done with everybody says never again. it's too much. it's too long. it's too tiring. it's too boring and there's too much nonsense and i'm never coming again. never coming again. >> and guess what? >> never coming again. >> see you next year! [ laughter ] >> never! -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com good evening, everyone. 6:00 here on the east coast. you're in the cnn quote newsroom" i'm poppy harlow joining you in new york. 57,000 people in the path of the a winter storm. expectations are for white-out conditions and heavy ice and hurricane-level winds. a blizzard warning will cover new york city and boston that will stretch up to the canadian border and maine. millions of people being washed to stay off the roads. new york's mayor says this storm could be the worst of his life time. >> so this literally could be

one of the top two or three largest storms in the history of this city and we need to plan accordingly. so my message to all new yorkers is prepare for something worse than we have seen before. prepare to be safe. take every precaution. now is the time to get ready for this extreme weather. >> about 20 million people are being warned to stay off of the roads tomorrow all up and down the east coast. take a look at this map. this is the map of potential travel snafus in more than two dozen cities. delta air lines right now offering free flight chances tomorrow and tuesday for travelers flying to or from any of those citiesio you see there on the map and other airlines making similar offers. ivan cabrera joins us from the cnn severe weather center in atlanta. this could break snowfall records in some places. >> well my goodness.

not only break snowfall records here but this could be not just in the top five worst new york city snowstorms in history, this could be the one. this could be the number one storm the worst that we have ever seen since we've been keeping records. that's not hyperbole here. we're talking about a serious potential of 24 to 36 inches of snowfall. that is two to three feet. if we get that we would surpass '96, 2010, 1888 and 1947 and 2006 where we almost picked up 27 inches. the potential is there and even if we don't get 30 inches it doesn't matter because it is going to be a crippling snowstorm in that you're not going to be able to move anywhere really for the next two to three days and it begins in earnest as we hit through monday evening and there is the map from philly to new york where it really gets serious. 10 to 12 to the north and west but right along this barrier, new york, boston and heading into maine.

that's when we'll be picking up as much as 24 inches of snowfall. two feet perhaps as three feet and that is why we have winter storm warnings posted and also remember the second part of the storm is not just the snow and the incredible amounts of it but it will be the wind and that is why we have a blizzard warning that is in effect from jersey to new york all of the way to boston and into maine. wind gusts, poppy, could exceed hurricane force, that's 74 miles an hour along with the snow that is going to bring you power outages and it is going to paralyze the major cities i do think, over the next couple of days. poppy? >> wow! you're going to be busy and we'll have teams all up and down the east coast reporting around the clock for people as this storm intensifies into tomorrow night. thanks very much. appreciate it. ♪ all right. turning our attention overseas and the difficult question of how to bring home hostages held by isis.

some argue the government should pay terrorist ransom demands. some governments do this. isis initially demanded $200 million to free these two japanese hostages. japan refused and the man on the right, harunathat runharunaia kaua was beheaded. they analyzed the images and called them highly credible and leaving governments with a tough dilemma. do you pay for a hostage's return and fund terrorism in the process or refuse and then see them oftentimes executed? cnn national security analyst peter bergen wrote an op-ed on this exact topic and joining us to discuss former cia operative bob baird who joins us from colorado. i thought your op-ed was fascinating and you outline that predicament. if you pay a ransom a hostage is more likely to be released and, two every time a ransom is paid it increases the chances that other hostages will be taken to

help fill the coffers of a terrorist group. is there any, any solution here? >> no good solution. there are bad solutions, poppy, and one least bad solution the u.s. government should consider and not publicly announce side the idea that if an american is taken hostage as is likely to happen again and again, because if you want to have american journalists covering difficult areas or american aid workers in difficult areas they'll likely be kidnapped and the family can raise private donations and get involved in a private negotiation, otherwise you're condemning american journalists and aid workers in areas where they might be kidnapped to a certain death if you want to negotiate at all. the bowe bergdahl negotiation, he was exchanged for five members of the taliban and to say we'll never negotiate as a public matter is fine but as a private matter i think the white house needs to show more

flexibility here. >> last year president obama did order at least a review of u.s. hostage policy and we don't know what has come out of that yet, but we have seen other governments and reportedly france paying for hostages and we've seen some french hostages released and should the u.s. government be reassessing? >> poppy, you're right. the problem with the french is they paid a lot of money for the hostages. almost inevitably the hostage takers went out and picked up some more and even japanese which aren't directly involved in the conflict but you should keep negotiations always going with these groups. the turks did it in iraq and got their people out of mosul from the islamic state. we don't know how much was paid if anything or favors were done.

i think any of these groups whether al qaeda or taliban, we should keep some sort of back channel open to see what room there is and i agree with peter, you should never say never on negotiations. >> peter bergen bob baer appreciate it. the mideast is in the middle of anheaval like no other. it has fallen to a group of rebels. this while al qaeda and isis continue to gain ground in syria and strengthen strong holes in iraq and in rock solid, frankly, saudi arabia our longstanding ally against terror of the king there has died and he's been replaced by a new king. everyone from diplomats to politicians and strategists and counterterrorism analysts are having a look at their playbooks. what do these changes mean for the u.s. and for our allies? who are the winners? who are the losers in the middle east? we'll explore that over the next half hour right here on cnn. let's get some background

now on all of these developments and how they could affect the middle east and the rest of the world? our tom foreman lays it out. >> reporter: there are good reasons that leaders all around the world are watching the middle east because the uncertainty there could affect many nations and it starts right here with saudi arabia. the death of the king there the ascension of his half-brother to power theoretically would mean a continuation of the existing policies, an ally of the u.s. an influencer in the region but there are questions about exactly how that will proceed, and remember this is the largest oil exporting nation in the world and their military is a force to be reckoned with there. beyond that, what about yemen down here? yemen is in chaos right now. rebel forces are pushing the government and it's not even clear who is in charge or who will be in charge once the dust settles. we do know though that many terrorist elements have been at work in yemen for years now. al qaeda in the arabian

peninsula is down there and who knows where they wind up. what about here? syria and iraq. we put them together although they have a lot of different issues. syria has had a civil war with bashar al assad and we put them together because they have a common problem and that is isis. isis is trying to carve its nation and its islamic caliphate out of the territory that spans that border. so that is just for the nations and there are many more that right now are causing uncertainty in that region. egypt continues to be an uncertain country in terms of its future and we don't know what will go on there as time moves forward and israel remains a very strong u.s. ally and it could feel pressure from all of this uncertainy and relations with the u.s. are not the best right now and what about this one over here? iran. big influence on the regional ready and if things continue if things are shaky enough iran

might be the big winner coming out of this with even more influence in the middle east. >> tom foreman, thank you for that. coming up after a quick break our panel will weigh in in the next half hour on the fate, the future of the middle east. ♪ ♪ ♪ you're only young once. unless you have a subaru. (announcer) the subaru xv crosstrek. symmetrical all-wheel drive plus 34 mpg. love. it's what makes a subaru a subaru.

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middle east. syria and iraq seem to be the countries with the most upheaval as we speak as isis tries to establish a caliphate, an islamic state across iraq and syria. al qaeda trying to re-establish itself as the king of terrorist organizations. we've assembled the top panel of experts to discuss the possible future of iraq. david gergen former adviser to presidents nixon and clinton. cnn national security analyst, former cia operative -- sorry, excuse me cnn national security analyst peter bergen author of "man hunt. the ten-year search for bin laden and former cia operative bob baer. i cannot think of better minds to discuss this. let me begin with you, david gergen. you say iraq is a mess out here and that is clear and a lot of discussion going right now about whether or not the u.s. should put boots on the ground and soldiers on the front lines in iraq again. should it happen? will it happen?

>> i don't think it will happen any time soon and let me say i think we're actually making more progress in iraq than we are in syria. at least we've stopped the momentum in iraq and the iraqi forces have taken back more territory, but what we are also seeing is that as iraq pushes back it's the shia militias that are doing a lot of the fighting and they're very very close to iran and i think that's a danger that has not been fully understood but is obviously coming to the fore now. >> bob baer, you said there are tier one special forces ready to go at any moment. what do you see in iraq playing out in terms of any u.s. forces? >> i agree with david. we're not going to put in a division or anything like that. we have tier one guys special forces up in kurdistan right on the front lines and as david said the government in baghdad is iranian backed and they're iranian backed militias are being pushed up into the sunni areas which at the end of the

day is not going to do anybody any good. these are death squads and they're still what i call concentration camps where sunni muslims are being held by the government in baghdad. so we are not in any way -- there's not much we can do about it but the sectarian tensions in iraq are getting worse rather than better and so we can hold back isis the islamic state and i think they'll ultimately fail to govern the sunni area but no one has the political solution. iraq is a failed state. it's -- it's crumbled. it doesn't exist anymore. >> colonel reese, to you, though. >> this week intelligence sources telling our barbara star some 6,000 isis fight verse been killed by the u.s. and coalition forces. about half of what they believe the entire isis army to be made up of. do you see -- are you more confident by that? is that an encouraging sign or do you see them gathering and

more and more strength and more fighters in the region? >> poppy, i actually disagree a bit with bob. i was just there a month ago, and what david said you have to take in two parts. one, let's just worry about iraq right now. i would tell you from baghdad south to basra, things are fine. there have been some attacks and there have been some car bomb but that's the way iraq lived. the people are going out and going to restaurants, they're shopping and it's what's happening. now when you go out west to al anbar, that's a whole section. that's a mess right now. we do have u.s. forces out there all of the way out to al assad air base. i would call that the front line. they're helping the iraqis train and fight. they're not on the ground but they are training them and are providing them close air support. if you go up north up to the tigris river valley that's where you're getting a lot of the shia militia going up and you're seeing that but the iraqi security forces are also having

some success. they're taken taji they've taken baji. they've done some good things up there, so we right now, what i would call is i think we've neutralized icis in iraq. syria, whole different story. >> peter bergen do you agree with that that coalition forces have neutralized isis in iraq? >> well certainly the momentum has begun to reverse and if we go back to the 6,000 figure which by the way, general lloyd austin said on the record to "the wall street journal" on january 22nd, you know and we take the general estimates of the size of isis go up to 30,000 and the cia adjusted its estimate of the size of isis about six to nine months ago, so 6,000 out of 30,000 is a pretty significant attrition rate particularly if you keep going. that said ice sis replenishing its ranks and i've seen reports

of a thousand recruits a month coming in. so right now it might be a bit of a wash but they're certainly not gaining territory and they're being pushed back and also very important, poppy is mosul which is the next big place where the iraqis are trying to get into. isis can't run a city of almost 2 million people. you know they're claiming to provide social services. >> right. >> it's one thing to do that in a small city like raqqa or syria and it's hard to do in a city of 2 million. >> that video with one of their hostages and james countly putting them all over mosul as a reporter and this is how great a society is run under isis and peter bergen the challenge for isis in syria, can it be overstated how important it is that the u.s. relationship with bashar al assad is what it is? a lack of any constructive relationship? >> how much does that defight our fight against ice tlis.

>> just one thing on the mosul point because it's very important. isis released a video saying how well they were doing in mosul and in response to a persuasive article by liz schwartz and she showed very convinceingly that services are not being supplied in mosul and that's a big issue for this group. on the issue of bashar al assad and the united states. our defact on position unfortunately, whatever the public position is is that bashar assad is being maintained in power and we're seeing an apartheid kind of pulling apart of the country. it's basically al qaeda, isis and the government. the free syrian army is basically mostly gone. there is no moderate syrian opposition in any serious numbers on the ground. that's the situation we face today. >> gentlemen, don't go anywhere. stick around. quick break and then we'll talk about the situation in saudi arabia where the president will be on tuesday and also yemen. back in a moment.

we are back with our panel now to talk about two countries which are allies to the u.s. in

the war against terror. both countries just saw government shake-ups as yemen's government was attacked this week and saudi arabia's king died. peter bergen to you, yemen was seen as a real ally to the united states and, you know a country that the u.s. pointed to and the administration pointed to as a success, a success story in the war against terror. can we call it that now? >> it was a success story until about a year ago. there was a point where al qaeda controlled yemen in 2010 and 2011 it was really pushed back. now we have the new situation and things change. yemen is a country that's running out of oil and its biggest contributor of aid is saudi arabia which will not help a shia government and things are -- they've never been good there and it's the poorest country in the arab world and things got worse in the last week with the resignation of the government and the instability you're seeing. >> david gergen weigh in on

that. the administration not long ago pointing to yemen and speaking publicly saying we successfully did this in yemen and yemen is one of the poorest economies in the entire region of the world. the u.n. predicting yemen will run out of water by 2017. this is a crisis. >> it is. i think others here are more expert on that but i think the larger point is that this is no longer just about as we began to think iraq syria and beating isis. what we're seeing is the breakdowns are breakouts of extremism now in yemen and we're seeing this as nigeria, and violence reaching paris and i was in davos when secretary of state kerry came to the world economic forum and in his speech was these situations are multiplying and we need a much more comprehensive approach to extremism around the world and that's yet conference february

18th. we spent trillions of dollars and he's saying we have to do something in effect comparable to that. >>. >> bob baer to you, when it comes to saudi arabia if anyone had any question about how important saudi arabia is to u.s. policy and strategy in the region they don't now with the president cutting a short trip to india, going there to meet with the new king on tuesday, how critical is the relationship in terms of where the u.s. stands now in fighting the war against terror? how important is saudi arabia? >> it is absolutely key. it's a pillar of stability in comparison to other countries around. if you look to syria, iraq and yemen. it's also the same producer. it's affecting our economy right now by lowering oil prices by continuing to produce at high levels. it's absolutely crucial. what's crucial for us is the chaos in yemen which i'm not sure we can fix doesn't spread

into saudi arabia and there are a couple million yemenis living in saudi arabia. if this affects them or you have great migration problems. we don't particularly like the way saudis govern their country, but we have no alternative other than support the royal family and saudi arabia. >> colonel reese, if you could, you were telling me in the break about whether or not special forces you believe, should go into yemen. at the same time you have this group called the huthis and many people are wondering what is that group and what does it stand for? some are talking about its alliances with iran. what are you seeing for yemen. >> diplomatically the embassy will have to talk to huthys to continue our counterterrorism aspects in yemen, but i also think that in a few days that we'll see at least a precedent come back again, because the

houthis is and everyone says let's throw special forces but when you have congress coming to the department of defense and saying we have to cut special forces by 20% and eventually it will break and it will affect us in other places. >> say the funding were there, right? and funding not being cut, et cetera. let's take that scenario? is it a great thing? is it something that will prove successful with the fact that look what happened to iraq now. >> special forces can't go in and there's no govern rment, all right, and make it better but if there is a government and if there's some type of stability and the what our special operation forces can do is help stabilize the area and also interact especially with the counterterrorism aspects and its small element and not a lot of funding and it's a smaller element and they bring a combat enabler to it. >> david gergen you advised

four presidents. if you were advising president obama right now on the eve of his trip to saudi arabia what would you say he should discuss with the new king in terms of the war against terror. >> i think he should emphasize the need for continuity and saudi policy and most importantly give them assureances about iran. that's what the saudis are deeply worried about, and they've been unhappy with the administration in recent months because they think there's too big a risk that the administration will cut a deal with iran that's going to leave them a super power in the area or that will put them on the verge of being a nuclear threshold status, it's called. i think the president has to in order to keep this relationship strong and i agree with everyone else who said how important saudi arabia is as a friend and ally of the united states and the larger war on terrorism. it's really important we show them that we can be a strong partner with them. >> also what the saudis were upset about is the u.s. didn't take force against syria and

bashar al assad. is that something to be discussed between the president and new king? >> i think they have to have a clear understanding about what the strategy is. >> we have two little wars against isis syria and no strategy. there has to be a larger agreement about what it is we're trying to do. i agree with the previous comments and it appears defact on that we're leaving assad in power, but that's obviously not what the saudis want and we need to have a serious, very private set of conversations about what the overall strategy must be. >> gentlemen, thank you. don't go anywhere. we'll take a quick break. on the other side we'll talk about iran and could iran emerge sort of the winner in all of this? that's next.

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why do we do it? why do we spend every waking moment, thinking about people? why are we so committed to keeping you connected? why combine performance with efficiency? why innovate for a future without accidents? why do any of it? why do all of it? because if it matters to you it's everything to us. the xc60 crossover. from volvo. lease the well-equipped volvo xc60 today. visit your local volvo showroom for details. >> let's continue our panel discussion on the middle east back with us. all these gentlemen to talk about it. let's take a look at these three countries that seem to be holding their own in the midst of all of this turmoil in the middle east israel egypt and iran.

let me begin with you, bob baer. you wrote a book. a book called "the devil we know" talking about iran and making a prediction that some say is likely right now. give me a sense if you think iran is going to come out on top in this. >> i had a very simple thesis in this book that was written seven years ago is that the sunni muslims in the middle east couldn't get it together and iran would take advantage of the chaos and i think indeed they have in iraq and that's an iranian-backed government baghdad and you have the houtis and you have hezbollah which controls lebanon for all intents and purposes. so i think the winner of the arab spring call it what you will is definitely iran and that's the way saudi looks at it and that's why they so art endly

oppose an agreement between iran and the nuclear weapons. you cannot abandon us on this and it's an iranian-saudi confrontation in the middle east and right now the iranians are on top. >> david gergen to you. the president, secretary kerry have said hold on. they don't want congress to try to pass any bills that would increase sanctions against iran and they said let's just wait until july and see if we can get a nuclear deal done see if we can get an agreement done even though there have been so many extensions on the deadline and the president going to saudi arabia and meeting with them this week the new king. is that the number one thing that should be discussed? >> i think he does need to discuss sanks so much as to what the terms of any agreement would look like and to see if they'll be reasonably supportive and if he sells them out in the negotiation with iran there will be hell to pay in terms of chaos in the region and it will be

much much more difficult to deal with other issues. go ahead. >> i'm just interested, david in what that means for the viewers. what does that mean there will be hell to pay? what can it do to alter the position it has now that the u.s. needs? >> the saudi relationship has been extremely important to us and it means a solid relationship whether it's been on oil and stability in the middle east. we have real problems with the saudi human rights record but none the less in terms of our overall structure of stability in the middle east the saudi arabia and the egyptians, big, big countries and you lose one of those relationships. iran used to be our friend and look at all of the chaos that has come from the fact that that relationship broke down. you lose this relationship with the saudis and we'll pay a price in a variety of ways that i

don't think we've even contemplated yet and that's why this agreement is so delicate this negotiation with iran is so delicate you've got the congress on one side. i think the president has made headway in the last few days with the senate in terms of passing the sanctions bill that he thought would disrupt the talks. i think he's now in a stronger position than he was two weeks ago and the administration makes good headway. this is a matter of enormous del cassy and the saudis have felt we haven't been talking to them and we haven't included them and they've been at the table just as the emirates have fell until recently and they weren't at the table and they worry about whether we're erratic and whether the president is strong enough and when they reversed himself on syria and the saudis got very very upset about that. is he tough enough to deal with the iranians? >> peter bergen to you, one headline not getting as much attention, but very important the instability in egypt. today you have the four-year anniversary of the uprising in

tahrir square and 14 people killed in protest. is egypt not being focused on enough when it comes to stability in the region? >> i think that's true. if the stories weren't so true in yemen and iraq and syria we'd be more focused on egypt which is the more populist country and the new leader of egypt is in many ways, i think more autocratic than mubarak who we regarded as an autocratic dictator. he's thrown many many thousand people in prison. he's banned the muslim brotherhood which is an organization of millions of people the largest political organization in reg i want and i think he's creating a powter keg because these people may advance. we've seen a group in the sinai which is being quite effective at killing tourists and others and identifying itself as part of isis in just this past several months. so i think we'll see a growing terrorism problem in egypt because the government is basically repress anything form of political dissent including

completely regity mat forms. >> colonel reese, a growing threat of terror in egypt. do you agree? >> poppy, i'm not sure if i would call it -- they've always had their own terror aspects and one of the things we'd have to watch that's fallen off the radar screen and you see the border to the west of egypt is libya. that is a complete mess anarchy, failed state, whatever you want to call it and egyptians are having issues on the border out there and that could become its own clash coming up. so that could be the next thing and again, we already had it and it's still out there floating and no one knows what to do with that. >> bob baer when it comes to israel you know we have prime minister benjamin netanyahu coming here to the united states at the invitation of congress to come speak in front of congress about the negotiations with iran. how strong a partner do we have in israel right now when you talk about stability in the region?

>> of course israel is the most stable country in the entire region. i think without any doubt, but its got its own problems and the palestinians are on the verge of a third intefadeh. they are also very worried about their borders. lebanon, there are still a lot of rockets coming into lebanon from iran. there's been an assassination last week of an iranian general. the israelis are very worried that the iranians will plant a flag on the golan heights and they're feeling very insecure about iran too. what they can do about it i don't know it's a long-term problem. >> well it is unbelievable. >> go ahead, david gergen quickly. >> here we have an extremely set of problems, obviously. we need a victory somewhere in the middle east. we need to do something against isis. we have to break the idea that isis is on a victory path because that's what attractions recruits and we can't deal with

all of this all at once, but we need to have a real punch somewhere that shows isis is going to lose this thing overall and you are gling to sign up for your death warrant if you join up with iceis. >> david gergen bob baer, colonel reese, thank you all for being with me tonight. >> after a quick break, one week from today, super bowl sunday. we'll talk all of the money behind the game next. (dog noise) hey, mi towel, su towel. more gain scent, plus oxi boost and febreze for 3 big things in one gain fling. it's our best gain ever! meet the world's newest energy superpower. surprised? in fact, america is now the world's number one natural gas producer...

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you knew this was bound to happen. "saturday night live" had fun with deflategate skewering bill belichick and tom brady. here is a little bit of it. >> good evening. as you can tell i'm taking this very seriously that's why i got dressed up. >> look all i know is that a football is a pig skin so i just assumed that the air in the football was inside the pig when

it died. >> tom, i think you're pretending to know a lot less than you actually do. >> what? i'm not worried about the air pressure in the ball. that's nerd stuff. that's honestly above my pay grade. you make $26.5 million a year been. >> yeah is that a lot? guys, i don't know things! >> super bowl sunday just a week away. christinaalesy joining me to talk about the favorites, the commercials. >> the super bowl is as much a marketing event as it is a sporting event. people tune in just for the commercials and advertisers perceive this as a really unique opportunity if they can afford it. ♪ >> super bowl xlix is already setting records. even before the patriots and the seahawks take the field. 30-second ads are going for $4.5

million a pop. half a million dollars more than last year. nbc sold nearly all of the spots even before the teams were set and all will be filled by kickoff. >> they're wonderful, i'm wonderful. >> so what's driving the price so high? ♪ >> eyeballs. the super bowl will likely draw more than 100 million viewers as it has each of the past five years and that massive, captive audience gives advertisers something they can't get anywhere else. >> 100 million people all watching the same thing at the same time and most of them are just as interested in the ad says as they are in the game. that is one of a kind. there's nothing like it on american television. >> reporter: budweiser's clydesdales will be back this year and anheuser-busch bought three spots that show case budweiser or bud light, but nbc says the technology wireless and automotive industries have been weak spots this year. notables like ford and

volkswagen didn't buy ads. that's opening up spots for rookies. there are 15 first-time sponsors in 2015. the company behind super glue is one of them. so is carnival cruise lines and skittles, a favor rid candy of seahawks running back marshawn lynch. >> one analyst says advertisers are like ships looking for safe harbor in the storm. in this turbulent time for media, the super bowl is the safe harbor. >> the safe harbor that doesn't come cheap. >>. ♪ >> don't worry, if you miss the commercials because this year nbc is doing something different and actually posting them online to its tumblr page as soon as they air. of course tumblr is the microblogging website that everyone loves. >> i wonder though if they're -- obviously, they have metrics to measure how effective they are. are they worth all of that money? >> not all of the time and the poster child for all of this is radioshack last year. >> yeah. >> it spent a ton of money and

the commercial was well received both by the ad experts and on social media among regular people right? it mocked itself for being stuck in the '80s. it used all of these characters from the '80s and you know what? today they are facing bankruptcy. so clearly it's much more advantageous for a brand that can reinforce the message throughout the year rather than using the super bowl as a hail mary pass for your business. >> very good point because it's going to cost you a pretty penny, some of these companies release their ads early, and i wonder why do they do that? >> there are two schools of thought on this. one is we want to build a buzz we want to get people interested so they want to see it again on television live then there are other advertisers especially this year that are keeping completely silent building you know that suspense. >> who will do what? >> i do like it when they have sort of the user-generated ads and then the people win, like $1 million for the best ads. >> sure. i want to play some of those.

>> thank you. all right. coming up next switching gears here. we watched racial tensions explode in ferguson missouri and across the country late last year. it is the subject of filmmaker spike lee's latest film. he spoke with our stephanie elam at the sundance film festival. ♪ ♪ >> and it they showed it to me and i said it's very good. so here we are at sundance and his thesis film is here in sundance. that's amazing. >> i'm still getting over it. >> i'm here and i'll see how people react to it you know? >> man, let's get out. >> they are really getting out of the car. >> what's up baby?

>> george all three of you are from the st. louis area and michael is from st. louis, as well. when you look at what happened with mike brown and the attention your hometown has gotten of late that has been it on the map sadly, how important is this for mike brown and ferguson? >> it is very important because it shows the aspect of what's being shown. it's not all negative in st. louis. you might see it on the nightly news drama here and problem with the movement over there, but it is not on an everyday basis and it is good to see in this film the good race relations that i do get to see. stephanie elam joins us live from the sundance film festival. this is getting a lot of buzz there. you saw the film. what do you think? what message does it send? >> reporter: poppy, spike lee, keep in mind this was his student who you saw there in the gray sweatshirt. this was his thesis project that went on to come here to

sundance. not a bad turn there so spike lee is the executive producer. michael arnell being from st. louis wanted to take it back and focused on this area, and found these three men, newcomers and had not acted in anything else and they're all from st. louis and they filmed this a year before the michael brown incident occurred but what they said they wanted to show was the nuance of how young men come of age and how our relationships change and we see a lot of that with women, but we don't see it so much with men and that's how the focus of this movie is and that's why they're saying it's not just all black and white how those relationships happen and i don't mean race and everything is more involved in that as we get older. >> interesting discussion. stephanie elam reporting for us all week from sundance film festival. thanks stephanie. coming up next the irs is actually allowed, it is legal for the irs to seize your money, cash even if you have not committed a crime. and even if you've always paid your taxes.

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guilty. it is a basic tenet of american law unless it seems you're

dealing with the irs in some cases. our gary tuchman talks to a 67-year-old iowa grandmother whose entire bank account was seized by the irs without any criminal charges filed. >> reporter: when business was hopping the line outside the door of this now shutdown mexican restaurant in northern iowa was long. people clamoring to get in and carol hinders was in her element. >> tell me why you loved this restaurant so much? >> because it was mine and i got to make the decisions, choose the food, make the food. it's what i wanted to do. >> mrs. lady's mexican restaurant did not take credit cards. cash only and local checks. but after owning the business for 37 years, carol hinders was getting tired and she was thinking of selling when one cash in the spring of 2013 two irs agents showed up at her front door. >> i looked at their badges. they came in and proceeded to tell me that they were here to

let me know that they had confiscated all my money from my business bank account and closed it. >> how much money? >> it was approximately $33,000. >> reporter: that's right. the irs took all of her money, every dime, but didn't charge her with a crime. the government claimed that because carol had routinely deposited cash into her account under $10,000 it was suspicious. she had, they claimed structured her deposits to avoid the reporting requirement the deposits over 10,000 would trigger. there is a fancy term for what the government did, civil asset forfeiture. in the world of civil forfeiture the government does not need you to be convicted of a crime before seizing your money. you don't even need to be charged with a crime. in civil forfeiture you're not innocent until proven guilty. you're guilty until proven innocent. >> reporter: to this day charl hinders has been charged with nothing. the idea behind civil asset forfeiture gan in the early

'80s. seize the money from the bad guys and the criminal networks will suffer greatly. they can use seized cash for themselves to use for expenditures in their offices. >> it violates the due process rights for americans and it is wrong and there is a simple premise that the government should not be taking money from people that have not done anything wrong. >> larry salesman works for the institute of justice an advocacy legal group in washington. he's representing carol hinders free of charge. >> why are they picking on carol? >> she's easy. most people like carol can't defend themselveses. the government takes $33,000 from you it will cost most people more money to get that back than what they've taken so people just give up. >> reporter: the irs wouldn't talk on camera to cnn, but did issue a statement to us. seeming to indicate it was backing off on at least some cases like carol hinders. we recognize that small businesses and other taxpayers often make deposits under

$10,000 without any intent to avoid the reporting requirements the statement said and it added, after conducting a review of the structuring cases, the irs concluded it will focus its limited resources to cases where limited resources are structured funds derived from illegal sources. officials there wouldn't talk on camera either, but they told cnn in a phone call that the program was both vital and full of safeguards to protect those accused, so what happened next? only hours after we finished our interview, the government withdrew its complaint against her and reserved the right to file again down the road and what looked like at least partly the authorities trying to save face. >> i don't feel it's a favor, but i feel it's a victory, and i think the most important thing is that we keep going on this civil forfeiture thing and not let it drop. >> reporter: carol hinders' restaurant mrs. lady's is empty and has been sold to a new

owner. her memories of it, fond at least until the last few moments it was open when she was tormented by a federal agency that never charged her with a crime. gary tuchman, cnn, iowa. >> quick break. we're back in a moment. the world's number one natural gas producer... and we could soon become number one in oil. because hydraulic fracturing technology is safely recovering lots more oil and natural gas. supporting millions of new jobs. billions in tax revenue... and a new century of american energy security. the new energy superpower? it's red, white and blue. log on to learn more.

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badumps a head. temexiss gurrin. juppa left. fluppa jown! brone a brood. what? catch up on what everyone's talking about with the x1 entertainment operating system. preloaded with the latest episodes of the top 100 shows. only from xfinity. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com hi everyone. 7:00 eastern and you're in the cnn newsroom. i'm poppy harlow joining you from new york. white-out condition, hurricane-level winds and up to three feet of snow are expected. new york city's mayor issuing a dire warning, prepare for the worst storm in the city's