Transcripts For ALJAZAM Consider This 20140117

Military Officials Say it happened last night at hunter air feemd in savanna. The victims belonged to an elite aviation unit. President obama will present his plans for the National Security agency tomorrow. Today british media reported that the nsa has been collecting up to 200 million Text Messages a day. They are saved and used to collect data. Those are the headlines. Im john siegenthaler. Ill see you back here another 11 00 eastern, 8 00 pacific time. Consider this with antonio mora is up next. Ill see you later. Horrifying pictures emerge of marines apparently burning bodies of iraqi insurgents. Was it a war crime . Also the First American journalist to be banned from russia in more than three decades joins us. Plus could terrorists disrupt gps, and how damaging would that be . And was the biggest oscar snub diversity . Hello, im antonio mora. Welcome to consider this. Here is more on what is ahead. The marine corps is launching an invest take the tabloid obtained 41 photos these photos were taken in 2004 in fallujah. And nsa collecting 200 million texts a day. This is the first time than an accredited american correspondent has been expelled from the country. The Oscar Nominations are out among some of the biggest snubs are tom hanks and Oprah Winfrey. We begin with some disturbing pictures said to show american troops in iraq burning iraqi insurgent bodies. That could end up being a war crime. Even though we blurred the pictures, i need to warn you they are graphic and difficult to look at. It says all of the pictures have been sent to the pentagon, where a spokesman released this statement. For more, im joined from miami from the corn from served in afghanistan in 2005 and 2006. And Brandon Freeman who is also the author of the war i always wanted the inlugs of glory and the reality of war. Colonel what is your response to these pictures . These pictures reminded me of my time in afghanistan as the senior judge advocate for lawyer for forces. One of my many duties was to look at and investigation allegations of wrongdoing or war crimes by u. S. Or foreign forces. You had to invest gait somewhat similar situations . In one case in particular it was in fact a situation involving the burning of taliban bodies. Brandon you were a platoon leader in iraq and afghanistan, what did you think when you saw these shots . This obviously its not something you want to see. My first reaction was we need to get to the bottom of it, and see if indeed war crimes were being committed. Without a lot of context around those photos, its hard to know the exact circumstances, but they certainly dont look good. Mutilating or mistreating the dead violates the codes of war according to several areas, are our troops warned this is something they should not do . Yes, they are. You have to look at the e various field manuals or handbook of operations those are basically interpretations and serve as guidance for our troops, but are not the source of law per se. Brandon we all recall those disgusting photos of the abuse of the iraqi prisoners. What do you think the iraqis will say about these photos . Its hard to say. What these photos really show is how important leadership and discipline is, and why you have to instill that. And that was something we tried to do while we were there, but, you know, as you can imagine its very difficult under those sorts of circumstances, but as far as iraqis, well just have to see. I think on one hand they have got a lot of other issues to worry about right now, and im not sure how much impact this is going to have in iraq with Everything Else going on there. I know there is no statute of limitations for these kinds of crimes, but if it triggers a court case could the marines involved be tried even if they are noening loer serving . This first let me clarify with regard to the statute of limitations both the uniform code of military justice as well as federal penal code provide for five years of statute of limitations. There is a treaty that would eliminate war crimes from that statute of limitations. I dont believe the United States is part of that treaty, however. With regards to personal jurisdiction, and lets address that one first, if we dont know once they identify who these people are who were in the pictures, if they are still on active duty, and its possible, then the uniformed code of military justice would have personal jurisdiction over the individuals, or if these individuals spent at least 20 years and retired and are receiving retired pay, they would also be subject. Also wise they would not be subject and then we would have to look to federal penal law as the potential forum in which to investigation and possibly prosecute. But you believe the statute of limitations has expired there . In the federal courts its the same. Its generally, as a general rule, five years, the congress has expanded well, unless it is a capitol offense, and this would not be one of those offenses. But crimes against children and fraud against banks, and things like that. Congress has specifically extended the five years to other longer periods of time, eight, ten years, something along those lines, but i dont believe this would be one of those crimes. Now brandon in 2012 there was an incident where a videotape surfaced showing four marines urinating on the bodies of dead afghan fighters. One marine could be heard saying have a good day, buddy. They were punished but not very severely. Three troopers were also punished, and one of the sergeants said he had no regret that he would even do it again as an act of revenge of the americans killed in afghanistan. This battle in fallujah was the worst since the vietnam war. Is that what these pictures show the anger over the deaths of their fellow fighters . Well, they could. I dont really know exactly what the pictures show. But its very difficult when you are in in very intense combat. Its very easy to get your emotions get the best of you, and thats what leadership and discipline is so important. And thats why we teach it and it is taught in training for years, because when you get in those situations that training has to carry you through, and you cannot let your emotions get the best of you, and unfortunately what you see in combat a lot is that that you know, after a while, peoples emotions do start to get the best of them, and they get angry, and you start to see stuff like this happen, but, you know, ultimately, this is what war is all about. You can instill leadership, and you can discipline your soldiers, but ultimately what i think americans see quite a bit is a very sanitized version of war. And what we see ever once in a while when photos like thisment come out is that war is a very ugly thing. And we have to very a careful about when we send people to war, because once you open that pandoras box, a lot of ugly things start to happen. We can do everything we can as leaders to try to prevent that from happening on the battlefield, but at the end of the day, war is war, and this kind of thing can happen. It doesnt execution it, but it is a reality of war. Cornyn and mr. Friedman, i appreciate you joining us. Thanks for having us. Now to an margin correspondent who has been barred from russia. He had been working in moscow before he was banned from entering russia for five years. Russian officials said he committed quote, multiple violations of immigration law, and had ruled his presence on russian soil as undesirable. For more im joined by david satter. David great to have you with us. Would you please just walk us through exactly what happened here . I called the Russian Embassy in keiv, and i was told by the diplomat that i spoke to, that he had a statement to read to me. And he read that statement it was that the competent organs had decided that my presence on the territory of the Russian Federation was undesirable and i was banned from entering russian. The phrase competent organs is used to refer to the security police. But in all of the years that i have been writing and and traveling to russia, i dont recall a single instance where that formula was used to justify the expulsion of a writer or journalist. Thats a formula that is usually used in espionage cases. And that indicates that for whatever reason that the russian authorities considered that i represented a threat. Lets go through what has been happening in russia recently. Vladimir putin has been on this Charm Offensive recently in anticipation of the sochi olympics. He announced amnesty that freed two members of the pussy riot punk group, and an old enemy who had spent ten years in prison was released. Given what putin has been doing, were you surprised they went after you . Yes, i was, because the timing is not very convene yen for them. After all as you point out they were trying to improve their image, and then they do something which actually damages it. The only thing i can surmise is that for whatever reasons they considered getting rid of me to be a very high priority. Is there anything in your work with Radio Liberty that might have been threatening or disturbing to the russian authorities . I was only there for three months, but they are very familiar with me, because i have been writing about russia for years for decades actually. And they read attentively what i write. And my books have been n fact, just recently one of my books entitled darkness at dawn, the rise of the russian criminal state was reissued in russian under a somewhat different title. How putin became president. And in that book i talk about the 1999 apartment bombings which took place in moscow and a couple of other russian cities. Those bombings created the atmosphere of mass hysteria which made it possible to justify a second war, and that made it possible for putin who had been previously unknown to the problem is theres evidence that those bombings are not carried out by terrorists, but rather by the Security Forces themselves in order to create exactly that atmosphere that was necessary for the group in power. And that book became a best seller last year in russia, so do you think this is personal that you angered putin and ts why they came after you . Yes, of course it was personal. What about what robert herman, the Vice President for regional programs of Freedom House said, he said, quote. Do you think that barring you from the country is the beginning of an effort to intimidate western journalists . There are very few western journalists who are doing that. Most of the reporting thatment calls out of russia is fairly superficial, and the it is true that western journalists refer to the corruption there, and they give a portrait of the country that is not flattering, but thats unavoidable given the theres not very much deep thought or deep deep reporting from russia, and as a result, the number of people who are actually engaged in this something that that the authorities would find threing is relatively small. Should the u. S. Take action to push for the russians to allow your return, conceivably taking action against a russian journalist in the u. S. . Well, that would be one possibility. I mean they certainly should do it. Its very important that they do it for the simple reason that this action taken against me is intended to intimidate everyone, and it will have that effect. Journalists cant operate freely, and pursue stories where they lead if they feel the consequences could be the destruction of their careers, and as a result, if the u. S. Feels its important to have reliable information about russia, realistic information, then it should be a relatively high priority for the u. S. To make to to take those measures that will impress on on the russians that the action that they took against me, for example, is unacceptable, and and has to be reversed. And i know you keep you plan on continuing to write about russia. David satter, best of luck and thank you for joining us tonight. Thank you. Coming up the nsa targeting hundreds of millions of Text Messages around the world every day, pulling in all sorts of personal details, including contacts and credit card information. Who is in the cross hairs and why . And what would happen if terrorists targeted our gps system. Brad taylor will weigh in. And our snowstorm producer, Hermela Aregawi is back and web. What is trending . A new Sports Equipment may change the way athletes practice, but does this give those with money an unfair advantage . Ill tell you more coming up. And what do you think . Join the conversation on facebook, twitter and google plus pages. New revelations that the National Security agency collects almost 200 million Text Messages ever day from across the globe. Using them to gather even credit card and financal information. This latest news is based on leaks from Edward Snowden and it comes as president obama is poised to address recommendations to curb the power of the nsa. Im joined by special projects editor at the guardian u. S. , and the author of this new story. James great to have you back. First of all i want to ask you a question about timing. President obama set to announce these recommendations on how to curb the nsa. Tomorrow critics are already saying he is not going to go far enough. Is there connection between these two things . Well, we have worked with other uk media on this, and we publish those when they are ready and after a long consultation with the nsa. But this story serves as a reminder of the approach, hold and storing billions of Text Messages. Lets talk about what this is all about. Its a program called dish fire that then goes out and collects all of these 200 million Text Messages ever single day and gathering all sorts of information about the people that are texting. Who are the targets and what is it being used for . Well, it actually saves untargeted collection. Theres a document that says they collect pretty much everything they can, so they are pulling in this sort of huge volume of international Text Messages to kind of see the needles in the haystack, and if someone turns out to be a suspect today, they could read their texts from two or three years ago, but they also do this clever automated analysis, so if you get a missed call text, it pulls up the phone number from it. If someone texts their business card, it saves all of the information. And your article includes graphics that the nsa used in some presentation that they had. You have this dish fire that collects all of the information, and then they have a separate program called prefer that analyzes the guts of the messages. Exactly. Anything thatment calls from say your travel company to say your plane is late, or your network if you say hey, you are out of state or country, and this is what it costs you, they can save all of that automatically so they are using these texts to build up this huge amount of information its so massive that you sort of wonder how they can use it in any sort of positive way. I think thats one of the good questions. The nsa has really struggled to show even a single plot that has been stopped by the metadata collection. If this stuff was really amazingly useful then maybe the conversation would be a bit different. But as it is, they can rarely prove a good case for having it. What does this mean for americans . This looks as if dish fire, they say they try to strip out american numbers, but even in the nsa spokes woman said they cant guarantee there is not uscollected information in this there. And there is the u. S. Standing with his friends, and if it is pulling in hundreds of texts in europe or south america or all of the people who have been getting upset about this stuff and many of those people are not targets, its just throw out the net and whatever comes in this comes in. Exactly. And thats one of the main recommendations of obamas review panel is saying shouldnt the u. S. Government give some attention to the privacy rights of people overseas or otherwises other countries might stop paying attention to u. S. Privacy rights. I want to talk about what the nsa told you, they said. Now you are reporting seems to indicate that is not 100 true. It gets quite difficult to reconcile documents saying it is untargeted in its 200 million texts aday against this diskrip shun. They might be meaning when they actually search the database that only do it for a good reason. But we did try to ask them, well, are you saying that this collection, you know, this untargeted collection, how does that square with what you are we tried to get more answers from them, and they just didnt respond to that. So it is quite difficult to see how this sort of targeting they explain reconciles with what they do. Why should americans do if this is really targeted and gn n in aening longshot situation stop some terrorism . I think its the precedence being set. If we say its okay to spy on millions of innocent people in our allied countries, countries like germany and the uk, then your allies are going to start having the same attitude towards the u. S. And also america has this huge role in policing the internet, and if america isnt trusted to do that, someone else will take over. Now that you have been involved if, arent you concerned that we have let out too much information of the sources of our Intelligence Community . Im not. I think everyone concerned and the guardian is one of dozens who have reported on this, we talk to people at the nsa, and people at the white house to make sure we are not putting out any specific names. We dont report everything we see. We dont report because it is interesting or funny. We report the stuff that actually raises concerns either about mass surveillance of ordinary americans or mass surveillance on innocent people elsewhere this the world. We really dont let anything out about here is the method they are using to track this dangerous terrorist suspect. I think everywhere so far has been doing a pretty good job with that. As usual great to have you with us, thanks for joining us. Thank you. Jim farley Vice President of Ford Motor Company has fallen into the cross hairs of senator company uses gps to track the whereabouts of owners. Gps has become absolutely critical to our modern societies. And in a new book called the polaris protocol, brad taylor shows what could happen if that technology isment compromised. He joins us now from texas. He served in the army for more than 20 years. His book is in bookstores now. Brad great to have you back on the show. Thank you. In this book you have the u. S. Facing a cyber terrorist attack that involves our gps system. How vulnerable are we . I was allowed on to the [ inaudible ] air force base, and that is one of the most secure areas i have ever been into. I have worked in some secure areas, and that place is super secure, so i would say there is no way for a terrorist system or state system to attack it. And i made a Computer Technology who doesnt like the drone strikes, and he and he and i thought thats artistic license. Theres no way that could happen. And two days after hit the end, snowden hit the news. So it could happen. Its possible. Now how bad would it be for us if approximate the gps system was compromiseded. The system has been in place since the mid90s. We need it for all sorts of things. We would be able to cope without it . Would recover eventually. But most people look at the gps, like i have done munitions with them, where is my fedex package that kind of stuff, its a positioning system. The timing signal has got to be super, super precise, and now anything that needs a system like that uses the gps in space. Your cell phone splits up to three to four people in frequency, and those are timed by the gps. When you run your credit card at the gas pump, the gps is controlling it. And nobody really knows how far need a license to use it. If you want to use gps, you can use it for free. You have airplanes that could conceivably crash if something were jammeded. Yes. You talk about the military applications. Drones that are so important right now in the fight against terrorism. That could be disrupted . Oh, yeah, anything you would have to have a pretty catastrophic fault. They have norm us backups, and the guys that run it are really professional about how they do it. But they do get glitches. Things happen. Things occur. And we have built redundancies in the system, for the airfields out there, they still are supposed to be operating with the backup Old Fashioned system. And there are shortrange issues too, because there are machines that could jam gps devices in a small area, and north korea used them against south korea in some of their airports, and off the coast were fishing boats and others too. Is there a danger . There is. But the first threat i look looked at backly was the use of our drones. But you could do it localized, you could effect an individual drone, but its very hard to wipe out the ability of our drone when the drone when it loses link it goes into a glide path and keeps going straight. And as soon as it busts back into a signal, it picks it up and goes back to where it needs to go. Your book centers about a Counter Terrorism book. Were seeing this more and more in fiction. Do these groups actually exist . Are will special forces groups that exist outside of official channels. No, absolutely not. Are you sure . The primary reason i made that was precisely because i didnt want anybody to think about real units i worked in. I have seen the tippy top of top secrets, and they dont exist. Now having said that, you know, i used what i knew. Theres tension between the cis and other organizations. Here is why i built this fake unit, but we dont have anything like it no matter what some of the people report. Is the role of special forces getting more important . We saw special forces going into somalia, and we saw howe sxeshl forces were involved in if getti getting Osama Bin Laden in pakistan. It is based on the terrorist threat. The cold war you were looking for bat italians coming in to the gap, so the social forces guys could try to identify the bat italian. One thing that really struck me is u. S. Special forces may be deemployed in more than 100 countries around the world. Yeah. What kind of operations do they engage in . And are they there permanently . The truth of the matter is special forces the umbrella they all have their own Mission Component of what they do. Most of it is not sexy. People like to hear about like the hit in tripoli, but most of what they do is trying to get their human rights, and get them on track for what looks right for that battalion. Thank you, its good to have you back on the show. Thanks. A programming note, journalist Glen Greenwald will discuss nsa spying when he joins the stream on friday. Now lets check back in with hermela. New Sports Equipment may change the way athletes practice. There are sensors in them that will sense things like the arc things to your smartphone for instant analysis. The company says its a cheaper alternative to a private coach, but some argue its another way to give those with money an unfair advantage. You can read more at the website, aljazeera. Com. Antonio back to you. Thanks hermela, and straight ahead a new documentary asks if tourism is saving or destroying the natural wonders of the world. And 12 years a slave is bringing up painful questions about diversity. Is tourism destroying the planet or saving it . A new documentary asks that question as it follows intrepid travellers roughing it in their quest for authentic experiences. For more, were joined by the director, peggy vails. Peggy great to have you with us. Possibly the most shocking example that you show in this movie is of a beach in thailand and you have the man who discovered that beach in the film. Lets listen to what he has to say. Its an incredible beach, unspoiled that nobody new about. Whatever you do dont tell people. We all come to party. The beach that i had been at with thousands and thousands of people. It was staggering. [ cheers ] after three of four days you start really seeing the effect. Just look at those pictures. He said he told people, dont tell people, as we heard him saying, but then it got out. And now this. What has it done to the environment . Yeah, its really we wanted to show this as a cautionary tail as really the worst way that tourism can go if left without devices. But we showed from 1979 [ inaudible ] and we show his story from 1979, but then every decade we have footage to show the changes over time. And we wanted to show the steps along the process. So now the Environmental Impact is very clear. They have four parties a month. And full moon parties. Half moon. Quarter moon it just trashes the beach when the tide comes in the morning. So trash that is being put into hills and buried up in the island. So think of it happening so many times per month. This was an extreme because it was new year and 50,000 people. But you see Different Levels of it throughout the world. You are talking about people from all over the world who are looking for these authentic experiences andco tourism, and a lot of it is backpackers looking for adventure. Actually we look at the backpackers are the first to find these places. Yes, you have the backpackers that open the door with the keys to the kingdom i guess so to speak. [ laughter ] and then many people follow through the stories. Right. And it all starts with this man in bolivia. He got lost. He had a horrible ordeal, and incredibly it actually brought more people to the jungle who wanted to replicate this adventure this man had. And started bringing people to areas that arent used to having any people. Yeah, its interesting, is why . Right . And there is an israeli travelers in our feature and she says i just want to have a little touch of what is in the book. Im not sure they really want to get into survival push to shove but there was a swedish traveler who was like i got to get into the jungle. It also impacts people, people who had not been exposed modern society in the ways in new york city or other places are. Uhhuh. Well, i think some of the more like with the more extreme examples of the partier type travelers, and certainly thats the minority, and there are other places like in lous, and you might have drugs introduced on a larger scale that wasnt part of the culture. Changing places in all sorts of different ways. Yeah, and people have told that to us, communities grappling with some of those issues. But can it be managed properly . Because obviously people want to see the world. And this does help some economies. I think it can help. I think for communities that have are lower economies maybe need to have outside resources. If they have a vision for how they want it in their own community, maybe they can get everybody at the table so to speak, even governments possibly regulating on some places, so i think its definitely one example in our film is an eco lodge [overlapping speakers] yeah, you just have to be careful not to love these places to death. Exactly. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much. The pizza pie is bigger than ever in america, but where is it growing overseas . And then the oscars. Todays data dive picks up a piece of the pizza business. Eastern europe is the Fastest Growing place for pizza, but people in western europe spend more on the pies than anywhere else, about 8 billion more than the u. S. And canada together. Thats according to pizza magazine. And were not kidding there is a pizza magazine. In the u. S. Geography plays a big choice in your brand. You can see the dominance of pizza hut in the dark red, and dominos in the bark blue. Still pizza hut is dominant as number one. Dominos comes in second. Theyment combine for nearly 25 of american sales last year. No wonder plenty of other Companies Want in. There is an approve the exbox 360 that has generated a Million Dollars for peizza pizz. The chain says a third of all its a sales are done digitally. Chipotle is even getting into the game starting with an offshoot which simulates a spring day in naples, italy and keeps the temperatre at 72 degrees. The company just think its not a huge jump from quesadillas to pizzas. Coming up nopra . Presents bad grandpa is an oscar nominated film, and the butler wasnt. The nominations were surprising in several ways. Bill wyman joining us, and were joined by ben mankiewicz, the host of the online movie review show what the flick. Bill lets start with the biggest snubs, which one surprised you most . Its funny. I question the whole premise of snubs sometimes, because the people who got nominated they dont think they were snubbed. But saving mr. Banks that has to be a disappointment for disney. And he also didnt get nominated for captain phillips. The coen brothers are big, but oscar didnt come through for them this time. What about you bill . I tend to agree with him with the term. Two or three weeks ago if you looked at offshore gambling accounts to see who the best actor was it was [ inaudible ] and robert redford. But its an amazing year for actors. There were easily 12 guys eligible. And Oprah Winfrey surprised me too. What about oprah . Oprah doesnt get to win everything. She didnt get the nobel prize this year either. [ laughter ] lets go to some of the positives what nominations were you glad to see . The what i like is a horse race. And you have gravity, American Hustle, and 12 years a slave. I tend to favor gravity and 12 years a slave i think they have a substance that American Hustle lacks. But the acting in American Hustle, the technical brilliance of gravity, and the sober subject matter of 12 years a slave each were very good. I hope you werent putting your money on red ford . No, but bruce [ inaudible ] is 40 to 1. And i think Matthew Mcconaughey is one to watch in that race. It will never surprise me if they nominate the old guy that everybody likes. And he is out hustling and selling this movie. I think the biggest snub, and i just want to say because i think its worth mentioning it. The academy has expanded to ten nominations in a year that bill and i agree that there were so many really good movies, its crazy they didnt get to ten. Yeah, its a complicated formula, and i guess in the last couple of years it has also been nine. Bill, there has never been a best picture oscar winner that did not have a white director. Gravity, though, has a mexican director, and 12 years a slave has a black director from england, steve mcqueen. That could make history, why such a bad year on diversity . Yeah, absolutely. It goes to the people call race. Amongst management all across life. There are not many black directors in the first place. But the academy is really evolving over the past 10 or 15 years, you have seen a danish director, and one last year, there is a lot more diversity. One thing that is interesting its almost troubling and there have been a lot of black nominees in the acting categories over the past ten or 15 years, but there are four major black nominees, and none of them are actually african american. They are british, sa somalian and kenyan. And yeah there were a bunch of good move i haves that had racial issues. A bunch of these important movies, but the only one that was nominated for best picture was 12 years a slave. Everyone is leafing 42 out of that nomination. And i think it should be. But i think 12 years a slave deserved a nomination. And if you are going to have that list that i mentioned that you get to 12 men who gave oscarwinning nominations, i would include him and forest whitaker. But i liked the butler better than mandela, but i think the academy looked at that and thought it wasnt quite an oscarworthy movie. And i think thats an reasonable argument to make. And just very quickly a remember before granted there is yet to be a movie that won best picture that didnt have a white director. Ang lee who has also won best director right. But its science fiction. Bill, box office what influence does that have . I think this is what they are talking about at the academy tonight. They expanded the rating to ten, and they wanted some bigbudget movies. The average take was very low, 65 million. Gravity which was an unexpected hit wasnt in there, it would have been a lot lower than that. In the last few years you have seen the lowest grossing best pictures of all tomb. If 12 years a slave wins thats going to be another one. Were having this debate in a movie like 12 years a slave an extraordinary movie. And were still complaining that this little movie that made 16 million fruitville station didnt get nominated for best picture, when ten years ago it would have been unthinkable that 12 years a slave would have been in contention. It will be interesting. The show may be over, but the conversation continues on our website, aljazeera. Com, or on our facebook or google plus pages. You can always find us on twitter. Well see you next time