Hagel hopes Russia does right thing, turns Snowden over to US

U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said here Wednesday that he hopes Russia does the "right thing" and turns NSA leaker Edward Snowden over to the United States. Hagel told reporters in a Pentagon briefing that Snowden "has broken laws and as far as I know, the decision of the Russian government, at least a final decision hasn't been made yet." As to the damage done, Hagel affirmed that "there was damage done to this country by the Snowden leaks. And we are assessing that now." "Make no mistake, this violation of our laws was a serious security breach in our national security apparatus," he stressed. Hagel added that in the Snowden case "when you've got an individual who is willing to break the law as he did, then he broke the law. And I don't know how you can ever completely, 100 percent guard against someone who wants to break the law and violate the statutes and the interests of our nation." He added "we are constantly having to upgrade our systems and evaluate and assess, and we do that on an ongoing basis." For his part, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Martin Dempsey reiterated that there was damage but that the extent of the damage "will be determined." "If our adversaries are witting and know the way in which we try to gain information about them, then clearly, they will seek to change their tactics. And we'll be in a position of trying to adjust our tactics as well," he said.