coming up on r t the sochi winter games heat up over reports on the winners and the losers today and excitement builds for a hockey showdown between russia and the u.s. the latest on events in sochi. cuz of edward snowden the world now knows more about it and say surveillance a former lawmaker has started a petition and his name that urges the u.s. to give snowden clemency a look at this petition coming up. and then connecticut to many gun owners the may be classified as felons under a new law that requires gun owners to register their military style rifles but tens of thousands of owners are refusing to do so more on that second amendment battle

a later in the show. is friday february fourteenth five pm and washington d.c. i'm perry i'm boring you are watching r t america. we're nearing the halfway point of the sochi winter games and other day wrapped up in russia and here's a look at the medal count norway and the u.s. topped the total medal count with thirteen each the netherlands and russia are just one medal behind followed by canada and germany for a full wrap up of today's events and a preview of tomorrow's russia usa hockey match here is our t's'pol scott in sochi . well america's men's curling team won one and lost one on day seven they secured an eight five victory over germany but followed it up with

a seven six defeat to russia meanwhile the women's team went down knowing two to denmark not a defeat which keeps them rooted to the bottom of the table and all but ends their chances of progression to the semifinals meanwhile america's men's team are in the final of the five thousand meter short track speed skating that's despite finishing fourth in qualifying now the reason for that is that there was a collision with the south korean team america actually finished fourth but in this situation it said the referees the discretion to decide who was at fault for the for the collision and he decided that it was the south korean team's fault and therefore america progressed to the next round in rather intriguing unusual a nerve racking circumstances elsewhere the excitement is building ahead of saturday's showdown between the usa and russia in the ice hockey of course the two old fierce rivals go head to head in their second group match on saturday afternoon local time here in sochi both teams ensured and enjoyed comfortable victories in

the opening fixture rush of the slovenia five two was the usa for seven one victories against slovakia and these us stars that r.t. spoke to said they were expecting a tough challenge against the host nation you know game's going to be against russia. on their home turf and their own soil. so that's going to be. i think all games will be fun but that game saturday night will be pretty interesting always fun playing the russians and probably the one thing. we had the opportunity to play canada in canada and i think that's always a special thing regardless of if you have an opportunity to play the host country. that's always a fun game to be a part of it's just it's one of those there's so much excitement and energy in the building and. we were lucky enough to do it in canada now we get a chance to play russian russia which i think is always special real about a lot of things before you come over and you're not really sure what to expect and

. you know everything's going great so far whether it's been you know the food or they commendations to their rooms or you know the village ice rink seems to be. unbelievable just looking at it from the outside and going in and cracks in on it so. you know i'm sure a lot of it's blown out of proportion but as far as you know in the two days we've been here everything's been great so far. it was a report from r.t.s. post scott. a former congressman says he wants clemency for former n.s.a. employee edward snowden ron paul has repeatedly praised snowden for exposing the national security agency's spying program and now he started a petition to demand that snowden is granted clemency snowden sacrificed his widely good citizenship and freedom supposing the disturbing scope of the world wide program. thanks to one means courageous actions americans know about the really

gracious way your government is lying on this. ron paul is hoping his petition urges the government to take action before snowden's amnesty and russia expires on july thirty first of this year that deadline is still up in the air after a russian lawmaker said last month that the country plans to extend his asylum offer. snowden faces felony charges and the u.s. and now those who were involved in giving him access to the classified government documents are seeing a repercussions for their actions two three people who worked at the national security agency including a contractor an active duty military member and an n.s.a. civilian employee have been implicated according to an n.s.a. memo sent to the house judiciary committee the n.s.a. civilian and method to f.b.i. special agents and he allowed mr snowden to use his public key and for structure to

access classified information the civilian was not aware that mr snowden intended to unlawfully disclose classified information however the n.s.a. states that by sharing his passwords he failed to comply with security obligations his security clearance was revoked and november and he resigned on january tenth the other two employees were denied for their access to the n.s.a. as of last august additional punishments would be the responsibility of their respective employers and the size and scope of the n.s.a. spying program has again been revealed to be even bigger than what previously thought former german chancellor gerard schroeder was surprised to find out that the n.s.a. was spying on him to more than ten years ago. i knew of course that there were always spying activities going on but essentially no sparing activities among

friends but rather under enemies but in this sense it was surprising for me to find out to what extent this kind of spying to place. according to german news sources schroeder was put under surveillance due to his opposition to military intervention in iraq. we hear about crime and corruption flooding our streets but it seems the moral compass and public offices across the u.s. has also been a bit off recently let's take a look at some of the top corruption cases over the past year we begin in new york state lawmaker eric stephenson was found guilty last month of taking more than twenty two thousand dollars in bribes and exchanged for drafting the legislation that would have given monopoly power to four businessmen who operated an adult day care center he faces up to fifty five years in prison and it sounds

like the new york legislature could use a babysitter of their own. for spot in our corruption countdown takes us to virginia where former governor of bob mcdonald and his wife were charged last month with taking loans and gifts an exchange for helping promote dietary supplement maker star scientific a civil case is ongoing but authorities allege that the couple took a private plane rides of rolex watch a ton shoes golf clubs and more totaling at least one hundred sixty five thousand dollars the mcdonald's pled not guilty to the charges and requested a jury trial scheduled for this summer now to the downfall of the former leader of a city now in crisis x. detroit mayor kwame kilpatrick was sentenced to twenty eight years and prison for corruption last october this is one of the longest sentences ever handed to

a major u.s. politician he was involved in a racketeering bribery extortion which worsened the city's financial crisis detroit filed the largest municipal bankruptcy and our country's history last year partially thinks to mayor kilpatrick. and in baltimore twenty seven correction officers and a maryland jail were indicted last november for helping the black guerilla family prison gang manage a profitable drug operation while incarcerated in the city's jail most of the corrections are murder bombshell accusations about criminal activity inside the baltimore city detention center most of the corrections officers who assisted the gang members and keeping their operations going were behind bars for women who smuggle drugs cellphones and other contraband into the jail via their hair and body

parts additionally four of these women became impregnated by the gang leader divide white one of the correction officers even got his name tattooed on her wrist the union representative for the correctional officers is calling for tighter background checks. but for now those guards could be finding a more permanent position at the jail house. and the top off our list of recent corruptors as my new when of santa ana california the emigration official was bribed with cash two hundred egg rolls and a sausage and exchange for granting either u.s. citizenship or permanent resident status for ever grants to the u.s. the egg rolls cost about one hundred fifty dollars and were needed for a big party when it was having the sausage was fish the affidavit did not state what it was for. ray nagin jr the former new orleans mayor

was convicted this week of twenty two zero counts of corruption taking home the award for being the first to mayor and the city's two hundred ninety six year history to be thousand guilty of corruption nagin was the mayor before during and after hurricane katrina hit new orleans we now know that he told people who wanted to help clean up the aftermath had to pay him first earlier i spoke with lou rockwell the founder and chairman of the misses institute i first asked him what drives a politician to accept kickbacks at the expense of their community because he's a politician i mean it's not actually not shocking at all i mean this is municipal government in america to argue with other kinds of government to all these cities are corrupt the mirrors are corrupt they all take bribes this is the way the cities run the city the town council and so it's really not shocking at all the ray nagin is corrupt unlike you just like other big city mayors the question to me is why was

he singled out because of course he's corrupt of course he was taking bribes and before i get into why i think he was single load i actually argue this is per for a bull to be a logical mirror like say bill de blasio who thinks of himself as some kind of semi lennon knows and what he wants to do to new york city you don't want to come. in america you want the kind of mayor who is concentrating on online his pockets paying off his friends and so forth that's a far less harmful practice than the socialists and the fascists that we you know should come around the manual and chicagoans over those kinds of guys are far more dangerous but i think what happened what what why did nagin get sing the love you always ask have to ask the question since the corruption is so endemic why does a guy like that could single out my guess is that he offended somebody in fema or some other federal agency who was capable of setting saying go get this guy while you with everybody we all knew he was corrupt they're all corrupt while the our it is up new york i mean this is this is municipal government small towns and cities

are corrupt too i don't want to shock anybody's civics class version of government this is the way they all are while it is true that there are many people that are responsible for what happened in new orleans during katrina but nagin is faces up to twenty years and prison and he was the only person responsible why do you think the punishment that's the crime is that enough no i mean i mean i should you know i could see taking all this money i don't know anybody belongs for twenty years in a government cage i think that's you know i think it's a terrible thing as you mentioned you know earlier about the corruption of the baltimore prisons you know all the you know of course prisons are all full of criminals i don't want to shock anybody about that either and all the terrible things go on there so to put somebody for twenty years in prison i think that's just outrageous sentence but the u.s. of course of the prison capital of the world it's the gulag a capital of the world we have far more people in prison per capita than any other country in the world

and the sentences are getting longer and longer because there's a prison industrial complex of corporate as businesses and connection with government they're all making a lot of dough putting people in cages it's a terrible thing and that's what we ought to be concerned about and if we concerned about government corruption we have to reduce the size of gover. you can actually change the zebra stripes you just can make the zebra smaller though that's what we're going to concentrate on right in the present as you as a whole another issue that we don't have time to get today but how do we get corruption out of politics you mentioned limited government what out with what else would you well i mean i've already got i guess you can't get corruption out of government i mean maybe once in a while there's some good person in government ron paul you mentioned earlier he's an example maybe thomas jefferson didn't take any bribes either or george washington whatever but with the government the size that it is you know they they put the slops into the pig trough and they're horrified that the pigs come up and eat so there's all these programs all the spending when you have trillions and

trillions of dollars being taking from some group of people given to other groups and when just changing a few words on a government document can give you a billion dollars or take away a billion dollars from you of course there's going to be corruption i mean the idea that you know government without corruption is entirely utopian and makes us think about the wrong sort of things what we ought to think about again is cutting back the government the government of strangling us there surveilling us killing people all over the world the running hate campaigns against russia over the olympics right groups we can go down many of the things they're doing and they're all evil so you can't get rid of you can't get rid of evil in the devil exists but we certainly can cut down on the evil if we can make the devil but shorter a most powerful gray thank you so much that was a little rockwell the founder and chairman of the me sensitive. and a couple of weeks political leaders will be speaking at apac the american israeli

public affairs committee conference as an annual event hosted by one of the most powerful lobbying groups and the u.s. the meeting garters a lot of attention due to the high profile names there but beyond that headline there's a growing religious movement in the u.s. away from the strictly pro israel views and here at the conference r.t. correspondent liz wahl reports on how members of the movement how they can lead a more balanced foreign policy approach. my commitment to the state of israel. every crucial juncture every where in the road it's a commitment u.s. politicians are compelled to make if they want to be elected and for those appealing to christian evangelical voters devotion to israel it seems mandatory he has turned his back on the people of the issue that's rick santorum bashing president obama for not being pro israel enough at the annual apac conference the american israeli public affairs committee is the most powerful pro israel lobby in

the u.s. during the two thousand and twelve election cycle almost every republican presidential candidate spoke at the event touting their support for the u.s. ally i think we've had an invented post of the young people but there is a movement among christian evangelicals in the us away from the political norms associated with the group it's a movement away from the staunchly pro israel stance to a stance that is more sympathetic toward palestinians there's no question about the fact that that is a common probably the most popular american christian view and yet there's an older historical christian view doesn't see that is the case john scott red is the president of the reform theological seminary outside washington d.c. he observes a trend among. in his students to a more balanced approach to the israeli palestinian conflict we see

a lot of young evangelical both aspiring pastors and folks pursuing other jobs at the seminary come through and see that there is a increasing interest in a reading of the scripture that sees modern day the modern day is really stay as a country like all the other countries in the world the movement has kept a low profile but is gaining popularity among younger evangelicals in america religious leaders say it's happening for theological reasons but can also be attributed to a disillusion with the one sided pro is really rhetoric i think you found the many christian young christians found themselves saying they're complicated to logical view being appropriate and used in a. more possibly divisive form political position not all evangelical groups agree with the direction of the youth movement christians united for israel one of the largest pro israel organizations encourages american

christians to support israel they declined comment for this story but palestinian ambassador my own arrey cat thinks the movement is a step in the right direction we seeing that also among the american jewish community i mean the younger generation do not feel bolland by the political convictions of you know the old guards or their parents and grandparents the birthplace of christianity the holy land has seen an exodus of christians as the religious minority they're often caught in the crosshairs of the israeli palestinian conflict now christians make up about two percent of the population in israel and the west bank with millions of tourists flocking to holy cities like beth lamb and jerusalem each year the region could eventually be without a local. christian population many christians have left but aside to israeli

occupation of the one nine hundred sixty seven. you know their conditions are deteriorating in different parts of but this time specially in bethlehem the birthplace of jesus christ so it is our responsibility to reach out to them now some evangelical community is are aiming to bring attention to the plight of palestinian christians by organizing trips to the region when you know you learn. a lot more about a region about peoples and their inner relationships with each other and their history. it causes you to reframe the whole way that you think about things the hope is that greater understanding of the conflict can pave the way to peace in the middle east in washington liz wahl r.t. in connecticut tens of thousands of residents have failed to comply with a new law that requires gun owners to register all military style rifles with the

state and response to the sandy hook school shooting that resulted and twenty six they tell me you've come to pass one of the strongest gun control measures in the nation is estimated that only fifteen percent of gun owners have applied for assault weapons certificates meaning the remainder could have very soon become class d. felons earlier spoke with brian crosswhite the founder of second amendment dot org and first asked why these gun owners are not complying with the new law. well i think the issue in connecticut is that the gun laws that are currently have been passed since january oeuvre very confusing there's two different ways people are looking at it as a way of civil disobedience because these laws are unconstitutional and second of all there is people just don't understand the wall special would protect it's a twenty two round rifles so there is probably estimated about fifty thousand people who are not complying with the lives do you think this is civil disobedience

will i believe that you know when you look at what's going on there's a surveys done by the c.c. d.l. in connecticut and they're seeing that people are coming out saying that civil disobedience because this is a law that doesn't go against the crimes that are going on in connecticut is going against the law abiding citizens who are who have guns and he said that this is unconstitutional though some of the members of the state legislators that's not you think this is going to be repealed go to possibly the supreme court not sure yet on that that's something that's being debated right now in connecticut and one of the senators on the public safety committee he said that if you pass laws that people have no respect for and they don't follow them then you have a real problem how do you think a station move forward and bringing these tens of thousand people back in compliance with the laws well i think you have a hard time coming back in compliance specially when precedents is already set here in capitol hill with a president who is changing the laws which he's breaking the national federal laws

every day with what the stance that he's taking on different legislation primarily his health care plan so people look at that and say well why should we abide by these laws if the president is breaking these laws well there's also the issue of a deadline has passed to register their arms people have said that they're scared to come forward because they could be slapped with criminal charges so do you think the state said take any type of steps maybe. passing other legislation or you know i think what's going to happen the governor knows very well that this is not going to this is not going to work it's not going to make everyone compliant and there is twenty thousand law only on the books in the united states on gun laws and currently crime is still criminals who are criminals who still use guns it's not affecting them at all it's only affecting the the hundreds and the sportsman but there are some people who think that these types of stricter gun laws actually make

residents more safe well that's that's an opinion while this is why i'm one of the debaters on our gun show had said about. having a gun in the home you're twenty two times more likely to use it on yourself or someone you know or love suicide accidental shooting domestic abuse homicide rather than to repel an invader and that's that's the data so low gun ownership rates having fewer guns in the home and strong gun laws actually do end up protecting citizens of states with strong laws. given they said to success she just cited do you think that stricter gun laws make us safer actually i don't think it does i think though the statistics you state is true but that's where we're coming in as organizations who are pro second amendment to educate people on gun safety within the home and that's one of our goals is to be able to provide that type of educational process but as the statistics that wasn't spoken about was that forty

percent forty times more a year forty times more year is people are using guns in self defense that's not ever talked about and so that's a critical thing is for sure when when one point five million times a year guns are being used and when their organization second amendment dot org you've created your own type of registry that people all over the country are signing up online you tell us what your message is so our mission overall for two a.o. is to bring consumers and business owners who believe in the second amendment together so we're registering over ten thousand businesses in the last thirty days throughout the united states to support the second amendment and how are you going to move forward with your goals our goals is as we have a lot of movement here on our organization that we're trying to understand where we want to take it as an organization since we're a fairly new organization but our old goal is to bring together all of these consumers and businesses alike and to be able to support them and have a voice here in capitol hill ok well thank you very much this is brian crosswhite

the founder of second amendment dot org thank you peter. four farm workers out of wisconsin dairy farm have been charged with a leaven talents of an animal abuse an undercover investigator with the animal rights group mercy for animals obtained a job we see brothers farms and then with a hidden camera recorded the videos you see here of employees stabbing beating and abusing the cow the farmer has already lost at least one major contract with the chief supplier of joiners pizza the abuse of workers will be sentenced on march fourth and face a maximum penalty nine months in prison it is worth noting that mercy for animals method of sending undercover workers with hidden cameras and through these facilities is illegal in multiple states these ag gag laws as they're referred to are prohibit people from taking videos or photos of a factory or a farm without permission and with constant similar measures in place these workers

probably never would have been brought to justice. first the n.s.a. was spying on us now the n a p o or the national association of police organizations is doing the same thing tonight's resident looks at how police can spy on us there are files of the d v. name is the national association of police organizations in the us and they are not happy about a recent embed meant to something called the driver's privacy protection act the amendment deals with protecting people's right to know when their private

information with the motor vehicle department is accessed by a cop have to file paperwork and go through the whole process but still you can file a request to know which police officers are accessing your information and when they're doing it and if it turns out they're looking at your information for improper reasons a twenty five hundred dollars fine can be imposed plus legal fees and the cops themselves are the ones who have to pay up so yeah cops are not happy about this amendment so naturally they pose now lobbying congress members to change the amendment they want the fine flat are removed and language added so that a cop has to do it over and over again for it to be an issue and they only want penalties involved if it turns out the cop was accessing the information with the intent to make money specifically so a cop could still access your information to say arrest the hell out of you or frame you or god knows without like what just happened in florida cops accessed information on another cop who ratted one of them out for speedy and then suddenly

she had the crap around. out of or with prank phone calls drive bys at her house and threatening messages she did a search for who was looking at her information to figure out how anyone got her address and phone number and she found that over a three month period at least eighty eight law enforcement officers from twenty five different agencies access to information more than two hundred times so how are they supposed to do that anymore if it means they'll get fined twenty five hundred dollars every time they want the right to look at your information whenever they damn well please and you know what if we could trust them to do that only when it was for our protection then i think finally what's not fine is the fact that they don't always do it for our protection so that twenty five hundred dollar fine and our ability to see when they access our information is our protection against them the bottom line is if they have the right to dock so we should have the right

to make sure it's for a legit reason and to make them pay when it's not tonight let's talk about the bad guy following me on twitter at the resident. that does it for now you can follow me on twitter at perry and d.c. . you. believe. these are.