number at any time sounds great right except for the fact that if the u.s. were to implement electronic license plates they would essentially have a perfect tracking device i.q. whenever you're in your vehicle at all times and as we've just learned recently the american government not only allows to track its laws abiding citizens it does so without cause a lot. it's already creepy enough that innocent citizens are being photographed constantly and surreptitiously by license plate readers you know those little camera by red light or in parking lot or mounted on police cars those cameras are taking pictures of us all the time and those pictures are being kept in

a database and used in on no not way but with these new electronic license plates the government can watch wherever you drive as if you were an ant in a little and a farm whether you've ever done anything wrong or not in twenty twelve the u.s. supreme court ruled unanimously that it is done concerts. for police to track the vehicles movement using g.p.s. without a warrant but with this new system no warrant would be necessary because the government would always be tracking you so yeah when you first hear about a license plate that can flash stolen if we don't like a good idea and that's the problem a lot of the ways in which we are now being tracked sound like a good idea like they are in our best interest but as the government continues to buy new ways to track us and we learn that we are all being tracked whether we've

done anything wrong or not the real truth emerges and that is the fact that the only thing that's really being stolen here is our right to privacy tonight let's talk about that by following me on twitter at the residence. all right well that's going to do it for me for tonight but for more on the stories we cover go to youtube dot com slash r t america and check out our web site r.t. dot com slash usa and don't forget to tune in to larry king's the show tonight is coming up at nine pm with a special guest harvey mackay the famous business speaker will share his tools and secrets of being competitive in today's market and in the meantime follow me on twitter at meghan underscore lopez and don't forget to send me your comments feedback and story suggestions i'm always was in and more times than not i will respond so tweet me at meghan underscore lopez for now have

a great night. well with. its technology innovation all the latest developments from around russia we've got the future of coverage. good afternoon welcome to prime interest i'm bob english here in washington d.c. and here is a story worth telling today is a two thousand and eight redux that is.