0 cannot legally obtain in the united kingdom. this accusation is baseless. any data obtained by us from the united states involving uk nationals is subject to proper uk statutory controls and safeguards. in florida today, jury selection begins in the second degree murder trial of george zimmerman for the shooting death of trayvon martin. and worldwide concerns today about nelson mandela. the latest on the 94-year-old's condition as he spends a third day in the hospital. good day. i'm andrea mitchell in washington. we can now put a face and a name on the massive nsa leak to "the guardian" and "washington post." 29-year-old edward snowden. he says he was motivated by his hatred for the nsa's surveillance programs, programs vigorously defended by the director of national intelligence, james clapper, in an interview this weekend. >> the notion that we're trolling through everyone's e-mails and voyeuristically reading them or listening to everyone's phone calls is, on its face, absurd. we couldn't do it even if we wanted to, and i assure you, we don't want to. >> joining me now, chuck todd, nbc news chief white house correspondent, political director and host of "the daily rundown." nbc capitol hill correspondent kelly o'donnell. and nbc justice correspondent pete williams. pete, first to you. the justice department, i'm told, you know this better than anyone -- is all over this looking for mr. snowden. i'm told that he was in hong kong. they're not sure in the intelligence circles whether he still is there, and they are also looking at whether he had any conspirators. what do we know about this hunt? >> well, there are two issues here. first of all, the united states has to file charges against him, and they have not been filed yet, i'm told. it isn't enough to base it just on his statements to the press. they have to find some evidence, additional evidence, to get probable cause to arrest him. the second point is, as you say, finding him. the third thing is arresting hip and getting him back to the united states. now he said he went to hong kong because he thought that two help him avoid extradition. if that was his logic, wasn't good because the u.s. has a very robust extradition treaty with hong kong. he also talked about going to iceland, and there he might do a little better. politically iceland has shown some reluctance in the past to extradite people to the u.s. if they think it is a political prosecution, whether they would feel that way about this in a country that is very pro freedom, very pro internet. perhaps that was what he was thinking. but there is no guarantee that he could avoid it no matter where he goes. his third option would be to try to seek asylum. he said that he thought about that in iceland as well. but all of that is ahead of the curve. the first thing is charges and we're told they haven't been filed yet. >> chuck todd, there's also a lot of fallout here over the balance between personal privacy and national security. one of the questions i asked director claerp was, why do they have to vacuum it all up? i'm told that they are looking at ways to perhaps narrow the telephone aspects of this. >> well, before the disclosure of prison, especially spying on foreign nationals that they think might do harm -- >> under court order -- >> but it is clear in the same way that the cia did it in the '50s and '60s with phone taps, this is what they're doing to potential enemies at this stage. before that was disclosed you didn't see the level of outrage from the intelligence community. behind the scenes the white house was talking about, well, we understand why people think why was this classified. there was this sense that -- we saw very directly clapper declassified some of those things. he he claims did he so reluctantly to explain some of those things. that's been controversial about fisa from the beginning. i guess you could say that whenever the police seek a search warrant when someone is under investigation, that's ex parte, too. the police don't say, we're thinking about searching your house, do you want to come down to the court and argue before the judge about whether we get a warrant. so a lot of those things are ex parte as well. going back to the bite you played where he said he has the authority to wiretap anyone in the u.s. now granted, he probably knows a lot more about this classified program than any of us does, but at the same time, i don't think we can assume that because had he his hand on these documents he has a full and complete understanding of all the legal authorities. everyone we've talked to about this said that if in the phone program, if the -- as a result of running a number through and a person in the u.s. was identified, that they then wanted to wiretap, then they would have to go in the normal course, out of the nsa's hand, out of the intel community's hand to the fbi to get a normal kind of search warrant or wiretap application that you would need to do any other kind of wiretap. everybody we have talked to has said that the nsa does not have the legal authority to do that. remember, in the bite he said i had the authority to do that. i think that's a real question. >> pete williams, kelly o'donnell and chuck todd, thank you all very, very much. senator john thune is a member of the senate republican leadership and joins me now. senator thune, what do you think should happen to edward snowden if he is charged and extradited? >> good afternoon, andrea. i guess i would number myself among those who believe that we got to follow the law and obviously we have laws on the books. if the laws don't work, we should change the laws. but if this individual, mr. snowden, broke our laws, then we need to go after him, we need to prosecute him. and i think that's what most of the american people would questions answered. this is a very broad, far reaching collection program. granted, a collection that includes "meta data," doesn't include any confidential information other than phone numbers to be matched up maybe at some later time, i still there is going to be a lot of concern across the country and on capitol hill. >> do you think the congressional oversight is meaningful? were you fully aware of what you were vetting for, yea or nay back in december? >> i times this program has been retlid authoriz authorized, intelligence committees are involved and homeland security to some degree but most members of congress are given a piece of legislation to vote on and i don't believe that involved. far example, meta data that's used is just raw phone numbers, it is just kept for a period of time. it's only used if there is some question about a phone number that needs to be matched up against that database. i think there's perhaps a misunderstanding out there around the country that this is -- this -- you're getting information about people's calls and that sort of thing which just isn't the case. but i do believe that there are a lot of our libertarian folks around the country who, any time you talk about this subject, are going to want to make sure that we're protecting the constitution, protecting people's individual rights and that's a healthy debate to have. it is a difficult debate because we live in a very different time. we got so many forms of technology now that are used by terrorists and we have to, as o a government, protect the american people from potential terrorist attacks. but find and strike that balance that also protects individual liberties. >> before i let you go, want to ask you about the immigration reform legislation that's being worked on. it's already on the floor. the bipartisan plan, as you know. kelly ayotte has announced her support. does this mean that you could see the possibility of weakening a filibuster and you joining in fact in supporting immigration? >> i'm going to make that judgment after it moves across the floor and we get an opportunity through the amendment process to see if -- how the bill gets changed, how it might get improved. but i think there is a very real possibility that they'll have 60 -- beyond 60, north of 60, in order to get on the bill and probably ultimately to pass it. the question is can change be made in the bill that might attract even more people to it and make it a larger number. >> thank you very much, senator thune. >> thanks, andrea. and president obama today marking the 50th anniversary of the equal pay act. the president says that, while things have improved, there is still a wage gap between the sexes. >> the day that the bill was signed in law women earned 59 cents for every $1 a man earned, on average. today, it's about 77 cents. so, it was 59, now it's 77 cents. it's even less, by the way, if you're an african-american or a latina. i guess that's progress, but does anybody here think that's good enough? >> no. >> i assume everybody thinks we can do better. >> yes. >> we can. >> yes, we can. >> when more women are bringing home the bacon, they shouldn't just be getting a little bit of bacon. your chance to rise and shine. with centurylink as your trusted technology partner, you can do just that. with our visionary cloud infrastructure, global broadband network and custom communications solutions, your business is more reliable - secure - agile. and with responsive, dedicated support, we help you shine every day of the week. 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