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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
President's Niece Threatened; Ted Cruz Off And Running; America's Prison Problem; Left & Right Teams Up On Prison Reform; Real Life "War Games". Aired 9-10:00p ET.
Aired March 23, 2015 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[21:00:04] ANDERSON COOPER, AC369 HOST: Good evening. Its 9 p.m. at the East Coast, there's breaking news tonight involving a threat against President -- Mrs. Obama's niece. Her names is Leslie Robinson, she plays on Princeton's NCAA women's basketball team.
And according to USA Today Christine Brennan, she was accompanied tonight by extra security, after some made a threat. Short time ago, I spoke with Christine Brennan, she as also a CNN Sports Analyst.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALYST: And Leslie Robinson is a freshman forward for Princeton. She's not playing in the game, she's on the bench. But this afternoon, (inaudible) Maryland Athletic Department received an eight minute long voicemail, according to a source who told me all about it.
And in the voicemail, the woman leaving that message talking about a man who is driving on the campus with a glock handgun. And the voice mail also mentioned Leslie Robinson, President Obama's niece. So at that point the University of Maryland setup security, they have undercover security officers who are near or on the bench, obviously, we can tell who they are, because they are undercover.
And in addition, the Secret Service is here because both Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to justices of the Supreme Court happens to be here to cheer on their Princeton Tigers. So there's a lot going on here, but in terms of actual present, you wouldn't know the difference, Anderson. And in fact, I would say that I would never have known any of these was going on, had I not been told by my source.
COOPER: And we're showing pictures from this week. And now we're talking about the daughter of Craig Robinson, who is the First Lady's brother, right?
BRENNAN: That is correct. Yes, this is Michelle Obama's brother's daughter, Craig Robinson's daughter.
COOPER: And President Obama did attend a game over the weekend, he's not at tonight's game, though?
BRENNAN: That is correct, Anderson. President Obama is not at this game tonight. He's (inaudible) Saturday, that was when Princeton played Wisconsin Green Bay in the first round. And in fact I received an e-mail, it's a member of the media that there would be tighten security for that game, the day before, they didn't say why. And then of course one source came out that the President was at the game on Saturday. Obviously, we all understood why that e-mail went out about tighten security 24 hours ahead of time.
There was no such e-mail going out because of this game. Obviously, according to my source, this threat occurred this afternoon, so there was no sense at all, Anderson, about anything going on, until I receive this information from a source, during the game, actually tonight.
COOPER: Well let's hope it was just some sort of prank call. Christine Brennan, I appreciate you calling in. Thank you very much.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well today, the police chief in Charlottesville, Virginia, said that an investigation found not substantive evidence of a gang rape allegation at the University of Virginia, an allegation that was detailed in explosive cover story in Rolling Stone last fall. The Magazine apologize for the story after begun to unravel because of discrepancies.
Still Chief Timothy Long goes, say that doesn't mean something terrible didn't happen to the college freshman, called Jackie (ph) at a fraternity house in September of 2012, just that the investigation has not uncovered sufficient facts and has not evidence that anything did happen at that fraternity house. He says, that case is not close. Rosa Flores joins us not from Charlottesville, Virginia.
So the woman who alleged the rape, she didn't cooperate with authority, so what did police do to investigate the allegation?
ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, it took a lot of police work, investigator say, that they spoke nine of the 11 members of that fraternity. They seek through phone records. And then here's this, Anderson, they say that they uncovered a photograph of that fraternity house that they say was electronically slammed on the date of that alleged rape and then just nothing jived.
COOPER: And the police chief, as I said, said that, you know, they can't say that nothing ever happen to this woman, but he can't say nothing happened to this woman that night at that fraternity. This wasn't the fist time she allege an attack, correct?
FLORES: She had filed a police report previously and it involved four men, a nonsexual attack. One of those men actually breaking a glass on her face and her roommate been picking that glass from her face. Well investigators talked to her roommate and they say that nothing happened.
And so they talked to the roommate, the roommate says that it didn't happen and that -- then again it's just one more allegation that there are discrepancies with this woman's story. COOPER: Well the roommate said she hadn't -- the roommate who is a nursing student hadn't picked glass out of the friend's face, but there was some sort of a mark on her face, right?
FLORES: Yes, there were some sort of a mark on her face, but it just didn't jive based on the details -- the graphic details that she had told police.
COOPER: Right. You spoke to her friend who had contact with Jackie (ph) after the alleged rape, what did he say?
FLORES: You know, he said, "Rosa", as soon as he read that Rolling Stone article, Anderson, he knew something was wrong. "Why?", he said, because that was quoted in that article and he said, "I didn't say that." Plus there are lot of discrepancies and I'll share one of those with you, Anderson.
He says, in the Rolling Stone magazine, it speaks of seven man brutally raping Jackie (ph).
[21:05:03] He said on that night when she called him and few other friends she only mentioned five men.
COOPER: And her story seems to have change. Rosa Flores, thanks for the details. Campaign politics now, today. Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz became the first and either party to say that he wants to be President.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TED CRUZ, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I believe god isn't done with America yet. I believe in you. I believe in the power of millions of courageous conservatives rising up to reignite the promise of America. And that is why today, I am announcing that I'm running for president of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Senator Cruz made the announcement, Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. He offered plenty of red meat to conservatives, vowing to repeal every single word of the Affordable Care Act, promising to abolish the IRS and mocking the notion of global warming. Now, it's the kind of mix that when caucuses and primaries in places like Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, the question of course is can Senator also ride that all the way to the Republican nomination.
Joining us with more now on that is Senior Washington Correspondent Jeff Zeleny. So Jeff, Cruz's speech then is certainly was aimed right where at his conservative base.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: It was without a doubt, it was aim to his conservative base and he's also trying to grow it. But what I was struck by, it was aimed at young evangelicals. He really believes that they're the next generation and they can help this movement. But one adviser told me, he is trying to reach evangelicals and Tea Party activist, trying to fuse those together. We'll see if he can do that.
COOPER: And by announcing it today, I mean it does give him a couple of weeks as the only official candidate in the field. Rand Paul isn't scheduled to announce sometime next month.
ZELENY: Right, and that's exactly why he did it, he's trying to fill the vacuum here. Rand Paul is scheduled to announce on April 7th in Kentucky. So give them a couple of weeks with donors and with voters to try and make this message and he's having a media splash all week. So for Senator Cruz, that's exactly why he announced at the end of March.
COOPER: In terms of popularity, where does he rank along, you know, among conservatives with Rand Paul and Mike Huckabee?
ZELENY: And we definitely hear a lot of Senator Cruz, because he's on the news a lot, he gives a lot of speeches in Washington. But across the country, people really don't know him. Mike Huckabee has run for president before, even Rick Santorum has run for president before.
So he has a lot of work to do in terms of introducing himself and getting that (inaudible) idea. So he starts pretty much near the bottom in this big, big field of candidates. But he has some company there, it's a very crowded field, but he believes that his Harvard connections, he went to Harvard Law School, he's Texas money connection, all those can come together to make him a viable candidate, we'll just have to wait and see, Anderson.
COOPER: All right. Jeff, thanks very much. And so the race begins. A quick reminders, make sure you set your DVR, so you can whenever you'd like. Just ahead in this hour, why the men who runs America's busiest jail says he'd like to lock up far fewer people and why more and more liberals and conservatives alike are agreeing.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: With the 2016 camping getting underway, we're focusing tonight on an issue that really no longer divide to liberals and conservatives the way it once did. Back in 1988 George H. W. Bush use the case of a (inaudible) prisoner name Willie Horton, a convicted killer to pay his opponent Mike Dukakis is being soft on crime. The charge that no politician of either party, wants to contend with.
Well that fear which actually dates back to the 60's and 70's along with some real concerns back then about rising crime fueled a kind of arm raise when it comes to lacking people up whether for violent or non-violent offenses. Democratic and Republican governors a like built more and more prisons and jails. Lawmakers in both parties scrabbled to pass tougher and tougher sentencing laws.
Well today with crime at lows not seems to the 1950's, this country incarcerates more people as a percentage in any other develop nation on earth. And today, you'll see shortly plenty of liberals, conservatives now said they want to change that. First, what the problem looks like in a busiest jail in America.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM DART, SHERIFF, COOK COUNTY JAIL: I'm not seating here advocating for the people who are murdering, shooting, no, they are the smaller part of my population.
COOPER: Tom Dart is unusual sheriff he thinks the majority of inmates in his jail shouldn't be there, his fighting to get them released. He's the sheriff of Cook County Illinois which includes the city of Chicago and he runs the Cook County Jail.
What you're saying is pretty radical though, especially here from you, it's very rare to hear the person who's running the jail system say, "This doesn't make any sense."
DART: Yeah I know I know. And I think its part it's part of this because I mean in a unique position were I can see, have been a prosecutor before, never been confuse with being a leading hard liberal. But to say their say there's no logic to this, it makes no sense, it's not treating people as individuals, not treating humans and treating them is just numbers. And then as really just for getting people out of our care, we'll just push them in here and just ignore them, just like, well you can do that.
COOPER: Dart wants to change the systems so jails like his are just a damping ground for the poor, the desperate and the mentally ill. The Cook County Jail is the largest single jail in the United States with an average daily population of 9,000 people, anyone from violence offender to somebody arrested for trespassing is brought here and held and so they can make bail.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good morning guys
COOPER: Good morning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good morning.
COOPER: We visited the cook county jail to see first hand how the system works. First off is what they call intake.
Anyone arrest in Cook County the day or night before is brought here into a holding area, where they're waiting to be processed.
So in terms of what the crimes are charged with, what was sort of things happen last night.
DART: I think lot of drug cases possessions, straight possession, the guy got stopped on the street corner for whatever reason, stops in the car and had small amount of, you know, heroin, you know, (inaudible) mostly (inaudible) these days. Lot of retail thefts, guys, you know, stealing, you know, very small items.
COOPER: It's this kind of misdemeanors which account for many of the arresting in Cook County and more than 75 percent of the jail population is African-American.
DART: The larger part and the people that are here for drug offenses, small property crimes.
[21:15:01] And we have to have a more thoughtful way of approaching them and not just saying, you know, someone stole a can of beer, we're going to throw here for 300 days. Somebody broken to a place to sleep, we're in going to throw him in here for a 150 days. A lot of them -- the trespassing charges you see, somebody breaking into an abandoned building to sleep with at.
DART: To sleep, to sleep. We're not telling about people who are breaking into peoples home. No, we have about people that are breaking a place to sleep, breaking in some place to get out of the cold.
COOPER: The U.S. has one the highest rates incarceration of any industrialize country, nationwide, there 2.2 million inmates. Prison population here increased by 500 percent over the past 30 years. A massive rise due mainly to laws that impose extended sentences even for low level drug possession.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who's next up four?
COOPER: Today, nearly half of all federal prisoners are drug offenders. Sheriff Dart, says the law haven't made us safer, instead it's only created the system were low level of offenders are locked up and find it extremely difficult to find a job and housing once they're release. They go back to stealing, prostitution, crimes of survival, the sheriff calls them.
What you hear from a lot people here to is once they're in this cycle it's very hard to get out of.
DART: That's horribly hard to get to out.
COOPER: I mean once they, you know, they've done time, then they have a record, then they go out and they have fewer ties to community than they have before, their place to stay is gone, their relationship with their girlfriend or boyfriend is gone.
DART: This is, you know, this is a -- I guess I'd feel less upset about this if this was very complex and difficult to connect the dots, by and large, it's not. It really is it, the heart of, you know, logic is really just rounding people up in holding for really no thoughtful reason, that it's not part of the plan.
COOPER: Sheriff Dart says, the jail is also full of too many people who are mentally ill. He says they need treatment, not time behind bars. The morning after we visited the jail the severely mentally ill men was brought into intake, he manage climbed into an air duct. The metal health professional in Cook County Jail puts him down before he can hurt himself, all this capture on body cameras whore correction officers.
The Sheriff's office tells us, this is just one of many examples of how the jail has become a de facto Asylum.
How many people have mental health issues that come through? DART: It's staggering and it's under report, because usually when we talk about like our number, we return to the number that have it like custody which is about 30 percent, which...
COOPER: So about 30 percent of people you have in custody have mental health issues?
DART: Diagnosed serious mental health issues, whether it's bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, (inaudible).
COOPER: The cook county jail houses the largest number of mentally ill in the country. Here they do receive treatment and medication, but Sheriff Dart says, that's part of the problem. He says, many of this men and women couldn't get access to medication on the outside, so they end up self-medicating with drugs on the street, then when they caught with drugs their simply sent to jail.
DART: And not like some guy was unaware of how the system works. If you peel a apart of the case that brought in here, you sit there and say, well, the underlying reason is an illness, it's not criminal (inaudible). But yet our system doesn't seem to care, so we just dump everybody in here.
COOPER: This is become a dumping ground for people with mental illness.
DART: Dumping ground for people with mental illness and dumping ground for poor people too.
COOPER: And the minimum of security part of the jail, we met Carsel (ph). He was shy and nervous to talk us, but he wanted to tell us his story. He's been using heroin for more than 30 years, he says he's been arrested a staggering 83 times all for non-violent offenses.
So what were you were you arrest before this time?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Simple possession.
COOPER: Possession of possession of heroin?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, one bag.
COOPER: One bag. So what kind of sentence do you have?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have had -- the first day they offered me one year.
COOPER: Carsel (ph) was mostly been arrested for drug possessions, sometime shoplifting, sometimes trespassing. While on jail he says he's lost his home and his girlfriend.
Just being in here kind of back and forth must make having a regular life hard. I mean it's like a cycle, seems like.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah I do. (inaudible) come into here like once you (inaudible) COOPER: What do you mean?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The polices in the area they...
COOPER: They know you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. They know you. They, you know, just lock you up in random when they want to at times.
COOPER: So you feel like once your in the system, it's hard to get out of the system?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COPPER: Carsel (ph) have been the system so many. Last time he had a job was 1989, he works at McDonald's. When we come back, how much Carsel's (ph) recent arrest in time and jail cost you, the taxpayer?
[21:20:00] Plus, how the issue bring in together people you wouldn't even think could be in a same room together, much less agree on an important issue.
(COMMERICAL BREAK)
COOPER: We're talking tonight about a criminal justice system in this country that incarcerates more nonviolent offenders in the jails and prisons can hold or, critics, say than a society can bear.
Now, in a moment, you will hear from two individuals, one of liberal activist and the other an associate of the starts to concern of the Koch brothers. They agreed though. The system needs to change.
First, I wanted to take you back to Chicago's Cook County Jail.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Arrest, charged, incarcerate, repeat. This is how our criminal justice system is run according to Sheriff Tom Dart and he says, it's too expensive and not working. It's over crowding the jails, forming a class of largely African-American inmates who were stocked in the system with a huge expense.
DART: The people that I deal with come in and out of my jail over and over and over again, 15, 16, 20, 30 times. Now, is that something where anything we've done, you know, penalizes them, whatever, is it working? I'd say no. And so I was hoping you'll set aside the moral issues that people cared to from a financial stand point, how does that work?
[21:25:05 ] It's 100 -- based to $150 a day for me to house someone who was jailed. They do nothing. They just sit in their cell.
COOPER: Remember, Carsel (ph), he was arrested for having one bag of heroine and served about four months in jail. It cost the tax payers more than $18,000.
Sheriff Dart says sitting in a cell isn't doing anything to help rehabilitate low level offenders and he points out, it's financially unsustainable.
People though who stay, look, keeping them, keeping somebody who just committed a crime even it's low level crime off the streets that does keep them off the streets from committing another crime or perhaps doing something even worst.
DART: You know, their probably could be some validity to that argument. If there was no real expenses attached to it. It's such an expensive proposition that I don't know why anybody would say, "Well, keeping him off the street here is better than keeping them on an electric modern device that maybe a shelter where he's being fed. He's there. He is not doing anything that cause any problems. He's med as being regulated."
COOPER: When are you going to be getting out?
Angela, Rachel and Joshua have been in the Cook County jail for months.
How many times you've been arrested totally?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Twenty-three times, they told me.
COOPER: Twenty-three?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think mine is 26.
COPPER: Twenty-six.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah.
COOPER: You?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know, maybe 10.
COOPER: Angela and Rachel, both arrested multiple times for drug possession and prostitution. Joshua was arrested for shop lifting. They've all been addicted to drugs for years.
What do you steal?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (inaudible) medicine.
COOPER: And was that for your own use or were you going to sell it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, it's for resell.
COOPER: And was that money for drugs?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everything, you know, drugs, food, place to stay in. COOPER: None of them have been ever been arrested for violent crime. Angela, who was 45 says, she spent half her life in and out of jail and she is tired of it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Since, I've been here, I've seen five women that left right when I got here and they're back again. And it scares the hell out of me because I don't want to be one of those women.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And they don't -- they just don't -- they leave one day and come back just the next week.
COOPER: All three are well aware of how hard it will be for them to make it on the outside. They all have to serve probation, find sponsors, a job, a place to stay otherwise they'll end up back here.
You know, you these difficult hurdle, you're going to get out soon and all you're going to get out soon and the temptation is going to be there to go back to heroine, you know, start using drugs.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah, Always.
COOPER: And that leads to petty crimes, some leads to prostitution, it's a lot.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah. It's overwhelming.
COOPER: It feels overwhelming?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It feels overwhelming because what if I mess up.
COOPER: To combine cause of incarceration this time for Angela, Rachel and Joshua more than $94,000.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They offer a year, and you go, and you do it, and you get out, and you get caught, and then you go, and then you do it, and then you get caught.
COOPER: It's a cycle.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a cycle.
COOPER: Angela says, if she'd only been given treatment for her addiction the first time she was arrested, she might have lived a very different life. That's the hope of Sheriff Dart. To give the majority of this inmates treatment not jail time and try to fix this system that he says is at its breaking point.
You believe people on the future will look back at this time and shake their heads about how we as a society treated people.
DART: They'll be disgusting. They'll be absolutely disgusting.
COOPER: Well, in what way?
DART: In the sense that the same people that's find, you know, so much joy looking at (inaudible) say, "Oh my god, look how horrible we were back and just look at that society, what at tortured society that was."
Well then they'll sit in there say, yeah, these were the same people in our era who just (inaudible) just dump people who had illness issues and put in jail and prisons that's how is that different?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: And that's what he is saying that his jail is essentially a dumping ground for the poor, for people with mental health issues and drug issues. That is just one of many questions that people across the country -- across the political spectrum, I should say, have been asking, how is this any different? And what can work? What needs to change?
Some will be gathering this week in Washington for big name by parties and some on criminal justice reform. People like Republican Newt Gingrich and Democratic Senator Cory Booker or Mark Holden who is general council for Koch Industries and CNN Political Commentator Van Jones, Former Special Adviser to President Obama.
Van, you said that, you guys were -- I mean, sworn enemies of certainly politically on opposite side of the aisle, what's the commonality on this issue?
VAN JONES, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think when it comes to criminal justice, it's not even left or right issue, at certain point it becomes a right wrong issues. If you think about liberty and justice for all conservatives are big on liberty, making sure that each individual is treated right.
[21:30:03] You don't want big government, you want limited government. Prisons are the opposite of that. You talk about justice for all, people like myself concern about racial justice, concern about the poor.
The prison system is putting a lot of people in jail because they don't have enough money for a lawyer but it is weird for us to be working together, (inaudible) with that.
COOPER: Well, Mark, what needs to change? I mean, as far as your concern, as Koch Industry is concern, what actually needs some change?
MARK HOLDEN, GENERAL COUNSEL KOCH INDUSTRIES: A lot needs to change. And correct Van slightly. One, I've never considered him an enemy but we can move on from that.
And we are libertarians and we want to remove the obstacles, the opportunity for the disadvantage because personally, both from my work at Koch and where I grew up in Western (inaudible), I was a jail guard.
I worked in the jail when I was in college. And it was a sobering experience. A lot of kids I grew up with, (inaudible) school, middle school, high school, were in prison and they were the poor kids. They had drug addictions. And drug problems, they don't have any money. They got in trouble.
They got caught in the cycle, the poverty cycle and they're at the bottom of the society and they can't get out of it.
And we need to start treating people individually in the criminal justice system consistent with the Bill of Rights and people with drug problems, people who had mental illnesses, they probably shouldn't be in the criminal justice system. And people how make mistakes, let's not write them off forever, let's give them a chance to reintegrate and reenter society.
COOPER: That's such a -- I mean, I was at Cook County Jail, you know, last week and Sheriff Tom Dart, who was in-charge of it. I mean he says that's actually the exact same thing.
He says, this is an unjust system. This is a stupid way of doing things essentially. And once people are trapped in this cycle, you know, they can make bail because they -- for $100, they could have made bail but they can't make bail so they're in jail for months at a time. Even if you know, longer maybe than they'd even end up serving, then they're out of the job cycle, they cannot get a job, it's -- and, you know, there's drug abuse, there's mental health issues and obviously, racial issue.
JONES: If you're non-violent drug offender, in other words, your basic crime is you're addicted, there's much smarter ways to deal with that than to put you in prison forever. I want...
COOPER: Cheaper ways and smarter ways.
JONES: Cheaper ways and smart ways. Because I went to Yale, 95 percent of that campus were non-violent drug offenders, OK? But they didn't wind up going to prison. It'd bet they went to rehab. So we know how to deal with people who have those kind of problems.
Mental health issues, you can take -- much smarter to take somebody and put them in a hospital than put them in the prison where they were (inaudible).
If you're poor, we need much better, what they indigent defense. If you're poor and you get trapped in the maze of the government's criminal justice system, you're going to be a in a world of hurt. Those things we can fix right away.
HOLDEN: I totally agree. Here's the way we look at and you start with the laws that are passed. I mean if the federal level back when the Constitution was first passed or ratified, there were three crimes, then they were nine, then the turn of the 20th century, there were dozens of crimes. And by 1980, we have 3,000 federal crimes.
Now, there are -- we don't know for sure, because no one can tabulate 4,500 federal criminal crimes in hundreds of thousands criminal regulations.
And they're really regulating and criminal -- putting -- making criminal those types of activities that really shouldn't be criminal. So fix the laws, make them more common sense with intense standards.
Then, there's a sensing issues. Mandatory minimum, disparities, that type of thing, fix that. And then lastly, is the reentry issue. People who have served their time, particularly nonviolent offenders, why not let them come back, have restoration of rights, the ability to get a job, housing, be with their families, have a productive life.
And if we're not willing to do that, don't be surprise that most of them go back to prison.
JONES: What supposed to happen is when you fall down, after you've done your time, you should be able to get back up and do better. What we do in this country is, we say you made a mistake, you're 18 years old, we labeled you a felon forever.
A lot of states, you can never vote again. That's wrong. A lot of times, you can't get an apartment, you can't get a job. You have to check a box that says in the very beginning you're a felon. It doesn't matter if its 30 years ago and you totally change your life. So those kinds of things, we've got to look at again.
Nobody knows the numbers here. The numbers are shocking. One out of every 100 American adults is now behind bars. We have 5 percent of the world's population, 25 percent of the world's prisoners, which means that one out of every four people locked up anywhere in the world is locked up here in the lands of the frees.
HOLDEN: Well...
COOPER: Is that largely due to the war and drugs?
HOLDEN: It's really the proliferation, the explosion, the over criminalization, the mass incarceration happen with the war and drugs in the '80s and '90s. The way we started with them as a country and it was bipartisan there too. Don't -- Let's not forget that.
You had Reagan but you had Clinton. They pushed it and they pushed it hard.
COOPER: Right, every politician wants to be seen has been tough on drugs, tough on crimes.
JONES: And suppose to being smart on drugs and smart on the crimes, so that's the difference. And so we're actually going to do a summit together on Thursday, you're going to have eight or nine Congress people there. The White House sending representation, so are the Koch brothers, it means that there's a breakthrough now.
We did 30 years both parties in the wrong direction. This week, I think both parties are coming back to common sense.
COOPER: Well Van Jones, Mark Holden, it's great to have you on. Thank you.
HOLDEN: Thank you. COOPER: Just ahead, the real life incident that was similar to a
movie War Games, the CNN film story of a group of teenagers in Milwaukee when the early 1980's hacked into Los Alamos Lab Computer System among others.
[21:35:07] What they did and where they are now, is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: You may have remember the movie War Games starring a very young Matthew Broderick, is a teenager who breaks into a military computer which you might now know is that at the same time in the early 1980's, a group of teenagers in Milwaukee mimic the movie and managed to break into the computer system at the nuclear weapons research laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
They called themselves the 414s and they're the subject of a CNN films documentary short. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now on film.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is drive building.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the design face...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: WRSMGB (ph) Milwaukee. This is Channel 12 Action News. The FBI this afternoon confirmed it is investigating members of a Milwaukee area computer club.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're having successfully tapped in to the computer of a nuclear weapons research laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Milwaukee men under investigation reportedly said breaking into the computer system was 'really easy to do.'
[21:40:00] How easy was it? Very, very easy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I didn't know what I want do in my life. I mean I thought I was going be something like (inaudible). Everything seemed boring. I touch the computer. And now I was excited. Lunch time, I would eat my lunch and ahead into the computer and everyone will go outside and play, I'd be in the computer room. So I was ahead in many classes, I go to computer and play. I was kind of (inaudible) my own room.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that actually -- I think that this is it. I don't know if this is it or not.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My dad was electrical engineer and he wanted to start his own business which is why he bought one the of the first Apple two computers and Milwaukee area.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yup they build version of Apple two book (ph). UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back then, yeah I was new, there wasn't a lot of computers are back then.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought an interesting way to secure your data is to put on a format that obsolete. Yeah, you know, they are still here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You'll hack it and then you take one.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At that time was like having a T.V back in the 40's or the 50's, you know, one family on the block might have one.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because the computer can store and manipulate such fast amount some information we're only now beginning to discover ways to use it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Most of the kids with just want to play a game like tic-tac-toe or, you know, game that was called (inaudible) which was a really an adventure game. There were back then things called bulletin board systems were you could dial up on your phone line and that's kind of what was the available before the internet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Computer bullet boards have sprung up in dozen of (inaudible).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have been pretty much a loner then.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (inaudible), this is one.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It had the article on it on how to build own modem.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was interested in hardware and I built a modem. It's all symbolic, so basically this is what I read.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It became much more interesting connected with the rest of the world.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The dial new systems (inaudible), users can send and receive messages...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was explores (inaudible) that most of us met through.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where coming in on Lincoln Memorial drive, got beautiful little, like (inaudible) here...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: IBM sponsored this explore scout troop located in downtown Milwaukee.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was after school and we just set and program there, work through our code and debug our code. The building used to be right here. Wow, the building is gone. I hadn't come down here in many years and now just totally change.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When were all together and I said, "You know, I wish to have a name for ourselves." And the gangs in Milwaukee would identify themselves by the streets, which was their territory, like the 1-9s and the 2-7s.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we joke and said, "Oh well our turf is the Milwaukee area code 414, so we're the 414s.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our next (inaudible) is a story of a bright cheerful teenage boy who enjoys spindling around with video games and with the computer in his bedroom. He winds up tapping into the top secret defense department computer to control our nuclear defenses.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That particular year the movie War Games just came out and it was funny for us to see because we joke about, "Oh how that's not real. Oh they got this detail wrong."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shall we play a game.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But at the same time, you know, we kind of we're recognize in the mainstream.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow where you get this?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was trying to break in the television. I want to see the program there (inaudible).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We all sat in one room and we get an idea from it. Made a working (inaudible).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Telnet is kind of the original, a way for somebody to telecommute, it was just a matter of getting to know what phone number to dial.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It program up to start dialing phone numbers, you know, one by one try to find modems.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The next morning we wake up and see, "Oh there were five different numbers that are connected to." And we start testing passwords. If by chance you got something to work, that was the pot at the end of the rainbow, try your trisystem system and of all a sudden. Welcome.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The account were (inaudible) so you can look throughout whole system. Many of the computers were built with games on it, which you go play a game for a while, you know, trying to get a high score.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Department heads first notice the unauthorized entry on the display screen...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got on a one system that said memorial dose distribution center. And looking at it I could see medicals.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An unknown intruder kept into the slowly catering cancer center computer in New York... UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the bank turned out to be bank to held multi- million dollars transfers between countries everyday.
[21:45:01] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think we broken to maybe a dozen computers in the U.S. and Canada with full (inaudible), some of them are French so I didn't get very far.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure they make the great movies but that came a little too close to fiction.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What drawn the attention is the fact that the computer hackers got into the system of the Los Alamos National.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The computer of the nuclear weapons research laboratory at Las Alamos New Mexico.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These group manage to intrude into systems operated at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What was learned at that point was that the intrusion originated in the Milwaukee area.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Just ahead what happened to the teenage hackers, the media frenzy, that divided the group and what they were ultimately charge with and where they are now. Part two of the CNN films short, The 414s, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Before the break in part one of the scene and films documented show The 414s, you met teenage computer hackers in Milwaukee who broke into major computer systems including this lone (inaudible) cancer center and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
[21:50:02] The FBI eventually caught up with the group in the media frenzy that sued divide them. Now, remember this was in early 1980's laws against computer crimes did even exist yet, so what the teenagers ended being charge with is kind of surprising in retrospect. Here is part two of The 414s.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What drawn the attention is the fact that the computer hackers got into the system of the Los Alamos National Lab...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The computer of the nuclear weapons research laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This group manage to intrude into systems operated at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What was learned at that point was that the intrusion originated in the Milwaukee area.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We heard more popping and clicking on our phone lines. We noticed our modems when it stayed connected as (inaudible). And we suspect we were being monitored.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One morning, my sister comes in my room and says the FBI is here, that's when I realize this had been a big deal. I'm in trouble now.
COOPER: The FBI obtained a warrant to search the home of Gerald Richard Wandra who said that he was curious.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: First time, the FBI visited me. They assumed me to be some kind of big criminal. One of the first thing he said was I'm going to ask some questions that I already know the answers, so don't try to lie.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I suspected fairly quickly that this was not group of professional criminals and in fact that was more like a high school social club, basically playing around.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (inaudible) try on things.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Henry (ph) does that scare you then, let's say some Russian secret police could do this, professional people?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When the media started to come out with what damage have been caused, sometimes it was a little bit of exaggeration to play up the dramatic aspect of it, because it was a comment at some point that, you know, we were damaging patient records and, you know, in your head when you think about patient records, you're like, "Oh my god, they're causing somebody to die."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An unauthorized intrusion into the computer system caused the computer to fail.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The system that was monitoring the conditions of cancer patients...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This could have damaging to the patient...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We weren't willing to go on camera or anything like that, but my attorney felt that we needed to response to this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This tapes statement.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From my thoughts with the rest of the group, no one has the view that they are not sorry.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, overtime. Things come out well from (inaudible), there are some billing records that were destroyed, from one of the banks there was some damage to some of the files. I think there was one company where we printed out a whole bunch of paper. I think it was probably for a lot of these companies who is more damaged to their pride.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (inaudible).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm wondering how many other computer programs you and your friends accessed this summer before the FBI came knocking at your door.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is no way that we can really say exactly how many computers program did we access.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It felt like kind of snow ball.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Today's Show, CBS morning news in it's crossfire...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of that was notified, was an accounting file that the doctors missed for billing the time in the computer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A bunch of kids in Wisconsin, started erasing the doctor's bill.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we were jealous in the end.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was going around to different T.V. shows and having a good time, because he knew he was underage and he knew he wasn't going to be prosecuted.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can get some job of this pretty soon, altogether.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I like Neal Patrick.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where us that were of age, we're told we weren't allowed to go to the talk shows.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Neal got immunity from prosecution in exchange for cooperating in the FBI's investigation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, he is going after that, and I'm going to the federal judge show, you know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have any dialog about with the rest of The 414s?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of course.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, you say, of course, some of the guys might think you abandon them and you're getting and awful lot of publicity for yourself.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I did not do that. I was cooperating an information that...
NEAL PATRICK: There was definitely some resentment against me before I get this pain from what it was, you know, some of them were all worried about being convicted. The dynamic of the media frenzy really split us and we ended up really not staying close.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of the things that happened because we did what we did was we lost our friend.
Neal went on to Capitol Hill.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Milwaukee's 17-year-old Neal Patrick testified before a whole Science Subcommittee and said they are protecting those computers with as simple as making passwords more complex.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At what point did you first question the ethical propriety of which you would do?
PATRICK: Once the FBI knocked at my door.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So it was...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[21:55:36] COOPER: That's an unbelievable story. Let's get the latest and some of the other stories were following. Tonight, Amara Walker is at 360 Bulletin. Amara?
AMARA WALKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, a group affiliated with ISIS as supposed to the hit list with the names, photos, addressees and phone numbers at about 100,000 U.S. service members. Many of them are pilot who took part in the air campaign in Iraq and Syria. The list was posted by a group calling itself the Islamic State Hacking Division.
Authorities say millionaire murder suspect Robert Durst is connected to a cold case in Vermont. Middlebury College student Lynne Schulze disappeared in 1971. Durst and his wife owned health store in Middlebury at the time. And attorney for University of Virginia students Martese Johnson says, he will plea not guilty to charges connected to his bloody arrest outside a Charlottesville's bar last week. The incident was caught on camera and involved alcoholic beverage control special agents.
And when Asia Ford had trouble finishing a 10K race Saturday in Louisville, Kentucky, a police officer grabbed their hand and help to cross the finish line. Ford calls the Lieutenant Aubrey Gregory her angel, a beautiful story. Anderson.
COOPER: Yeah. That's great. Amazing. Amara, thanks very much. That does it for us. We'll see you again from eastern another addition of 360. CNN Tonight is coming up after this short break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
