Ahead. Ill tell jones agencies cannot function without secrecy which makes their work less public to less subject to public debate. We cannot unilaterally disarm intelligence agencies. There is from the judges perspective, she has to look out for the people who were not able to participate in negotiations. Talking about as many as 20,000 plaintiffs. The were the first generation probably in the history of the world that had the opportunity to do what we wanted to do. We begin with the longawaited recommends from president obama on reforming the spying powers of the ntsa. While defendingwide widespread surveillance, the president announced he was edging the collection of phone data as it exists today and vowed to stop eavesdropping on friendly allies. This will strengthen oversight of our intelligence activities. It will insure we take into account security requirements but also alliances, trade and investment relationships, including the concerns of american companies. And our commitment to privacy and basic liberties. But critics of the Data Collection including Kentucky Center say these recommendations will have little effect on how the nsa work and dodge the bigger issues at stake. He told me he is going to continue to collect all of my private records without a warrant. I dont want them collecting the information. It is not about who holds it. Im joined from washington, d. C. By former cia Deputy Director john mclaughlin. He is a 30 veteran of the Central Intelligence agency. He served as Deputy Director and acting director of the cia. Great to have you with us, john. First lets get your reaction to the president s speech. You have staunchly defended the nsa and the program. You were at the cia when it began after the 9 11 attacks. What do you think about what the president said . I think he did a good job of laying out the role of intelligence and the way it operates in our National Security system. And i think he also did a good job of defending the nsa in making clear that other countries have intelligence programs like this. Now, when he comes to the actual recommendations that he made, i think the phrases that came to mind for me are the devil is really in the details here. And also, wait and see. Because when you look at the mehta data program which has been the most controversial, what i heard him say was we are going to transition this to a different system in which that data will be held by someone other than the u. S. Government. Complicated. It is not simple. If you put it in the hands of the phone companies, they all have different systems for collecting the data. If you put it in the hands of someone else im not sure who that will be. I cant think off the top of my head of another group are entity that would be safer and more assuring of privacy than the nsa itself. Which is very careful how it uses this data. The president to go down the recommendations, he suggested the following. That there be judicial approval to dip into records and as you said to store the phone meta data outside the government. He wants to add advocates to add an independent voice and signature cases. And as we mentioned, some friendliry leaf for allies. From our spying. But, focusing on the meta data, is this really, again a big deal . The reality is at t would keep the records for 5 to seven years. Different phone companies all had different time frames within which they kept the data. So if the government can access it from the phone companies or from this Third Party Storage facility, in the end does it really make any difference for americans . Well, i think it does in this sense. You put it in this system which adds time or process to the period when nsa has to react to a lead ordeal with a crisis, you are increasing the risk that we will miss something or not handle it aappropriately. And that is one risk. Another risk is simply that i dont know how secure another entity or the phone companies would be when it comes to protecting data like that. I have an unlisted number but i get 12 robo calls a day. We had the problems with target being hacked. Nsa has a whole effort that is designed to prevent someone from penetrating their system. So having it kept by nsa is about the most secure way that you can secure the data. Well talking about the quickness with which the nsa an access information. You were there during 9 11. And the president mentioned in his speech that there was one phone call from one of the 9 11 hijackers that if the cia had access to where to figure out that that guy was in the united states, it could have made a difference. Is that yeah, there is a critical phone number in yemen. And we knew that bad guy was talking on the phone number had made a phone call to the number. But we didnt know where it came from because we had no authority to bounce that phone number off a data bank of phone numbers in the united states. In fact, he was in the united states. Had we been able to use a program like this, i suspect we would have been able to map to some degree the network of supporters and contacts that the hijackers had in the united states. So also, i think the president is thinkling not so much about the past as about the future. I mean, al qaeda is in some ways becoming more robust, it is rejuvenating. It has a larger area for safe haven and operational planning that it has had in a decade. Im sure the president president is mindful of the fact that the threat has not only gone away. It may in the out years be just as severe as it was in the pre9 11 period. I dont think he wants to give up any real tools here that can help us combat that. How badly have all these leaks hurt our National Security . The president seemed to say. He said at one point. He said thata as these disclosures have come out. They have shed more heat than light. And while revealing methods to our adversaries that could impact our operations in ways that we night not fully understand for years to come yesterday we had one of the guardian reporters involved in publicizing the leak that they havent let out any sources and methods. Whats the truth . To me the truth is this. We are already the most transparent country in the world when it comes to intelligence methods. We have all sorts of public statements including an annual statement by the director of National Intelligence that lays out conception of the threats. No other country does that. These leaks have been damaging. Most of them, in fact, all of them have been leaks that have not exposed abuse or illegality. I any president. This out. Most have detailed methods that are kind of fascinating to the average person or to the readers of the up ins and so forth. In that sense. The president says we wont know the damage for years. When it means is adversaries will study this. They will go to school on it. We dont know yet what they will conclude about how to secure their communications and avoid our scrutiny and our attempts to penetrate plots particularly by terrorists but also by others who mean ill to us. So, you know, we used the word transparency a lot. But in order for intelligence to be intelligence. On the one hand, it has to have public support and there is a certain amount of transparency required. But there is a certain amount of secrecy required. And other countries in the world arent doing the things we are doing now to put their systems out there. Interestingly, critics have gone after the president for the left and the right. How is the Intelligence Community going to react . In fact, he did not take many of the or most of the recommendations that he received from the panel he named to study this. Le with, look, the Intelligence Community is pretty accustomed to being examined and investigated. They do it to themselves. That is part of our robust system here of oversight. They willing take this all in stride. And they will do their best to respond what they are asked to do. Many of them may say it is going to make your job a little harder. Will add process here. But i think their attitude may be like the response i had to the speech. Which was interesting. Devils in the details. Lets wait and see. We will wait and see Joan Mclaughlin thank you for joining us to discuss this important topic. You bet. Thank you. For a different perspective im joined by daniel elseburg ellsberg, who Just Announced snowden as a new board member. He is the famed whistleblower who leaked to reporters the top secret documents dubbed the pentagon papers outlining the u. S. Militarys role in vietnam. Great to have you on the show with us today. Julian assange said the president had to be dragged kicking and screaming to maim make the recommendations. Aclu panned the speech. It was called a p. R. Effort to mollify the public. Well, i heard the president say he was certain that this debate would strengthen us and i would like to say thank you Edward Snowden, maybe that was on his television prompter and he choked up when he said it. He did say earlier about mr. Snowden who has joined our board of directors that he deplored the sensational way that this information, which has led to all these proposals for reform including his and various legislative proposals now pending in congress. He hated the way that was made. But what exactly other way might that have come to his attention . There was no other way. He talked about his whistleblower protection act which didnt go into effect until after snowden had made his disclosures. But he neglected to maybe he didnt know that that didnt cover snow zen as a contractor. Any way, the four nsa officials who have been saying for years that the nsa was acting unconstitutionally in this dragnet surveillance that they were carrying on were defying the Fourth Amendment have said openly they thought snowden did the right thing and they did the wrong thing by acting through channels that the president has sponge subpoena of. They were simply persecuted in a variety of ways, one of them prosecuted. Others held at gun point on suspicion. And a sorry sight. They say the only way it could have come to our attention is for a courageous person like mr. Snowden who had access to this information to tell it without authorization because no head of nsa was ever going to authorize the information as to how long and how greatly this institution has been violating our constitution. And the rights of all our citizens. Well i want to get to Edward Snowden in a moment. But first i want to there has been argument about whether it is constitutional or not. Different judges have decided in different ways. And the nsa panel said they havent found any illylity or abuse. So what reforms did you want if i can just say, that was a rather absurd statement from by the president that there had been no evidence of illegality or abuse. The judges themselves have written reports which have now become known us to in part through snowden that described tens of thousands of violations, and abuses that went so far as one judge put it that the restraint might as well not have existed at all, they were simply ignoring it. He is simply not telling the truth there. I guess my question is what the worst abuse in your opinion . I think im sure the worst has not yet come out, as a matter of fact. It is bad enough to be taking the meta data of practically every one in the world, which by the way could be stored fairly easily. They wouldnt need to store all that digital data in bluff dale in the new Storage Facility they are building as a former nsa whistleblower has been saying for year that the nsa has been lying and is lying right now when when they say they collect only meta data, obtrusive as that is. They have been collecting content, not of everyone, that is too hard to store or audey content of telephones, that is why they need the bluff dale storage site. They do it on targeted groups, not just individuals, journalists, congress persons, Even Supreme Court justices. Activists groups of all time tyce was involved in such collection and knows from insiders if it is going on right now. So, i think what yet has to come out are the a, the fact that they are in fact taking a lot of content, not all of it. Of our audio. It is just revealed yesterday that they are taking in hundreds of millions of Text Messages a day. That is all content. That is not meta data. President ignored that. But from foreign sources. We havent found the abuses that that sort of collection is certain to give rise to. And i feel sure it already has given rise to. But again, the Text Messages supposedly from r only from foreign sources not from u. S. Sources and again no confirmation that they are gathering all that content. So if it is only meta data, which is the only information that has been confirmed at this point. Should Americans Care. If you say that is going to be available, it is available through the phone companies and other ways and stored. Why should Americans Care . Of course if it is available from the Telephone Companies as it is turning out to the government directly, that is indeed something to be very concerned about. The assumption was by the companies is they have assured us they were keeping that quite privately. And they are now concerned about encrypting the information so as to offer that privacy to their customers, which they cant do yet. Even if they have it themselves. Their intent is to make money from it, to sell things to us from it. Not to smear dissenters as hoover was doing, not to manipulate activists groups not to affect elections, these companies do not have the power either to tax, to prosecute, to assassinate as our executive branch has claimed the right to do. So, the danger of having that in government hands is i would say much, much greater than to have it in corporate hands unless having it in corporate hands means giving it to the government. Even if they didnt give it to the government think would have easy access to it. Before we go, i want to get to Edward Snowden. You defended him today and from the begin. Here is what the president said today. Im not going to dwell on mr. Snowdens action or his motivations. If any individual who objects to government policy can take it into their own hand to publicly disclose classified information, then we will not be able to keep our people safe or conduct foreign policy. Moreover, the sensational way in which these disclosures have come out is often shed more heat than light. While revealing methods to our adversaries that could impact our operations and ways that we may not fully understand for years to come. Former acting director of the cia Don Mclaughlin just told us that these leaks have been damaging in exposing american intelligence methods. What is your response to former director mclaughlin and the president . Maybe it is true. Maybe his judgment is right. He hasnt told us any specifics nor has anyone else. Perhaps we shouldnt expect that because after all it is all secret, right . Except that those exact same things were said about me, by the president , and Vice President , a lot of other people. Like mclaughlin, they were said about Chelsea Manning and after three years under indictment not one specific was ever able to be brought up validating those concerns about processes being broken and whatnot. I think we should take this with a great deal of skepticism. So far are in snowden has found the only way that that information could have gone governmenten to the public or to president obama as far as we can tell. He is said to have been surprised that his people were listening in to maybe that is true. Maybe it is isnt true. Not that he is perfect or beyond criticism or mistakes. Maybe he made misjudgments. I trust his judgment moyer than i trust James Clapper or Keith Alexander or Dianne Feinstein as to what the public should know about the programs nsa is doing based on what we have learned so far. There is no way we would find out about that any other way than through snowden and i hope there are others waiting to tell us of abuses. But there is a better way to find out this material than to have leakers take their lives into their hands or face a life of exile. Or like Chelsea Manning, prison. That would be for a new Church Committee looking for a john win investigation of the Intelligence Committee belter than church managed to do it. His reforms consisted of intelligence meets. Church led to the intelligence court. That has failed. It has been a rubber stamp operating in secret. What we have to have is this a panel picked by congress basically in the nsa reporting to congress and the judiciary and nsa with full access and full clearance. People who have never been hired by the Intelligence Community in the past. We need in other words, genuine oversight for the first time in a way the nsa has never had it within or outside of the executive bran very much. Still you would trust the judgment of a 29yearold contractor over senators the president of the united states, the oversight from congressional committees that already exist and intelligence officials . Pardon me, the president s own committee which had the judgment they expressed not only to the president but to Congress Just two days ago has included the former chief councilor terrorism in the white house. The former head of cia. Another person who was actually the one who hired Jeffrey Stone who hired obama as a law professor back at university of chicago. His t judgment was that he should edged the collection. He overruled the judgment because i think he has been corrupted by his office right now. Not because his judgment in general is worse. Not because you you think he is taking action because he needs to protect the country . I think he needs to reassure the people who have now gotten information that he refused to give them. And in fact, he may not have known in detail. I dont think the nsa has been terribly forth coming from all we have heard to the president. About where they have broke 10 law. It took five court judges to report that in their limited ability, and they do not have the Technical Capability to investigate that i have recommended here on the basis of curt leaveys o. It is a sad situation that it takes a 29yearold of great intelligence and great conscience and great proposal to take his life in his hands to tell us this . Not really. Thats the way humanity works. That is the way governments work. Sedge power. Secret knowledge of other peoples secrets is power and power corrupts. Even in america. Well, this debate will continue for a long time Daniel Ellsberg really appreciate you joining us on the show tonight. Thank you for the opportunity. We will be back with more on consider this. Translator based on our medical records she was a group led by one of the nations best known education reformers has released a new report that ranks state School Systems not on academic performances but whether they are moving forward with policies to boost scores down the road. And not one skate state out of 50 including the District Of Columbia earned an a. The reformer is michele ree. And according to the state policy report card prepared by her group, students first, the nations performance overall was pretty dismal. Taken as a whole the u. S. Scored a grade of d plus where w a 1. 40 gpa on the three policy areas the group tested, elevating the teaching profession got a c minus. And powering parents a d minus and spending rice weissly on governing schedules a d plus. Im joined from National Tennessee by michele reese. Great to have you with us. A d plus is barely a passing grade in most schools. A failing grade in others. Is there any good news in your report . There is good news. This is our Second Annual report. Actually we saw some progress from last year. And not only have the gpa of the nation as a whole go up, but also we saw a far less stay to our failing grades. We saw a lot of states make Good Movement on the first pillar of elevating the teaching profession by making sure they are putting really solid and rigorous teaching evaluation systems in place. What did the states in the top 10 list do to earn their way to the top of the chart. Was that the biggest thing, elevating the teaching profession . That is what a lot of the states did. For example, you take a state like tennessee which did extraordinarily well. And it broke into the top 10 this year. They have done a tremendous amount of work on elevating the teaching profession by making sure that they were doing layoffs by quality instead of seniority, implementing a new teacher evaluation system. By ensuring that schools had the ability to choose the teachers that they wanted to hire instead of having the forced on to the schools. So making those changes really earned the state a higher grade and you can see the corresponding increases in student achievement levels as well. Tennessee was the nations top grower on the National Assessment called the nape. Well, whats really interesting about the top 10 is just how varied they are finally, politically, geographically. So clearly, different states and their policies can make a real difference. It is really important that they make a difference. If we look at american teenagers and their academic performance compared to wealthy countries. In a Major International study found that americans were 17th out of 34, in reading. 21 in the science. 26th in math. What do we do to catch these guys because obviously they are going to try to stay ahead of us if they can . Yeah, i think this years test results were verier ising because not only did we drop rankingings in everyone of the categories, but some of the countrys that leap frogged ahead of us were countries like estonia and poland and the slovak republic. You were to on any other measure, if the u. S. Had fallen behind the slovak in olympic gold medals, people would go nuts in this country. It would be unacceptable. Yet we come 26th in the globe in math and people really arent batting an eye. It is really i think it on the to be a wakeup call for this nation to say we have got to fix our Public Education system. The lose and policies that we have in place right now are not serving children well. Are not allowing our educators to put in place the kinds of practices that they need to. And so it is up to, you know, our government, our state legislators to take the mantle here. Have some courage and put the policies in place. It makes you wonder what our priorities are. What do you see as the Biggest Barriers against reforms Going Forward . You know, i think the change is difficult. And any time you want to really shake up a system, you know, implementing new temp evaluation systems, introducing choice and competition into the school marketplace, you will get a lot of push back by the status quo and the bureaucracy. So that is a big impediments. But at the same time, we have to know as a country that you know, when we have less than 50 of the fourth and eighth graders at grade level proficiency that is a call to do something wildly different. You support the common core curriculum. It is in place in 45 states and d. C. While those standards are supported they have been criticized by both sides of the prom. I think generally people have a lot of complaints about the common core. But the bottom line is that we do have to have a set of rigorous National Standards that are internationally benchmarked because the bottom liege is the children growing up in America Today in nashville are not going to be competing for jobs against the kids in detroit or sacramento. They are going to be competeling for jobs against the kids in india and china and japan. We to have make sure that our kids are learning the skills that they need to compete in the global marketplace. We have a social media question for you. Twitter user wrote a question for michele. You know, i think that education is absolutely a public right. And it is a responsibility of the government to provide an excellent education for all children. I think there is this really odd sort of divisive argument going on right now where when you want to provide choices to families, people see that as a move to privatize Public Education. I actually dont think thats the case at all. Public education means you are providing an education to the public. And in that vein we have to make sure that every family has high quality options. This is america. We should not be in a situation where any family feels like their kids are trapped in a Failing School without any choices. The most important thing we can do as a country is make sure that the next jenvation educated. There are lots of ways to make sure that happens. We have excellent traditional Public Schools in the country but we have excellent charter schools. And excellent private schools. So why not give children and family those options, high quality options to choose from. You address a lot of the issues in your book radical. Great to have you on the show. Consider this will be right back. The world our fault according to author oroarke. We the generation that has an excuse for everything. But the world is still our fault. So, most generations think they are special and have distaste for generations that preceded and followed them, not orourke. He excuse his own generation, the baby boom, how it got that way and it wasnt my fault and ill never do it again. It is great to have p. J. With us tonight. Good to see you. Hey, good to see you. Very funny book. As a fellow baby boomer, are we really that bad . We have been characterized as selfabsorbed. But you say we go well beyond that. Well, we do. No. I think we are like a very easy going, very tolerant generation. Very not rigid at all. It is hard to imagine us as nazis or communists except to play communists, in the 60s, pretend communists. But we dont have that kind of discipline. And it is a good thing. You know, you say this is a generation that never group. We never grew up but all the bad things in the world have been done by grownups. You say the world, you joke about the world being our fault. You say that the reality is the world is a better place thanks to baby boomers. I think so. You can kind of put the take over the baby boom. Obviously we dont run the growled the time we are born. When we take over the world about the time that john belushi comes out in animal house, when that is released. And you look down in washington and there are senators like that every place you look. Im not sure that is a good thing. It keeps the public amused. But no, the truth of the matter is that if you compare you know, compare to world war ii, compared to world war one, compared to the korean war or vietnam. Buns the baby boom gets in charge, things calm down very considerably because we are just we are too lazy and selfinvolved to do bad things. Far fewer americans have died in wars. Many few. Every death is horrible. But, you know, sheer numbers have gone way down. And you say that we are spoiled brats but at the same time you point out that we are one of the most altruistic generations ever. Gender equality, racial equality. Absolutely. We older bane boomers may not know how to use it the but we did invent the technology. It goes from 46 to 64. There are 75 million of us. It is cher to michele obama. And you are you divide us into seniors, juniors, sophomore and freshmen. You one of the seniors. In your class, you had hillary clinton, a democrat. Bill. Bill also a democrat. George w. Bush, a republican and you had cheech from cheech and chong. How can you generalize about this generation . Well, very first part of the generation we were like out there on the wave of this exploration that the baby booms have been on ever since. But we were closely tethered to our parents, to the greatest generation. So weanedded up getting dragged under the boat. And if we turned up kind of soggy and confused at the end, theres a good reason for it . There is a good reason for giants. Then you get next generation, the junior class. The tech guys. And they are worse hippies than we were. I mean not necessarily bill gates but steve jobs. Steve jobs. Not bill gates. He belonged to the math club. But, steve jobs was off wandering around looking for phone aps before they were invented in india. They find some shoes and they have never found the neckties. But then i got to tell you i have to complain about my group. You talk about us being mbas and you lisa, the author of the prepie handbook well, what happened there obviously you guys were looking at us guys and thinking well, you know, this works in general but it may not work specifically when the bong sets fire to the bean bag chair. Baby maybe i better finish college. One of my favorite quotes is how the sophomores looked at the juniors and seniors. You say that baby boomers believed passion for living one. Which is why im not retired and playling golf, the way i should be. Is, yeah, we totally were we were the first generation, probably in the history of the world that really had the opportunity to do what we wanted to do. Truly do what we wanted to do. We were by world historical standards very rich. Came from Stable Family backgrounds, the war was over, the depression was over. The hope and optimism of the 50s and early 60s cannot be overstated. We decided to take to it face value. We were going to do what we wanted to do. Task stuff turned out to be pretty stupid. And you write that we were happy. That that kids and the baby boomers one of the we that arose as i was reading this, how did we end upturning into helicopter parents . Yeah, i thought about that myself. I was puzzled about that myself because we are. I know we are at my house. Because we are the generation that never grew up. So, we know what is on their little minds. The greatest generation parents didnt know what kids were thinking, no, we know what they are thinking. We know what you are thinking about pot, beer and sex. And and that makes us way more careful. And you have to blame the kids a little bit. It takes two. We would have shot that helicopter down. And they let us hover. The other thing that you write about is that you dont generation. It is silly. You want to be generation x, why or menials. No, the lost generation. That was a cool generation. The greatest generation. Why not baby boomers . It is just exploding infant. Sounds like. Who wants to be called that all their life . The book is a lot of fun. I want to ask you about a couple of things in the news that i know you address. Chris christie. I think it was a slow newsweek. It was you know we were talking about this before we went on camera, this story just goes on and on and on. And of course, here in new york you know like George Washington bridge traffic jam oh my gosh every day. What are they thinking in ohio . They are like okay, the news tonight is there are traffic jams in new jersey . It will be interesting to see how it is playing. It shows i think interesting part of the story is somebody is really scared of Chris Christie in 16 and they are looking for scandal any place they can. If they think that bridge traffic jambs jamses have legs that will last until 16. They have another thingco coming. One final one. Given that we are talking about baby boomers and you mentioned pot, the legalization of pot. What do you think is you know well, you know, it is a big deal. Use. There is no doubt about it. When you lower the cost of something, the kongsumption increases. So if you dont physically lower the cost you know you are taking some of the danger out of it. And you know, im kind of torn about this. Around. It is so pervasive in our culture we will not be able to get the jeanie back in the bottle so we mite as well this might be a part of the drug war where we should surrender. Well, it is great to have you here. The book again is the baby boom. How it got that way and it wasnt my fault and ill never do it again. P. J. Oroarke roush, great to have you. We will be back with more of consider this. Al Jazeera America is a straightforward news channel. Its the most exciting thing to happen to american journalism in decades. We believe in digging deep. Its unbiased, factbased, indepth journalism. You give them the facts, dispense with the fluff and get straight to the point. Im on the ground every day finding stories that matter to you. In new orleans. Seattle bureau. Washington. Detroit. Chicago. Nashville. Los angeles. San francisco. Al Jazeera America, take a new look at news. All this week, the strength of our future relies on education. We are creating a class of adults exposed to mediocre education. Stealing education, part of our week long, in depth series. America tonight only on al Jazeera America al Jazeera America. We understand that every news story begins and ends with people. The efforts are focused on rescuing stranded residents. We pursue that story beyond the headline, pass the spokesperson, to the streets. Thousands of riot Police Deployed across the capital. We put all of our Global Resources behind every story. It is a scene of utter devastation. And follow it no matter where it leads all the way to you. Al Jazeera America, take a new look at news. We will turn now to developments to a story, concussions and their terrible consequences. A federal judge denied initial approval of the landmark settlement between the nfl and many of its former players over claims of brain injuries saying the money is insufficient to cover the scope of the problem. Judge brody ruled that even if only 10 of retired nfl Football Players eventually receive a qualifying congress silt difficult to see how the Monetary Award Fund would have the Funds Available overits life span to pay all claimants at the significant award levels. Joining me now is leonard marshall, a former pro bowl defensive lineman for the new york giants. And the new york jets who won the super bowl twice. He was diagnosed with chronic encephalopathy and is part of the Class Action Lawsuit against the nfl. Great to have you here as a giants fan. It is particularly thank you for having me. A crazy time it a crazy time. The judge says he wants more final details from both sides. Do you think a better deal is going to be worked out and what was your reaction to what happened today . Well first of all, a better deal needs to be struck between the players and the National Football league. It is one thing to have an award and a significant award but also something to have a significant award that will take care of a major class of this population. There is a number of different families that have endured enough of the responsibilities and i think there is families like the webster family, the long family from the steelers. The seau family, and i can just keep naming families that have all have suffered through the process. And for the most part are continuing to suffer. Based upon what you just read it speaks volume in itself. If you take the players and say of the 450, how many of them have cte, als, dementia and you were to award a claim, you wouldnt have enough money to pay them out based on the structures and Everything Else the attorneys have structured. Plus the attorneys have come back and say they want 112 million of the settlement. That is not fair. When they said they didnt want the money. The numbers are more than 900 million, 112 million is going to the lawyers. Now, if you brought up the how much money goes to each player and it really will vary tremendously depending on what happened to the players. Some people who died 4 million. On the other hand some of the older players who have very Serious Problems could only get 25,000. Right. So what do you think about the way the money is being distributed . It is too unfair. Too unclassified. I will look at me and my three friends, tony dorsett. We are guys living specimens that have this issue, this job related illness from playing tackle footballing in the National Football league. We didnt have it before we joined the nfl. You cant state or make that claim because if you knew that, why did you make the purchase when we came out of college . And rightfully so. We all went through physicals. All got diagnosed. And we all were high round draft picks. Dorsett being a 1. Me being a high 2. So it just doesnt make since that now that all the evidence are out that a player that does have cte now and is qualified for this money now has to take up a portion of money versus the entire piece of the pie as he deserves. I say you take the money, you put night a fund. Let the player live off the interest as his case weakens or gets better, you now make a decision on whether or not to take back some of the money or outright award the money. But dont pun tisch player and say you need to be dead in order to receive the money. We need to cut your brain open and see you have als, dementia or you fully have cte and we dont accept the study that you did at ucla or wherever else you did it. Then you can say i might as well just kill myself if im going to get the 4 million. I would that ther not be here. It is unfair. Breaking. Yao minged dorsett. Dorsett has told his story. It is awful to hear him talk about what is going on with him. Jim mcmahon. So many big stars like you in the nfl have suffered. How are you doing . Im doing better. Im not doing great im doing better. Good thing about myself i have support. I have good doctors around me. Good advisers around me. I have a great lady in my life. Im doing well in adjusting to having cte and coping with c teixeira e. Some people have again cte. People have been critical of the deal because they felt there wasnt enough money. You are talking about putting the money into the fund and the interest as opposed to getting the awards. What do you say to the critics . It is enough given that this only deals with players. Lets break it down. Say you had classification. You had 10 cte, 10 with als and 10 with dementia. You are talking if you made the award of 4 million a player, all that money is gone. What happens to the other 70 of the players . The general population. What happens to them . And of that general population, how many were fully diagnosed. How many fully went to the doctors and figure out what is going on. The number is more like 4 billion, arguments sake. But who am i . And this just the beginning of it. And im glad you are doing well. I hope you keep on doing well and certainly hope they figure out something to take care of all the guys that need being taken care of and how to make sure it doesnt happen in the future. Leonard marshall, three time pro berle, it is great to meet you and great to have you on the show. Brad has sold millions of books including 10 New York Times best severals, including political thrillers. He has embarked on what he says could be the most important peace of writing. Childrens books. Hayed a chance to catch up with him. Joining me is best selling author host of decoded and author of the new Childrens Book series ordinary people changed the world. Debuted titles are i am earhart. Always good to see you. I knowy said if you are remembered for anything, you would like to be remembered for these books, not all the huge best severals you have written as thrillers. Why . You know me well and those thrillers are for me these books are for my children. Ways tired of them looking at reality tv stars and loud mouth athletes and saying that is a hero. I said being famous is not being a hero. If i can give them better heroes and lessons to live by, that is the legacy i would rather have. And you were inspired to do this because of the klose clothes your daughter was wearing . Sways shopping with my daughter and trying to find clothes. All i could find were things with princess on them. I said i have so many better heroes. That is what i do on the History Channel or my novels, heroes. I have Amelia Earhart and Abraham Lincoln. I said can you draw cartoon picture. And he drew it. I wrote i am Amelia Earhart and i know no bounds. My daughter loved the shirt and fell in love it with, her friends wanted the shirt, my wife wanted the shirt. We all know there is nothing sorry. If i can do that, if i tell my daughter that Amelia Earhart flew across the atlantic oh sharks that is why she is beloved. My daughter says doesnt everyone fly across the atlantic. But if i tell her she was only 7 years old, she built a homemade roller coaster in her backyard. She took a wooden crate and put roller skating wheels on it and went ought roof and skated and skis down and the crate tumbled and fell and gets up and says that was awesome. Now my daughter says that that was me. She was brave, daring and fun. The draws are drawn as children. Even after the no, not consciously. We wanted to do, is if you show them as adults, is the kids cant relate as well. And my daughter sees the po essential and power within her. There are a lot of stories to tell. The beautiful part is im not making up the stories. They are there. What we have done as a culture is again, open up a magazine. Look at the cover of any magazine. You dont see amazing women or men. You see dumb stars kind of in a bikini in miami. That is what tells the bag zips. So when i share this with my kids. One of the stories we do we found a story about Abraham Lincoln that showed when Abraham Lincoln was 10 years old he came upon a group of boys who wanted they were playing with turtles and lincoln loved animals. He sees the boys. What they are doing is not playing with them. They are putting hot coals on the top of the turtles. And he goes over and says stop doing that. And my younger son said Abraham Lincoln is brave. And he wrote about. In fact, the next day is the first speech political speech he writes about being nice to animals. And now again, Abraham Lincoln, i could tell my kids he is president and freed the slaves and we always do. But my kids cant relate to that anymore. In a strange odd way it is great in vital news but when i tell them to a young kid like that that he saves those animals, you know, the turtles they can connect. Brave too. One thing you dont do in these two books, both characters had untimely deaths. Why not address the deaths in the books . It is a fair question. We deal with slavery in the i am Abraham Lincoln and lots of people who said no. And said to Amelia Earharts face you will never survive this flight across the ocean. But i felt like for a book that is maybe 13 and 14 year olds, you should do that. The fear for me is i dont want the message to be if you risk being a hero you will get a bullet in your brain. Good point. I dont think that should be in the Childrens Book. Maybe the adult book version. Plus i think my wife would have killed me if i gave my daughter that message. Why these two . This is the beginning for us. And the truth is i picked Amelia Earhart because my daughter loves her. She responded to her. And Abraham Lincoln for me it is just he is the american icon. There were so many stories that we didnt even put in the book. We found a story about Abraham Lincoln when he was younger that he came across some birds that had fallen out of a tree. He stops is a horse, gets up and goes and picks them up and puts them back in the tree. And the guy said why are you stop forget that . He said if i didnt, i tonight. Pardon the pun, but who is on the drawing board. Well said. The next book, my goal is not just to do Amelia Earhart and Abraham Lincoln. We want to build a whole library that you can take the books and give them to your kids and grandkids and say here is something to live by. Imam rosa parks is next. That comes out in june. And in september i am albert einstein. And we are basically. We have the first six mapped out right now. But my goal is to do 60 of them. Because there are so many heroes throughout. And to me, your kids are going to pick heroes whether you like it or not. You might as well have some say in it. My son read the rosa parks book. And my youngest son was being bull bullied in school last week. A kid wouldnt let him sit at his table. He said you should be like rosa parks and stand up to the bullies. My son said i should be like rosa parks. My wife is telling me the story. And she said are you kidding me, it worked . But to me it is what we are all came capable, that is what it is all about. I hope that the kids read them. And thanks for coming in with us. Great to have you. Thanks. I a. M. Meal yeah earhart and i am abra Abraham Lincoln are in stores now. The show may be over but the conversation continues. Al jazeera. Com. You can also find us at twitter. We will sey next time. Hello, and welcome to the news hour. Coming up on the program. I have decided to issue an invitation for iran to participate. Syrian peace talks on the verge of collapse after leaders asked iran to attend. Intervening. Central african republic. And a nuclear deal comes to ir