coming up on our t.v. n.s.a. whistleblower edward snowden stay in the moscow airport may be coming to an end so will he be staying in russia or headed elsewhere an update on this case ahead and it's not only members of capitol hill who have a bone to pick with the n.s.a. now over a dozen organizations are filing a lawsuit against the n.s.a.'s expanding surveillance program more on this developing story coming up and protests continue still days after zimmerman received a not guilty verdict efforts are also being made to repeal stand your ground laws in a limited racial profiling this story later on today show. it's wednesday july seventeenth four pm in washington d.c.

i'm sam sax and you're watching our team and we begin today in an airport in moscow which has been n.s.a. whistleblower edward snowden's home for more than three weeks now but his stay there may soon be coming to an end an interview interview with r t one of snowden's lawyer suggested that snowden could be leaving the airport transit zone in the next few days if he receives the necessary paperwork from the russian government while his asylum request is being processed however according to his attorneys snowden still doesn't think it's safe to leave russia and travel to south and central america where nations have offered him political asylum snowden has shown an interest in staying in russia and even applying for citizenship of course all of that hinges on what snowden plans to do with all that information he still has on the n.s.a. russian president vladimir putin has put conditions on snowden's refuge in russia saying any more leaks that harm the united states won't be tolerated and. de putin

told reporters quote we have warned snowden that any activity of his that could damage u.s. russian relations is unacceptable for us so where do things go from here for that we turn it over to moscow where artie's medina country joins me by dina thank you so much so snowden's lawyers say that he may be leaving the airport transit zone soon if he gets the necessary documents from the russian government what exactly are these documents saying once he gets them if he gets them what will he be allowed to do. well exactly we've just learned from the attorney who has a representing the former n.s.a. contractor adverse no event that actually russia may become his new home for its least one year now if he does receive a temporary asylum it will allow him to live and work in russia freely for as i said a period of one year and after that we were actually told by his attorney that he may actually apply for the russian citizenship now the lawyer added stad average

snowden has been quite down after he has been staying in a transit zone for the last three weeks and he also said that mr snowden has the average chance to gather temporary asylum here in russia as basically the main reason why he applied for asylum and the first place was that he was afraid of his life and his security if he returns back to the united states so in the coming days so we should he should receive these documents that would allow him to finally go through passport control to the ads as at the share of major international airport which is based here in moscow and sad food on the russian soil because as you know now he is incapable of doing that now he's passport has been revoked by the u.s. authorities and he has no russian visa but this documents should ever wrong with

them the next five days in while his asylum application a will be person asked on ballots approach that should take somewhere around three months given that president putin has put conditions on snowden remaining in russia saying that he can't keep harming the united states there's a project noted in a position where he has to choose between continuing to leak documents or staying quiet and being safe in russia. well it really seems that. he has already made up his mind as according to his attorney adverse notice of that he would not freeze lease further documents which could damage the u.s. interests while he is on the russian territory now his lawyer also sad mr snowden said that this is something that he could actually do and that is a very important point as basically these are the conditions there were voices by

president which in a couple of weeks ago the main conditions in which russia could actually grant mr snowden asylum now if he stops any activity which are. harming the u.s. interest and again according to his attorney arris known and said that this is something that he could actually do just that depends on how many documents certains already handed over to journalists that are still in the pipeline about to be released here the united states senator lindsey graham floated the idea of the united states boycotting the olympics in russia in the state department is accused russia of providing a propaganda platform to snowden really just about thirty seconds left how is moscow reacting to some of those talk. right well president putin said this in this ongoing saga russia's role as humanitarian and the actions that are taken should not be regarded as hostile towards the united states he actually said that mr

snowden's actions were in defense of human rights now president putin said that human rights work usually bear some costs for those who are involved in it and when this work is done under the auspices of the united states government now with us for political support as quite acceptable but when someone criticize washington the situation becomes more complicated but again that he all these actions that are taking place now in russia should not be considered hostile towards the united states thanks for the report that was already correspondent. from moscow. and moving on now from where in the world is that word snowden to what we should be doing about all of his leaks members of congress are now stepping up to rein in the n.s.a. republican from michigan justin ammash announced over twitter his plans to defund the n.s.a. spying program this week during consideration of the fence funding bill ammash tweeted most important bill this week dio dio propes we can defund n.s.a.

as unconstitutional spying on americans if house leaders allow amendments but leaders in the house are hesitant to even put a mashes proposals up for a vote but that hasn't deterred democrat rush holt who announced he's drafting legislation this week to repeal both the patriot act and the fai's amendments act now off the hill the courts in recent weeks have also been inundated with lawsuits challenging the n.s.a.'s newly exposed mass domestic surveillance operations electronic frontier foundation has brought together several organizations to file suit together against what they are calling the obama administration's illegal and unconstitutional domestic spying program since last month the american civil liberties union has been in court fighting the government's collection of americans phone metadata as revealed by edward snowden's very first leak regarding verizon and the electronic privacy information center epic has also been involved in overturning legal decisions that have paved the way for mass warrantless

surveillance of americans earlier i was joined by a good era boss staff attorney at the council on american islamic relations which is also taking part in these lawsuits against the obama administration i asked what he hopes this lawsuit will accomplish well we're trying to restore and essays traditional function and essay was set up to not to spy on americans and their communications it was as part of the military it was seen as a agency that was for unlocking and what's happening in the. years since nine eleven is has dramatically shifted to now where we can see from the recent revelations that n.s.a. is pursuing and receiving orders. to collect a vast amount of information from the major telecommunications companies and so we want to see that that practice ends and one of the ways that the lawsuit seeks to

accomplish this is by revisiting a fifty a half century old decision and double a c.p. versus alabama alabama had passed a law forcing the disclosure the membership rolls that. maintained and the supreme court said that was unconstitutional because when we know who we associate with when the government knows who they are we associate with the government is in a position to interfere with our constitutional rights i mean you say when the government knows who associate with with a lawsuit it's referred to as the associational tracking program that super language and we've been hearing of just metadata when you see associational tracking program that seems very deliberate deliberate to show people what exactly is going on here precisely and that's really the way that the government views the i don't need to know that i don't need to know the content of your communications if you're calling a doctor it's probably because you're sick or you think you're second and if you

are calling a organization it's probably because you're working with that organization so the associations themselves are able to see be determined from this mad mad a data and we feel that that's a constitutional violation one really interesting thing about this lawsuit is how many different organizations have joined part of it carries on this the first unitarian church of los angeles the bill of rights defense committee there's a federal firearms license group there's a marijuana reform organization what does it say about this issue that all these groups from all differ. parts of the map can come together and join in this lawsuit . makes it clear that tense is not a proper policy objective and that as the government continues to pursue intense that that that seeking effects all americans whether they're conservative or liberal wherever they fall in the political spectrum no one wants

their associations to be forced divulged to the governments your organization and others have been focused on what's going on with the n.y.p.d. the mass surveillance that's been taking place in muslim americans in new york now that it's been revealed that this is been opened up but is it taking place on millions of americans all across the country. do you think that's going to help your cause and what you guys have been talking about what your organization has been talking about for decades now yeah it's definitely the n y t n y p d program. and it's a programs are symptoms of the same disease and we've been saying for years now that the surveillance policies that have disproportionately affected the muslim community will inevitably be applied to other americans and that's i think what we're seeing now that provides us the opportunity to do is to be to

demonstrate that these policies are misguided and that many different types of americans have an interest in pushing back against them today there was a hearing on the hill over the pfizer courts. the deputy director at the n.s.a. christening gliss commented that two or three hops to track terror suspects as a hop is if we find a suspect we're going to take one hop and look at the people he was looking at or talking to and then take a second hop and look at the people that person was talking to now it's a matter that they take a bit of third hop and see who those people are talking to it's kind of like seven degrees. separation here given that the government is very much interested in communications coming out of the arab world. are arab american muslim americans are going to be targeted more so when they talk to family talk to friends now they were going three hops away from the terror suspects absolutely and the testimony of two

or three hops based on their previous testimony may lack credibility as they have previously misled congress but absolutely the parameters that they're defining means that they're going to sop up all the communications of the muslim community and the finding needles in haystacks isn't accomplished by massively expanding the size of the haystack which is the policy the fantasy is pursuing it moving on quickly from the courts to congress we've seen some members of congress stand up republican just democrat rush holt rush holt they were introduced legislation to defund the n.s.a. spying program repeal the patriot act congress has been culpable in letting these programs grow so big is there still hope that principled members will step up and actually congress might lead the way in getting rid of these programs eventually there is always hope. we've seen a congress that has been too willing to capitulate to executive. to collect

massive amounts of information but since the snowden leaks we have seen the. start of a very narrow bipartisan consensus that something must be done about the n.s.a. spying program and hopefully that bipartisan consensus will sprout into something more substantial we'll see what happens that was good a robust staff attorney at the council on american islamic relations. so we know of the federal government's interest in our telephone and internet communications but as you might expect a law enforcement is interests interested in what we say over the phone or send via e-mail they're interested in where we drive our cars to today the ele a.c.l.u. release an explosive new report on license plate readers which the group says is the most widespread location tracking technology you've probably never heard of a mountain on top of police cars or bridges and light poles license plate readers are in wide use in several cities across america capturing photos of virtually

every driver's license plate along with a timestamp and a location tag now all of this data these millions of license plate photos all of it was being used to track illegal activity but the a.c.l.u. alleges that simply being stored giving law enforcement access to location information of millions of innocent americans in maryland of the over one million license plates read only forty seven were flagged as associated with a serious crime and between the cities of burbank illinois rhinebeck new york and the high point north carolina over eight hundred thousand license plates were collected and stored with far less than one percent of those license plates affiliated with a crime the a.c.l.u. claims the federal government is behind the proliferation of this technology on a local level with the department of homeland security providing fifty million dollars in grants over the last five years to acquire license plate readers and as

of right now there are still a lot of questions to be answered about how the federal government is using all of this data will stay on top of the story. now on to the latest fallout from the george zimmerman trial the congressional black caucus is preparing several bills in response to the shooting of trayvon martin and the subsequent acquittal of george zimmerman they include provisions to get rid of stand stand your ground laws to limit racial profiling and to provide better training for a neighborhood watch volunteer congresswoman frederica wilson from florida argued quote until we pass meaningful laws against profiling americans will continue to be singled out and arrested for driving while black shopping while black walking while black and just plain being black in wealth protests in response to the zimmerman verdict continue across the country and los angeles protesters have taken to the streets for days and there have been reports of several arrests on monday night

yesterday's protests that labor park in l.a. were peaceful with bulked up security from the los angeles police department and calls from community organizers to keep demonstrators waffle you may remember this disturbing video from two thousand and eleven showing u.s. soldiers urinating on the bodies of dead taliban fighters now one of those soldiers you see there is speaking out for the first time on the incident and here's what sergeant joseph chamblin told a local news affiliate about why he did it not like it was a conscious thought or decision just like you know what he does and then so i'm like ok. i regret maybe you know any repercussions might have on the marines but do i regret doing. would you do it again you know. chamberlain was court martialed fined and demoted for his role and desecrating those bodies he's now writing a book in case you want to hear more justifications for his actions. now on to the

issue of drones on capitol hill this week senator rand paul said he would put a hold on president obama's nominee to head up the f.b.i. james komi until komi in the f.b.i. answers some questions he has for the administration regarding domestic drone use earlier this year senator paul used a filibuster dedicated to domestic drone use to slow up the confirmation of john brennan to head up the cia and in this case senator paul wants the f.b.i. to reveal if they get a warrant before using a domestic surveillance drone your i remember in june that then f.b.i. director robert mueller admitted to congress that the f.b.i. does use drones for surveillance on u.s. soil however a nother question that might be helpful helpful for senator paul to ask is why are drones keep crashing for the second time in a week in unmanned drone has crashed at tyndall air force base on the florida panhandle it happened this morning just after eight am and according to

eyewitnesses the q f four drone crashed on the runway during takeoff and exploded roads around the crash site were closed out of concern for fire since these drones are equipped with a self destruct charge triggered to go off when the aircraft diverts from its pre-approved flight plan. now into pakistan which is dealing with a serious heroin problem as u.s. troops prepare to wind down the war in nearby afghanistan there's little concern about what to do with that nation's booming heroin drug trade a drug trade that's having serious public health effects on nearby pakistan r t correspondent lucy kavanagh reports from crocky. an ambulance rushes to kolaches largest more than other body is brought in to be identified there's no shortage of ways to die in the city target killings bomb blasts and drugs. was hoping to find his father here has been searching karachi for more than two weeks

as a last resort he checked this morning but amid the portraits of the dead a grim discovery and a familiar face of those father was addicted to heroin for almost a decade now he's another one of the drugs casualties. i don't know where they are going to be hard to break the news to my mother but this is what happened and we have to face it there will be tears with my. tears that abdullah believes could have been prevented he says his father tried to quit several times but in pakistan there are few treatment centers and plenty of temptation by just i mean that he's done his be flooded with heroin it's easy to get that it's even sold out in the open the police do nothing because they're also involved and just a few blocks away a dark underworld in broad daylight these heroin addicts don't even bother hiding their habit it's thought that pakistan has more than four million drug addicts but fewer than eighty dedicated we have been a. help for the junkies maybe and. there's no shortage of marijuana.

they may be a problem solving problems but they share one thing in common what you assert that a lot of them are moscow how can a heroin that deadly the people of. afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium heroine's main ingredient and it accounts for ninety percent of the global supply roughly forty percent of it as smuggled through pakistan it's a multibillion dollar industry fueled by years of war and instability opium production is up for the third year in a row and is predicted to grow even further and once nato leaves in twenty fourteen there are fears that the floodgates will open for the spread of the deadly harvest you are going to get rid of this wall. they're screwed i suppose but you'll be inviting end of the war which will be very difficult. to wind up and decorated with a wall of drugs jackets down the security experts want nato forces to take heed

they have gone drug trade is the elephant in the room the biggest challenge was fox on his face to face that in all of going to start negotiations and twenty fourteen post for droll strategy drugs has been left out by the united states nato and other european partners as an issue which is not to be considered. the port of karachi a key drug smuggling exit point the city is flooded with cheap heroin which addicts here say is easier to buy than a healthy meal and near the wall serves as a makeshift heroin takeout window money goes in and drugs are pushed out into either waiting hands. i tell myself that i'll stop using this drug for the sake of my children that's what i'm thinking about but i can't help myself because my body needs it and the heavy winds easy to get. to easy it seems pakistanis get through an estimated one point two billion dollars worth of heroin each year but rather as just a dollar fifty is enough to get them high. feel it's spreading now it's gone to my

heart. straight to the heart from the heroin heartland of afghanistan a casualty of the poison spreading from the war zone next door the sea captain of our team karachi the u.s.d.a. is hot on the trail of a mysterious wheat crop that was found growing earlier this spring in an oregon farm the wheat was genetically engineered crop immune to weed killers like roundup but no such crop was ever approved by the u.s.d.a. it was developed by about by monsanto eight years ago but after several field trials months santo never asked the government to approve the crop so how'd it get into a field in oregon well that's still a mystery but it's a fitting mystery since most of what we eat today as americans is also one big bioengineered mystery as well r t correspondent margaret howell with more on what exactly is in the foods were all eating on a regular basis. is there any other decision we make that is more important than

what we eat if you're shopping at an american grocery store chances are you're buying products laced with chemical petroleum even brought mine you know that substance that keeps carpets from catching on fire and you may not even know it dr jason colton co-author of rich foods poor foods had this to say about bro mine one of the products is called b.b. you know aroma native vegetable oil this is a big one of the united states it's found in things lame gator aid fresco mountain dew am so a lot of the a lot of it what it does is it's an oil that helps to the colors stay saturated and as well as the flavors they step saturated throughout the drink now in the united states our government said that they would let b.t.o. come on the marketplace for and on an interim basis they were pending review how this was over forty years ago that they said this it's been banned in over one hundred other countries and what this does is it causes a bromeliad thyroid which means it doesn't allow your thyroid to absorb iodine

which is an essential nutrients help with metabolism and in extreme cases it can lead to cancer of the thyroid famous american companies like post kellogg's quaker brand cereals as well as diamond nuts chex mix and gum brands like wrigley's and try to and are all allegedly made with products that have chemicals known as b h a n b h t these have been banned in food products and group in countries in japan for their known health hazards but here in the states they get a rubber stamp for your consumption according to a two thousand and eleven national toxicology program report on carcinogens it can reasonably anticipate that b.h.a. causes cancer in humans but that doesn't stop it from entering our food supply. in a peer reviewed study published in the environmental health perspectives it found thirty six common food items in a dallas grocery store just have had detectable levels of bro mine the flame retardant but there's more than just broke mine now american consumers along with their global counterparts have something else to worry about genetically modified

foods as it stands now the government doesn't require them to carry a label chances are you may have eaten them and not even known it one study from french scientists erik thera leni found a link between g m o's and cancer dr robert bernhard explained a fairly new study in this way in france there is a good study two years that it's getting to work or into rats but it's early it may be used for a goalie of rats i'm sure the standard cancer since his arrest at the national cancer institute uses eighty percent of the field that's got breast cancer i think that's significant oh sixty percent of the male rats got up on the dancers i think that's a given after being fed months and has roundup ready g.m.o. corn the roundup herbicide for two years according to the sara lee new study female rats produce massive tumors on mammary glands and gulf in their body for male rats testicular and abdominal cancers occur both sexes displayed on the liver as well as

kidney failure and yet months santos was just awarded a major humanitarian award for its contributions to society food and drug administration declined to comment on dr sara lee new study as well as the effect the bromides found in common processed foods we're told here in the u.s. but the food and drug administration has our back right well of all the information coming out that there are allowing these substances in our food supply it just may be time to get another option and washington margaret how old are tea and finally today harrowing rescue high above the earth's surface on tuesday astronaut luca parmitano stepped out of the international space station for always supposed to be a seven hour spacewalk but only an al. hour and a half into it he had to be rescued and pulled back into the spacecraft after a space suit began leaking water or water pulled around his face and ears preventing him from hearing or responding to his other astronauts nasa is still investigating the cause of the leak and that does it for now i'm sam sax stay tuned

prime interest is next. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for sleep you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm trying hard welcome to the big picture.

he. used. to eat. some of these traditional chili lines they've been bred and developed and passed down from generation to. this is a total destruction of the culture in mexico i tell him what i mean this this is not going to impact asylum in mexico whatever happens here about the whole world how we're eating out tarbox in the in the open in the eighty's you know all the organiser or. genetically engineered crops why do you think this country is full of obese and sick people because we have a crappy food system. good

afternoon and welcome to prime interests i'm perry i'm boring and i'm bob english and here it was then your headline today. well mr bernanke he goes to washington ok he's no mr smith he lives right here and he testified in front of the. today something he does twice a year after all the. talk it turns out his key unemployment doesn't even matter that's right since december it's bad policy it says that once unemployment hits the six point five percent it's now at seven point six the fed will take its foot off the monetary gas pedal but today he told congress that unemployment could fall because people simply drop out of the job market which is something that we've been hampering on for weeks do you think the fed's been watching drive interest.