a group of lawmakers in the u.s. house have forced a vote to limit n.s.a. surveillance vote comes despite a veto threat from the white house will dive into the battle over civil liberties versus national security ahead also want to say whistleblower edward snowden remains in the moscow airport but starting could soon be able to leave the airport and travel inside russia thanks to his asylum request an update on the case coming up and finally the senate plays host today to a hearing on closing the u.s. detention facility at guantanamo bay as the hunger strike there lingers are lawmakers finally ready to do something about it we have an update on the hearings ahead.

it's wednesday july twenty fourth five pm in washington d.c. i'm sam sachs and you're watching r.t. and we begin with a story that could have been ripped straight from the headlines of the onion the n.s.a. which has the power to read all of our e-mails is apparently unable to read its own e-mails pro publica filed a freedom of information act requests looking into the agency's p.r. efforts after a very friendly documentary about the n.s.a. aired on the national geographic channel basically pro publica was asking for records of e-mail exchanges between the n.s.a. and the national geographic channel but the n.s.a. freedom of information act officer cindy blacker responded to the request saying quote there's no central method to search an e-mail at this time with the way our records are set up unfortunately she acknowledged it's quote a little antiquated and archaic. but the n.s.a. could have bigger problems on its hands and. namely what's happening in congress

today as we near a key vote in the house to defund part of the n.s.a. surveillance programs targeting american citizens that amendment would defund the n.s.a.'s ongoing use of the patriot act's section two fifteen to conduct blanket surveillance on americans now ahead of the vote the white house is aggressively pushing back against the amendment last night the n.s.a. chief keith alexander met with members on the hill to urge a no vote and the white house released this statement saying quote we oppose the current efforts in the house to hastily dismantle one of our intelligence community's counterterrorism tools this blunt approach is not the product of an informed open or deliberative process we urge the house to reject the a mosh amendment now despite the pressures this vote will mark the very first time members of congress will have a chance to go on record either supporting or rejecting the n.s.a.'s mass dragnet on american citizens and now as the fallout from edward snowden's leaks reaches the

floor of the house of representatives there's news out of moscow regarding the fate of the leaker himself today snowden's lawyer in italy koocher arena visited his client that moscow airport transit zone that's been snowden's home for a month now and he happened to be carrying with him travel documents that could allow snowden to finally leave the airport very soon for the latest here's artie's paul scott. edward snowden remains here. he remains in the transit zone and it was widely thought that today was going to be the day that he would finally be allowed to enter russia he's waiting for a piece of paper now we know that he's applied for temporary asylum in russia. considering whether to process or not when they make that decision he will be given a piece of paper a temporary visa if you like that will help him to enter russia proper now it was widely expected that today was going to be the day that he was going to get his

hands on that piece of paper but basically the paperwork still hasn't been processed in the federal migration service still haven't decided whether they're going to process his application or not know his legal representative anatoly did arrive. at around four o'clock this afternoon and he was carrying a. watching and waiting with anticipation expecting him to hand that piece of paper over to edward snowden which would then allow edward snowden to however it transpires there were just some books by russian wolf is not exactly what we. would snowden does remain in the transit. in terms of the actual process from here once he does get his hands on that piece of paper and he is allowed to enter russia that's when his application for temporary asylum will be processed i'm not up to three months so this piece of paper will allow him into russia to move around freely if the temporary asylum is then granted he's allowed to stay in russia for

twelve months for a twelve month period and then that will be renewed on a rolling basis if he decides to settle and all indications from his legal representative from his legal advisor is that edward snowden is keen to remain in russia if asylum application is granted and not move on elsewhere as we were expecting of course to latin america so it looks as if he's keen to stay in russia but for the time being for at least several more days he has to remain in the transit zone here at sheremetyevo airport. that was artie's paul scott reporting. moving on to the latest efforts on capitol hill to close the detention facility at guantanamo bay while some reports indicate that a hunger strike there which is now lasted nearly six months is starting to slow down some members of the senate aren't ready to give up on closing gitmo so the senate judiciary committee held a hearing this afternoon on closing the facility and what implications that might have on our national security and our record of human rights or tease liz always

there and she joins me now hey liz based on what you heard today in the hearing is there's some will now in senate to close this detention facility and get no. yeah i think so sam today was the first significant congressional hearing on closing guantanamo bay that we have heard since two thousand and nine of course president obama ran on the platform that he was going to shut this down of course that that has not happened but we did hear from chairman the chairman presiding over this committee today senator dick durbin and dick durbin excuse me and here we took at least so much of the blame he said congress take should at at least take some of the blame for the fact that this base has not closed down he said and that's due in part to the law the national defense authorization act that states that are that block funding that blocks funding the transfer of detainee is so in order for this transfer to happen congress has to take action and its hopes am that

today is going to be the start of that process right whether it's congress or the white house it seems like both sides of either passively or actively kept this facility open i want to play a clip here from retired army brigadier general stephens anacharis he was testifying at the hearing and here's what he said about the hunger strike on top of . the treatment of hunger strikers a kuantan m o compered. size is the core ethical values of our medical profession the a.m.a. has long endorsed the principle that every competent patient has the right to refuse refused medical intervention the world medical association and the international red cross have determined that force feeding through the use of restraints is not only an ethical violation but contravenes common article three of the geneva conventions. is it fair to say that the reason attention renewed

attention i should say to guantanamo whether it's this hearing whether it's the president's decision to start talking about it again in lifting the prisoner transfer back to yemen all this stuff we've seen the last few months are a result of this hunger strike that's nearing six months. oh well would seem so the hunger strike was mentioned several times today throughout the hearing very interesting testimony from that retired brigadier general that clip that you just played he went on to say that this this this force feeding interferes with the doctor patient relationship that essentially a puts the physician in a position where they are using force and it kind of disrupts that that that trust that that should be there with this doctor patient relationship also senator dianne feinstein spoke out was one of the senators that spoke out saying that this hunger strike is a form of protest that it's unacceptable and she was among those that said that

these details detainees should be transferred to another high security facility so whether or not this hearing would have gone on today say i'm a if this hunger strike did not take place it's unclear but certainly lawmakers here have taken notice so the the name of this hearing will be the hearing was focused on the implications of closing guantanamo what were some of the concerns raised by members about closing the facility or the keeping the facility open the the costs. human rights national security. yeah a lot of lawmakers say and witnesses that testified today said that keeping this base open is a threat to national security because it involved in detainees and kind of radicalize them when they're based there also human rights issues were brought up the fact that it's unethical to hold detainees indefinitely without charge or trial you brought up the cost the hospice brought up today senator cruz had

mentioned that is enormous costs to keep this open over four hundred million dollars per year and per per detainee the figure that was cited today two point seven million dollars so that's a lot more than than what it cost to keep a federal prisoner for example it's interesting because senator cruz what was the one that brought up. this fear and this is what you're hearing from critics that fear that the base what would happen if the base was close he said he would raise the question what would happen to these detainees where would we put them there is no flat there is no backup plan there is no better option and he cast a doubt or he raised doubt that if these detainees were to use that they would just drop their arms and embrace world peace. the chairman senator dick durbin did kind of address this issue if we could play that clip. no one is suggesting that closing

guantanamo is risk free or the no detainees will ever engage in terrorist activities if they're transferred but if the former detainees those returned to terrorism he will likely meet the. heerey the number two official in the in the arabian peninsula who was recently killed in a drone strike. that's a really interesting clip there lies the senator's making the point that we shouldn't be basing our entire strategy in guantanamo up this fear in the future that someone might come back and commit an act of terror against against united states but he also also speaking to this idea that given the troubles at guantanamo administer paul white house and the white house wants to rather kill people rather than lock them up now. that kind of it appears that that's what the senator was saying i think he was trying to ease the minds of those that fear what's going to happen that say about that that this

is going to happen that there is a it's going to get dangerous if they they are i don't know that was the appropriate way to the pope people's mind that he is about that is what the chairman said today if them he probably wasn't trying to take that perspective it was artie's liz well thank you so much. then now on to syria where president obama's plans to arm the syrian rebels was given a green light by congress well some of congress at least and in june shortly after the white house announced its plans to dump weapons into the syrian civil war we learned that members of the select intelligence committees in the house and senate expressed concerns with those plans and blocked the assistance out of fear that weapons could up end up in the hands of radical elements within the opposition now those concerns were raised in secret in only among those members who served on the intel committee not all members of congress and then this week we learned that those secret concerns raised in secret to the white house have now been addressed

in secret by the white house and members of both the house and senate intel committees have now given their secret approval for the white house to provide lethal assistance to the syrian opposition u.s. arms could begin funneling into syria as early as august. now speaking this week for the speaking at the veterans of foreign wars national convention sen rand paul slammed the idea of arming the syrian rebels saying the united states may be putting itself in the position of arming al-qaeda odd regime is no friend of freedom or of the united states but this does not mean that the enemy of our enemy is our friend there are currently seventeen different rebel groups in syria including the largest group al nusra. nuestro fighters are radical anti-american geodes and they're affiliated with al-qaeda but your politicians in washington are

eager to send weapons they promise oh these weapons won't get into the hands of the enemy i don't believe it does anyone believe that. unfortunately for senator paul he doesn't sit on those intel committees in congress that have debated the issue behind closed doors and in secret so he's had very little say in crafting policy on this issue but is he striking the right tone here and should u.s. policymakers be listening to these more skeptical voices when it comes to intervening in syria and elsewhere around the world to discuss this further matthew finney assistant editor at reason dot com joined me earlier i started out asking him if rand paul has some sort of special insight into syria that other members of congress don't have when he says we shouldn't be arming the rebels. no i think they all have the same the same access to the same piece of information he's just come to a different conclusion which is that to intervene in syria on behalf of assad's opposition is not in americans america's national security interest well why is it that when

mccain and graham talk about this issue they say they oversimplify it they say this is all about assad must go there's a democratic opposition that's challenging the u.s. needs to be here whereas when senator paul talks about it he brings up stuff like al nusra he brings up the fact that the opposition is so is so faction that there are elements of al qaeda with it why is he willing to talk about this stuff but other people aren't willing to talk about these kind of inconvenient truths that come with army opposition why i think he's willing to talk about it because he understands that if we were to get involved in the situation in syria it's just impossible to know what will happen the real tragedy of the situation in syria is that a bad guy assad who's committed you know her if it crimes is being fought against by an opposition that is as you rightly pointed out complex and diverse and then of all the liberal moderates that we would hope that they would be almost zero which has connections to al-qaeda is

a group that especially if you're concerned about american security you don't want them to gain a foothold in syria alter the you know topple the regime and take it over so i think it would be wise for us to make sure that any american policy in syria does not involve giving weapons to rebels that could end up in the hands of people like this or rather beyond that there's a whole economic component here as general martin dempsey briefed members of congress on the options that are on the table with syria everything from arming rebels which is what the president's going forward with doing all the way to a no fly zone to targeted air strikes and you see that if we're just going to arm the rebels it's going to be like five hundred million dollars a year but if we start doing stuff like a no fly zone or targeted strikes we're talking a billion dollars a. type figures how is this even on the table an option considering the noise that's coming out of washington about austerity and how we need to be reining in spending rather than massive new amounts of spending on some

sort of military engagement rhetoric about the fence in the united states always seems to exempt fiscal sanity and this is no different you know dempsey also recommended you know securing chemical weapon sites or the creation of buffer zones which you rightly say would cost that he estimates would cost billions of dollars but in that same lesson to senator levin dempsey also said you know deeper involvement is a possibility and you would hope after there are a adventures in iraq and afghanistan the legislators on capitol hill would be wary all of what another engagement in the middle east looks like but unfortunately it looks like the rebels is the way it's going to be it seems like the u.s. has had a history of the sort of mission creep i remember that was talked a lot about when we were intervening in libya a few years ago let's get into the political dynamic here rand paul's name is thrown around in two thousand and sixteen as a possible challenger to someone like hillary clinton in the last year or so we've seen rand paul very vocal on this issue we've seen very vocal on issues of drones

and surveillance and this sort of stuff whereas other mainstream candidates like hillary clinton haven't seemed to be on board with all this stuff. how might this all shake out politically in twenty six there are these kind of outspoken stands that rand paul staking going to be beneficial to him do you think i think they they could be i mean he's running for president and all but unofficial capacity hasn't announced yet i don't think it's a secret to anyone that he's you know twenty sixteen pretty significant in and you know realistic way but he is only a only one example of a you know republican. politician that is becoming a proponent all of you know of and he will positions and all of civil liberties and there's also thomas massie in the house who also is. well a similar philosophy is ron paul and it will be interesting to see how the republicans deal with this that they're going to have the party that. had backed you know mostly the invasion of iraq is now one of its most prominent and it is now

you know and he will crusade it it's really interesting we see. decades now of military u.s. military intervention around the world lots of military misadventure things aren't going so well do you think we're seeing a backlash against this with senators like rand paul and other voices that are speaking out against syrian opposition are we seeing kind of an anti interventionist movement building not just among maybe american people who are tired of it but actually within congress within policymakers i think it's a little hard to know in congress i mean they do seem to be cautious but ok with the rebels in syria so i'm not as optimistic that interventionism is going to become a thing on the hill but certainly among the american public a polling shows that the american american people are not really full to throwing up support behind intervention in syria but you know it's not the first time that the american public and elected representatives have a security we'll see what happens that was matthew finney assistant editor at

reason dot com now staying on the hill questions linger about how the house of representatives will handle the senate's recently passed immigration reform law a hearing on tuesday in the house subcommittee on immigration and border security took on the issue of children and undocumented immigration particularly those children who were brought to the united states illegally at a young age and have since been raised here they've been referred to in the debate as dreamers and while republicans in the house are skeptical of immigration reform that includes pathways to citizenship here was the republican chair of that subcommittee congressman trey gowdy speaking on behalf of the dreamers children and the issues that impact their lives you know i'd like nothing else and to call children or a special class the. all treats children differently in almost every regard when children wander in the neighborhood yards we don't call that trespassing the law treats children differently for a variety of reasons including the fact that children cannot form the intent

necessary to violate the law and intent is a necessary element of every criminal offense simply put children who were brought here haven't committed a crime i missed a major or otherwise the adults may have. but the children have not often lost in the debate over immigration reform are the personal stories those who are dealing with our nation's immigration system and those who would be most affected by reform party correspondent megan lopez has one of the stores. where. ten year old kelly. she's a tomboy whose favorite subject at sugar land elementary school is math she likes writing and reading and bicycling with her dad she could almost be described as a typical fourth grader. almost i think a little bit because and because like i always say

because to make to get a would make two and three. but kelly is different you see kelly was born in el salvador when she was just a few months old her mother brought her to the u.s. illegally four years she has lived with her father who also into the country illegally now kelly's father is facing deportation leaving her with two options go with her father or stay and face an uncertain future then i want to go to. stay with immigration authorities did offer her father one option you know. give it to me they told me to leave my daughter that i could give her up for adoption that an american family could adopt her and she could be a citizen but at ten kelly is willing to abandon the only life she has ever known if it means staying with her father and. i want to be with him now and

in the letter. when i when kelly broke the news to her best friend she broke it with a heavy heart it's the first time she has ever really had to say goodbye in her short life and. why you can't. have two and. kelly and her father are just two players in the battle over immigration reform lawmakers on capitol hill remain in gridlock over what to do about border security and how to deal with the eleven million people that are already living here and house democrats say that the closer we get to twenty fourteen the less that likely reform bill really is because congressional elections will be within sight meanwhile just down pennsylvania avenue the obama administration has deported more people during its first term than during all eight years under the bush presidency that includes forty five thousand parents that were deported during the first half of two thousand and twelve alone. obama said he wasn't going to deport people with

families but he wasn't going to separate them but it would he's doing is the opposite i think that president obama i think he can do something but in reality he doesn't want to he is simply come to this country looking for a better life for himself and his daughter tearing families apart the pouring him and leaving kelly here i mean that's not the american way tearing families apart is not the american way dishonored jefferson and the virginia new majority have been working with the road sells for months leading up to brian's deportation i didn't realize how inhumane the system is. when we ran through this in a gallery. when i first met brian

we went to go vote the senate gallery you know i mean the parents let him know that you know it's really hard for me when he said he has to buy his own kid. this is a man who has to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet that hurts the virgin young new majority is a progressive civic engagement organization that usually focuses on voting reform and they know that the hispanic vote is a sleeping giant that has the potential to sway elections but two to sondra it's more than politics it's people it's hard for me isn't america this thing that this is my country when we do this to other people brian was scheduled to be deported by july thirty first of this year but as a result of media attention like our tea story that ran on july nineteenth immigration officials have delayed his exit to give him more time to appeal a prayer vigil will be held tonight to honor the roe sells for now kelly and her

father are spending their final days in the u.s. together enjoying the american dream one last time before it fades in sterling virginia meghan lopez r.t. the university of southern california is the subject of a federal investigation alleging that the school routinely failed to respond to or investigate rape allegations u.s. department of education's office for civil rights launched the investigation last month at the end of june thirteen students and several other unnamed syrians have come forward alleging that university officials in the department of public safety have caused them suffering by failing to respond to numerous complaints of harassment on campus parties ramon go into reports. with college students it was the u.s. say that they've been the victim of sexual assault and that the same institutions that they look towards for protection have ignored their pleas for help the u.s. department of education's office for civil rights is looking into allegations by

women here at the university of southern california that the university did not properly look into their allegations of rape victims and their advocates say that the problem is rampant we had one woman the other day at our press conference come come out for the first time and talk about her rape and she said that when she came forward to the administration about it they denied her rape claim was valid because her attacker didn't orgasm and these are the kinds of reasons that are being given to dismiss these kinds of claims the university says that it's fully cooperated with the investigation and that it's currently reviewing its policies but this issue is far from being isolated to just you with c. students from prestigious institutions such as occidental college dartmouth and even yale have also filed similar complaints i've just seen so many negative consequences to friends of mine who have had this happen to them and. they've ministration is not there to support them after this and that was like

a second betrayal that was almost as intense as the first betrayal of being raped by a philistine for victims filing complaints the fear is that justice will not be served but in the end they're hoping that college students across the u.s. get better responses from their schools in the future in los angeles ramon that in the party. and now on to breaking news in galecki spain where a train derailment has left dozens dead and scores more injured the high speed train derailed outside of santiago de compostela city in northern spain more than two hundred people boarded the train which travels between madrid and federal authorities expect the death toll to rise and eyewitnesses have called the accident scene grisly with reports of bloody bodies strewn across the tracks no confirmation yet on the cause of the crash. that's going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r.t.

america and check out our web site r t v dot com slash usa you can also follow me on twitter at sam sachs thank you and see you back in whole bit. i would rather ask questions of people in positions of instead of speak on their behalf and that's why you can find my go larry king now right here on our t.v. question more. talking about the same story doesn't make it news new some. cases some tough questions thank you.

lisa. is. below and welcome to cross talk we're all things are considered on peter lavelle the ultimate cost benefit analysis assessing the so-called war on terror after costing chileans of dollars sacrificing personal freedoms and ingratiating rent seeking corporations can anyone claim the us in the world is any safer from the insidious plans of keris and what is the difference between an act of terrorism and western style humanitarian intervention.