coming up on r t n.s.a. whistleblower edward snowden takes part in a live q. and a lots of people asked their burning questions to snowden including a question about his reaction to president obama's n.s.a. speech we'll take a look at his response just ahead and the capital of ukraine has seen countless clashes between protesters and riot police now a ten cease fire has been declared while opposition leaders negotiate with the government the latest from ukraine coming up and the syrian peace talks have just wrapped day two wins with relent but with the two sides warring over assad's power in the country will the syrian government and rebels even be able to come to an agreement we'll bring you more from switzerland later in the show.

it's thursday january twenty third four pm in washington d.c. i live near a david and you're watching our t.v. we begin tonight with a look at a special q. and a chat conducted by former government contractor edward snowden earlier today snowden gave a number of curious people out there the chance to have a conversation with him by offering them to ask some timely questions for an in-depth look at the q. and a i spoke earlier with our very own sam sachs i first asked him if snowden has responded to president barack obama's speech on n.s.a. reforms. this sort of he was asked kind of the frame of should president obama have been given given this speech so early especially since so many voices have been weighed in on this debate namely the privacy and civil liberties oversight board which released a report today basically saying that the n.s.a.'s bulk phone records collection program is both illegal and mostly useless in preventing terrorism in that context

edward snowden was asked do you think it's a shame that obama gave his n.s.a. speech before his privacy and civil liberties oversight board reported that report . and which still didn't respond and he wanted to focus in on the bulk records program he said it's time to end bulk collection which is a euphemism for mass surveillance there is simply no justification for continuing an unconstitutional policy with a zero percent success rate in light of another independent confirmation of this fact i think americans should look to the white house and congress to close the book entirely on the two fifteen bulk records provision of course in the president's speech he didn't call for ending bulk collection he said that he'd like to see the government move away from storing all these records but yet bulk collection will continue that's what snowden was focused on when he said that is what needs to end so i guess we can gather that he was not very pleased with president obama's speech it didn't go far enough but i know you've been tracking some other questions and answers what else do we now yes snowden as addressed

a number of questions here there's been a lot of talk about what he thinks about spying and secrecy people have said that snowden just doesn't believe in any sort of spying and he was asked directly about that question what in your opinion is the appropriate extent of u.s. national security apparatus surely some spy use needed to which snowden replied not all spying is bad the biggest problem we face right now is the new technique of indiscriminate mass surveillance or governments are seizing billions and billions and billions of innocents communication every single day i think a person should be able to dial a number make a purchase send an s.m.s. reading e-mail or visit a web site without having to think. about what's going to look like on their permanent record so we've seen a number of n.s.a. disclosure over the last seven months but starting wants to focus on those disclosures that reveal this mass surveillance whether it's phone dragnet on all americans in the united states or these reports of collecting tens of millions communications of average german citizens or average french citizens or average brazilian citizens snowden thinks these are the most egregious types of spying

student was also asked about whistleblower protection laws and whether or not they would have helped his situation and what he thinks of president obama's proposed whistleblower protections and this is what snowden said you know to if i had revealed what i knew about these unconstitutional but classified programs to congress they could have charged me with a felony one only need to look at the case of thomas drake to see how the government doesn't have a good history of handling legitimate reports of wrongdoing within the system my case clearly demonstrates the need for comprehensive whistleblower protection act reform or started referring to previous n.s.a. employee thomas drake who blew the whistle a few years ago about warrantless wiretapping going on at the n.s.a. and he was charged with the espionage act he finally beat those charges obviously it's not gone to congress it's not likely anything would happen most members of congress are he knew about these programs and hadn't said anything about it one more thing snowden was asked about whether or not these n.s.a. revelations are going to permanently damage american democracy ten american

democracy recover from what's been revealed to which snowden replied yes what makes our country strong is our system of values not a snapshot of the structure of our agencies or the framework of our laws we can correct the laws restrain the overreach of agencies and hold the senior officials responsible for abusive programs to account so a hopeful note from snowden moving forward and clearly not what you would expect from someone who's been alleged to be a spy who is trying to bring the united states down which is some accusations you've heard members of congress on the house and senate intelligence committees making routinely without any proof whatsoever chairman very very important questions and. very thorough answers on his part i should say snowden you know could have easily gone to any publication to give him an exclusive interview to really talk about this information as an outlet but he decided to do this q. and a which i thought was interesting you know why do you think he chose this as a sort of medium of communication read this is only the second interview he's kind of given this where the guardian did a q.

and a back in june of last year but you're right i mean snowden's in high demand everybody wants to do an interview with him but as he said from the get go he doesn't want this story to be about him is mainly shied away from the media of course as people have come out and putin said that he's a spy and question his motives he comes out and can speak for himself on this but for the most part he's leaving it up to the journalists he's given these documents to in the organizations that have seized on these disclosures to make change happen to sort of push the story forward. perhaps he sees a says a way to get the information out in a very unfiltered way straight from the horse's mouth well that's all we have time for sam sachs political commentator thank you. and a national security agency program to collect vast quantities of information about phone calls has been determined illegal this is all according to an independent review done by the privacy and civil liberties oversight board also known as p c l o b in a two hundred and thirty eight page report released today the board concluded that

the section two fifteen program has contributed only minimal value in combating terrorism beyond what the government already achieved through these and other alternative means and it added that the sation of the program would eliminate the privacy and civil liberties concerns associated with vocal action without unduly hampering the government's efforts the board's conclusion of course goes much further than what president obama recommended in a speech given last friday at the justice department there obama said he wanted to move private metadata out of the hands of the government but he did not call for an end to the program earlier i spoke to colonel morris davis law professor at howard university and first asked him if the board shared its conclusions with obama before his speech and if they were taken into account. well i think he probably did and again the formal report was not released until today but i'm sure that you know he was briefed on the contents of the report and took that into account when he gave the speech on friday i don't think you'd want to you know give

a speech on friday night take this come out this week and contradict what do you said no again the report was not unanimous it largely split along party lines with two republican a primarily republicans dissenting in three primarily democrats that were in favor of the results absolutely do you think it's at all possible that a lot of men decided to give his speech before the report was released so that you know he thought maybe what was going to come out would undermine. you know what he was going to recommend i don't know i mean i. attribute some sinister motive to the president but curious it was it was encouraging what he had to say on friday but you know he's given many encouraging speeches in the past and often there's not a lot of follow through so i'm hoping that there will be follow through this time and he'll live up to what he promised to do what do you think about this latest report when you think it says about the overarching constitutionality of the program should this sort of be the final nail in the coffin so to speak in regards

to i mean the ball collection of americans not a data therefore does come out today is two hundred thirty eight pages i haven't had a chance to read through it i haven't tried. to leave one of the board members is judge patricia wall to you may have seen recently was awarded the presidential medal of freedom right. a great jurist a real credit to the legal profession someone that you know i look up to and admire greatly so given her involvement in this she's a former judge on the international criminal tribunal for yugoslavia the former chief judge of the d.c. circuit court of appeals here in washington but a lot of stock in her analysis of this situation and again it confirms what others have said you know the new america foundation did a study recently where they came to the same conclusion that. we always hear oh we've got to have this program and people should trust the government to retain all this data because it keeps america safe and it stops terrorist plots but again this

is another group that said there's no proof to back that up and i want to take a look at a pew research poll that came out this week of the people who heard obama's speech last friday as seventy three percent of them say they are skeptical that the proposed changes will make a difference at all you know considering that and of course considering the ad the results of this latest report do you think there's sort of a mounting pressure now on congress to do something about this to end this or do you think congress is really just going to be determining where that information is stored going forward versus actually ending the program to predict what congress will do when anything when you look senator do you think there's a chance that that owns it is pressure could it's an interesting coalition this forming you have the left you know the progressives on the left and the libertarian right there an agreement that these this program out of the stops is kind of you are getting some bipartisan inheritance bedfellows that are in agreement on trying to contain this program is kind of that middle of the moderate middle that's more

accepting of trust the government will be interesting to see going forward what happens with sure and the p c l o b says that it's opposed to having that information the mehta data be stored with a third party. they did say that they would leave you know the idea of storing it with phone companies on the table do you think that storing it with phone companies is a better option or do you think both of them sort of sound questionable well i would much rather have my phone carrier a.t.m. to your verizon or someone storing i mean i may get spam to it right e-mail trying to sell me stuff but unlike the government they don't have the ability to put me in prison or kill me or do other kind of things so given the choice between the two i'd much rather have it in commercial hands said. government hands absolutely but do you think that it's very important to sort of have very detailed restrictions on how long they can hold that that information but i don't think so i mean certainly

something you don't want kept in perpetuity but a reasonable period of time as we go to does have a legitimate interest in being able to search these records is really the you know the devil's in the detail on the right way to structure this to you know to be fair to the american people and also to maintain our security absolutely well attorney general eric holder said on m s n b c today that while clemency for snowden really is sort of off the table the u.s. would consider a resolution an alternative to clemency i think it's left a lot of people wondering what another resolution could mean give any insight as to what could be an alternative to clemency well i think i'm maybe an anomaly people tend to put edward snowden into the he's entirely good or entirely bad camps and if i'm not in agreement then you know people get rather angry with you i think i'm in between the two i mean there's no doubt of what he did was wrong and he signed the same security paperwork that i signed and there's no ifs ands or buts about it being wrong to take classified information i think you ought to be accountable for

that but i'm also pleased that we're having the discussion that he triggered i mean the president within a given the talk on friday but for edward snowden so there are there's benefit to what he did as well so i think there ought to be some middle of the right really with eric holder that there should be a conversation had about about something about an alternative i'm really disappointed with like members of congress and members of the intelligence community that say out of the shot or words to that effect there ought to be some reasonable resolution that accommodates both the good and the bad and comes out with a fair result absolutely we'll have to see what happens colonel morris davis a professor at howard university thank you so much for. and now to the embattled ukrainian city of kiev and a temporary truce leaders of the opposition have called on protesters to refrain from from violence however the city center remained ablaze overnight there have been conflicting reports on the number of casualties but r.t.

has confirmed that at least two have died so far both of them ultimately from gunshots authorities however have stressed that police are not equipped with live ammunition so far over two hundred police officers have also been injured during the riots with more than eighty of them hospitalized here's artie's peter oliver with more. but we've seen is groups of demonstrators and rioters in there across ukraine trying to. occupy or demonstrate outside all government buildings now in the in the cities. and. we have seen the the main. local ministration buildings being occupied by demonstrators now i was looking online and on twitter of accounts of thousands of people involved also we've seen it on the the local news here as well that there scenes from then it's not just those two cities in the west of ukraine we're also hearing out there of

government offices being besieged all the at least the scenes of demonstrations so certainly the unrest in ukraine not limited to to the capital here in kiev that we are hearing from the government side that they are all ready to consider repealing or at least toning down the new measures new laws that were brought in to tackle the violence here in kiev and we've also heard from the prime minister mr assad of who said that. he was he was ready to resign and his whole cabinet resign if the parliament here in ukraine decided they weren't up to the job now that's one of those things that's going to be up for discussion at a special session of the ukrainian parliament that will be held next week that was announced by by president victory on of course which also up for discussion. that session of parliament will be the possibility of holding of holding elections we've

also been seeing a reaction to what's going on here in kiev from other afield from abroad the european union has been particularly vocal on thursday we heard from. mr but also the president of the european union he had a he held a phone conversation a phone call with. with ukrainian president viktor which he said he was deeply concerned that conversation is over to shoot him that they would no be no state of emergency called in ukraine and there was no plans at the moment to to involve the military. extra type of security services on the streets now he wasn't the only european leader to talk about ukraine the. head of the european parliament martin schulz said that he in his opinion there has to be elections in ukraine immediately and he was calling for the ukrainian government to call those elections the european union applying pressure making their voices heard over the subject of what

continues to be a moment a standoff between. police and a lot of talks going on between the various sides here in ukraine that was artie's peter oliver and his talk a lot of and more about the u.s. reaction to what's happening in ukraine i was joined earlier by our calf and i first asked her what the u.s. response has been to the crisis in the country. it hasn't really been much of a change in the u.s. response throughout the course of this crisis basically with washington again today threatening sanctions against ukraine if the violence there escalates the spokesman jay carney did praise the ukrainian president's decision to meet again with the protesters but he did basically pin the blame on the current crisis on the government saying that the president there has basically failed to address what he called the legitimate concerns of the protesters now on the sanctions no firm decision just yet it does seem that washington is sort of hoping to basically wait it out not really resort to taking that step really hoping that in a coach will make some moves perhaps to calm the crisis down but it's not all empty

threats we did see earlier this week the u.s. revoking the visas of several top ukrainian officials who were implicated in ordering police violence not in the latest crackdown but what happened in december and november. and vice president biden actually called the ukrainian president today what was that conversation you know that was ringing off the hook i think i've got a bunch of european leaders also call them biden basically urged. to keep on meeting with the opposition he said all the typical platitudes about deescalating the crisis trying to find a peaceful resolution to what's going on there he emphasized that he believes also that the ukrainian government is it's only the government of ukraine that can ensure a peaceful resolution to this a basically saying the ball is in the government's court not really the protesters but we do have to keep in mind that of course while the protests were sparked by the decision by ukraine not to sign the e.u. pact it's really a volved and shifted into anger over government corruption police violence as well

as harsh anti demonstration anti protest laws and biden did seem to make a veiled reference to that when he urged the ukrainian president to respect freedoms of assembly and expression and that was the writing first started i think it was in in november you know the obama administration was saying very very little about it you know secretary kerry decided not to take a trip there but utah. about you know why the u.s. has really sort of been cautious in taking it in or has been cautious and it seems to be that the muted response has less to do with ukraine and more about what else is happening on the agenda right now in internationally as well as the u.s. relationship to russia the two countries are kind of on polar opposite sides here with the u.s. sort of supporting more of a european oriented ukraine russia of course wanting to see its former soviet republic in its orbit but really the white house doesn't want to be seen as provoking the kremlin on this issue because of course we have the cooperation between the u.s. and russia on several issues syrian chemical weapons the iran talks and of course

the geneva two peace conference that's still going on in geneva so the u.s. now wanted to ruffle any feathers so what's the latest on this truce how long is it supposed to last as there are definitive time or you know my experience with these things is you never know unfortunately there are so many elements on the ground there could be propagations on either side and while of course everyone i'm sure it is rather grateful when they see these kind of truce agreement called for anything could really happen it's such a tense situation feelings are so high on both ends that any sort of mistake on either side could really spark the conflict yet again and indeed well lucic have not thanks for your great reporting thank you. and now to switzerland where the international mediator for syria has decided to hold separate meetings with the government and the opposition after the warring sides failed to find any common ground during the first day of the syrian peace conference diplomats are hoping to bring syria's bitter rivals together for their first face to face talks tomorrow

artie's igor piskun of is in switzerland and brings us more. broadly just a. story. of the. here in this forum the first day of the conference was expected to be spent listening to formal statements instead it was the scene of bitter exchanges as the syrian opposition pressed on with its calls for president assad to step down and i think that is the problem and i said i don't think the problem will be any solution without our stepping down a change of power in damascus is something that washington is pushing for as well bashar assad will not be part of that transition government but according to the u.n. secretary general of this is neither up to washington nor any other outside players to decide the seriousness of themselves had the primary responsibility to end the

conflict to timing the party to a system and future and start repeating their country while democracy is willing to discuss anything from commenting terror to a partial cease fire anything that is except assad's resignation it seems the parties have a different understanding of the course of the talks indeed the only agree on the one thing that a political solution is the only way no one should go no one's trying to gloss this over that this is the beginning of a tough and complicated process more than forty countries and organizations and all suggest together how this must end. that it has to have an inclusive syria but it's because of the stupid statements were indeed emotional when there was mutual accusations but what's most important is that the parties involved want

direct talks to start as soon as. if that is the blizzard the first round of negotiations mediated by the u.n. arab league special envoy on syria is expected to last one week after nearly three years of extreme violence it isn't a surprise the two sides of the syrian conflict aren't getting along very well frankly just getting them in the same building me over to be considered a diplomatic breakthrough not to mention the talks which are scheduled to continue on friday hugo is going to see montreaux switzerland and virginia lawmakers facing a shortage of lethal drugs used to carry out the death penalty have advance a bill that could bring back the electric chair in the state the house of delegates in virginia passed the measure yesterday sixty four to thirty two the bill allows the prisoner to choose the method of execution and puts lethal injection as the default but if the alternative is not available it says the remaining method of

execution shall be employed meaning electrocution according to the death penalty information center right now only six states still authorize the use of the electric chair those states are alabama florida kentucky south carolina tennessee and virginia but historically those states have only moved to use the electric chair if an inmate personally requests it since inmates were given the option in one thousand nine hundred five only six of the eighty five inmates executed since then have chosen electrocution over lethal injection fairfax county democrat had this to say about the new bill he said it's a barbaric way for the state to execute people it's disappointing to me that my colleagues want to take a step backwards these calls to return to abandon forms of capital punishment come as many. it's are encountering growing complications over accessing lethal injection drugs as manufacturers refuse to supply the drugs for executions in the

absence of pentobarbital just last week a high oh administered a two drug lethal cocktail that had never been used before on death row inmate dennis mcguire a wire reportedly gassed several times and made snorting noises during a prolonged death that lasted almost twenty minutes i remember when you were a kid and you would need anything green while tonight's resident asks that question what if you paid your kids to eat take a look. much like your daily dose of vegetables this story is pretty hard to swallow

a recent study out of brigham young university found that a great way to get kids to eat their prince and vegetables is to pay them to do it or as the study puts it offer them by neutral incentives. the study found that the u.s. spends more than four point five million dollars each day on fresh fruits and vegetables in public schools but that's three point five million of that gets tossed into the garbage by the students which is both a horrible ways and also bad for the kids or even craftier processed foods over healthier choices so the researchers worked with fifteen different schools to track students consumption of fruits and vegetables for one week some students were offered nickels dimes or raffle tickets for bigger prizes for choosing to eat an apple or an orange among the kids who were offered at the incentives produce consumption was up by eighty percent of the ways to produce was decreased by thirty three percent i can't believe anyone would do anything these days for

a nickel but there it is after the experiment ended produce intake increased again the professor who oversaw much of the studies said parents often avoid driving their kids worried that it sends the wrong message but he says in that respect parents are misguided about incentives and that they shouldn't be given such a bad rap he goes on to say that rewards can be really powerful if the activity creates a new skill. or changes preferences right how about the reward of not getting diabetes or of having a healthy body or learning the personal satisfaction you feel when you make good choices for yourself without having to get paid to do it those are fine rewards for eating well. the reward of a nickel however might get the kid to eat an apple but it's certainly not teaching the kid anything positive what it does teach the kid is that if they refuse to do

something and hold out for cash they can get their way it also teaches them that money is the reward that matter is most over good health and self discipline it's just another way to instill a money above all attitude here in the us this story doesn't make me want to eat my budget will it just makes me want to vomit tonight let's talk about that by following me on twitter at the residence. and before we go don't forget to tune in for politicking with larry king tonight's episode features former new yorker congressman anthony weiner here is a snippet of what's to come as larry king and we talk about obama's involvement in midterm elections all involved busy get in the campaigns in the coming elections in november. well i mean they've already said they're going to be much more involved

in raising money for congressional democrats i think that president obama recognizes something i don't think he and his people really understood early on that having a democratic congress is sure better than not having one i think he's going to work hard to make sure that that that there aren't losses in the week we get some games this year it's very difficult traditionally midterm elections of second of second term presidents don't generally go their way you know i happen to be elected in a similar congress i was elected in brooklyn in president clinton's second term midterm and we actually exceeded expectations and gain seats so he's going to try to do that i see so i suspect he is going to be he is going to be helpful now the way he can be most helpful is being out there at the very front lines not letting obamacare be defined by his opponents by being out there talking about the successes and talking about what we do i'm trying to educate around this issue as much as possible but i think he's going to be plenty active and that does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to you tube dot com slash our team erica

check out our web site r t dot com slash usa have a nickname. no c.n.n. the most. news have taken some lots lately but the fact is i admire their commitment to cover all sides of the story just in case one of them happens to be accurate. that was funny but it's closer to the truth and i think. it's because one whole attention and the mainstream media works side by side with you actually on you. and our team we have a different approach. oh because the news of the world just is not this funny i'm not sitting there mitt romney.