coming up on our t.v. today at the sochi winter olympics hockey was of these sport to watch team usa dominates the czech republic to move on by host country russia sees their team exit the games without a medal the latest from today's events in sochi. and glasgow university students have picked an n.s.a. whistleblower to be their actor edward 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 there's a growing concern over credit card security and now new cards and apps are being introduced to make things more convenient for consumers but does this pose

a security risk will dive into that later tonight show. it's wednesday february nineteenth eight pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching r.t. america. we start off tonight in sochi where the twenty fourteen winter olympics have wrapped up day twelve of take a look at the latest medal count the u.s. leads with twenty three total medals russia and the netherlands are just one medal behind followed by norway canada and germany one of the big events today was team usa it's taking on the czech republic in hockey but this was never close as team usa pulled away early and won five to two team usa will now face canada in the

semifinals on friday. meanwhile a major disappointment for russia a man's hockey team was eliminated in the quarterfinals earlier i spoke with our tees maar in anders who is in sochi for 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 ball show 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 with a 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 the 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 tweet is in the had a knee injury his he was second he was twenty six in the giant slalom his time was one minute and twenty three seconds and 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 a rest after that world cup season when i ask you moving forward what do we have to look for a tale. what do we have to look forward to we've got the curling to look forward to the women's curling finale that will be taking place in one of the stables behind me which is a 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 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 was taking place in the free figure skating in a few days time and i was also forty enough to watch the figure skating last week in the in the stadium and the atmosphere is just a letter and other the 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 you're talking about some critics are there certainly some naysayers i saw on 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 somebody on the black sea coast in fact i was doing some stories about the local waterfalls where you 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 the year over again there were issues with asphalt in the mountains some of the races had to be canceled or postponed they were moved to different days 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 off to also know because really complain about the cold temperatures here in sochi it's well they 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 anders in sochi now to ukraine where the country is seeing the most violent protests yet the latest news the ukrainian president has agreed to a truce with opposition leaders according to the presidential website has agreed to start negotiations with protesters and dozens of people are reported dead as rioters clash with the police this after officers attempted to clear out independence square the hotbed of protests in the capital city of kiev at least nine officers were killed according to the interior ministry the u.s. and european leaders are pinning the blame on the ukrainian government for using force but questions of credibility are being raised after a private chat between two top u.s. diplomats was leaked online in it you hear them discussing how to influence the

political structure of the ukrainian government take a listen. gropings is obviously the complicated electron here especially the announcement of him as deputy prime minister and you've seen some of our notes on the troubles in the marriage right now so we're trying to get a read really fast on where he goes on this stuff and i'm glad you sort of put him on the spot on where he fits in this scenario so i don't think leetch should go into the government i don't think it's necessary i don't think it's a good idea to that in terms of him not going into the government just let him sort of stay out and do his political homework and stuff i think he is the guy who's got the economic experience the governing experience he's the got you know what he needs equation tony book on the outside he needs to be talking to them four times a week. that was just a week ago here look president obama said today we are told for any government by marilyn responsible for making sure that it is dealing with peaceful protesters

in an appropriate way that. the ukrainian people are able to assemble and speak 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 peaceful. president obama made those comments today during a quick visit to mexico he was dealing with protesters of his own as you see here protesters clashing with police and during that trip president obama also said that there could 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 pointing to the death of several police officers ukraine's top security agency says

that it's launching a counterterrorism operation now the agency says protesters seize over fifteen hundred firearms and one hundred thousand bullets in the last twenty four hours as a country turns to cast is there any solution in sight artie's igor peskin office reporting. russia's president putin and german chancellor angela merkel have discussed the situation here in ukraine and the russian leader has told angela merkel that the west should focus more on condemning the actions of the radical right wing rioters and what they do at these protests rallies and pay more attention to what the ukrainian authorities are doing to try to calm the situation down and resolve this issue and earlier brushes forth to this she. accused of the right wing the radicals of continuing the violence o'flynn fiery rhetoric that. injuries and played out it's on both sides before this you also choose

between the leaders of the oppositional feeling to call the opposition and to prevent this violence from happening they also been criticizing the west from taking the side of the opposition here in ukraine. that was r.t.s. igor pesca knob. the conflict has divided the country with opposing sides blaming each other for escalating the violence trip of it as a foreign affairs editor at the chronicles magazine here's his take 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 belly and for you to call beach 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 so 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 that was sarah the traffic of a foreign affairs editor at the chronicles magazine. a former cia analyst is suing the state department for putting him on a watch lists ray 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 happens. on the surface first. scout icicles can

access law here. 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 use brutal force leaving him battered and bruised you can see his injuries and this photo here after the ordeal the governor believes this incident has kept him on the state department's radar and there's proof this is the be on the lookout document that mcgovern says was given to authorities alerting them to be careful if they come across and then contact diplomatic security for more on this i spoke earlier with them are a very hidden hilliard the executive director of the partnership for civil justice fund this is the organization that filed this lawsuit i first asked her what happened to mr mcgovern after he was arrested well if you can see at least in part

in some of that video but but what happened in that booth very important because all the mr mcgovern did in his you know a well known peace activist a former cia analyst who used to do the president's daily briefings but he became outspoken about the whole foods that were being put together by intelligence to justify war in iraq and after the speech was then secretary clinton all he did was stand absolutely silently in turn expect that is 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 his but as a result of this completely peaceful act of dissent he was put on this field alert look out what i ask this because you would think it was a secret document how did you get ahold of that how did he learn that he was on this list well what we did is we undertook an investigation as a 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 into took quite

some time was information that showed that the department of state actually opened an investigation into mr mcgovern into his lawful peaceful. re speech activities his writings his associations the groups that he works with and then the issued be on the lookout alert which isn't 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 and question him and 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 karalee 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 documents that mr mcgovern has engaged in considerable amount of political activism primarily anti-war those are their own words throughout this we

were able to find that they open in this intelligence vest a geisha 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 are 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 happened more often than we think people being targeted because they're or are put on specialist because of their political beliefs my organization is represented 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 and. states the federal government local law enforcement authorities they were arrested more than seven thousand people they shut down these peaceful account was all around the country so we've seen over and over again even in recent years the use of law enforcement federal loan force of their it to terrorism authority explicitly against lawful peaceful political movements in the united states ok 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 had there's people that for some reason they are there they have suspicions on and are going to alert their their officers to keep a lookout for one reason or another you think that they should out just stop this practice altogether it is illegal and unconstitutional to target somebody for a long force and seizure in the absence of suspicion of criminal activity there is

no suspicion of criminal activity on the part of mr mcgovern they are directly law enforcement to stop sees and question them purely because it was political believes it's unlawful and we're demanding that that in essence be rescinded in a way 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 my overhead in hilliard 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 for his actions and bestow accolades on him are you corresponding on the safiya turkana has more. love him or hate him we all know him after mind boggling revelations on the mass surveillance conducted by the us 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 purvey so if an 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 the surveillance part says a full c n n c c and 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 new york. the retail stores are facing a growing threat from hackers you probably recall last christmas target's servers are compromised original estimates that approximately forty million target customers had been hacked but we're learning that the estimate is between seventy and one hundred in ten million people now that's just the latest and that i'm pointing to u.s. credit card security becoming more and more vulnerable our season where they've had 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 and for lisa la bronson a number of other americans this is the 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 it processes 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 perhaps there's 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 two. times companies are securing extremely well 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 insecure 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 m.v. technology it 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 the cake the coin for example all these cards are inside my coin 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 users' 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 just that allowing your phone to become your wallet and wallet provides a convenience that 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 an world that is simply on line that 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 near david r.t. . winter weather can bring about some dangerous conditions in new york city it's causing all kinds of problems falling ice from the world trade center force officers to shut down streets surrounding the area today making traffic on the roads much worse police say no one was hurt as a result of falling ice their buddies see conditions in the big apple can certainly do damage a couple weeks ago one man learned the hard way that danger can come from above take a look at it which so much force that i started panicking i knew i was bleeding because they could see it on my hands and i was spitting out blood and i heard two females

yelling like oh my god so as soon as they said that i panicked and said he saw one helping of those cuts and bruises are result of being hit by a chunk of ice that fell from a midtown from a building in midtown manhattan he needed eighty stitches now the victim and his attorney are blaming the building for not doing enough to keep people safe. first soldiers returning home from serving abroad it's often a challenge to adapt to everyday life it can be emotional and financial tonight's resident looks at how soldiers lose out and end up using food stamps.

the u.s. has a lot of wars and those wars make a lot of money for a lot of people who make warring their business except for those doing the actual fighting the soldiers the people our government asks to put their lives on the line for the americans who might actually die from all of our wars they're not rolling in dough no they are rolling in food stamps new numbers from the defense commissary agency just repeals of that u.s. soldiers spent over one hundred million dollars worth of food stamps at military commissaries in two thousand and thirteen that's more than quadrupled the number in two thousand and seven that's a faster growth rate than the general population saw two it's not like there's or timing the use of food stamps everywhere in america one reason could be that spouses are having a hard time finding jobs according to a recent study by the institute for veterans and military families female military

spouses between the ages of eighteen to twenty four are seen a thirty percent unemployment rate when you have to move around a lot like a lot of military families often do it can make finding a job in an already crappy market even tougher but the main reason is probably because the u.s. pays many of its soldiers. low level soldiers only bring home a little under twenty thousand dollars a year and according to the military officers association of america the obama administration's new twenty eight fourteen budget includes a cap on currently serving troops pay raise this is while food costs are on the rise and while the. i got is considering increasing prices at the commissary so our troops are all on food stamps and many people chalk it up to the horrible economy since the two thousand and eight crash but come on we all know war is recession proof according to the taxpayers protection alliance there are about seven billion

dollars worth of earmarks in the latest appropriations bill for things like today that the pentagon doesn't even want the us defense budget is in the hundreds of billions of dollars with billions going straight to defense contractors to build crap that we don't even want or need so for all the war that the us makes the guys in the so it's get rich while the guys in the cammo get food stamps and the rest of the world gets covered in blood forget the food stamps i've lost my appetite tonight let's talk about that side by allowing me on twitter at the resident. that's going to do it for now for more of the stories we covered go to our youtube channel youtube dot com slash r t america and our web site r t v dot com slash usa

and follow me on twitter at liz wall for now have a great night. i know c.n.n. the m.s.m. b c news have taken some not slightly 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 close and for the treatment might think. it's because one full attention and the mainstream media works side by side the joke is actually on here. and are teen years we have a different brain. ok because the news of the world just is not this.