coming up on r.t. edward snowden could have the chance to stay in russia indefinitely a russian lawmaker says the n.s.a. whistleblower will be offered extended asylum on the story just ahead and former virginia governor bob mcdonnell and his wife appeared in court today they stand accused of receiving gifts from a wealthy c.e.o. for political favors archie was that the hearing and brings you a special report coming up and in switzerland the syrian peace talks could end before they even begin today representatives of the government and the opposition fail to meet face to face we'll bring you all the details straight from geneva later in the show.

it's friday january twenty fourth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm lynn neary david and you're watching r.t. america. we begin tonight with developing news that russia plans to extend its offer of asylum to former government contractor edward snowden beyond august which is when his one year temporary asylum was set to end this is all according to remarks by russian lawmaker alexey push who spoke today at the world economic forum during a panel discussion alexey hinted that the extension of temporary refugee status for snowden could be indefinite saying he will not be sent out of russia it will be up to snowden the u.s. has charged snowden with the espionage act a charge that carries harsh penalties just yesterday attorney general eric holder said granting the whistleblower clemency would be going too far but holder did say that he's open to pursuing a deal with snowden if he pled guilty to criminal charges it's unclear however what

that deal would entail snowden is also addressing the possibility of returning to the u.s. yesterday in the online q. and a snowden was asked what it would take for him to come back to the united states in response known and said that he knows his return is the best resolution but that it's unfortunately not possible in the face of current whistle blower protection laws for more on all of the different questions he answered yesterday let's turn to our tease meghan lopez. the former national security agency contractor responsible for leaking over one point seven million classified documents to the world and turning america's intelligence apparatus on its head took some time to answer questions from the public this week this is the second time edward snowden has taken to the internet to argue his case here's what we learned during the brief question and answer session stoughton once again took aim at section two fifteen of the patriot act which allows for the book collection of telephone metadata snowden pointed to this mass surveillance as the n.s.a.'s

biggest offense against the american people and said there is no possible justification for it and a democratic society he claims the n.s.a. violated the constitution one hundred twenty million times but failed to uncover even a single terror plot snowden warned that the dangers of bulk collection are twofold first the knowledge that these programs exist causes self-censorship consequently making all of us less free and second collection of the sort creates a permanent record where something you searched on the internet out of curiosity years ago can be used against you today the thirty year old criticize the fisa court as a rubber stamp court which approves ninety nine point nine seven percent of all government requests he says that only eleven requests were ever denied out of the thirty three thousand nine hundred in the courts thirty three year existence at the same time snowden acknowledged that intelligence agencies do have a role in protecting national security interests he said the men and women who work

for the cia and the n.s.a. are trying to do the right thing and are worried about the same things that he is edward snowden took some time to talk about his own situation saying he is well aware that there have been threats on his life but asserted that he will not be intimidated into submission he also said that he wants to return to the u.s. but cannot given the nature of plant whistleblower protection laws snowden wrote quote. one of the things that has not been widely reported by journalists is that whistleblower protection laws in the us do not protect contractors in the national security arena there are so many holes in the laws the protections therefore are so weak and the processes for reporting they provide are so ineffective that they appear to be intended to discourage reporting of even the clearest wrongdoing if i have revealed what i knew about these unconstitutional but classified programs to congress they could have charged me with a felony finally he made

a plea for international bodies to come up with global security standards that would force privacy rights but also protect countries against attacks story wrote quote nobody should be hacking critical to life infrastructure like hospitals and power stations and it's fair to say that can be recognized in international law snowden says laws won't prevent dangerous hacking from taking place only science and technology can do that so for now it looks as if he's not coming back to the us any time soon but he stands by the decisions that he made and then attempt to bring the u.s. back to what he sees as its core principles in washington maggie lopez r.t. and glasgow university students have launched a campaign to get edward snowden elected as rector is one of four official candidates for the three year post while snowden is highly unlikely to take up the post in person glasgow's rectors are elected to represent students chairing the university's ruling court glasgow university student love the no uk talks about why

some students are voting for snowden. the reason we chose edward snowden is because we know that he is a hero he's a brave man who risked a lot of things to let the people know the extent of us media surveillance and intrusion into our private lives and we just want to show him that we appreciate what he's done and it is a clear message sent out to those who are monitoring us that we will not stand for this and that we do not this we do not accept this kind of criminality would be more symbolic than anything because he will not be able to actually physically come to class go it will choose a representative. for him in situations where he cannot personally attend but his duties will be to hold the title of the rector of the university we have gotten worse we've had an overwhelmingly positive response of course we will do everything we can to make sure that this actually happens that was glasgow university student

look no no lack. now durgin you know where former governor bob mcdonnell and his wife maureen were in court today the two were indicted on fourteen counts tuesday after a lengthy federal investigation of their relationship with the former c.e.o. of a dietary supplement maker the former republican governor and his wife officially entered not guilty pleas at a court hearing this morning artie's was well attended the hearing in richmond and brings us more. it was the first court appearance for the former governor of virginia robert mcdonnell and his wife maureen at the federal courthouse here in richmond virginia at the arraignment both of them pleaded not guilty to the charges against them counts ranged from conspiracy fraud and falsifying documents now the charges stem from a relationship that the mcdonald's had with a wealthy businessman a man that owns a nutritional supplement company the prosecution alleges that the mcdonald's use

the office of the governor to gain personal financial benefits financial gifts it's all mapped out in be an indictment the gifts include everything from oscar dela rent a dress is a rolex watch money for their daughter's wedding and thousands of dollars in loans all of it adds up to about one hundred sixty five thousand dollars and in return the prosecution alleges that they use their position of power to grant to promote this company and to grant special access to government leaders now before the arraignment the judge made it very clear that this case will not be tried in the media but will be tried inside that courtroom cited a local rule local rule fifty seven prohibiting any anonymous leaks to the media the judge made it clear that he will anybody that does leak to the media will face severe severe penalty is as for the mcdonnell's today they walked into that chamber

hand in hand smiling on this day that could be the beginning of a very long saga their trial date is set for july twenty eighth if they are convicted they will each can face a maximum penalty of thirty years behind bars here in richmond virginia liz wall r t. let's talk a little bit more about this latest development i was joined earlier by tom hartman host of the big picture and author of the crash of twenty six team a plot to destroy america and what we can do to stop it i first asked him if he thought there's enough evidence to prove macdonald guilt. you know in politics it's so weird and so bizarre don siegelman who is the former governor of alabama is sitting in a prison cell right now. for. a conviction of for this kind of thing in and what

he did was he appointed to a unpaid job as head of the hospital oversight board a guy that the two republican governors before him had also appointed the same guy who never gave him any campaign contributions at all who had simply contributed to a fund that was to have a statewide lottery siegelman got no benefit out of that whatsoever nothing not even the rolex watch. he had angered from karl rove went off on this vendetta got don siegelman put in prison i think the big mistake or the mistake but i think the big thing that's driving the bob mcdonnell thing is they got so much trouble over the last year particularly impressive media. couldn't ignore sure one of the things that came out in the e-mail exchange between johnny williams and maureen mcdonnell is that the couple was in a lot of credit card debt and struggling and one of the things one of the first things that she was going to receive but she didn't it was an inaugural address and

she basically was complaining how they didn't have money to pay for that do you think there's a takeaway here looking at what this says about the culture of people in high political office and having to keep up with sort of this lavish lifestyle lavish possessions and destinations and so on and so forth it could be but there are a lot of politicians who are not all that lavish there are a lot of politicians who are just down and dirty. who at high levels the governor of montana for example and just wears a bolo ties in blue jeans. so. there has been some speculation in the press that some of this was driven by either bob mcdonnell or his wife or both of them simply wanting to live the high lifestyle and always being super fashion conscious thing. that's all going to come out of the trial i don't i don't it's hard to judge. well in his defense the governor made it seem like he was just being singled out for all of this let's take

a listen to what he had to say. the united states supreme court has already rejected this radical idea and for good reason because if it were applied as the law of the land in nearly every elected official for president obama on down would have to be charged for providing tangible benefits to down. so many of us a very interesting way and what do you think about what he just said i think there's some truth to what he said and you know from the don siegelman case and one of the extreme to the bob mcdonnell on the other. most politicians in america fall somewhere in the in the middle is if you look at their donor list and you look at their voting record and you look at the means. you will find a correlation and and you know what bob mcdonnell did as he didn't do in a particularly sophisticated way and that's the only mistake it made if he had shovelled the money through karl rove's pac it wouldn't matter i mean if you take

the money through a pac or super pac right it just at the loopholes are so huge it's almost like. he's being punished for being stupid rather than being corrupt because because you know the next week is the thirty eighth anniversary of the buckley vs fallacious the court decision and that was the first time the supreme court explicitly said money is protected under the first amendment now the word money doesn't appear in the first amendment the supreme court said it is and then citizens united of course really nailed that so ever since buckley we've had this political. insight guys in america that is money drives everything i mean you know basically from the reagan era forward it's been it's been all about the money well talk about i mean we just passed the fourth anniversary citizens united talk a little bit about how that really changed the ballgame completely while citizens united was the pinnacle it was the capstone it brought together the buckley

decision which said money is protected by the. to mammoth and the first national bank versus bloddy decision which was less than a decade later that said corporations have rights under the fourteenth amendment so now we have money having been protected by the first amendment corporations being protected by the fourteenth amendment which by the way was passed to free the slaves you know it's just hard to imagine a blink and say let's free the slaves and the corporations just. but but this is what our supreme court has done over the last thirty years and it has created a. politically corrupt system in the united states at the state and local and federal level i mean it's just it's happening all over the place it's very difficult for politicians these days not to be corrupted by politics in fact it's increasingly virtually impossible for them to run for office behaving in a way that could get you to this kind of trouble one of the things you mention are the loopholes and i read

a excellent article and the new york times by eric lipton and which actually points out that loophole that if you just basically funnel everything through a super pac and you can get those lavish ski vacation and trips to the golf course and a lot of people don't pay this loophole any attention and it's amazing because it's just that i mean you can you can do it it's just about how you do it. you know how i just. want to shed some light on how this is being overlooked right now. well first of all our media doesn't talk about it much and we kind of sideways like during the republican primaries it was well shelly adelson has decided he's going to back rick santorum well this week he's going to back newt gingrich and you watch them pop up or down depending on which billionaire is giving too much money to whom and the patient a drop for americans i mean americans should wait a minute we're watching who is being funded by what billionaire i mean that's oligarchy you know that's plutocracy that's that's not democracy that's a republic so i am frankly shocked that there's not more.

just horror about this expressed in our media i think it's a it's a real this is a real serious problem and politicians both democrats and republicans will tell you this is a problem we can find gold which is intent to dial this back which got blown up by citizens united was a bipartisan bill the politicians don't like the fact whether the democrats or republicans don't like the fact that they have to spend sixty percent of their time outside their office in a private office if they read dialing for dollars that every weekend they have to go to fundraisers it's crazy and the one thing about these super pacs is that. for entry level politicians low level politicians beginning politicians it can cost one hundred thousand two hundred thousand dollars to set up a super pac i mean it's a they're very expensive operations so the big guys get to play with the super pacs small politicians they run into these problems where they just take campaign donations things like this and then they get nailed absolutely system is not fair.

unfortunately all the time we had tom hartman host of the big picture and author of the crash of twenty sixteen thank you for joining me thanks and there. syrian peace talks in geneva fell flat today after the western backed opposition refused to take part in face to face negotiations with the syrian government's delegation the two sides are seemingly finding no common ground on the notion that president bashar al assad should stay in power are going to have is in geneva with more. it began frankly seem like the negotiations were turning into a complete disaster until your special envoy on syria lakhdar brahimi came out at the end of day and said that he did manage to get both the syrian authorities and the opposition present here in geneva to get in the same room and talk that's going to that's going to happen on saturday and he didn't really provide a lot of details about what they're going to talk about he said that even the ways

that he managed to talk them into it are his diplomatic secrets which she is not ready to share with the journalist but he did say that right now the most important thing is for both sides of this conflict to understand what they're here for in geneva and what these talks are all about because the negotiations were supposed to start at eleven am this friday and. they were supposed to sit down at the same table and formally greet each other with mr brahimi present there as well but since the opposition said they were not ready to sit down at the same table with the of stories formally the talks never started so throughout the entire day u.s. special envoy was meeting separately both with the authorities and with the opposition and their representatives have been coming out to journalists and accusing each other basically of sabotaging the in negotiations and it became clear to us that both say the only way out of this crisis is through negotiations based on the agreements reached at geneva one the opposition says that they want to talk about forming a transition transitional government in syria without president assad there while

the authorities are saying they're ready to talk about cease fires they're ready to talk about joint efforts and when it comes to president assad future political future that has to be decided by a nationwide election only with the anyone willing taking part and the people of syria deciding that the talks now are going to start really on saturday we don't really know what exactly they're going to be talking about but really getting even them in the same room is already quite a diplomatic success now as our teams in corpus cannot. and a juvenile court judge set a trial date in the case of sixteen year old aaron manning a teenager who was been charged with misdemeanors after a stop and frisk earlier incident this month but the straight a student says that he is the victim manning says that a philadelphia police officer sexually assaulted him during a pat down which he says left him with a ruptured testicle and she patted me down again and then i followed her reach and

she grabbed my butt and then she grabbed to squeeze the get in poured down and that's when i heard something pop like a soda pop. at a press conference today police released surveillance video of the confrontation the surveillance camera circles in ten second intervals so only part of the incident is documented we had it down so you can see here the struggle between manning and the officer manning claims he was on his way to a basketball game when officers stopped and frisked him squeezing in his genitals so hard that he had to actually go to the emergency room a confrontation ensued in the sixteen year old was charged on three counts including resisting arrest the police report says officers approached manning after they saw him running down the street and what they say appeared to be ski masks the boy says it was cold and his face was just wrapped in a scarf at a press conference today police commissioner charles ramsey said the department has

launched an internal investigation into the incident but manning's attorney won't allow investigators to speak with the teenager or his mother manning's attorney is calling. oh you want to know what i mean you know oh this is a young man with no history classes or of new character or any disease and it's. easy to say at this point. manning's attorney is calling for a federal investigation into the matter but police tell us the teenager's family has yet to file a formal complaint and for years now the u.s. has seen an increase in income inequality between the rich and just about everyone else but some politicians and media sources seem to think that the answer to that is simply economic growth and tonight's resident laurie harshness gives her two cents on that bit of advice.

president obama recently said that the key to solving income inequality is to grow the economy no matter what ails us the answer from our politicians bankers corporations and their lackey media is to grow the economy they all do it to us labor secretary thomas perez just said the best way to decrease long term unemployment is to grow the economy a recent paper from the intergovernmental panel on climate change concludes that the solution to climate change is to grow the economy really nancy pelosi has

reason to want to extend unemployment benefits to grow the economy. the people profiting most from our current system use grow the economy as a prescription for as everything our media propagates it and we all end up brainwashed into thinking that by yes we do need to keep making buying and consuming crap to grow the economy otherwise the world will end it's like we're told some down to the god of economy view because it's the only thing that will save us from certain doom up and i for one think of this luckily people are starting to realize that the economy has gone beyond a means to secure an exchange of goods into the realm of the absurd gretchen daily at stanford is the head of an initiative called natural capital which seeks to quantify our natural resources as a variable to be considered in the economy at large so like we're thinking about spending my. and a giant you or oil drilling ship to go dig into the bottom of the ocean we also

consider the effect it has on the fish and the water and the earth's crust to that we're screwing with the concept of natural capital resources like water trees food and quality air have as much important value as a stupid dollar bill so that's great but in the us we're obviously very far away from injecting natural resources into the economic equation that's because the people who built the current economic model are the ones still profiting from it but it doesn't have to be this way it just doesn't the truth is the side he could operate in many other ways. the concept of natural capital is at least a step in the right direction but personally i would be happy until we stop focusing on capital in general and until we realize that we're growing the economy into a monster so big it's about to eat the entire planet tonight let's talk

about that by following me on twitter at the residence. for years now it's been difficult to avoid hearing a justin bieber song on the radio but now the pop star has taken over cable news as well ever since the nineteen year old canadian was arrested for drunken driving and resisting arrest after miami miami beach police caught him street racing in a lamborghini thursday police say bieber admitted he had been drinking smoking marijuana and taking prescription drugs earlier i spoke to our t.v. producer rachel courteous about how this bieber fever is making everyone a little bit sick and first asked her how far bieber fever really goes. well we're in the newsroom so we see these screens all of the time of all the other cable news networks and throughout yesterday it was very clear that they were

totally enraptured not justin bieber story totally nonstop all they were saying was his mug shot everywhere but there was one moment on m.s.n. b.c. that i thought was particularly emblematic of what was going on here and just to set this up andrew mitchell in the afternoon was surprisingly having a moment where they weren't talking about justin bieber they were talking about the n.s.a. she was asking the former chair of the house intelligence committee which she thought about reports that the n.s.a. data collection was illegal and this is what happened next. i think at this point we should seriously consider not not can comment on it let me let me get you congresswoman let me interrupt you just for a moment we've got some breaking news out of miami to stand by. right now in miami justin bieber has been arrested on a number of charges the charges reading the charges including resisting arrest and driving under the influence he's appearing now before the judge for his bond hearing let's watch. yes it's

a little painful to watch it is so painful to watch right it's so i'm going to let you finish with talking about ending a key part of the patriot act news here exactly but this is the best arrest of all time so yeah that's kind of emblematic of something that we saw all throughout the day this total obsession of something that really doesn't have an impact on anyone's daily lives is this just the state of cable news now it certainly seems that when i think that it has to do with the fact of what people are actually interested in watching right i mean people like to think that they want to watch really informative television things that tell them about what's going on in their world but there was actually a huge vigil outside of the miami beach police department yesterday in support of justin bieber i mean this vigil was much larger than a lot of the actual police brutality protests that we've covered here at r t what was the vigil for in solidarity with justin bieber i mean young girls who can't drink neither of course can bieber legally but but all of these young girls essentially saying morning we need is a rat worth you justin we're so sorry that this happened to you this you know this

horrible thing where when you were drag racing you know drunk and high. no one was sick or died but there was a vigil very exactly so it's very interesting to see that you know this is what people are interested in doing so profit driven organizations are going to go where they think the clicks are and where they think the ads are absolutely and we can't forget that he is canadian. he's here he's doing his thing but he's not actually from this country so are there implications i mean could he be. deported who do you face deportation you know these are a lot of questions that people are asking and was he treated fairly for instance there are people who have been deported who don't have the same kind of fame as just him people who've been deported for much less but i do want to show you something that r.t.d. has created kind of in remembrance of this day of infamy of cable news it would be it. just got some breaking news out of miami with the breaking news of the. nineteen

year old. justin bieber. wow yeah i do so if you would just want people who are going to make fun of other people covering justin bieber rather than actually covering him keep your head out where you are and he was our shameless plug of the day. it's always a pleasure thank you and that does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r.t.m. america check out our website r t dot com site usa follow me on twitter at amir and david good night.

wealthy british style. markets why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's concert for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to kaiser report.