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National Protests; Sony Pictures Hacked; Free Speech and Social Media

Aired December 01, 2014 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: So, let's go to Jason Carroll. He's in the middle of this for us in New York.

And, Jason, you're talking to these, you say, primarily younger folks. Why are they walking out today? What's their message?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they want to draw attention to Michael Brown. They also want to draw attention to the idea of police brutality, excessive force.

They started at Union Square, some 40 blocks from where we are now, marched up on the sidewalks right here to Times Square. A couple hundred of them gathered. And they just had a movement silence just a short while ago.

As you can see here now, they have gathered here. This is where they intend to stay, at least for now. No idea what they plan to do next. Will they don't march? Maybe. Will they stay here and continue to hold speeches? Perhaps. But one thing is for sure, Brooke. I can tell you that a number of these protesters out here say they want to speak out for Michael Brown, they want to speak out about police brutality.

That's why they have this day of walking off the job, walking out of school and, in fact, a lot of people you see here in this crowd, young people, high school, junior high school, marching on the streets of New York. We only saw two people getting arrested. It was not like the protests you saw last week in New York, when they were marching on the streets.

This time, they stayed on the sidewalk, they seemed to be cooperating with police. We will see how it goes, but for now, peaceful demonstration as they speak out about police brutality -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Jason, let me just stay with you, because, as I mentioned, President Obama sitting in the midst of multiple meetings he's having at the White House, members of his Cabinet and also different community leaders talking about, you know, what happened.

You were in the thick of it in Ferguson. I'm wondering if you have had a chance to talk to these younger people, if they are talking about what they would like to hear publicly from the president of the United States.

CARROLL: Well, I think they want to see more action. I think a lot of these people are tired of words. What they are looking for is action, action in terms of changing the laws, making police departments -- having more African-American representation or Latino representation in police departments.

I think at this point, at least from what I'm hearing, not just here in New York, but also in Ferguson, they are tired of the words. They want to see action -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: All right. Jason Carroll in New York. Jason, thank you very much.

And one man says he fell into his wife's arms after hearing the grand jury's decision. He's a rapper, he's an activist, a husband, a dad and soon a guest lecturer at Morehouse College.

Killer Mike, the nickname he got from the expression he got from killing the microphone, says this is more than about race. This is about more than police behavior. His own father is a police officer. He recently broke down on stage just totally overcome with his own emotion while speaking from the heart. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL "KILLER MIKE" RENDER, MUSICIAN: I knew it was coming. I knew it.

(EXPLETIVE DELETED) Eric Holder decided to resign. I knew it wasn't going to be good. But I got to tell you (EXPLETIVE DELETED) got me today. You kicked me on my ass today, because I have a 20-year-old son. I have a 12-year-old son and I'm so afraid for them.

I can promise you today if I die when I walk off this stage tomorrow, I'm going to let you know this. It's not about race. It is not about class. It is not about color. It is about what they killed him for. It is about poverty. It is about greed. And it is about a war machine. It is about a war machine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That was a week ago. He happened to be in Saint Louis the night that that grand jury decision was made public.

Killer Mike spoke with me here at CNN back in August during the first round of protests, not just in Ferguson, but across America, but today is different. Just a short time ago, we talked about what he's telling his own children and what he would say to officer Darren Wilson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Take me back to -- it was Monday night. The grand jury decision was made public. You happened to be at a show in Saint Louis.

RENDER: In Saint Louis. We were the only act that didn't cancel.

BALDWIN: That emotion on stage, can you just tell me everything that was behind that?

RENDER: We watched the verdict come down, and my wife walked to the bathroom and started weeping. She was playing, I think Sam Cooke, "Change Is Going to Come."

I just cried like a baby. I just held her in my arms and I just cried. When your wife -- as a man, when your wife looks at you says to you, I don't know if God loves us, I had never heard anything that helpless in a moment since I had read a passage from a Holocaust survivor that questioned the validity or even God existed because the conditions they were living under.

And it just hurt. I couldn't do anything. I was helpless in that moment. I cried like a baby in the back. My rap partner, El-P, who is white, came and comforted me. And then he and my wife both said we think you should say something tonight. Usually, we come out to another song. She was like, we just should come out in silence and say something.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RENDER: We will not live with your fear. We will not accept your tanks. We are just going to keep playing that race card because we know, we know you don't value my skin. We know you do value his. But you know what? We're friends and nothing is going to devalue that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RENDER: I didn't know what I was going I say. And I got on stage and just told the truth as I saw it.

BALDWIN: I'm curious if you think, if you wish the president had gone to Ferguson.

RENDER: He's the president of the United States, not just 45 million black people.

Would I, in my black father heart, in my black male heart, do I do wish he would have went? Absolutely. Did I expect that from a sitting U.S. president? Absolutely not.

He has to be hands-off in the office of presidency in that way, but, as a black father and as a black man, I would hope that when he stepped away from that podium, when he went and sat on the bed next to his wife, I would hope that he experienced the same feelings of hopelessness and helplessness that I felt, because those feelings are what invigorates you the next day to fight the better fight.

BALDWIN: What do you as an American, as a black American want to hear from him?

RENDER: I want to hear from him that there's going to be a change in the police state called America. We have lost a number amount of liberties since the Patriot Act.

I would like to see some of those things appealed. I could stay in the emotion of Ferguson. I could care only about that particular moment. But that keeps it at that particular moment. I have said from day one and is say now this is a constitutional rights issue. All of our rights are being violated by bad policing when any of our rights are being violated.

So, my take with the president is actually a little bigger than Ferguson. What are you going to do to reinstate the rights of Americans not to be treated like we have a militia, a martial law militia overseeing us in our daily life?

BALDWIN: The Saint Louis Rams, they yesterday walked out, a couple of the players, hands up.

RENDER: It was four.

BALDWIN: The police association is livid. They say that's absolutely uncalled for, justice was served through the process that was the grand jury.

Do you think they should have done that? Was that their place with all the eyeballs on the screen?

RENDER: Let me say, first of all, the police association and the police officers work for the taxpayers, not the other way around.

This is a time that you should be silent, because regardless if justice has been served, trust that justice has been served and don't worry about the court of public opinion after that. but you must remember you work for the constituency. We don't work for you.

Our tax dollars pay your salary. Your salary is -- we are here. We're the ones. We're your boss. If those players wanted to walk out as conscientious objectors to the decision, I support that. I think more athletes and more high-profile athletes should take a greater stake, because if you don't, if you're the most looked-at people out of this culture, meaning black male culture and black culture period, if you are not doing that, then you're being irresponsible and you're letting the people who most support you down.

I believe that Jim Brown was right. I believe that all the athletes of the '60s was right. I believe that Muhammad Ali was right. I believe Bill Walton was right. And I believe that we need more athletes doing this today, because at the end of the day, a couple of years' salary for some of these guys could take care of you the rest of your life, so what do you really have to lose besides the court of public opinion?

BALDWIN: We're going to take a quick break, but I want you to think about that.

If officer Darren Wilson were here right now, I would want to know what you would say to him. We will be right back.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: And we're back with Killer Mike, Michael Render.

And the question that I wanted you to think about, if officer Wilson were here, what would you want to say to him?

RENDER: In less polite terms, I would tell him, I think you're a liar. I think you're lying to cover yourself. I'm not saying that you weren't engaged wrongfully, but I think you killed that kid because you were angry.

I think that you decided by the time you got out of that car he wasn't going to get away with whatever you perceived he did to you. I think you are going to live with this the rest of your life. I don't know how you can, without any conscience, say I was just doing my job, because every policeman that I have ever known that has had to engage someone with the gun, whether they survived or not, walked out on the other side a changed person.

I don't believe you, is what I would say to him. That's all I could say.

BALDWIN: Mike, I have to push you, though, because there are witnesses who corroborate the officer's story, the struggle in the patrol car, the gun going off, that Michael Brown did charge at the officer and according to all the testimony he felt his life was in danger. And the law spoke and his...

(CROSSTALK)

RENDER: Absolutely. Absolutely.

And, again, I have said from the start I don't think the engagement was engaged correctly. I honestly think that the due process was never served. Then we could say all the time, oh, man, a fight occurred, he was afraid for his life.

But it was because this due process was never served. This young man was never given a chance to be brought up on charges of shoplifting. He was never given a chance of being brought up on charges of jaywalking. And in fact he was sentenced to death because of those.

I have been in many a fight. I have been in many a fight. And I can tell you that the marks on that man's face, who happened to be white, if hit by a 270-some-odd-pound or 300-pound person would not look like a shaving mark. All of my white male friends have turned to me and said that's about how my face looks like after I shave.

I am not saying that you guys didn't scuffle. But if it was as brutal as you're telling me -- because I have actually been in a fight. I can't believe you based on looking on you. Doesn't mean I don't want to believe you. Doesn't mean I'm not sympathetic to police officers. But in the case of this particular police officer, something is awry.

BALDWIN: Your boys and your girls, who made for the tougher discussion?

RENDER: My girls.

BALDWIN: Why?

RENDER: Because they are 17 years old and they're 7 years old. This is a discussion I knew I would have to have with my boys.

I have been prepping my boys for my whole life. Like my father told me, you are to say, yes, sir and, no, sir, in face of authority and parents. You're not to fiddle. You're not to seem too fidgety. You're not to make aggressive moves towards the police. I been have taught the . My sons have been taught this.

My girls, I have never taught this. They are the most like me. They're the most outspoken. So, trying to explain to a 17-year-old why an 18-year-old is dead and he hadn't been arrested, he hadn't had an opportunity to get taken to trial and nothing was going to happen to the person she perceived as murdering him, it's a hard discussion to have because she's in a school of law at her high school. She's in the law division.

To her, it was all supposed to play out differently. When you wake up the next morning to a voice-mail from your 7-year-old that says, daddy, why was Michael Brown killed and why are people angry with so each other and why is violence happening, when a 7-year-old asks you that, you have not the answers. And I just wept on the phone with her and just had to say, baby, I don't know.

BALDWIN: On a daily level, how can we make this better?

RENDER: First of all, we can get out of our comfortable norms, meaning, you can go to a different church with a friend on Sunday and have a different experience.

You can engage in a different social climate than you're accustomed to. You can make a friend that doesn't look like you and you can find someone who is not like you to converse with and be open and honest with. We have to start pushing ourselves past the barriers of comfort we hold. I grew up in a black household, grew up in a very Democratic-friendly household, grew up in a household where pretty much whatever the Democratic Party said reigned supreme.

And with that said, many of my friends are conservative. Many of my friends are Republicans and libertarians, which allows me to engage in discourse and conversation that forces me to grow, that stretches me. Because I had a father that was involved in policing, I have to look at it. I have two cousins that are currently police in East Point and Atlanta.

I pray for them daily. I don't want my cousins to be dead. I have cousins that are lawyers that are involved in law. I don't look at my cousins like, oh, you don't have our back. But I have to understand that the world is just not my perspective.

So I seek out relationships with people who don't look like me, who are not where I'm from and that are going to challenge me on my current perspectives. You don't have a friend if you're not being a challenge and you will never have an ally if you don't step outside of your comfort zone.

BALDWIN: Thank you.

RENDER: Thank you, Brooke.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Mike, thank you so much for the time today, Killer Mike, Mike Render, talking to me here about everything that's been going on in the last week and beyond.

By the way, on the other side of your screen, we have been playing here pictures of these protests, these walkouts across America right now. And just moments from now, we're expecting comments from President Obama as he holds meetings, multiple meetings today with regard to Ferguson.

But first, big-time movies like the upcoming "Annie" leaked online. Hear about this? Could this be an act of revenge by North Korea over a James Franco movie? Stay with me.

Plus, when does your social media chatter become criminal? The United States Supreme Court case hearing a case that could actually change the way you post.

And her husband punched her inside of an elevator, knocking her out cold. But now Janay Rice is speaking out as her husband is officially eligible to play once again in the NFL. The question is, will he? We will speak with a woman who interviewed Janay Rice ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: I'm agent lacy with Central Intelligence. You two are going to be alone in a room with Kim. The CIA would love it if you could take him out. Take him out.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Like for drinks?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Like to dinner?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Take him out on the town?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: No, take him out.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: You want us to kill the leader of North Korea?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: What?

(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: With a plot that revolves around his assassination, Kim Jong-un is obviously not too thrilled with this new comedy. It's called "The Interview." But would he hack or have this happen -- Sony -- hacking Sony as revenge over the weekend?

New unreleased Sony films, including "Fury" and "Annie," were leaked online. This happened just days after a hacker brought down Sony Pictures computer network. Think how huge that job would have been. Sony believes all signs point to either North Korea or Chinese hackers working there.

Joining me now, Krista Smith, CNN entertainment commentator and senior West Coast editor for "Vanity Fair."

Krista, I know that apparently when Kim Jong-un found out about the new -- this film "The Interview" he threatened like merciless retaliation. I don't have the guy on speed dial. I'm guessing you don't either, so we don't actually know if this was his doing or not. But let me just ask you in general this is an epidemic, right, leaks, illegal downloads in this industry.

KRISTA SMITH, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Absolutely.

For Hollywood, it definitely sends a message and it's not a question of if, it's a question of when. Who is next to be hacked? For something like Sony, a global huge company, to literally be disrupted for a week, e-mail, some of the systems are just starting to come back, basically seven days later.

So it has definitely become an epidemic in this industry and it is theft. There's no way around it. They are stealing property and I know that from earlier in the summer, Lionsgate experienced this with "The Expendables." It was hacked I think five million times about a month before it came out.

And they apparently have arrested two people in London associated with that crime. I know Sony is doing everything they can working with the authorities and using an outside security team as well. But it's certainly a popular theory that North Korea is behind this. But it has yet to be proven, Brooke.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Yet to be proven, yet to be determined. May never be, by the way.

But with these hacks and leaks, does that affect, you know, pennies, nickels and dimes for Sony or not at all?

SMITH: It absolutely affects them.

BALDWIN: It does?

SMITH: When you look at something like "Fury," absolutely affects them, because you're dealing with a movie that's still being released across the world and you're having these illegal downloads and the numbers, it keeps climbing into the millions. That's absolutely dollars and cents. That's not just pennies.

BALDWIN: OK.

Krista Smith, thank you. Appreciate it.

The United States Supreme Court taking up a controversial free speech case today, so here's the backstory. This guy was sent to prison for posting threatening postings, ramblings about his ex-wife and an FBI agent. He said he didn't actually mean it as if he would have carried it out. But according to his ex-wife, it was certainly threatening.

So, it makes you think, should social posts be protected by the First Amendment?

Plus, ESPN snagged the first interview with Janay Rice and agreed to hold it. They even gave Janay Rice final say on what aired. We will talk to the reporter who broke the story and ask her if those restrictions helped her uncover the truth or just cloud it. Let's ask.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Just about the bottom of the hour. You're watching CNN here.

And you're looking at pictures, and let me just tell you, these are pictures not just as we have been talking to our correspondent in New York. This is across the country, people of many different races, ethnicities, ages all coming out, they're walking out of schools and of their workplaces, basically a show of solidarity against the grand jury decision one week ago today in Ferguson, Missouri.

And just as I'm telling you this and as we keep our eyes on these pictures here, I can tell you that President Obama today is holding a series of meetings. He's meeting with members of his Cabinet, meeting with different community civil rights leaders, multigenerational to talk about potential changes, because, in talking to our correspondents here and covering these folks who are marching, they say that they are sick and tired of the police brutality as witnessed by some of the pictures of those protests back in August in Ferguson.

So we will wait to hear from the president and also our attorney general, Eric Holder, speaking later this evening, holding a forum of sorts as well at Dr. King's Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

Let's move on.

It is a case of the First Amendment colliding with the Internet. The U.S. Supreme Court today is being asked for the first time to examine the limits of free speech on social media. Specifically, how does the law address violent language and threats posted on social media?

So, our go-to guy on all things SCOTUS, Mr. Jeffrey Toobin, our senior legal analyst.

So, let's begin with the story. So, the guy who posted all of these angry, angry ramblings on Facebook, his name is Anthony Elonis, through a divorce, posting all this stuff about his ex-wife. The ex- wife's side saying incredibly threatening. Elonis' side, his attorney, saying this is just like, say, rap lyrics from Eminem threatening to kill his mother or ex-wife, didn't actually mean to carry them out.