Government authorities seize property long tilled by farmers. On january 31st, mya hlaing came home to find an eviction notice nailed to his wall. For mya hlaing and his neighbors, it meant they would have to move out in two weeks, or face jail. Ifill and wyoming Politics Takes Center Stage as liz cheney, daughter of the former Vice President , decides to challenge a sitting republican senator. Brown thats all ahead on tonights newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by supported by the john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation. Committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. More information at macfound. Org and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. And. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Brown Edward Snowden was back in the news today, from the u. S. House of representatives to the russian far east. His disclosures of sweeping u. S. Surveillance and his continued presence outside moscow prompted a series of new warnings. The days developments began with russian president Vladimir Putin at a military exercise in siberia, offering his most expansive comments to date on snowden. translated mr. Snowden, as i understand it, never intended to stay here, in russia, forever. He has even said so himself. He is a young man, i even dont quite understand how he plans to live his life in the future. But it is his fate and his choice. Brown but putin insisted again those choices will not be allowed to harm relations with the u. S. translated bilateral relations, in my opinion, are far more important than squabbles about the activities of the secret services. Brown snowden formally applied yesterday, in a handwritten letter, for temporary asylum in russia. For now, he remains holed up at an airport outside moscow. And, despite putins statement, an attorney for the former n. S. A. Contractor said today he expects that petition to be granted. translated he will leave the airport in the next few days because some legal papers are still required to be formalized. Therefore i think this issue will be resolved within a week. Brown in washington, White House Press secretary, jay carney called again for snowden to be sent back to the u. S. , to face espionage charges. Mr. Snowden should be expelled and returned to the u. S. Where he will be charged with serious felonies. We share putins view that we dont want harm to bilateral relations. Brown snowden has defended his leaks to Britains Guardian newspaper and the Washington Post about surveillance efforts at the National Security agency. They include massive collection of socalled telephone metadata numbers called, times and locations of calls and duration. Snowden also disclosed an internetmonitoring program that mines data for users outside the united states. In addition, from his original temporary refuge in hong kong, he revealed major cyber penetration of china, especially its universities. The statutes enabling those activities were the subject of a house hearing today with the justice department, directorate of national intelligence, n. S. A. And the f. B. I. Deputy n. S. A. Director john inglis warned snowdens revelations have the potential to do great damage. The impact associated with snowden disclosures can be very harmful, its too soon to tell whether in fact whether adversaries will take great note of the things hes disclosed but those capabilities gives playbook how to avoid time attention of u. S. Intelligence r tt mattdoc intelligence organizations. Brown lawmakers complained too many innocent americans are caught up in the process. Republican Jim Sensenbrenner told Deputy Attorney general tom cole that part of the patriot act, underpinning the metadata collection, is in danger of not being renewed in 2015. Its got to be changed and you have to change how you operate section 215. Otherwise in the year and a half or two years youre not going to have it any more. Brown california democrat zoe lofgren agreed there is great skepticism on the left and the right. I share with mr. Sensenbrenner the belief that this will not be able to be a sustained. But i think very clearly this program has gone off the tracks legally and needs to be reined in. Brown deputy a. G. Cole argued use of the material is severely restricted by the foreign Intelligence Surveillance court. But new york democrat Jerrold Nadler wasnt reassured. The fact that a secret court unaccountable to Public Knowledge of what it is doing for practical purposes unaccountable to the Supreme Court may join you in misusing or abusing the statute is no comfort whatsoever. Brown the Judiciary Committee said it will soon take closeddoor, classified testimony on the n. S. A. Programs. Now to a debate on snowden, the governments response to his actions, and the programs he revealed. Daniel ellsberg was tried under the espionage act after leaking the socalled pentagon papers a classified report which he cowrote as a military analyst that was critical of u. S. Decisionmaking during the vietnam war. The case against him was ultimately dismissed in 1973. And Michael Mukasey was attorney general during the george w. Bush administration. General during the george w. Bush administration. Lits get on the table first, the programs, Michael Mukasey, you have written that real damage was done by snowden. Please explain. I think reel damage was done in two respects, one by disclosing the details of the programs and the second by showing both our anniversaries d our would be friends people who would provide human intelligence, that we cant keep secrets. Those two things damage us tremendously. Brown and daniel ellsberg, what is your viewpoint . Pardon me, i have to smile that our friends would be very upset about the thought that snowden had exposed that we were spying on them which he has done. I must say, i think a lot of us would be envious of our capability. I think russia and china would be envious of our capability, in countries that arent exactly democratic. My concern the very existence of this kind of capability chills in some way, i cant see how there can be investigative reporting of this community, when the identity the metadata and the communication between every journalist, every source is known to the executive branch. Especially one that has pen prosecuting twice as many sources as any president before. Moreover, my even larger concern is i dont see how democracy can survive when one branch, the executive branch, has all the personal communications of every member of congress, and every judge, every member of the judiciary, as well as the press, the Fourth Estate that ive just been describing. I dont see how the blackmail capability thats involved there can be will not be abused as it has happened in the past, including to me, by the way, and to other and to journalists. I think without that freedom to investigative bring checks and balances we wont have a real democracy. Thats my concern. Brown lets let mr. Mukasey respond. That is an hysterically inaccurately portrayal of what is available to the government. What is available are two kinds of information. One is socalled metadata which is a pile of numbers, numbers called and times. They are not associated with particular people and the only purpose of having that is to have a database against which to check suspicious numbers from abroad that are documented to belong to suspected terrorists under the supervision of a court. And to query that database. That database consists of millions and millions of numbers, thats all. And it in 2012 it was queried 300 times by the 15 people who are authorized to query it. That is a microscopic amount of use. Although an important amount of use. So far as surveillance conducted abroad, our friends spy on us, and we spy on them. That is an open secret. And has been for years. And i seriously doubt that any of them would be either surprised or actually disturbed to hear it. And to say that the russians and the chinese would like to have access to these techniques is to prove my point. The russians and the chinese now do have access to them thanks to them having access to mr. Snowdens computer whether he libraries it or not because he likes it or not because he was in china. The chinese were perfectly capable of taking what was in his computers and the russians as well. So mr. Ellsberg, what description would you of mr. Snowden, a whistle blower or a criminal or what . Certainly he is a whistle blower by any reasonable standards. If im a whistle blower he is a whistle blower. Im glad there is a dispute about that because in my day that was not an honorristic term, it was like trait. There is no question that he is and im confident that he is not a traitor. Any more than i am and im not or mr. Mukasey. By the way when mr. Mukasey says that the russians now have access to what he has, i believe actually, what mr. Snoant, Edward Snowden has told as of today, former senator gordon humphrey, he assured them that the people are wrong, he used to teach Computer Security to dia and he was confident that even our own nsa was not capable of getting the secrets. I think its mistaken to say that it was intentionally or inadvertently given that away. But in terms of the question of why were spying on our friends i dont think were spying on the chinese in order to find muslim terrorists may i suggest. I think that what has been revealed about the degree of listening in were doing to the rest of the world is that thats hardly a major purpose in spying on france, or germany or elsewhere, any more than it is here. The benefit to the government, the executive branch, its not a benefit to us as a public. A finding out, in the case of the chinese trade negotiations but any kind of negotiations they want, any kind of dissent, i want to say very specifically what doesnt seem to have come out. Russell tise has stated as have any other nsa whistle blower, william ben yir, curtis drake, william webe, that this is the tip of the iceberg, nsa is collecting and storing all the content of all these communications. Let me say metadata is absolutely mistaken. Brown let me let Michael Mukasey to. How do you characterize the u. S. Efforts to get him back . I guess i join with mr. Ellsberg in saying i fess hes not a traitor, he hasnt committed treason. He has violated two or three section of the espionage act. He should be sent back. Pardon me brown hold on mr. Ellsberg. Im really disturbed hearing a former attorney general describe mr. Snowden as a criminal. Hes an accused person. Come on, he is an admitted criminal. He admitted that he stole forecast and violated brown mr. Mukasey. Youre up. Am i a criminal was i a traitor . Mr. Ellsberg hold on a minute, let mr. Mukasey respond. Nobody says you were a traitor, mr. Ellsberg, nobody responsible said it then, nobody says it there. But. Brown mr. Ellsberg please i have to insist that you let him respond. The fact that you admitted it doesnt make it not a crime. And you did it in a very responsible way. I will say that. The stuff that you stole was of negligible importance because the most recent stuff that you stole was no more recent than three years old and you preceded what your disclosures by offering it to two senators. Both of whom turned you down because they didnt want to be the people to disclose it. George mcgovern and william fulbright, both refused to take that stuff and disclose it. You disclosed it instead to the new york times. Brown mr. Ellsberg just in our last minute please come back to the snowden case. What would you like to see happen now . Ill tell you exactly. I would like to see russell tice, william benny, thomas drake and curt webe testify before congress under oath testify that these programs are unconstitutional and criminal, they have asked to testify and have been ignored by congress. That is exactly the debate that edward snoanld wante snowdend to have. That is the conversation that should take place in congress, not being involving the pfizer court, the thousands and thousands of acceptance, its clearly a rubberstamp court we need to change that. Brown and very briefly mr. Mukasey what would you like to see happen . Id like to see happen what happens in the other criminal cares, to have mr. Snowden sent back here and have him stand trial. As far as congressional hearings all this material was gathered pursuant to statutes, at the direction of the executive so all three branches of the government were involved in it. Brown Michael Mukasey and daniel ellsberg, thank you all ve. Very much. Ifill if you wonder what happened to others charged with espionage over the years, our website profiles 11 other notorious leakers. And still to come on the newshour good news on dementia; pushing for a living wage; seizing farmland in myanmar and friends turned foes in wyoming. But first, with the other news of the day. Heres kwame holman. Holman House Republicans moved today to delay key provisions in president obamas health care overhaul. It was the 38th time theyve voted to repeal or scale back the law. The latest bills would postpone the laws mandates for individual and employerbased coverage. The Obama Administration already has delayed the mandate for larger businesses. The Federal Reserves timetable for dialing down its economic stimulus efforts remains flexible. Federal reserve chairman ben bernanke underscored that today. He said he still thinks the central bank could start reducing its buying of government bonds this year. Bernanke told a House Committee it depends on job creation, and is not preset. If the data are stronger than we expect. Well move more quickly at the same time maintaining the accommodation through rate policy. If the data are less strong, if they dont meet expectations we have about where the economy is going, then we would delay that process or even potentially increase purchases for a time. Holman on wall street, stocks took bernankes testimony mostly in stride. The Dow Jones Industrial average gained more than 18 points to close at 15,470. The nasdaq rose 11 points to close at 3,610. The cleveland man accused of holding three women captive for more than a decade pleaded not guilty today to hundreds of charges. Ariel castro faces 977 counts, ranging from aggravated murder, involving a terminated pregnancy, and rape, to kidnapping and assault. Castro is in jail on an 8 million bond. His trial is scheduled to begin august 5. Alqaedas branch in yemen has announced the death of its secondincommand, saeed al shehri. The group said today that al shehri seen here in 2011 died of injuries from a u. S. Drone strike in november. He was hit while speaking on his cell phone. Alshehri spent six years as a u. S. Prisoner at guantanamo bay, cuba. He was returned to saudi arabia in 2007 and fled to yemen. A prominent commander of the Pakistani Taliban voiced regret today for the shooting of malala yousafzai. The teenage advocate of educating girls was wounded in october. She has since recovered. Now, in a letter to the 16year old, Adnan Rasheed calls the attack shocking and says he wished it had not happened. But, he stopped short of apologizing. Officials in eastern india now say at least 22 children died tuesday, after eating a Free School Lunch contaminated with insecticide. Parents rushed to a nearby hospital with children whod consumed the meal of rice, lentils, soybeans and potatoes. Later, villagers vented their anger, toppling kiosks and smashing police buses. A state official said the grain may not have been properly washed. Queen elizabeth formally approved gay marriage in britain today. That made it official, a day after parliament voted to legalize samesex unions. The new law allows gay couples to be married in both civil and religious ceremonies. The church of england will not take part. Those are some of the days major stories. Now, back to gwen. Ifill new Research Suggests there may be some good news in the struggle against dementia. Two recently released studies show severe memory loss declining among healthier and better educated populations. In england and in wales, dementia rates over the last two decades have dropped by 25 among those 65 and older. And in denmark, the percentage of elderly whose cognitive abilities were severely impaired also dropped between 1998 and 2010. In the united states, about five Million People have alzheimers disease, but that number is expected to rise sharply as baby boomers age. For more, were joined by dr. Murali doraiswamy, director of the Neurocognitive Disorders program at the Duke University school of medicine. Thank you for joining us. Very much, great pleasure to be on. What are the most helpful signs you see in these new studies . Well, this is terrific news. The socalled silver tsunami that weve all been scared of has just been grade down graded from grade 5 to grade 4. The key thing to know is were not out of the woods but successive generations or even slightly i dont thinker cohort separated by as little as ten years pawrt may not have the same risk. So in other words our children or our grandchildren may not have the same risk for alzheimers that we do. The second thing that these studies are pointing out is if the risk for alzheimers is going down for successive generations then that is good news because it indicates that it is likely to be due to environmental or lifestyle effects. Many of the Public Health interventions that have been put into place since the 1970s, encouraging americans and people all over the world to exercise more, cutting down on smoking the disappearance of the marlboro man if you will, better education i think all of these things might be having an