it's. an amendment to defund the n.s.a.'s mass domestic spying program failed in the u.s. house of representatives today but does that mean the congressional fight over the n.s.a.'s activities is over will dive into the battle over civil liberties versus national security head then n.s.a. whistleblower edward snowden remains in the moscow airport starting could soon be able to leave the airport and travel inside russia thanks to his asylum requests an update on the case coming up and finally the senate plays host to 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 hearing tonight show.

it's wednesday july twenty fourth eight pm in washington d.c. same sex you're watching our t.v. then 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 request 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 essential method to search an e-mail at this time with the way our records are set up unfortunately she acknowledged it's a little antiquated and archaic. meanwhile today on the hill the n.s.a. dodged a bullet an amendment sponsored by

a group of liberal and conservative lawmakers that would have defunded the n.s.a.'s ongoing use of the patriot act section two fifteen it conduct blanket surveillance on americans failed just about an hour ago in the in the house of representatives the white house's aggressive push back against the amendment including sending the n.s.a. steve general keith alexander to meet with members on the hill last night to urge a no vote seems to have worked but just barely the amendment was defeated by a razor thin margin of two seventeen to two o five it was the first time that members of congress were put on record forced to take a position on the n.s.a.'s massive dragnet of american citizens since it was revealed by edward snowden and we learned that congress at least the house of representatives is pretty much split on the issue and they may have to take it up again as today congressman rush holt introduced the surveillance state repeal act which repealed both the patriot act and the fies amendments act two laws that

underpin the n.s.a.'s domestic surveillance operations so while the white house hope to these efforts against the n.s.a. ended today with the defeat of this amendment it's clear that a new coalition of lawmakers united against the n.s.a.'s domestic spying has other plans and now as the fallout from edward snowden 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 and italy kuchera visited his client at the moscow airport transit zone which has been snowden's home for a month now and that the lawyer appeared to be carrying with him travel documents that could allow snowden to finally leave the airport very soon now for the latest here's artie's paul scott. edward snowden remains. he remains in the transit zone 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 that application 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 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 his legal representative. 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 exactly what we were anticipating so i 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 when he is allowed to enter russia that's when application for temporary asylum will be process and that could take 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 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 for the time being for at least several more days he has to remain in the transit zone here at sheremetyevo. and that was our tease paul scott reported. 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 are 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 artie's liz wald joined us earlier from capitol hill and i asked her if the senate seems finally willing to close the detention facility at guantanamo bay 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 of that has not happened but we did hear from the chairman and 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 blocks funding that blocks funding the transfer of detainee is so in order for 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 i kuantan about. the treatment of hunger strikers a kuantan m o compromises the core ethical values of our medical profession the aim. has long endorsed the principle that every competent patient has the right to reef 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 in 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 may have this hunger strike did not take place it's unclear but certainly lawmakers here have taken notice so 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 cost the human rights national security. 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 ins detainees and kind of radicalize

them when their base their 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. enormous cost to keep this space that 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 lad 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 a former detainees does return 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 list and he is the senator's making the point that we shouldn't be basing our entire strategy in guantanamo what this fear in the future that someone might come back and commit an act of terror again. i guess you know it's pretty old 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 that there is a it's going to get dangerous if they they are i don't know if that was the appropriate way to head to the pub people's mind that is that that is what the chairman said today sam he probably wasn't trying to take that perspective it was archie's liz well thank you so much. and still ahead here on our t.v. obama administration wants to arm the syrian rebels but not everyone in congress agrees with that idea more when we come back.

i would rather as question the people in positions of power instead of speak on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on our key question more.

here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that we americans call i don't know. i'm sorry i missed the guy who cares enough about it but you sir are a fool you know what that is the mind of a terrorist cell in a place that i don't want to see which is a feature the reason they are liberal and the christian religion is. strictly to. secure the corporate media distracts us from what you and i should care about because they're profit driven industry that sells us sensationalistic garbage he calls it breaking news i'm happy martin and we're going to break that. and welcome back 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 in june shortly after the white house announced its plan 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 weapons assistance out of fear that those weapons could end up in the hands of radical elements within the opposition and those concerns were raised in secret and only among those members who serve 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 at the veterans of foreign wars national convention sen rand paul slim the idea of

arming the syrian rebels saying that the united states may be putting itself in the position of arming al-qaeda the assad 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 al nusra 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 there are unfortunately a first senator paul he doesn't sit on those intelligence committees in congress that have debated this issue behind closed doors and in secret so he's had very little say in crafting policy but is the 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 back you feed in your system editor at reason dot com joined me earlier and 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 interests 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 lesser two 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 that 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 of the 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 in all but an official 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 republican. politician that is becoming a proponent of you know of and he will positions and all of civil liberties and you know 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 that 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 hell but certainly among the american public a polling shows that the american american people are not really full the throwing their support behind intervention in syria but you know it's not the first time that the american public and the elected representatives have a secret and we'll see what happens that was matthew finney assistant editor at reason dot com now on to the university of southern california which is the subject of a federal investigation alleging that the school routinely failed to respond to or even investigate rape allegations u.s. department of education's office for civil rights launched the investigation last month at the end of june thirteenth students and several other under students 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 applause 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 policy 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 being the party for years now the u.s. government has given billions in aid to numerous countries but whether or not this leads to the people of these other nations liking the u.s.

well that remains in question the residents lori harvest with more on that. america is a generous country we send about fifty billion dollars annually to other countries through food aid military hardware health care supplies trade up money you name it we're so right so why is it bad that countries we give aid to so often don't like. the pew research center recently asked people and thirty nine countries if they had a positive view of the u.s.

overall sixty three percent of the world so they had a favorable opinion of the united states now of course no poll is a perfect scientific instrument it's still pretty interesting even more interesting though was that many of the countries we supposedly helped with financial assistance has the potentially lower approval ratings for the u.s. then countries where we pay out of their business for instance we give each it's about one point five billion dollars every year but only sixteen percent of egyptians asked so they had a positive view of the u.s. we give palestine about five hundred million dollars every year and only fourteen percent there had a favorable opinion on us and we get about a billion dollars every year to pakistan but only a mere a levon person then there have a positive opinion on the us. so it seems like these countries do like us all up in their business even if it means a lot of money in their pocket you would think the opposite would be true that

a country would actually like another country that gave them millions of dollars every year and there are examples of that where the us does provide assistance and wait there actually helpful and people actually do like that in these instances where it would appear that the us spends a lot of money over things to only get a face plant know that if we hate you in return you have to wonder what is going on could it be that these countries realize the us is not actually trying to help them but is actually trying to gain control and influence and if they. can get me important could it be that if we didn't attack and no money could make people forget all those innocent women and children the us continues to kill by drone. that can be it the us just wants to bring democracy and freedom another do everyone right that must be why we continue to spend billions of dollars in countries that don't like us all why we continue to make massive wealth creation cuts to our own

domestic budget we are just as they leave mother teresa making personal sacrifice for the betterment of others who believe that i have some american aid to give me with no strings attached at all. tonight let's talk about that by following me on twitter as well it. finally tonight detroit's an economic problems are very well now the city became a war just in history to declare bankruptcy and as crime rates increase and job opportunities to increase most people are trying to avoid the cash strapped city most people except john marylebone who on monday night after downing a beer. years decided to swim across the city the detroit river from windsor canada to detroit and sure enough he completed the swim and as he was on his trek back to

canada he swam right into the police and an international rescue operation he was cited for public intoxication and he's facing thousands of dollars in fines for swimming across the river marlow lamented on his drunken swim to a local fox affiliate i've been telling people i can swim across the river for twenty years and they all laughed at me and i thought they did it but i would not suggest anybody do it there's a giant fines for doing it crossing the shipping lanes and it's just really stupid. now facing enormous financial obligations as a result of his swim mr murray low knows exactly what it's like to be the city of detroit and that is going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america or check out our website r t v dot com slash us said you can also follow me on twitter at sam saxon please don't forget to tune in

turn tune in our nine pm for larry king now tonight special guests our splash champion pro skier rory bush the elder and also pro wrestler a.j. kirsch for now take it easy. hello and welcome to prime interest i'm perry i'm boring and i'm bothering bush and here's the story that we're tracking today. the ponzi scheme that's what the headlines in the media suggest the security and game commission is a lodging however the f.c.c. is simply investigating whether the new crypto currencies are being used as a tool to war investors and to an illegal investment schemes you know whether or not this is true the smear campaign against alternative currencies continues in a press release the f.c.c. stated quote investors should understand that regardless of the type of investment the promise of high returns with little or no risk is a.