tv Consider This Al Jazeera April 5, 2014 9:00pm-10:01pm EDT
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finals. yukon will play the winner of wisconsin, conducting match up which is about to get under way. those are the headlines. i'll be back with more at 11:00 pm eastern. "consider this" starts now on al jazeera. >> a bombshell report claims that pakistan not only new where obama was, but protected him as he hid. america's plan to trigger protests in cuba secretly using social media. plus, who holds the keys to the internet. we meet a member of the select secret group. can a convicted child rapist escape a prison sentence because he's rich. here is more on what's ahead. i'm antonio mora, and this is
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"consider this." >> federal education standard - some students are opting out. >> set lipping for a status quo of mead okay rity shouldn't be the answer. >> the u.s. government created a secret social media platform. >> suggestions that this was a covert program are wrong. >> a wealthy heir to the du pont paint... >>..pleaded guilt yoi to sexual acts on his daughter >> sentenced to probation. >> relations between the u.s. and pakistan are mystifying, but a book from a vaet reason "new york times" -- veteran "new york times" reporter contained bomb shells about pakistanian intelligence making a difficult alliance complexing. the claim is they knew that osama bin laden was living in the compound where he was killed. that reporting and other
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revelations were so controversial that when an excerpt of the book, local versions in pakistan were censored and the article left blank. we are joined by the author of the book "the wrong enemy - america in afghanistan 2001 to 2014", she reported from afghanistan and pakistan for the "new york times" and is the north africa correspondent. it's great to have you here. some of the things you describe in the book is harrowing. i want to start with bin laden. you say pakistani intelligence not only knew about his compound, but they actively collaborated in letting him survive in the compound. >> in the end that's what i found. it took a while. we felt there was complicity. it wasn't just stupidity that they didn't find him. six years, just a few hundred yards from the military academy.
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but in the end i found an inside source who said that they were handling him. in a secret service way you have a desk responsible for him. one man only who didn't report to anyone, just did - he made his own decisions did everything himself. he was handling, using bin laden and protecting him. >> you heard this from a former head of the isi, the pakistani intelligence, but also other sources about that specific desk. >> no, that desk is a one-source story. i have never been able to confirm it. but i did ask, and it's from an isi source, but not the head. they never would admit it, they denied they knew bin laden was there, which is barely credible when you chase the war. >> looking at how the isi
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operates, this could have been there so in the open without them knowing. >> right, right. >> you say that the u.s. later ended up finding out that that was the case. >> right. what was fascinating. i checked it with u.s. officials, who said it makes sense. they were piecing it together they saw things, they were watching the house and saw things that didn't add up. he didn't have an escape door or tunnel or fox hole that saddam hussein was found hiding in. he had no hole in the house, no place to hide and nowhere to escape. it made sense to me that he was
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relying on being tipped off or protected or good evening able to get out if a raid was coming. it turned out the c.i.a. came to the same conclusions when they looked at the house, which is why they didn't trust to tell the pakistanis. >> what do you say to the man that was the u.s. ambassador to pakistanis, he said he did not believe that the isi knew and the u.s. didn't end up independently figuring that the isi knew. >> yes, i've had a lot of talks with cameron, the ambassador. i don't agree with him. i think he - he's interested in preserving the relationship with pakistan, so he's been cautious on what he thinks they knew. he says we didn't trust them, pakistan, to tell them about the
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raid. we kept it silent. i think that, to me chose -- shows there was a lot they knew that they didn't tell you. >> you write that pakistan were undermining our afrts, not that they were hiding osama bin laden but they were undermining the efforts. that the isa was maintaining and protecting the taliban. you say the pakistani military and taliban proxy forces lie in wait, as much of a threat, lying in wait for the u.s. to leave, which it may do if we don't come to agreement with the afghanistan government in the near future. if that's the case, why are we spending on average $2 billion in aid to pakistan as we have over the past 40 years.
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>> because very have nuclear weapons, they are too important to sanction. that was a disaster when we did that in the '90s. then pakistan pulled away from america. if you don't have pakistan, you have no leverage. i argue you give that much money, there should be smarter diplomacy as well as the military cooperation. it will be much smarter. you don't give people things and let them do what they want. so i think there has to be much closer look at how the relationship work, and how pakistan could be allowed to do this, because it's not possible. and they are going to cause trouble. >> and in some curious parts of the book is when they smashed >> the hotel room, when you were trying to follow the trail of the isi supporting the taliban. >> i was in adequata, a boarder
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council -- keta, a border town in the south. we found suicide bombers in afghanistan. we were coming from pakistan. they were being trained there. it was an awesome recruit without their companies. i was tracking that, and then they raided my hotel room, they arrested the photographer working with me. they punched me in the face when i released handing over my handbag. they took my computer, phones and notebook. the the argument was you are not allowed to talk to the taliban. that just told me everything. we haven't got that many. the book is "the wrong enemy." >> on the domestic front we are
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12 days away from the one year anniversary of the boston bombing. on thursday, the harvard university is mostly heaping praise on the tragedy. the first definitive manhunt was published. the authors shed new light and perspectives to the tragedy. some of the images are graphic. joining us in new york are the two award-winning reporters from "the boston globe", they along with the rest of the staff covered the bombing and its aftermath, the book is titled "long mile home", boston under attack, the courageous recovery and hunt for justice." i can't imagine anyone better suit to write this than the two of you. it must have been hard to relieve this? >> it was a difficult story.
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it's what we do. we saw a lot of value in going back to the scory and going deeper, bringing individual stories together. >> that's what you do, telling the story through the eyes of different people. you have the police officer, the marathon director, a doctor running the marathon. he was there when it happened. why did you choose them. >> this is a massive story, there's so many pieces and ch t chapters and the week. we wanted to find a way people could test themselves to the narrative. not have 8 million different perspent tifs, but focus on -- perspentives but focus on five people. we got by telling the story. you could have in a sense guides throughout the week.
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>> giving the perpectives brings a lot to the story and connects you to individuals. there's a new harvard report out praising the response that the city had to the bombing. it said that the city was unusually well prepared for the attacks. and you say in the book that in a seran dip to us way that it comes back. with the medical tent in place, it was the best place it could happen. true. >> it really is true. the finish line is a mile or two of the location. >> the best in the world. because of the marathon, you have a massive medical situation, the problems that the runners had to deal with. there were tonnes of volunteers on hands, doctors and nurses.
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people were really, i think, stunned. as awful as it is to have three die, it could have been more. had they not had these in play. >> when you look at the images. the results were as good as they were despite the deaths and these terrible injuries. the harvard report is critical about one thing in particular which is the shoot out once they knew it was the two brothers and they went after them. one thing that you guys raised is the decision to close down boston altogether. what are your feelings about that? you do think if a terrorist can do that, completely shutting down an american city, does that give them too much power? >> there were voices making the point at the time convict are we going too far, is a step too
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far. no city had done anything like this. at the same time you have to think back to what it felt like on the morning, and a lot of people woke up friday morning not knowing where the guy was, what the capacity was, wlrfe it was one more person, was it -- whether it was one more person, five, 10, was is part of a larger thing. when you talk to the political leaders, law enforcement who were getting suspicious reports about the guy running away or someone getting on a train. they didn't know how wide this thing was. >> i do understand it was a prudent decision. you ask people what they remember. most remember the friday when literally the city shut down. when they found joseph, he was
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outside the area where they were looking. the house could have been an area they should have gone into but did not. >> the house where he was found was close to where he had abandoned the car two tenths of a mile. so they had to make decisions about where to focus the search. there was some searching down on the street. but it wasn't complete, and as a result you had a home owner who rambled out into his yard as soon as they listed the ban outside, who actually discovered. >> saw the blood on the boat and led to them getting him out of there. >> we got lucky. it could have been worse. had the younger suspect not been unarmed and wounded, there easily could have been another victim here, or one or two. i think the authorities were lucky that it worked out the way it did. >> boston being an historic city, important to american
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history, where will this rank in boston's city. of course, boston strong had become, you know, a huhshold expression. he's given the whole country more respect for the city of boston, where do you think it will lie in the annuals of boston history. >> this is one of the most significant things to unfold in the city. there's a long history and there's a lot of important things on the time line. the marathon, you have to remember, is a special event and is a celebration of the city, and has been around for 170 years, and is so engrained in spring tradition in boston. the fact that that was the target of the attack makes is that much bigger of a deal. not that it wouldn't have been a deal if you attacked a red sox or patriots game. there's something special about the marathon. because of that. >> i have to tell you, always amazes me when writers do this, which is something you two have
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done, turning something that we know about, know what happened, and manage to turn it into a crazy page turner where you want to keep reading and readingment there are also -- reading. there are also positive messages coming out of the book, bringing a tear to the eye of anyone that reads it on more than one occasion. >> that was important to us, for one thing our experience was frag mmented. there was so much confusion. people were trying to press it. it was not possible to understand it at the time to understand it as a whole the way we tried to do. under the drama and action it makes it a suspenseful story. there's so much humanity, and so many connections that people made, so many ways that people in boston and jnd reached out to each other -- beyond reached out to each other and came together. that's what we found compelling and warranted to share. >> it was inspirational and
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>> thousands of parents in new york are pulling their children out of the controversial common core tests. they began on monday with three cools in brooklyn having 70% of students opting out. it's happening with parents and kids taking a stand against similar tests. joining us in new york is a 20 year veteran of the education
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sec store. a former -- sector, a former teacher and assessment expert. she's a mother whose 8-year-old opted out of the standardized exams. good to have you with us. i want to start with your son. eight years old, third grader and that's an objection. you don't think the standardized tests are age appropriate. >> absolutely are they not. neither 10-year-olds. and i start by telling you i taught third grade. there's nothing i need seven hours over six days to find out. the tests go on for so long. you are concerned about the stress. >> absolutely, i hear from parents all the time. a parent told me her daughter cries when she picks up a pencil because she's concerned these a bad writer. >> is your objection just to the testing or the common core
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itself. >> it's to high-stakes testing. i'm not opposed to assessing children to find out what they know. we use assessments to then teach. these tests are high stakes, tied to teacher evaluations. the results come out over the summer, after the school year ended so no one can use the information, and it's a number. parents get no information to know how can i help my child. so i don't agree with the high stakes. >> you don't have a problem with the standard involved in common core or what they are trying to teach. what they profess to do, trying to do, is to make sure all children have a certain level of education by the time they grd ute from high school. >> there's nothing wrong with standards, but the standard are set by experts in the field - the teachers and administrations, community who can reflect what we know children need to learn and do. it's fine to have a conversation about standard, silly to attach
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founding and teach evaluations to one tst. it doesn't make -- test. it doesn't make sense. all the studies, we are doing ter ill. >> we are. >> we are near the bottom. >> we are. >> if we implement common core, as expected in new york - they adopted it early. it will spread to most of the country, how do you figure out if it's working if we don't have the tests. >> i'm glad you brought up other countries. i've been talking about schools in finland and sweden, where they invest in education. that's where we need to start, we need to address poverty, unequal access and talk about what is happening in communities and schools. we can't test our way into high standard and achievement. it doesn't work. you are concerned someone who has been with state implemented
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programs that teachers are teaching to the test and not focussing on kids all righting. >> absolutely, you would teach to the test if you were going to be judged. just common assistance children are not getting signs, they are not getting trips or learning how to talk to each other and problem solve. i don't want to live in a nation with people can't figure out how to communicate and express ourselves and do music and science in addition to music and maths. >> that's part of the problem. the testing and all this is leading to important subjects being ignored. >> they are completely being ignored. cut out, and children are getting a sense that they are not important. >> the pressure to do well on the test is being pushed down to children younger and younger. we have kinder gardeners talking about tests and afraid they are not going to cut it. people are saying kinder gart ep
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is the first grade. it is ridiculous. children are five in kindergarten and we need to teach them as such. >> it is incredible that 8 year-olds are concerned about this. >> they are terrified, stressed. we had reports of children vomiting. there are so many ter tible things associated. >> what should parents do. >> parents should educate themselves. go to change the steaks. there's a lot -- stakes. there's a lot of information. there's an agreed video where parents talk about why we chose to opt children out. >> diane on her blog has so much information. every day there's more dots to be connected. i urge parents to do the work and find out. >> it's a pleasure to have you with us. >> switching topics. to use a 2002er-like project to undercut the cuban government.
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according to an associated press exclusive. the program was a cell-phone text service going around the cuban controls operating between 2010 and 2012. it's been used to organise smart mobs to trigger a cuban rebellion. it was run by the u.s. agency for international development, which delivers foreign aid, not the c.i.a. at the white house thursday, press secretary jay carney insisted that it was meant to encourage dialogue. >> it's a development agencies. suggestions that this is a covert program is wrong. it was a development assistance program about increasing the level of information that the kuehnan people had and were able to discuss among themselves. >> for more i'm joined from washington d.c. by associated
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press reporter jack gilham, who co-wrote a report. i want to get your rehabilitation to jay carney saying it was a develop assistance program. what does your reporting show? >> documents suggested that the u.s. agency said that through contractors set up the company overseas to create a primitive version of twitter. it's restrictive. we don't dislike - we have access to the internet. there's a lot less access there. it encourages people to talk to each other. we get people talking to each other. mundane things about football scores. there's a build up. one of the ultimate goals is to
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push the project. the idea of economic change. >> it worked when it came to describing tens of thousands. that's right. as many as 40,000, from what we saw signed on. they were able to sign on. they received half a million phone numbers from the cell phone provider. they blaffeded them out. encouraging people to sign up around 2012. and based on sample messages that we saw, and the - some of the people that used the service. it was a hit. text message was a hit. text messaging is expensive. it was a subsidised free service for them, and they loved it. it was a great way to talk to people. >> so they went through - jumped through all sorts of hoops to create it. it was successful, why did they drop it.
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>> so there's a couple of reasons why we are able to tell. the first - this is what the government sells us, the money gets shut off. in 2012 the grant that funded this, the u.s. a.i.d. expired. talking to others that used the poement or service -- projects or service, the cuban authorities caught on. they were doing dns redirect, the internet phone book. sending you to one website when you should have gone to another. we saw this in turkey with the dns blocking, and other ways to sort of get the gear to a point where it was difficult for some of these engineers to keep the service running. it was a bit about the technical problems of the cuban catching on, and the money. >> usa, aid spokesman matt responded to your service with a statement reading in part "it is
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no secret in host im environments government take -- hostile environments government take steps to protect those on the ground. it was to create a platform for cubans to speak freely among themselves", that seems to contradict what jay carney was saying. he's pretty much saying they protected the cubans, and did it secretly, and jay carney is saying it wasn't a secret. >> sure. we can open a they sorus and look at the different ways we describe this. it was not a covert occupation, that being particular to u.s. law. they say it was more of a program that was discrete. but even still the senator in charge of the appropriations committee says that he was not made aware of this and called it dumb. and a project that he wouldn't have supported it. there's a way of doing it that is secret, but the people who are supposed to make decisions
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said they were reluctant. >> every country in the world. the big powers support and do things where they wnt to help the people they support. russia and china does it. was it a big deal? >> >> that's the question that people may ask on tuesday. the question really comes down to if this were, indeed, a covert occupation spelt under u.s. law, was the president notified, was house and senate committees note mid. the u.s. maintains it does not do kev ert work, at what point does descreate ball covert requiring laws to pass. >> a lot of issues raised by this. it's a fascinating story. good of you to join us. we'll be back with more of "consider this".
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>> who controls the internet. you can see the answer in action at a secure ceremony in california. in a scene reminiscent of a james bond film with security guards. security experts that hole the keys to the internet met to maintain internet security making sure web domain names are authentic. they are on standby should it be knocked offline. they are part of a nonprofit called i-cann that has been in operation since 1998. how does this work, who gave them the keys? >> as far as who put icann in charge of this, it's a good question. it's the community, the people that put icann in charge. >> joining us is james wall, editor of "the guardian us"
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given access to the key ceremony and andy linton, one of the select key holders. heats a lecture you are -- he's a lecturer at the school of engineering and computer science at the school of university. i'll start with you andy, explain the basics. you are one of 14 people who hold the keys. seven meet on the west coast, seven on the east coast and there are seven back ups. how does the key system work? what kind of power do you have? >> well, i don't think we have power to control the whole internet, but we have - there's a piece of what we do to secure the domain name system, a system where we look up google.com or microsoft.com or al jazeera and get an ip address allowing us to connect with web servers, with servers to various places around
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the net. if you could lie about that look-up, if you could take the name - the domain name and give the wrong number, then we would be - bad people would be in a position to take you to says you are not supposed to go to. our job is to secure that piece of the network and make sure the look-ups happen. >> one of the things that is brought up is do you guys have the power to switch the internet off? >> i don't think so. i think we might have - if we were to go rogue we may disrupt nippings for a while. the internet engineering community is good at working around the problems. i think any effort that we do in that respect would be short-lived. >> this counts to someone like me, that it is out of mission impossible, and you see hand significance and the eye scans.
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you are the first reporter allowed to go into one of these things. when you describe it, it's less like the matrix and more like the office, more mundane. >> it's a bit more solid every day than you would expect. when you see it, it's this huge house security thing. in the end they are trying to get out a laptop and do a ceremony to make a key. the key to the ser moan i i went to -- ceremony i went to became live. they build something with a couple of weeks safety, they have keys around the world so we trust it, so it's not just a group of americans, because it likely costs other countries that cost america. this is this not for profit trying to say "we know this is important so we are scattering
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key holders around the world so it's not just the uk, the u.s., everyone has a state" >> people of different nationalities involved. >> yes. >> that brings up the danger of a cyber attack. how secure is the system. if it crashes, are you the guys ta can restart it? >> well, a piece of the system is - i think it's important understand that the piece work we are doing hasn't completely secured the system. so what we have done is begin the process of securing it. what we are doing is making sure that the root of the tree, the top level system is secure. then there's a responsibility for the other - top level dom inions look dot com et cetera,
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and responsibilities of banks, government departments, organizations to do the same level of signings, to build a chain of trust through the domain name system, so that wep when you, as a user, go to the bank, you are happy and secure in the knowledge that it is worth it. >> you don't get paid, have you to pay for travel. how were you chosen to do this. why would you want to do it under the circumstances? >> well, i think there's always been a strong sense of people involved with the internet for a long time of us being a community and cooperating. i think it sort of captured in our title that we do after this, which is trusted community representative. so our job is to go through and be a witness for an auditor for the community, the internet community and say we are happy that the process that we follow is robust and secure and safe.
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i'm happy to go and do this. i get some support from our domain name commission that runs the anz name space for the dot nz domain. they cover my travel, so i don't have to spend my own money, but i don't get paid and i don't believe the others do. it's a piece of pro bono community work that i think is worth doing, and i'm happy to do it. >> certainly worth doing. >> sometimes a couple of times a year. >> a lot of debate about the role of the u.s., whether icons should be based here, in light of the edward snowden revelations. but the question is - why mess with something that seems to be working. why put it under u.s. auspices if there haven't been problems with the internet. >> it's strange for us to think about anyone running the internet because it doesn't feel like anyone does. icann has the security role, the
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people who dish out on who gets to have which web address. it's all been working well. what has happened post edward snowden is some countries are going well. was the u.s. demanding the system using the control as a trick. so people don't have the same faith in some of these institutions as they used to. that might be completely unfair to icann who are mostly ipp dependent but are tied to the department of commerce. what is happening now is icann is trying to go international. rather than them losing control and going to the u.n., making it bureaucratic and slow. icann going okay, how about we get people on the board from different countries. how about we become independent. so i think that's what the e.u. is pushing for. icann is willing to do it. it might be the happiest option.
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lots of people, people who think lots of change has to happen post edward snowden. >> a quick final question. what do you worry about the most when it comes to internet security? >> i think the thing i worry most about is, you know, people at the age of the internet, the regular users treat this and they should treated this as a secure and robust system. there's a lot of work for the engineers to make it robust and secure so people can trust it. it's a piece of the puzzle and there are other things we need to think about, like viruses and people having other secure prs. this one is one we don't lose sleep over. we do the work, it's robust. it's part of the solution, but it's not the solution. i think people should understand
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back. >> is our legal system rigged in favour of the rich when they break the law, there's outrage over av lieuensa over rob cert richard the iv heir to the du pont fortune. he pleaded guilty to sexually abusing his 3-year-old daughter. he was sentenced to probation, the judge saying "he wouldn't fare well in prison. >> there was a case of couch, who killed four people whilst drunk. >> jamie floyd is with us. this case of richards calm up because his ex-wife is suing him in a civil case about the abuse of the daughter and alleged
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abuse of his son. on its face it sparks outrage. this is a man 6 foot four, 260 pounds and he wouldn't fare well in prison. >> the case goes back several years, it was a plea deal. prosecutors dropped the charges. originally it was felony rape. they dropped the charges such that he wouldn't have to spend time in prison. that's what the outrage is about, the lack of gaol time. the question is whether or not this looks like other plea deals, whether a different defendant would have got the statement deal. chances are know. what does the regular defendant have - in most cases a public gepter, an over -- defender, an overworked lawyer. or an appointed lawyer with 50 cases in his or her bag. this guy had rich lawyers, former state's attorneys, good
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lawyers. does that mean had special benefit. ladie justice has -- lady justice has two scales, pointing this way for the prosecutors, for the police. he took the scales this way. the justice system is broken, and that's what... >> that's what it is. the legal system is rigged in favour of the rich because they can afford lawyers focussing on the defence, while poor people have to deal with public defenders who can't focus on one case. >> who is it rigged in favour of? which ever side has more resources to spend. usually it's police prosecutors and whoever wants to bring the resources to bear in court. >> normally the state has the veping. >> i think the state has the veping, and the poor person with a single public defendant loses almost every time. in this case rich famous guy
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wins and victim loses out. let's talk about the case. the prosecutors dropped the first degree rape charges, fourth degree, carrying a sentence to zero, probation 2.5 years, and raises the question. maybe it's a case that may have been difficult to prove - a 3-year-old victim, a few years before the case is brought. do you think this may have been impropriety. >> there's no evidence in the case of impropriety. it is a small state. it's a big family, the billest richest family in the statement there's no evidence of impropriety and we have to think about a victim any time there's a sexual assault case. we don't want a little kid to face the accuser even if they are testifying in closed quarters. you want to make the case go away. i am sure that's part of what prosecutors were thinking about. maybe the mother was thinking about this "let's make the case
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go away." the judge gives them the minimum zero, and he doesn't spend a day in gaol and rationalizes it saying he wouldn't fare well in prison. >> no one, least of all child sexual predators. >> true, should that be a consideration. >> no, that was a heartless thing to say. there certainly should be questions asked about why this defendant fared this way especially at the sentencing phase. once the deal is cut, the sentence is attached. once the charges were dropped, that's the sentence that goes with a fourth degree sexual felony. again, the system is broken. i use that analogy of the scales and unfortunately so much of it has to do with the resource, limited resources on both sides. the system overworked and it's about who can bring more resources to bear. >> nothing we can do. >> not this in this case, we have seep so many cases of
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celebrity justice. where they have considerable resources and prosecutors can be crushed by it. >> and nothing to do when it comes to the legal system. >> that's what we need to do. when people are outraged about celebrity cases where the celebrity defendant walks, think about the cases where we have a non-celebrity defendant up against a considerable office in a major jurisdiction. what they have to bear. the burden they have to bear with the loan public defender and the hundreds of cases in his briefcase. >> good to have you with us. we'll be back with more of "consider this".
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>> why do people find some things funny. what triggers laughter. the new book: breaks it down and shows that humour is no joke, it's scientific. scott is the author. and joins us from little rock arkansas and had an hpd in cognitive neuroscience and a research science at the center for advance study of language. >> dissecting a joke kills it. eb white joked that dissecting a joke is like dissecting a frog. it dice. you say humour is psychological coping mechanism. why? >> it is, really. it comes down to the fact that there's no formula or secret key for humour, it's a process versus a concrete thing. it's how our brain deals with conflict. so much in our life is confusing or ambiguous and hard to
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understand. sometimes it's complex or vague than that. that's why we laugh at a lot of thing, not just jokes. it's how we deal with the complex world we live in. >> you write that a lot of factors go into whether someone finds something funny, that it could be age, agendaer -- gender, iq and biology. >> it comes down to - we have different thresholds for what pushes us, what might be edgy for one person could be mundane for another. we take humour with a different perspective and expectation. you can look at larger groups too. women, it turns out, laugh more than men. it's interesting. women are less common in professional comedy. 12% of professional comedians are women. so you see you see all sorts of
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differences. you see nationality based differences. british people like different humour to others. >> you say men joke more as is found with the greater number of male comedians, that women laugh more. you point out they laugh less as they age. there's a theory that women are more of the audience and me the jobing tellers. >> you see it when we look at preferences for mates. women look for a sense of humour. for men, it's close to number three.
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part of the story behind that could be that menus humour as a sign of being worthy. some are not born with movie star could looks. we have to use humour. we use it that way. >> you talk about how the brain recognises jokes using parts of the brain, the one linked to problem-solving, the one linked to emotion and recognises conflict. if there is uniform processes, why is there unique censors of humour. there is one part of the game that is key for humour, it is active for all kinds of humour. physical, cartoons. if humour is about conflict, which athink it is. it comes down to personnel differences. we are different in what moves us, what can be offensive for
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one person could be funny or who knows, it depends on what we are used to. those iedio sin gratic differences is why we have different tastes. >> what are the important elements of a great joke. >> there are ski inagreed yets. like with painting, scup tours, there's ingreed thens they have different things you need. one is surprise. they have to have destination. i'm talking about the groucho marx line that i had which is yesterday i saw an elfont in my pyjamaas. how it got in my pyjamas i have no idea. groucho marx was better at
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telling jokes, i'm a scientist. i love that. it takes us some place we are not comfortable going. >> as the saying goes, laughter is the best medicine, you found it's true. >> absolutely. it's good cardo vascular exercise and has psychological benefits like improving the immune response. and strange things. it's been shown to help combat determine atightize. it -- determina tightize. it comes down to the fact that stress is bat. mirth and humour is good for us. that is why humor, as long as it's point of view is helpful for us. >> the new book is ha. the science of when we laugh and why. good of you to join us. >> thank you for thissing me. >> the show may be over, but the conversation continues on the
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website aljazeera.com. or facebook or google+. you can join us on twitter. see you next time. >> you're watching al jazeera, i'm jonathan betz in new york with the top stories. >> secretary of state john kerry is praising the afghan people, calling them courageous and committed. more than 7 million turned out
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for the presidential elections, twice as many as in 2009. a possible new clue in the disappearance of malaysia airlines flight 370, australia confirmed electronic signals are cannot with the frequency of the black box. the ping was heard near the ascertain area in the indian ocean. >> an argument with soldiers likely provoked forces in fort hood. >> specialists ivan lopez killed three and wounded 16 before turning the gun on hem. >> protesters are demanding the president change his policy on how immigrants are detained and deported. >> wilton gregory apologised for his 2 million mansion and said he will sell it. parishioners were angered by the 6,000 square foothold saying he should lead a simple life.
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>> number 7 yukon beet florida 63-53 eliminating the number one seed. wisconsin currently leads 34 to 25. those are the headlines. techknow starts now. of hardware and humanity and we are doing it inique ways. this is a show about science by scientists. let's check out our team of hardcore nerds. dr. shay soma are. a, a mechanical engineer. facial recognition technology. it can fight crime by spotting a face in a crowd, but can it keep you out of the club? >> my picture is in the gallery. information. >> marita davison specializes in ecologist coming. >> it looks like an egg, cooks like an egg. the plant based protein challenging the chicken.
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