coming up on our t.v. today at the sochi winter olympics hockey was it these fourth to watch team usa dominates the czech republic to move on but host country russia sees their team exit the games without a medal the latest from today's events in sochi. and the glasgow university students have picked an n.s.a. whistleblower to be the rector had word snowden was elected by students that support his controversial leaks a look at that and other special honors he's received coming up. and since news broke of the target customer data being hacked there's a growing concern over credit card security and now new cards in alps are being introduced to make things more convenient for consumers but does this hold

a security risk will dive into them later in today's show. it's wednesday february nineteenth four pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching r.t. america. we start off today in sochi where the twenty fourteen winter olympics have just wrapped up day twelve here's a look at the latest medal count the u.s. leads with twenty three total medals russia and the netherlands are just one nat'l behind followed by norway canada and germany one of the big events today was team usa taking on czech republic in hockey this was never close though as team usa pulled away early and won five to two team usa will now face canada and the semifinals on friday meanwhile a major disappointment for russia a man talking. team was eliminated in the quarter finals earlier self with our tees

maar in and who is in sochi about the loss for the home team. absolutely i am actually standing here in front of the glorious olympic park with the flame and my producers and camera men behind as if you could only see them they're really quite upset because russia they're out of the competition they were finally eliminated by finland at a three two one victory at the bolshoi i stadium and really the whole nation is extremely upset the hockey team has only won eight gold medals in the olympics that may sound good but actually they haven't scored a medal for the last twenty two years that said i think the overall impression and you know thoughts behind the olympics are still bright and positive even though they were defeated in the hockey getting here you know there was a lot of pressure on those hockey players so i could imagine quite a disappointment martin tell us about some of the other highlights for the day i

think one of the most interesting stories was the vic wild than. you might think they're just the average winner of the snowboarding slalom he won gold a great success and she won bronze but the difference with this couple is that i just mention the word couple they're actually married so they'll be putting some new jewelry in the form of medals next to the wedding bands interestingly enough he stated that russia didn't want him. the states sorry the states didn't want him he did in fact that he was actually born in america originally he married his wife two years ago and here he is competing for russia so everybody's a thumbs up for them and it really is a dream come true an icing on the top of their wedding cake very nice over here bodie miller as there is a big headliner what's the reaction to his skipping that last alpine race. that's right he skipped his last operation really it shows the reality of this competition sport he's forty years old and really he's competing against people who are in the

early twenty's and he had surgically to tweet is in the head of the injury his he was second he was twenty six in the giant slalom his score time was one minute and twenty three seconds in sixty four but he has decided to miss the last alpine race everybody is is obviously very upset but no worse than than both himself yeah that's right well you've got to rest up for that world cup see it then when i ask you moving forward what do we have to look forward to. what do we have to look forward to we've got the curling to look forward to the women's curling finale will be taking place in one of the stays behind me which is fantastic sports and it's indeed almost like a cult craze that really goes on about this curling all the time we call the ice hockey by the women i was fortunate enough to watch a match last week it was sweden against germany and i couldn't i couldn't believe personally how violent this sport was especially for young women but

a great score so we got to look forward to and really the piece de resistance is the russian ice champion lipnitskaya it's all over social media that i was forwarded links on twitter and facebook you have to march and you have to watch this young skater and really she's just simply out of this world she should be taking place in the free figure skating in a few days time and i was also force enough to watch the figure skating last week in the in the stadium and the atmosphere is just a letter and other there's been reports from press abroad saying that the stadiums are empty there's no atmosphere well i can tell you this as a british guy here experiencing this amazing sporting event in sochi the atmosphere has been electric we've had mexican waves this chanting cheering on of course russia has to basically done so well in this and then picks because they're on the home turf so i'm sure that you. will do certainly very very well. and about some critics are there certainly some naysayers i found twitter people kind

of complaining about the weather being on the warmer side but as i understand there is a wintry weather making a comeback over there are folks really looking forward to. well before i came on to the television with you i wasn't sure if i was going to wear my scarf or not because actually just a few days ago we had pitches of people some bathing here on the black sea coast in fact i was doing some stories about the local waterfalls where in just a t. shirt but it has changed completely it was about twenty degrees almost a few days ago but now it's approaching the is zero again there were issues with fog in the mountains some of the races had to be canceled or postponed they were moved to different days and yes it's certainly getting. more wintry here in sochi but of course we've only got a few days left until the end of the current lympics before the paralympics begins but it's the winter olympics after all so nobody can really complain about the culture which is here in sochi it's well they are warm as the temps down over there

appreciate you weighing in and letting us know the latest over there that was our tees maar in andrea's in sochi. now to the ukraine where the country is seeing the most violent protests yet dozens of people are reported dead as protesters clash with the police this up their officers attempted to clear out in the pen and square the hotbed of protests in the capital city of kiev i believe nine officers were killed trying to do this according to the interior ministry now as the conflict turns deadly u.s. and european leaders are putting pressure on the ukrainian government to ease up on using force here's what president obama had to say about it today while on a trip to mexico we're told to bringing government primarily responsible for making sure. it's dealing with a peaceful protesters in an appropriate way that. the ukrainian people are able to assemble and speak freely about their interests without

repression we expect the ukrainian government to show restraint to not resort to violence in dealing with peaceful protesters we've said that we also expect peaceful protesters to remain constant. president obama later said there would be consequences if the government does not back down in the form of sanctions but ukraine says it's the protesters that are fueling the violence point to the death of several police officers ukraine's top security agency also says that it is launching a counterterrorism operation the agency says protesters seized over fifteen hundred firearms and one hundred thousand bullets just in the last twenty four hours and as the country turns to chaos is there any solution in sight artie's alexy or a chef ski as reported in kiev which last night we reported from the independence square from the protest aside this time we'll take you to the other side of the

barricade the police lines where obviously the atmosphere is very tense i just took a stroll through the police lines and the police would seem to be very concerned of what's happening here over there as you can see the police line is here and over there the protest is there lit the tires on fire again the coal areas covered with black smoke it's hard to see to breathe and the police are pretty much everywhere across the place heavy presence right now especially after the information that reportedly protesters in the western part of the country the ivana from coast city stole these fifteen thousand bullets several hundred handguns and machine guns from the security services arsenals and they're bringing over to kiev that's why the authorities are implementing some sort of counterterrorism operation mode in ukraine with no don't know for sure what that is but that is definitely meeting tougher security measures everywhere across the country tougher police cordons more but you can see for yourself the movement of the police is they're all changing all the time they're moving their forces now and then it's not particularly violent at the moment although just a few minutes ago we saw from this building over there which is used to be the

police of the revolution headquarters the formal labor union building several more of cocktails were thrown right at the place where i'm standing right now as you can see it looks like a genuine war zone with all the rubble with all the rocks which were thrown at the police the remains of most of cocked garbage ever. so this used to be a beautiful area the central city of kiev is pretty much a telling story of what it has become over the past several days this is a true mayhem and right now you can call it a standstill you can call it pretty much a calm situation compared to the violence last night and the violence on tuesday but you never know what's going to happen next because everyone behind those this line of fire behind the barricades over there they're expecting another assault on the police the police who are standing calmly and doing nothing at all they're just securing the perimeter as far as we can see i spoke to some of them they were not really aggressive they're not expecting any movement and i said you can move that because it's going to be quiet but again no assurances of the because no one knows

what comes of that size there is documented proof already that protesters have used live weapons live rounds against the police as well as the police using some of those against the protesters as well so we keep boarding the situation and we're hoping that no major violence will happen during the night as it happened on tuesday night and. that was r t is alexei. well western leaders say they are putting pressure on the ukraine government to put in and to the violence the conflict has divided the country with the ukraine blaming protesters for the bloodshed all sarah that trip which is a foreign affairs editor at chronicles magazine. we have witnessed brazen hypocrisy from the european union ever since the beginning of this crisis from the phase of demonstrations early on the protests degenerated into hooliganism in mid december and into terrorism since january nineteenth and we can no longer use the

term demonstrators i would rather use the term rebels because we are looking at de facto the rebellion for your mccovey to continue listening to the player calls from the west and he has also being called by biden and by kerry and for restraint would be simply self-defeating because all of these people are up to no good they want regime change they are interested in a geo political control over the key country in central eastern europe and that was carried out traffic of at a foreign affairs editor at chronicles magazine. a former cia analyst is suing the state department for putting him on a watch list right mcgovern has filed a civil rights suit against secretary of state john kerry and the george washington university police department it's over an incident that happened three years ago at the university where mcgovern was protesting a speech from then secretary of state hillary clinton take

a look at what happened so the service was. scout light signals and. last year. so this is america because this is our off the court. mcgovern a u.s. military veteran says he was trying to peacefully protest when police removed him from the speech and he used a brutal force leaving him battered and bruised you can see his injuries in this photo here after the ordeal he believes the police were on the lookout for him all along here is proof this is the be on the lookout document that was apparently given to authorities alerting them to be careful if they came across him and if they did to contact diplomatic security for more on this mara overheat and healthier the executive director of the partnership for a simple justice fund joins us now this is the organization that filed the lawsuit mara welcome and so tell us more about what happened to mr mcgovern after he was

arrested there we saw that he suffered some injuries in those photos what happened afterward well as you can see at least in part in some of the video but what happened on that day is very important because all the mr mcgovern did in his you know well known peace activist a former cia analyst who used to do the president's daily briefings but he became outspoken about the false hoods that were being put together by intelligence to justify war in iraq and at the speech of then secretary clinton all he did was stand absolutely silently in turn his back that was all he did and then he was brutally grabbed he was he was roughed up you see the injuries now the buma look out alert we discovered was issued after that we don't believe was issued before him but as a result of this completely peaceful act of dissent he was put on this be on the lookout one ask this because you would think it was a secret document how did you get a feel about how did he learn that he was on this list well what we did is we

undertook an investigation of the partnership for civil justice fund trying to get documents related to the arrest and other materials and what we found were able to eventually get in the took quite some time was information that showed that the department of state actually opened an investigation in. mr mcgovern into is a lawful peaceful free speech activities his writings his associations the groups that he works with and then they issued be on the lookout alert which is it merely to look out for him the alert explicitly directs that he be stopped and questioned so it's a fourth amendment seizure it's for purely peaceful unlawful activities they are directing that law enforcement stop and seize mr mcgovern in question now i do want to mention that we contacted the state department for comment their press officer told us not too long ago we cannot comment on matters currently in litigation so they're not really saying anything at this point but it sounds like you believe that he was targeted purely for his political views well we can tell that he was targeted for his political views because the actual document we have states in the

document that mr mcgovern has engaged in considerable amount of political activism primarily anti war those of their own words throughout this we were able to find that the open in this intelligence investigation they kept it open for seven months even though all charges were dropped and it's completely full of descriptions of peaceful free speech first amendment protected activities and we think it's very significant when we have secretary clinton now secretary kerry president obama routinely speaking to the world to other countries about the importance of defending dissent and here in the united states we have the most peaceful form of protest and it ends up like this and i believe that is precisely why the then secretary of state hillary clinton was talking about during that speech which seems pretty ironic now we know we know about this tomorrow this is just one incident do you believe people like him are targeted all the time is this just an isolated incident or do you think that this actually happens more often than we think people being targeted because or put on special list because of their political beliefs

well my organization is representing the thousands of demonstrators in the united states who have been subjected to mass arrest to brutality to suppression of dissent who are engaging peaceful lawful political protest and. you look at the occupy movement the united states across the united states the federal government local law enforcement authorities they rested more than seven thousand people they shut down these peaceful accountants all around the country so we've seen over and over again even in recent years the use of law enforcement federal law enforcement of their it to terrorism authority explicitly against lawful peaceful political movements in the united states and lastly i want to ask you what your organization you represent a lot of people in similar positions you just mentioned what you're demanding and what you think the state department should do i would imagine that they they there's people that for some reason they are they have suspicions on it and are going to alert their or their officers to keep a lookout for one reason or another do you think that they should out just stop

this practice altogether it is illegal unconstitutional to target somebody for a long foresman seizure in the absence of suspicion of criminal activity there is no suspicion of criminal activity on the part of mr mcgovern they are directed law enforcement to stop season question him purely because of his political believes it's unlawful and we're demanding that in essence be rescinded and be interesting to see how this case plays that plays out we've had a mr mcgovern on this show plenty of time so we'll be keeping a close i appreciate you telling us all about it that was ever hit in healthier to the executive director of the partnership for civil justice fund former n.s.a. contractor edward snowden continues to make international headlines critics think he is a traitor for leaking documents exposing the massive n.s.a. surveillance program others praise him and his actions and this show accolades on him here's some examples are to correspondent on associate churkin to has more.

love him or hate him we all know him after mind boggling revelations on the mass surveillance conducted by the u.s. his popularity seems to be growing by the day now thirty years old former n.s.a. contractor edward snowden made history by disclosing thousands of top secret government documents is leaks forever changing the way the world looks at privacy and security while snowden is currently in temporary asylum in russia and wanted in the u.s. he has been elected the rector of glasgow university a very prominent school in scotland mostly a symbolic position that he will officially hold for three years we are not the pathetic too important issues such as democratic rights. our opposition opposition to provide a safe and immoral state intrusion has gone down in the record what is more we showed edward snowden and other brave whistleblowers that we stand in solidarity with them wherever they are we touched base with a spokesperson for snowden's rector election campaign to discuss the symbolism of this vote next. express or disgust this is this

is this real sports is a. sure. this is not the first time that support for edward snowden gets this kind of public recognition in january the san francisco based freedom of the press foundation aimed at supporting and defending public interest journalism co-founded by pentagon papers leaker daniel ellsberg who describes snowden as a personal hero announce that snowden is joining its board of directors the whistleblower accused of espionage and theft of government property in the us was nominated for the nobel peace prize will have to wait to find out if he wins this year's laureate will be announced in october the norwegian lawmakers who put him forward for the nomination said what snowden did quote lead to the reintroduction of trust and transparency as a leading principle and global security policies in october in moscow edward snowden also received the sound adams associates integrity award named after a cia whistleblower in the vietnam war the award is. annually given by

a group of retired cia officers also last year snowden was nominated for the european union socket of human rights prize and was a potential winner of the time magazine person of the year title which he lost to pope francis last but not least edward snowden's popularity has become so far reaching that he has his own action figure now with a choice of outfit styles the figurine is up for grabs for ninety nine dollars apiece with proceeds going to the freedom of the press foundation and if they see it you're going to r.t. new york. retail stores are facing a growing threat from hackers you probably recall last christmas target servers were compromised original estimates at approximately forty million target customers had been hacked but we're learning now that the estimate is between seventy and one hundred ten million people it's just the latest incident pointing to a u.s. credit card security becoming more and more vulnerable our t. is a mirror they have it reports i called the company and asked them about the charge

and who had made it and they told me that it had come in online through the internet and i said i had not made the charge it's a story that's becoming all too familiar miscellaneous and mysterious charges appearing on credit card bills over and over again when in november it came through a second time i thought my credit card numbers been stolen for lisa law grass' and a number of other americans this is a reality that's becoming the new normal according to the latest numbers from the bureau of justice statistics about seven point seven million people had their credit card information stolen in two thousand and twelve a fifty nine percent increase since just two thousand and eight and when measured globally the numbers are just as staggering right now the u.s. accounts for forty seven percent of credit card fraud in the world even though what process is just twenty four percent of total payments and that number is only expected to rise solidifying the u.s.

as the credit card fraud capital of the world but for hans there is no better indication of that than what happened just two months ago here at target where a massive hack compromised the data of over seventy million credit card users nationwide he monsoon a gama nonaligned security expert says that points to a problem in the way many american companies are securing their data one of the things we have to think about is what i call outside in inside around a lot of times companies are securing extremely well. so the outside in security don't let anybody in the front door then there's gaps in the inside around one chair in the front door you can go to every room in that house but it goes beyond just in secure servers most credit cards in the u.s. operate with magnetic strips allowing for account information to be easily read and exploited by hackers and that's why several countries are now using the technology involves a small chip on a credit card that employs cryptography and

a range of other security features in recent weeks lawmakers and corporations have been meeting on the hill to discuss moving the us towards microchip credit cards a costly change for shops and credit card companies but they may not be moving fast enough new consumer technology could already be making shoppers more vulnerable to take the queen for example all these cards are inside my keyboard and i can pay for stuff with any of them the technology will allow for the consumer to condense multiple credit and debit cards into one single card that will then digitally hold all of that user's sensitive data but the coin is just the latest in the game a number of phone paying apps are already sweeping up thousands of new young shoppers it's the fad allowing your phone to become your wallet and while it provides a convenience the technology connects your valuable credit card information to a world of internet hackers there is no such thing as

a place in america that you can call offline the more that we have and world that is simply on line the easier it is for hackers to find vulnerabilities because there's a larger volume of places to look for and until companies can find a way to protect users from the increase in fraudulent activity it's likely that this hackable security apparatus will only continue to grow in washington and david our team. the national security agency may or may not be keeping close tabs on you but rest assured now poking fun at them is not a crime and two thousand and eleven both the national security agency and department of homeland security insisted that t. shirts and coffee mugs with designs that parroted the parity of the agencies and their spying activities be removed from the web site zazzle as you can see the desire put his own spin on the agency's logos is one of the first ones to raise

controversy it says spying on you since nineteen fifty two the department of homeland security tried to ban this shirt from being printed and this one the n.s.a. be only a part of the government that actually listens peeping while you're sleeping and two thousand and eleven the agency is there and a lawsuit and even criminal prosecution if the company continued to use their seal asserting that the pony shirts falsely alters the seal of a government agencies a last year watchdog group public citizen sued the agency is saying the government cannot outlaw parities doing so they say violates the first amendment because yesterday the parties reached a settlement agencies are admitting that they were wrong to demand that the items be taken off the market as a result agencies will send letters to zazzle confirming that the parodied items didn't violate any laws. that's going to wrap it up for our newscast for now boom bust is coming up next here in our it's here in a joins us now for

a quick preview erin and we got today we're talking about gold on today's show and bring you part two of both my interviews with george yourselves and ben steele you all want to miss them and then in today's big deal i'm joined by our tease leake camp will discuss what goes well with pizza it's a little wordplay for you you've got to stay tuned to find out what the heck i'm joking about in a well because i have no idea what you're talking about thanks aaron how it's going to do for a lot of the stories we covered go to youtube dot com forward slash our to america and our website our forward slash usa and follow me on twitter outlives well stay tuned boom bust is next see you back here at five. cut.

costs. as i feel when i close my eyes i see people in mosques. you know sometimes i think that you are a modern itself is a face covered by a mosque. but there are people in mosque from both sides of the barricades with you must. listen to me sometimes just it feels as if all of ukraine is no must. play. play.

play. play. cross talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want.

head over there i'm marinating this is boom bust and these are the stories that we're tracking for you today. lovers will the look sweet taste of it dish. out of them and to guess which country is singing that same tune overtaking india as the number one consumer of gold we'll tell you all about it just ahead and boom bust stays golden with george sheldon who joins me to talk about whether the gold standard in flexibility contributed to debt deflation in the one nine hundred thirty s. plus comedian and author lead cabinet makes a big deal day.