Its one of the largest Infrastructure Projects in the nation. But just when it opens to traffic still isnt clear. Ifill boston mob boss Whitey Bulger was found guilty of a string of 11 murders and racketeering. How the jury reached its verdict. Woodruff and in our continuing look at surveillance and privacy in america. Tonight, we explore how Law Enforcement keeps tabs on our movements by photographing our license plates. Its privacy, theres no question about that. You dont get the amount of Law Enforcement, you get the amount that you can tolerate. None of these technologies come without tradeoffs. Ifill thats all ahead on tonights newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by and by the alfred p. Sloan foundation. Supporting science, technology, and improved Economic Performance and Financial Literacy in the 21st century. 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. Woodruff the nations chief Law Enforcement officer said today its time to scale back tough prison terms for lowlevel drug crimes. He announced hes changing the way federal prosecutors go after smallfry offenders. The United States is home to just 5 of all the people on earth, but accounts for more than a quarter of the worlds prison population more than 2. 2 million people. Too Many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no truly good Law Enforcement reason. Woodruff today, in San Francisco, the u. S. Attorney general said that number must come down. Eric holder addressed the american bar Associations Annual meeting. Although incarceration has a significant role to play in our Justice System widespread incarceration at the federal, state, and local levels is both ineffective and unsustainable. It imposes a significant economic burden totaling 80 billion in 2010 alone and it comes with human and moral costs that are impossible to calculate. As a nation, we are coldly efficient in our incarceration efforts. With an outsized, unnecessarily large prison population, we need to ensure that incarceration is used to punish, deter, and rehabilitate, not merely to warehouse and forget. Woodruff one step toward a solution, according to holder scale back mandatory minimum sentences for lowlevel, non violent drug offenses. There are almost 220,000 prisoners in federal penitentiaries, now 40 over capacity. Nearly half those inmates are serving time for drugrelated crimes. Holder plans to tell federal prosecutors to change the way they handle those cases. They now will be charged with offenses for which the accompanying sentences are better suited to their individual conduct, rather than excessive prison terms more appropriate for violent criminals or drug kingpins. Woodruff the attorney general wants states to do likewise, given that 225,000 people are serving time in state prisons for drug crimes. There is longstanding, bi partisan support for such reform. U. S. Senator Richard Durbin of illinois has introduced the smarter sentencing act, co sponsored by fellow democrat Patrick Leahy of vermont and republican mike lee of utah. Kentucky republican rand paul also has a measure to increase judicial discretion. Durbin wrote the law that ended a longstanding disparity in drug sentencing that hit minorities hardest; the president signed it in 2010. A bipartisan bill to help right a longstanding wrong by narrowing sentencing disparities between those convicted of crack cocaine and powder cocaine. Its the right thing to do. Woodruff today, holder also cited the toll such harsh sentences take on some american communities. They, and some of the enforcement priorities we have set, have had a destabilizing effect on particular communities, largely poor and of color. And, applied inappropriately, they are ultimately counterproductive. Woodruff holder added that programs to enable compassionate release for older inmates and to send drug offenders to rehab, not up the river should help trim prison populations. To examine the arguments on each side of the issue, we turn to mary price, Vice President and general counsel of families against mandatory minimums, an advocacy group. And william otis, adjunct professor at Georgetown Law School and former special counsel to president george h. W. Bush. Welcome to you both to the newshour. Mary price, let me start with you. You think these changes are good ideas. Why . absolutely. Our criminal Justice System has become addicted to solving our social and Public Safety problems with incarceration. Today eric holder said the department recognizes that and says that we have to step away from using those kinds of policies. We cant incarcerate our way to Public Safety nor given the inequities, as we pointed out, should we do that. So i think its significant that what hes saying with more flexibility in sentencing we can be safer and i think thats very important and something we need. Woodruff your argument is that this is less crime . Our argument is that were locking up too many of the wrong kind of people for too long for the wrong kinds of crimes. Certainly i mean people who we are afraid of, people who are committing serious crimes, they ought to be incarcerated. We need to be kept safe. But as you pointed out, half of the people were incarcerating are in federal prison for drug crimes and a significant portion of them are nonviolent and lowlevel offenders. We cannot continue to spend the amount of our criminal justice dollars on locking up people while the department of justice goes looking for money for real Public Safety reforms. If. Woodruff william otis, whats your take on these changes. I think the attorney general is making some mistakes. Your segment started out by pointing out that he says the criminal Justice System is ineffective and unsustainable. It is very costly, no one doubts that. Any major social program that aims to increase Public Safety is going to be. The attorney general saying its ineffective is just not so and painting a misleading picture of what our criminal Justice System has done. It omit it is fact that far from being the failure that he portrayed our criminal Justice System over the last 20 years has reduced the crime rate by 50 . Thats not a picture of a failure, its a picture of a success. Now, its true that. Woodruff youre saying thats largely due to these mandatory minimum sentences . Its due in significant part to the fact that we are incarcerating more people and incarcerating them for longer. Now, its not due solely to that of course. There are other measures increasing hiring of police, more Effective Police force, more effective private security measures also contribute to that. But imprisonment has significantly helped bring about this enormous drop in the crime rate. Woodruff mary price, what about that . But if there was that kind of link, you would think when mandatory minimums and incars ration policies were adopted that crime would go down and when they were abandoned that crime would go up. In fact, recently the pugh center on the states found the 17 states that deuce red lines on overincarceration, their crime rates also did not go up. So theres not such a direct link and this led conservatives from a group called right on crime to say no, this is not the kind of relationship that we can rely on. In fact, we can reduce incarceration and keep ourselves safe at the same time by using our criminal justice dollars much, much more wisely. Woodruff william otis, what about one of the other arguments the attorney general made that the prison population it wasnt the only argument but one of them certainly is that the prison population way, way overcrowded and that this will be a way to keep to get minor offenders into alternative programs where they can be rehabilitated. I think anyone would want criminals to be rehabilitated and there are programs in prison particularly in federal prison that aim to do that because most criminals, after all, will be back on the street at one point or another. But where i think the attorney general missed the ball was in concentrating on three quarters of 1 of the population in prison but never mentioning the 99 who are not and whose safety has been so significantly improved again, in part, because of increased incarceration. I think another problem that the attorney general. Woodruff let me pick up on that. Youre saying that by focusing just on those who are in prison and not on those who didnt get caught in other words . Its that and more than that. The people that have not been crime victims on account of the strong measures that we have taken to prevent crime and bring crime down, those people count, too. That they have not been victims have saved them money and thats money that counts in the public disk as well. Well, i think that punishment is important in certain cases. What the attorney general is focusing on are not the he wont be releasing violent criminals or not charging them appropriately. Hes saying we can be smarter about the people we lock up for lengthy periods of time under mandatory minimum sentences. Hes the top Law Enforcementer . The country. His job on the day to day basis is to keep us safe. He would not be taking these measures if he thought doing so would not keep us safe. Woodruff one of the other arguments i was reading today or points, william otis is that the attorney general is not changing the law. The law that requires mandatory minimum sentences are still on the books. The people in the prison who received those sentences will remain in prison. These are future offenders. So will this have much of an effect at all, is the question . I think you make a very good point. The attorney generals remarks today actually, i think, seem to be more than they are. At present federal law contains two safety valves that already offer an opportunity for leniency and for offenders to go below mandatory minimums. One of those has some of the criteria the attorney general outlined today. They allow offenders who otherwise would be subject to mandatory minimums to get out of that if they are not violent, if they still. Woodruff youre saying im sorry. Youre saying the method is already there . Or the ability to make it happen . Its already there and as a matter of fact its frequently used in federal courts. Woodruff what about this point about this doesnt change the law . Its still on the books. Exactly. It doesnt change the law and the safety valve to which bill is refering is terrific. 80,000 people have benefited with shorter sentences over the years. But its not enough. Our prisons are way oversubscribed. Were operating at 140 capacity. What the attorney general is saying is congress, the ball is in your court. He made references to several bipartisan bills that would reduce mandatory minimums or provide larger safety valves to them and he said were going to take the first step, were demonstrating what we can do to reduce the reliance on overincarceration and well reach out a hand to congress and work with congress. Woodruff well leave it there for tonight. Mary price, william otis. We thank you both. Thank you so much. Ifill you can watch the rest of holders speech on our website. And still to come on the newshour backlash to russias crackdown on homosexuality; problems plaguing San Franciscos bay bridge; convicting Whitey Bulger and spying on license plates. But first, with the other news of the day. Heres kwame holman. Holman a federal judge ruled today new York City Police have violated the rights of thousands of people with a stopand frisk policy. The tactic is allowed based on a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. But the judge said officers stopped mostly black and hispanic men using questionable criteria, so the policy intentionally discriminates based on race. Mayor Michael Bloomberg denied that charge. And he said the policy is a vital deterrent to crime. Today we have fewer guns, fewer shootings, and fewer homicides. The fact that fewer guns are on the street now shows that our efforts have been successful. And there is just no question that stop, question, and frisk has saved countless lives. And we know that most of those lives saved based on the statistics have been black and hispanic young men. Holman bloomberg vowed to appeal. In the meantime, the judge also appointed an independent monitor to oversee substantial reforms to stop and frisk. The governor of North Carolina signed a sweeping new voting law today. It mandates a photo i. D. For any would be voter and reduces early voting by one week. Republicans said it will cut down on fraud, democrats and Voting Rights groups said the real purpose is to suppress votes by supporters of democrats. Nearly all of the u. S. Diplomatic posts that were closed by a terror threat, now have reopened. The exception is the u. S. Embassy in yemen which remained shuttered today, and officials said it will stay that way indefinitely. In all, 19 diplomatic sites in the middle east and africa shut down last week amid warnings of an alqaeda plot. Egyptian authorities put off plans today to break up two cairo sitins by supporters of ousted president mohammed morsi. Instead, an almost festive atmosphere prevailed. People marched and chanted slogans, while young men played ping pong and soccer amid drum circles. The military repeatedly has delayed carrying out its promise to use any means necessary to clear the promorsi camp sites. Britain is warning it may take legal action against spain, in a growing row over the territory of gibraltar. The rocky outpost sits at the mouth of the mediterranean, and has been ruled by the british for centuries. We have a report from james mates of independent television news. Reporter the helicopter carrier h. M. S. Illustrious leaves portsmouth heading to the mediterranean, a deployment planned long before this current spat over gibralter, but at least one Royal Navy Vessel will soon be docking in the colony. However routine, symbols of britains continuing commitment are important. People trying to cross back and forth into spain have enjoyed another trying weekend of long queues at the border prompting london now to threaten legal action against spain at what it considers a breach of european rules on free movement. The flag flying over the rock may be looking a little tattered these days, but britain insists its legal claims are as impeccable as ever. This is the treaty here in the British Library signed exactly 300 years ago. It brought an end to the war of the spanish succession and gave britain its claim to gibralter. Here it says that the town, the port, and the castle of gibralter is to be enjoyed by britain forever without any exception or impediment whatsoever. Reporter but the waters, say spain, were not included which is why theyve objected so strongly to the building of an artificial reef. They say that is to thwart spanish fishermen. Spains foreign minister jose garcia is not retreating one inch, now threatening to join argentina in an appeal to the u. N. Thats a possibility he said. The other is an appeal to the International Court in the hague. So threats and counterthreats between two supposed e. U. And nato allies with the prospect that, for the first time, International Judges will be ruling on this 300yearold dispute. But at least the parties seem to want a resolution in the courts rather than something much worse. Holman if the issue does go to court, a decision could take years. The week got off to a lackluster start on wall street. The Dow Jones Industrial average lost more than five points to close at 15,419. The nasdaq rose nearly ten points to close near 3,670. Those are some of the days major stories. Now, back to gwen. Ifill next, we turn to the growing criticism of antigay laws in russia. Theyre generating protests around the world, just as the russians gear up to host next years winter olympics. Gay rights in russia, gay rights in russia. Ifill the refrains have been similar at demonstrations across europe and the u. S. Hey, hey, ho ho homophobias got to go ifill on saturday in london, british comedian stephen fry didnt mince words in describing russian president Vladmir Putin and his governments new laws. Theres no argument for homophobia at all. Its just a very convenient way uniting brutal people, neonazi people to be your brute squad. And thats what im afraid putin is doing and has done, and will continue to do. Ifill putin signed a measure in june banning public expression of homosexual identity and affection. Supporters said its to protect the young. translated it outlaws the spreading of information aimed at forming nontraditional Sexual Attitudes among children, attractiveness of non traditional sexual relations, a distorted perception of social equality between traditional and nontraditional sexual relations. Ifill gay rights activists argue it gives putins Government Free rein to suppress speech. Well, i think that the law is so vaguely formulated that you can use the law to criminalize every expression of being gay or lesbian. And i think that way you erase the homosexuality out of the minds and out of the street. You make it invisible. Ifill another measure prohibits the adoption of children by foreign couples who are gay or lesbian. Some opponents of the laws have taken to dumping russian vodka to make their point. Others are urging