al jazeera america's hard hitting... >> today they will be arrested... >> ground breaking... they're firing canisters of gas at us... emmy award winning investigative series... fault lines no refuge: children at the border only on al jazeera america >> a nightmare hostage standoff in australia ends in tragedy. how vulnerable is america to lone wolf attacks? also is waterboarding torture? surprising findings. israel could drag in the u.s. i'm antonio mora, welcome to "consider this," we'll have those stories and much more straight ahead. >> brazen act of terror, in the

heart of downtown sydney. >> heavily armed police stormed the cafe, releasing several hostages. >> three people are dead including the gunman. >> there are certain things that are always off the table. >> clearly things permissible. >> very clear to stop short of torture. >> dozens of people have been hurt, violent confrontations between protesters and police. >> kicked off an unprecedented national antigovernment movement. >> the nature of terrorism has been shifted. >> taking advantage of social media has its own form of propaganda. >> the problem is you are fighting an idea. >> sony -- >> warning news organizations to stop publishing details leaked. >> or else it will sue. >> we begin with the dramatic end to a 16 hour hostage standoff at a cafe in sydney,

australia. >> in the past 24 hours this city has been shaken by a tragedy that none of us could have ever imagine imagined . >> some 17 hostages could be seen through window, and a black flag, and then after 2:00 a.m., australia time, other hostages frantically ran out and gun five erupted. a wave of gun fire and bullets. police officer shot in the face. >> there was a number of gun shots that were heard which caused officers to move straight to what we call and ea, an emergency action plan and that caused them to enter. >> the suspect is identified as 50-year-old man haron monis, an iranian immigrant with a

criminal past who is believed to have acted alone. the self styled sheik is known by authorities to send hate mail to families of soldiers killed in afghanistan. violent charges of sexual assault and accessory to murder in other cases. investigators are still looking into what motivated monis, high alert for these so-called lone wolf attacks. joining us from mt. veu, californiview,california, is dro served as a counterterrorism instructor for major law enforcement agencies clung the nypd, and the awfnlt federal aul police . it's very good to have you with us. messagely unstable said tony

abbott, prime minister, lone wolf attacks in north america and europe. is this the brand of terrorism we need to focus on most right now? >> we have seen that i.s.i.s. the terrorist group in iraq and syria they have invested in the sociasocial media and that is if driving a number of support cells, cells supporting abu bakr al-baghdadi.and these groups to mount attacks. we have seen attacks in north america, belgium and now we have seen attacks in australia. >> we're going to talk more about social media in our next segment but this man was very active on the internet. in fact he pledged allegiance not that long ago to someone he referred the as the caliph of muslims, the imam of l our

times, is there any doubt about he was talking about abu bakr al-baghdadi? >> in my view he took his allegiance from abu bakr al-baghdadi, he took this oath on the 17th of november, that is about a month ago. and it is very clear that those who have taken such a pledge they will conduct attacks or support activities or advocate in support of i.s.i.s. and it is paramount for governments to monitor those individuals very carefully. >> you have written about a speech that was released by i.s.i.l. in september. you said that speech served to mobilize jihadists in western countries. how effective have they been in radicalizing people around the world? >> i.s.i.s. greatest strength is social media. i.s.i.s. has penetrated, invaded

our social media space and they are politicizing, radicalizing and mobilizing, segments of vulnerable muslims especially youth to advocate, support and participate in the campaign. >> now, australia had been on high alert for months because some australians had joined i.s.i.l. by some estimates more than 100 had joined. there was a beheading plot that was foiled in september. we saw horrible images of a young son of an australian fighter holding the severed head of an australian soldier. not just in the west but in australia and east asia. >> yes, i.s.i.s. footprint in australia and in southeast asia is growing significantly. those who are traveling to fight in syria and iraq includes not

only europeans and middle east earns and africans but the number of areas and going to asia have gone very significantly. >> what about the role of law enforcement? here you have a guy facing all sorts of charges if violent crimes expel and hateful rants on social media. how was this man let out on bail? >> law enforcement needs grairt powers more resources to fight this threat, also it is paramount to hold service providers accountable for what they post. and it is so important for governments to work very closely with legal and other service providers to ensure that other intraint space is nointernet spy

other groups. >> what should counterterrorism officials do to counter the threat i.s.i.l. poses outside the middle east? >> education, organizations, media organizations to ensure that they create a counterterrorist environment. right now what is happening is i.s.i.s. working with supporters and sympathizers such as haroon, the killer in the case of the sydney event, the hostage taker, what they are doing, spreading i.s.i.s. taker, recruiting and militarizing youth. so there must be a counter request that, government working with community partners, with religious community and other

organizations to create an extremist counter terrorist environment. >> that is an important conversation, thank you for being with us. man haron monis appears to have acted alone. before his facebook page was taken down on monday he had well over 14,000 likes. he also posted regular tweets, writing earlier this month that islam is the religion of peace. that's why muslims fight against america and its allies. counterterrorism project, countering their narrative and exposing their means of financial support. david great to have you with us. >> thank you for having me. >> you said recently we're only starting to recognize how far ahead the extremists are in their use of social media.

we invinted this. why are we having trouble with this? >> the ideology, the extremism has been around for a long long time. so is counterextremism efforts. but these using social media for their platforms to spread their message. >> why do you think they are playing a major role in inspiring people like this guy in australia man haron monis to do what he did? >> i think they did. they borrow a level of education and sophistication, particularly i.s.i.s. and their affiliates that we haven't seen before. for example they develop clearinghouses, if they've been suspended or taken off line. they put up an immediate site in its place. >> why can't we get rid of these

clearinghouses then? basically the clearinghouses are telling people where to go. if a u.s. company has managed to take down their account. >> exactly. how to underpipeline our efforts. part of the -- to undermine our efforts. vice president developed strategies had haven't been responsive enough. expertser coming the them and saying, this is a problem you have to do more. >> obviously there are many complaints to twitter and facebook about accounts of all sorts that people think they should pull down. are they not paying enough attention from your perspective to issues of extremism? >> absolutely. and that's one of the big problems is that all complaints aren't the same. all objectionable activity on social media is not the same. if you have people inciting violence, there should be other

groups. >> to take action and to stop them from doing this and this guy, man haron monis was very active on social media. he wrote things like shame on those racist and terrorist australians who support the governments of america and its allies, from western perspective god and his prophets are terrorists. why doesn't twitter and facebook, why don't they put you guys at the top of the line given this can incite violence? >> given crep experts preferred. come to syria and fight with us, these kind of activities we are seeing, it becomes a sounding board and echo chamber where he can feed his animosity and feed his hate. the outcomes are just as bad

unfortunately. >> so it makes the individual the lone wolf more extreme because of the fact they can post all this and the kind of feedback they get online? >> absolutely. >> this guy had a lot of followers, he had a facebook page that's been taken down but not before it had more than 14,700 likes. so again, it would seem that something like that would come to the attention of the -- of american companies, and so why is it not happening? there's just too much out there? >> it may that be there's certainly a lot of propaganda out there and they get a lot of complaints. but i do think they haven't prioritized that and there's not an acknowledgment of the severity of the problem. we need to track those people and not report them, there is a point there, at the same time we see that, there is a point of action, until they take that step of actually killing people we need to get them off the internet.

>> what do you think about that, that argument has been made that this is a way of tracking some of these guys and it could help us prevent violence because it does give us an entry into the way they're thinking and what they may be planning to do. >> i think there is validity to the argument, we can't let tracking be an excuse for passivity or passivists. these individuals are violent, will conduct violent attacks. one individual shami witness, reinforced our argument, once his accounts were taken down a number of affiliated accounts came offline, because individuals were fearful of being exposed or exposed in some way. he was a seed account and he was very, very effectively, there

were other cells that grew and explicitted from his account. >> to take up arms in this terrible struggle here, thank you for bringing light to this it's an important topic. good to have you. >> thank you for having me. >> in australia fears that muslims will face a backlash because of monday's deadly standoff led to a big show of solidarity on social media. on facebook, rachel jacobs described a woman on a train silently removing her head scarf. jacobs ran after her and said put it back on, i'll walk with her. the woman started to cry and hugged her, before walking off alone. volunteering to help muslims, "i'll ride with you" became a hashtag. hermella. >> in a show of solidarity australians are offering to

travel with muslims who might be afraid of being harassed. the hashtag i'll ride with you has been used more than 250,000 times on twitter in less than 24 hours. terry says i'm a semi regular commuter on the mondura line, if you ride with me i'll help you, i'll wear a scarf. kristin made an i'll ride with you sticker for her back. the ladies who i shared a cab with this an, thank you from the bottom of my heart. the campaign isn't just heartwarming it is also smart for counterterrorism. inclusiveness is our best defense. the state department also weighed in calling the viral campaign a mass execution of racism, our viewers applauded the movement, joanna said, solidarity is so important in difficult times, no one should

have to fear for their safety. and tweeting, a place for compassion in a post9/11 world. on twitter argues, terrorism, when it does it will see how they react to muslims. let us know what you think. you can tweet me @hermellatv. after the hashtag loses steam. >> thank you, hermella. the powerful number of americans who are raising their voices saying enhanced interrogations are legal. having the united nations to force a timetable for police between israelis and palestinians is called putting terrorism inside our home by benjamin netanyahu. will the u.s. step in? what do you think, join the conversation @ajconsiderthis and on our facebook page.

>> is waterboarding torture? in the wake of last week's senate committee records on the cia's detention and interrogation program, a new cbs poll found that 69% of americans believe it is. even so 49% think aggressive tactics are sometimes justified while 36% say they are never justified. meanwhile former vice president dick cheney remained defiant over the weekend, strongly supporting the techniques by the craze while he was in office. torture memos that were used as legal justification, admitsome interrogators went far beyond what was authorized .

constitutional expert bruce fine, joins us from phoenix, arizona. bruce very glad to have you with us. want to start with dick cheney on meet the press on sunday. >> for 13 years we avoided another mass casualty ataj tac on the united states. we did capture bin laden, and a lot of those senior guys who were responsible for the 9/11 attack. i'd do it again in a minute. >> he's essentially saying, the end justifies the means. what is your reaction? >> two reactions. first, there is no justification for committing torture in crimes that maybe you had a pleasant result. the fact is that certain prohibitions that we undertake because of who we are as a people. the torture convention that we ratified as a treaty in our criminal law makes no exceptions no ticking time bomb exceptions whatsoever. even if we enslave some of the

al qaeda people and we thought that enslaving them would deter others from joining it still doesn't make it legal, it would still be criminal. the second observation is that mr. cheney seems to think that the reason why we haven't had another terrorist attack here is because we flouted the law. because we violated the prohibitions on torture. there's no reason to believe that that's true. our constitution is not a suicide pact. there are ample grounds, ample available tools with probable cause and due process for which we can thwart and prevent terrorism. that is what has prevented the additional terrorist attacks if anything. serves as a recruiting tool to the international terrorists and makes the problem more difficult not less. >> cheney is not alone. three former cia directors agree with him, what was done was not torture and it did provide actionable intelligence. james woolsey defended

waterboarding, listening to this had. >> if you want to call waterboarding torture, most u.s. law would not call it torture. >> he went on to say there is no long term health impact to the person from the effects of the interrogation. like pulling someone's nails out then it's not torture. legally does he have a point? >> no, for example, on waterboarding the torture statute specifically prohibits or defines as mental torture slatesimulated death. the purpose is to make the victim the person subject to waterboarding fear of death from drowning. that is part of the fear from torture. whether it is torture, we prosecuted japanese troops as criminals for waterboarding

americans. how can you say it's store chur if the yap fees do it but it's not if we do it? >> their argument is that our water boarding was different that it was osafer version. but let's go beyond the waterboarding. some of the interrogation methods were really brutal, sleep deprivation, rectal feeding, being forced to stand on broken limbs. you who wrote those infamous memos authorizing the interrogation techniques, he said that the people who did this are at risk legally because they were acting outside their orders. so could those people, are they at risk legally? could they be prosecuted? >> well, under the statute, everybody's at risk. even those who got some kind of approval from the justice department under the statute that john mccain authored.

that's still only a partial justification. the reliance upon the legal memo has to be legal and something an objective person would believe is plausible. then if we go beyond that and say well where if they hadn't gotten legal approval from the justice department could they still be prosecuted, the answer is yes. the law doesn't say you have to get approval from the justice department before you do something, that is automatically illegal. but certainly they are in greater vulnerability. but the statute of limitations which typically is five years. >> right. >> maybe with regard to torture you might want to lift the statute of limitations. i don't think there would be a problem with ex post facto laws. it is a universal crime and any nation that wants to assert universal jurisdiction could do so. so they are clearly vulnerable if they travel and ought to be

on the alert on that score. >> right and the obama administration has said that at least the noises they have made is that they will not prosecute. i should bring up that supreme court justice antonin scalia has jumped on this, he said that we have laws against torture, the constitution though says nothing whatsoever about torture. and he continued by saying listen, i think it's very facile for saying torture, knows location of a nuclear bomb that has been planted in los angeles and will kill millions of people. you think it's an easy question, you think it's clear you cannot use extreme measures to get that information out of that person? that's the extreme case. in a situation what is that? >> in that case it shows how ridiculous the argument is. because that extreme case never occurred and certainly not during the enhanced interrogation techniques that

were utilized by the cia. we have stopped them for seven years and we haven't had a disaster have we? well in fact there hasn't been anyone who said since 2007 we stopped them and we've lost all sorts of vital intelligence. that's an extreme case. if you it shows you on what thin ice you are skating. and the last observation i'd make -- >> some would argue that in the philippines case the ramsey yousef case, that torture ended up foilg tha foiling that plot n dershowitz said even though he's against torture, he said some torture warrants if there was that extreme case you could go to a judge and ask for permission. >> then he needs to change the

law. because right now the law that the united states ratified in the convention against torture makes zero exceptions for it, zero. and he needs to convince people the law needs to be changed. you just don't get to decide that the law is not a good idea and flout it. you need to change the law and convince a majority of american people and legislators it needs to be changed. and that's what i find so ridiculous about these arguments. the torture convention is uununambiguous. not because the president or dick cheney or allen dershowitz thinks. >> thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> secretary of state john kerry is back in intense negotiations that will take him into three

european cities in three days. kerry met israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu on monday, the israelis and palestinians are proposing separate u.n. conventions, attempts of the palestinians and some european countries to force conditions on israel will only deteriorate the situation and will jeopardize israel and therefore we will fearsly oppose it. for more i'm joined from rah ramallah. >> we are presenting a draft resolution to the security

council. this draft resolution is a resolution that aims to end the conflict, end israel's occupation, establish the so long held international consensus about the two-state solution and firmly decides on a timetable for implementation. this is what we are trying to do. we are just shouting out loud to everybody, we can no longer wait. this occupation has been here for 67 years. this occupation is the longest in the history of man kind and it is about time either to end it, via international will and legitimacy or we will have to start the journey of rearranging our relationship with this occupation to raise its occupation -- to raise its course i mean. because without raising the course of this occupation the occupiers have become very comfortable. >> what does that mean? >> that means that should we fail in the security council and we hope we will not fail, we hope the international community and the u.s. particularly would

come to the conclusion that what we are doing is the last life line for the two-state solution. will come to the conclusion that we are actually the last summary for a peaceful end to the situation when in fact we are challenged every day busy israeli government that not only is a nonpartner in the solution, but also, a nonpartner by deeds not by words. they are building on a daily basis, they are transforming the situation on the ground, the situation on the ground has been transformational. we are homing that the security council will work, the u.s. will at least not block it that europe will support it and the rest of the world will support it. should we fail, should the u.s. politics prevail, we should find new formulas whereby the status quo is no longer as comfortable as it has been to the israeli establishment. if this is not achievable then what we are going to do next is

to continue raising peacefully the course of this occupation until it comes to a level whereby israel will have to relinquish its control of our lives and its blockage of our freedom and our quest for very human rights. because the situation has become unbearable to an extent we can no longer wait weeks let alone months and years. our situation is simply diplomatic, legal, a very simple tool to try to put an end to this. >> i do know that settlements have grown despite international opposition. you are talking about raising the cost peacefully because as you know it's not even really clear that either the french resolution or the palestinian resolution will be even introduced to the security council. the jordanians who will present your resolution have seemed a

little wishy-washy, what ends up coming from all that. what do you say to prime minister netanyahu? he says israel would reject any timetable or effort to dictate terms, an attempt to put terrorism inside our home inside the state of israel. his position was that israel pulled out of gaza and look at what happened there, rocket attacks and tunnels. >> mr. netanyahu has been in the business of lying too long. they are dictating the terms not we. they are turning transforming the very landscape of the territory, in the occupied territory, the occupied state. what we are doing is reaffirming the international consensus, we are not doing anything in the latter, what we are trying trying to do is preventing mr. netanyahu from murdering the two state solution. the right for self determination, the right for

freedom and dignity, the right for social justice and therefore this is absolutely could not be further from the truth with mr. netanyahu is saying. what he is doing and saying is another clear example that this current israeli government is simply not interested in ending their occupation. they are only interested in deepening their occupation and in managing the conflict via an empty process that serves only as a smoke screen for the real project which is the greater israel project. >> but then why push for these resolutions now? why not wait if netanyahu is a big part of the problem, why not wait until after the israeli election in march where we could see a different prime minister elected? are you not concerned that pushing for this could back five and could strengthen hard liners in the israeli government? >> we have done everything in the book, every trick to try and do that.

successful governments, whether labor or lecud, which by the way, republican and israel, has no sense of crisis no sense of urgency. the war crimes in gaza obliterate almost one-third of this city, mass murder 2200, 551 of them children kids, entire families were wiped off off the record and israel enjoys total impunity. thanks to the united states of america full protection in the legal and diplomatic and political sense. today we want to send to israel, the very clear message that there is no such impunity. >> hope to have you back on the show soon, thank you. now for some more stories from

around the world. we begin in penns burg pennsylvania, early monday morning a neighbor heard four shots at the apartment of william stone's ex wife. the girls were later found safe. police then found more bodies at two other locations. all relatives of stone. swat teams mistakenly surrounded a house, believing the person was barricaded inside. he is still on the loose and considered armed and dangerous. next we head to mexico where 21 people including eight police officers were injured after clashes erupted with protesters over the 43 students who disappeared more than two months ago. police say protesters ran over five officers in a truck and beat up three others.

cars were set ablaze and barricades were ripped down as the protesters who were organizing a concert in support of the missing students battled with police. police and protesters accused each other of insighting sunday's violence. we end up in new jersey where piles of parcels end up strewn over i-267. driver reported only minor injuries and osecond truck was brought in to retrieve the packages. the accident comes on what is expected to be busiest shipping day of all time. fedex was expected to deliver 22.6 million packages and the post office, 640 million pieces of mail alone. that's parts of the world ahead. is the answer fewer police? also the world's most he be

dangered species and how humans are speeding up the extinction of these great animals. and later, the sony hackingg scandal has been very embarrassing for stars. but sony is threatening to sue major news outlets.

outlets.

>> protesters in oakland, california chained themselves together on the ramp of an interstate highway monday while others blocked doors to the police department. as protest of the recent sheetings of unarmed black men by white police officers seem in no way abating. there are signs that police are getting fed up. new york saw its largest protests yet on saturday, including some violence and one group flooded the streets chanting, we want dead cops.

>> we want dead cops, now. >> for mere we're joins by ellis vitale, author of the book city of disorder, how the quality of life campaign transformed new york politics. recently wrote an article entitled, we don't just need nicer cops, we need fewer cops. that was for the magazine's special issue on the crisis of american policing. ellis, good to have you with us. the new york police department has really given protesters a lot of leeway. but there was a somewhat ugly incident this weekend, a couple of police officers were assaulted. the new york police department has now said multiple times that they feel thrown under the bus by mayor deblasio who criticized them. so is a good force and other forces around the country getting tainted because of a few bad apples?

>> well, i don't think the issue is so much just the conduct of individual officers. i think what's starting to happen now is people are taking a step back and saying, what are the policies that are driving the police to have these kinds of encounters? you know i don't think any of the officers in the erik garner case set out that morning to kill someone. they don't wake up every morning figuring out how they can reproduce racial injustice, but by nature discriminatory and imposes a huge burden on communities of color. >> you are talking about the aggressive policing, over the past 20 years, the broken windows policy the go after small crimes, quality of life crimes, stop and frisk, do you think that's responsible for what's happened in a community like this? >> fifort it's poisoned the relationship between police and

communities of color . unfortunate sort of tragic aspect of the erik garner case, his refusal to cooperate with the police, why? he was tired of the constant harassment and criminalization and what we're really seeing is kind of a crisis of legitimacy of urban policing. >> more that than the fear that violence has been high? >> yes, i think that police have this fear and that can lead to some very bad outcomes like the recent death of akai girly, in a housing project in new york. he was legally in his own stairwell but the police officer was patrolling in the stairwell, gun out, finger on the trigger, the officer shoots and kills him. police officers are driven by fear but also by this mindset

that they are at war with the public, a war on drugs, quality of lime, war on crime, it's that mindset that is driving the actions. >> i don't know if you were around 30 years ago as i was in new york city and back in the '80s everybody you knew had been robbed or mugged somehow or another. new york is now arguably the safest big city in the world. >> it's fantastic and everybody is enjoying the benefits of it but the crime drop is an international phenomenon. occurring in hundreds of cities, different approach to policing. this is not a new york centric phenomenon. >> but then some cities that didn't have the aggressive policing have seen crime not go down nearly as much, chicago for example. >> not as much but there are other factors ongoing in chicago as well. even if policing is responsible

for a little bit of the difference between chicago and here the political cost of mass criminalization, which is what we are talking about, the prison population going from 200,000 to two of.5 million. >> you refer to it as the new jim crow, but is the solution then really to have fewer cops to go to the title of your peace in the nation? >> because traditionally we have always thought hey the more cops the better, more police on the street is going to keep us safer. >> you know it's funny when we look at policing in developing countries and countries without democracy we immediately understand that the police can be an extremely dangerous tool. it can be a real threat to the civilian population. and what we failed to appreciate is, that even in a liberal democracy the police are an incredible powerful coercive tool of the state and we should always be skeptical of the

expansion of their power. and right now we have the police in to many realms of everyday life that we need to have a real rethink about that. >> what would you say to mayor giuliani who has been out on the talk shows saying his policies, the broken window policy, the quality of life policing has actually led to saving thousands of minority lines because the murder rate has dropped so much in minority communities? >> i don't accept that policing is the reason and the other thing is that even with the crime drop, inequality in new york is worse than it was when giuliani took office. homelessness is worse, the incarceration rates are tacial, terrible, the job opportunities for minorities are dismal. the burden of intensive and invasive policing is just adding to the problems of those communities. >> it's an important conversation we're certainly having it here and across the

country. alex good to see you, thanks. >> you're welcome. >> coming up sony threatens to sue the press over its hacking scandal. is the company just looking to shift the blame? but first the world's most vulnerable animals and how extinction is sadly approaching. our data dive is next. >> no...no.. >> al jazeera investigates egypt's lost power on al jazeera america

>> now available, the new al jazeea america mobile news app. get our exclusive in depth, reporting when you want it. a global perspective wherever you are. the major headlines in context.

mashable says... you'll never miss the latest news >> they will continue looking for survivors... >> the potential for energy production is huge... >> no noise, no clutter, just real reporting. the new al jazeera america mobile app, available for your apple and android mobile device. download it now >> today's data dive takes on the plight of endangered animals. northern white rhinos, a death of only five of these rhinos alive all in captivity. conservationists efforts have not been successful. more than a thousand were killed last year in south africa, home of the largest population of rhinos, nearly as many have been

killed this year. but there have been positive conservation efforts. about 100 years ago, the southern white rhino was under threat of extinction with less than 100 left. after a century of conservation there are now more than 20,000. dozens of other species are less fortunate, only about two to 300 of apes exist because they have been hunted for their meat and conservation efforts, amir leopards less than 40 of them are around. hawk's bill turtles are also critically endangered. they have existed in 100 million years and considered a link in marine eke osystems. they are threatened in wildlife trait trade because of their shells. tigers, none have been sighted for over 25 years. 4,000 of them were known to be

in existence in the early 1920s. in 1956 only 30 to 80 were left. coming up sony tries to beat the press. the studio threatens to sue major news outlets, for a hacking scandal. >> hi everyone i'm john siegenthaler in new york. coming up right after "consider this." a city in mourning, sydney remembers victims of the attack. military in addiction, how the va is trying to avoid drug overdose. should companies be forced to reveal a pay gap between men and women? coming up after "consider this."

>> sony pictures hacking scandal has been a nightmare for the studio and some of the show business's most famous names. this after countless leaked e-mails, salaries of stars and executives, leaked e-mail addresses, even racially charged e-mails about president obama. now the studio is fighting back,

threatening news outlets if they keep reporting on the stolen material. eric garner joins us in the studio. famous lawyer david boyce is threatening the new york times, the journal and your employer. holding you responsible for any damages these elaboratio leaks e caused. is it a desperate attempt? >> to get into the heads of journalists, to give them pause before they reveal maybe the more sensitive secrets, not just the gossipy kinds of e-mails that slam stars by studio heads. there's a lot more interesting stuff that you find in the files that could be coming out soon. i think it's their attempt to get ahead of that. >> there is real fear they may release even more the so-called

christmas gift. >> yes, absolutely. studios work with politicians all the time on legislation, they work on international trade treaties, they do dealings in foreign countries like china. you know this is the real sensitive stuff that can harm their business. >> and the new york times executive editor said that these leaks aren't the pentagon papers or wikileaks. this is a certain irony here this is liberal hollywood which has been basically supportive of leaks like julian assange. >> nobody likes their private e-mails released. there is a little bit of a double standard, sure. no one in the media themselves wants their communications to be put forward. so you know, i think that clearly, when you're the victim,

of something like this, you you know hide and you say this is atrocious. >> now how badly is this hurting sony and the sony brand? >> right now their stock isn't down significantly. their pictures seem to be doing fine. but you know, what they have to be concerned about is what's coming next. you know, whether it's going to harm their relationships with business partners, whether it's going to, you know, harm the careers of the executives at the head of sony. >> because it's not just sort of the gossipy things. the reality is there is some substance to some of the things that have been released. if you go down the list of things you know you're seeing women, both in front of the camera and behind the camera not getting paid as much money as their male counterparts. weaver got these racially insensitive e-mails about president obama. there is something that really could hurt sony pictures at

least in the way it operates given some of these revelations. >> i don't know if it's going to hurt sony but it should raise conversations out there about pay discrepancies. i think the sony leaks are in some ways an opportunity to discuss issues that you know, haven't really been at the forefront, you know, how men and women are paid and compensated for jobs that are essentially equal. and, you know, the kind of conversations that people have behind doors about, you know, race in america and all that. >> now leaks came about supposedly because the north koreans were upset about this movie involving an assassination attempt against kim jong-un their supreme leader. seth rogan came out saying in

reality, this is similar to the nude picture that was out this year that a hacker got access to nude pictures of actors and put them out there. that a lot of this dirty laundry is put out there when it's not somebody's property, it is stolen information. >> yes, but by the same token the government would argue that the documents that edward snowden leaked were also stolen information and the documents that wikileaks published were stolen too. it's always you know a balancing act for journalists. you know sources come to us and they ask us to publish stuff, secrets often to advance their agenda. you know and a lot of journalists right now are considering is this like publishing jennifer lawrence's nude photographs or like publishing the documents that edward snowden gave. >> it would be very interesting to see what happens with david

boyce and whether they take legal action and whether that legal action goes anywhere. it's a really interesting topic, eric gardener, thank you. >> that's it for "consider this." we'll take you to the most sacred places on earth. and america takes on i.s.i.l, the growing religions in iraq and syria. we'll be joined by the only member of the yazidi group. we'll see you next time.

this is what we do. al jazeera america. >> this is al jazeera america - i'll john seigenthaler. stand off in sydney. what we are learning about the victims and the suspect. >> this pen is my gun. sandy hook. two years later. did the families open a new legal chapter in the gun debate. sony hacks. the new warning of more to come. and new fall out over the leaked emails. and controversy - the comedian's wife speaks out