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Terrorism Trial Blunders; New Research Suggests Possible Link Between Some Drugs Prescribed to Treat Parkinson's Disease and Compulsive Gambling

Aired March 22, 2006 - 08:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Prosecution mistakes nearly blew the death penalty case against al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. According to our next guest, though, just the latest in a series of big terrorism trial blunders. Jonathan Turley is a professor at George Washington Law School. He's in Washington D.C. this morning.
Jonathan, nice to see you, as always. Thanks.

JONATHAN TURLEY, PROFESSOR, GWU LAW SCHOOL: Good morning.

O'BRIEN: Kind of surprising to me at how many mistakes have been made in some of these trials. Let's speak specifically about the Moussaoui trial for a moment, if we can. When you consider how big the profile is, how important the case is, how can these mistakes be so obvious?

TURLEY: Well, you know, it may, in fact, be linked. You know, there is an enormous amount of pressure on these prosecutors to secure the death penalty. After all, this guy already incriminated himself earlier in the trial, and then he pled guilty to all the counts, including counts that many of us thought that was very little evidence to support, so it's always been about the death penalty. The government promised these families that Zacarias Moussaoui would die for what happened on 9/11, even though now he is no longer called the 20th hijacker.

And I think it's a measure of that that you see how far some of these government lawyers are willing to go, including coaching these witnesses.

O'BRIEN: Well, the prosecutors might say, listen, you point that finger if you want, but point it at Carla Martin, don't point it at the prosecution team; you know, she's the one who's alleged to have done the wrong thing and coached the witnesses. Do you think it's that kind of pressure because of these high-profile cases that could be the motivation behind what she's done?

TURLEY: I do. And frankly, the prosecution does deserve part of the blame. She was part of this whole team of prosecution. Also, prosecutors, it's their primary responsibility to keep these witnesses sequestered and to tell them that they are not allowed to see some of this information and documents.

But, you know, this is just simply the last of a series of blunders in which the government has sort of overreached. They lost a major case in Idaho a few years ago against an Islamic student they accused of running a terror site on the Internet.

O'BRIEN: You know what, since you bring them up, let's run through some of these cases and update everybody, because as you mentioned, you're right, there's kind of a long list. Let's do the first one, Brandon Mayfield. Of course you'll recall him, cleared of ties to the Madrid bombings. The FBI admits that there were mistaken fingerprint identification in that case.

Then you have Sami Omar al-Hussayen, who he was acquitted of using a Web site to aid terrorism. That's the case you were talking about in Boise. The prosecutors case was just weak. And then you had 2004, September in Detroit, Michigan, the conviction of Karim Koubriti and Abdel-Ilah ElMardoudi was thrown out. The Justice Department apparently withheld evidence in that case.

And then you have Sami al-Arian, a professor acquitted of aiding Palestinian terror groups. Prosecutors, again, it was said, had a weak case.

And then you have Jose Padilla, designation of enemy combatant, was eventually dropped, and the change received a rebuke actually by the fourth circuit of appeals. I mean, that's just a partial list there.

Are you saying that you think that there is this -- these are hard cases to win? Or are you saying that the evidence is tough to prove, or both?

TURLEY: Well, actually, both. First of all, the government has, particularly under John Ashcroft, was trying to bring any national security cases they could, including cases that many of us believed were extremely weak. I mean, they even brought a case against Greenpeace under a bizarre theory of endangering ports. I mean, this has been administration that has really been trying to prosecute everyone and anyone that they can accuse of a national security threat.

But also in these cases, there's a lot of misconduct. I mean, the Detroit case, a prosecutor stood accused of misconduct.

Also, you'll notice that Zacarias Moussaoui is no longer considered the 20th hijacker. We have the mastermind of 9/11, Shaikh Muhammad, and a mean named Ben Al-Sheibh (ph). You'll notice they have not been brought to trial. And the theory is that as with Jose Padilla, the government abuse of their rights. That is how they interrogated them, kept them from courts and lawyers, have jeopardized any prosecution. That's why Jose Padilla is accused of something entirely different and, frankly, less significant than his original charges.

O'BRIEN: One has to imagine some of these folks are guilty potentially. I mean, the cases are...

TURLEY: I think they are guilty. O'BRIEN: So then my question, how do you get this back on track?

TURLEY: Well, what the government has to do is I think bring itself back within the rule of law, quite frankly. I mean, the United States is viewed now in many of our closest allies as a rogue nation. We're viewed as a nation that violates critical rules of law. But the great irony is, Soledad, is that those rules, judicial review, and those types of elements, help the government from making mistakes that, as the government has kept out lawyers, kept out judges, engaged in abusive interrogations, it actually has resulted in lost cases and just colossal mistakes. There was a German citizen who was removed with the help of the United States, sent for, just horrible treatment and torture, and it turns out the man is entirely innocent. When you get those mistakes, when you take the legal system off line.

And I think what the government has to recognize is that it is not making us safer by doing all of these extralegal measures. That, in fact, before 9/11, the government rarely lost a terrorism case, when it was staying within the lines.

O'BRIEN: Professor Jonathan Turley this morning in Washington. Nice to see you, professor. Thanks for talking with us.

TURLEY: Thanks. See you, Soledad.

(WEATHER REPORT)

ROBERTS: New research suggests a possible link between some drugs prescribed to treat Parkinson's Disease and compulsive gambling. Medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is at the CNN Center in Atlanta now with details.

Good morning to you, Elizabeth. It sounds pretty intriguing.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

Yes, it is indeed intriguing. It sounds strange, but there is a drug that some people use who have Parkinson's Disease that in a small number of people can cause horrible problems. They develop uncontrollable urges to gamble, to shop, to have sex almost all the time.

And this woman right here, what happened to her was that she took one of these drugs. There's a whole class of them, and it might have helped her Parkinson's Disease, some of that shaking a little bit, but, it also caused her to shop uncontrollably. It caused other people to gamble uncontrollably. We met a man who gambled away $500,000.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KRIS SWEET, WIFE OF PARKINSON'S PATIENT: The kids and I would come home from school and we'd walk in and the TV would be gone or their stereos would be gone.

JIM SWEET, PARKINSON'S DISEASE: I was, you know, kicked out of the house, I mean rightfully so, because I would steal or pawn anything in sight.

COHEN (on camera): How would you explain to someone who would hear your story and think why couldn't he just stop?

J. SWEET: It's like your mind is hijacked.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: Now, that man you just met, Jim Sweet, he's a father of two, a high school English teacher. Had never had any gambling problems before until he took this drug. Once his doctor took him off the drug, the gambling problems went away.

ROBERTS: Elizabeth, how in the world could a pill or a drug that is supposed to control the tremors of Parkinson's Disease have an effect that would make somebody want to gamble uncontrollably, have sex continuously? How does that work?

COHEN: You know, it took doctors a while to figure this out. But what they figured out that this drug is effective. It helps Parkinson's patients because it sends dopamine to a region of the brain that controls what you do with your arms and legs and your motor skills, basically. It also sends dopamine, however, to an area of the brain that controls compulsive behavior and it can send that sensor out of wack. Now, this only happens in approximately 5 percent of the people who take it. But for that 5 percent, it really can be devastating.

ROBERTS: So it really kind of revs up that pleasure seeking center, does it?

COHEN: Exactly. And they become pleasure seekers, that's exactly what happens. Uncontrollable pleasure seekers.

ROBERTS: Wow. Fascinating story, Elizabeth Cohen. Thanks. And Elizabeth, we should tell you, is going to have much more on this story, tonight on "PAULA ZAHN NOW." That's at 8:00 Eastern right here on CNN.

O'BRIEN: Coming up, we're "Minding Your Business." Would you buy sushi from Wal-Mart? Would you buy sushi from Wal-Mart?

ROBERTS: I'd think about it.

O'BRIEN: Sure you would! The store, believe it or not, making a bold move. Going upscale. We'll tell you about that.

ROBERTS: I buy beef jerky from them, so why not?

O'BRIEN: Not quite the same thing.

ROBERTS: Plus, we'll follow up on a story that we had on Tuesday. Folks searching amazon.com for books on abortion getting results for adoption instead. We'll look at whether a snafu like that could be intentional. Then, later, Kenny Rogers will join us live in the studio. He's got a new album. A new outlook on life, too. We'll talk about that, just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: It's kind of hard to imagine surfing the Web without a search engine. Well, amazon.com discovered a problem with its search engine when a search for the word "abortion" turned up the question, "Did you mean adoption?" on Amazon's book page. Was it a glitch in technology or a glitch in ideology?

John Battelle is the author of "The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture." He joins us this morning with a little 101 on technology.

Thanks for talking with us.

JOHN BATTELLE, AUTHOR, "THE SEARCH": Thanks for having me.

O'BRIEN: You know, it seems -- of course, and it's because you're talking about an abortion debate that this issue is so politically charged.

BATTELLE: Very.

O'BRIEN: So explain how a search engine works, I mean, how this could this possibly happen?

BATTELLE: There's a number of signals that a search engine will use to come up with a suggestion. It's called query refinement. Well, you said this, but maybe you meant that. And one of them -- you see it on Google all the time -- is spelling correction. You misspell something and Google seems to magically know, well, actually, mammals has two M's, so did you mean that or did your really want to search for the misspelled word?

O'BRIEN: Which kind of explains the plaque/plague debate. Did you just transpose two letters?

BATTELLE: Exactly, exactly. And Amazon has a similar feature. Amazon's feature is kind of tuned to the fact that they've got a bunch of books, you know, and they know what books people buy when they search for things. So when you put a particular word in...

O'BRIEN: Like abortion?

BATTELLE: Like abortion. You're given a list of other kinds of titles that perhaps you might be looking for. And it actually makes a bit of logical sense that people who are considering abortion are also considering adoption.

O'BRIEN: So this is less about the transposed letters. Because the explanation that was given was sort of plague and plaque are sort of similar. And you say, you're right, boy you could easily transpose a letter. But this adoption and abortion are actually not that close. So you're saying it's not about the transposition of letters, it's really about what other people may have searched for?

BATTELLE: It could be a bit about the transposition of letters, but really, what it's about is the recommendation system behind the search engine.

O'BRIEN: So how come it doesn't work in reverse? How come when you type in adoption, you don't get abortion?

BATTELLE: This is all math. At the end of the day, it's algorithms. And the preponderance of people who are typing in abortion, more of them are looking for information about adoption than people who type in adoption are looking for information about abortion. The computers, you know, are pretty neutral when it comes to politics. And they just surface that which has a higher chance of being an exact match. And that's what happened in this case.

O'BRIEN: Wal-Mart, as you well know, had a similar problem for people who were looking up information on Martin Luther King, "Planet of the Apes," and other sort of unfortunately linked titles. And they said it was a technology issue and they had to kind of take down the site.

Let's talk about some other searches. For example, if you go -- and we do you a search on Google and we look up French military victories, and we click on "I'm feeling lucky," you get the question did you mean French military defeats?

BATTELLE: Right. This is what's known as a Google bomb. And this is a group of people who are actively trying to gain the results. In this case, it's a joke, right? There's always been a running joke about the French military. And so this is a way of people linked to a particular page, and this page is the one that says did you mean. It's a fake page. And the more you link to it with the words French military victories, the more that page will rise and the results will become the result that you get when you hit "I'm feeling lucky."

O'BRIEN: We know this one because people have talked about it. Type in miserable failure and it will want to link to President Bush.

BATTELLE: It links to the White House biography of President Bush. And there have been a push by President Bush's supporters to try to make that link to Michael Moore.

O'BRIEN: Terrorist sympathizer.

BATTELLE: Yes, Bill O'Reilly is the first result for terrorist...

O'BRIEN: That's another bomb.

BATTELLE: That's another Google bomb. So the manipulation of search engine results is something that the public is coming to understand as possible. So when you see adoption and abortion...

O'BRIEN: That's what people first think. They think, this is a manipulation. BATTELLE: People think that there must be some human manipulation.

O'BRIEN: But it's not?

ROBERTS: In this case, it wasn't.

O'BRIEN: Interesting. John Battelle, nice to see you. Thanks very much. Again, the author of "The Search." Thanks for talking with us.

Coming up this morning, luxury living, if you're budget-minded. Ah, but there's a catch. There's always a catch, isn't there? We're "Minding Your Business" just ahead.

And if you ever felt like it's you versus the IRS, we're going to talk to the woman who, believe it or not, is paid by the government to fight for you. She's going to tell us what do if you think Uncle Sam is going after you unfairly. That's ahead. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MARKET REPORT)

O'BRIEN: Top stories straight ahead this morning, rescuers say the family that disappeared two weeks ago in the Oregon mountains. The search intensifies for two boys who are missing in Milwaukee.

President Bush heads to West Virginia to push his war strategy.

We're going to take a look at how race is shaping the mayoral campaign New Orleans.

And our special series, sleepless in America. Today, some tips on falling asleep, and staying asleep. That's ahead. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: What if technology could break down language barriers? Our own Miles O'Brien takes a look in our continuing series "Welcome to the Future."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When I'm speaking to people overseas, it slows down communications to go through a translator. I work for a relief and development organization. In a relief situation, lives are at stake; communication is key. And a little bit might be lost in the translation. It would be great to have some type of speech technology that would allow relief workers to speak directly with the people that they're serving so they can understand their needs as quickly as possible.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR (on camera): Quick and easy communication in a foreign language is essential for relief workers like Katie. And for the rest of us, it sure would make traveling overseas more fulfilling and enjoyable. Wouldn't it be great if you could speak any language effortlessly?

(voice-over): Director of the Interact Center at Carnegie-Mellon University, Dr. Alex Wybel (ph) is in the business of breaking language barriers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you been feeling well?

M. O'BRIEN: In Wybel's lab, you'll find portable PDA translators for tourists, goggles that project translated subtitles. Even a speaker that can send a beam of translated audio to a single listener.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can have a personalized translation for one listener in Spanish, or another in German, or a third one with another language.

M. O'BRIEN: Even more amazing, electrodes that when attached to the cheek and throat can turn a person's native tongue into a language they have never spoken before.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Then electrodes could capture the movement, recognize the words that could have been spoken that way, and translate them into another language and sound them out aloud.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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