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Big Banks Under Fire; Dissent in Cuba

Aired December 11, 2009 - 15:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Making news right now during your national conversation: Bankers are at it again, scoring huge bonuses a year after we bailed them out.

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: Hey, hey, ho-ho, the greedy banks have got to go!

SANCHEZ: So now this: British bankers will only get half their bonus, and still be taxed on top of that. And, this morning, the French have done the same. Is it time for America to follow suit? I will tell you what President Obama says.

Dissent smashed in Cuba by pro-government brigades, and CNN is there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This has gotten a lot more confrontational.

SANCHEZ: What happens when one man, one party becomes the thought police?

The officer who stole a lawyer's documents while her back was turned refuses a judge's order to apologize because his boss, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, says he doesn't have to.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Every time I look at it, it is almost like watching the Keystone Cops.

SANCHEZ: Can a sheriff, this sheriff, defy the law?

Your national conversation, featured on NPR's "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!" in a packed house. My access is your access for Friday, December 11, 2009.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Hello again, everybody. I'm Rick Sanchez with the next generation of news. It is a conversation, it's not a speech and, as always, it is your turn to get involved.

And, today, I know you are going to be jazzed about how Wall Street is suddenly making big profits and big bonuses, and you are not. The British have a plan, the French have a plan. We don't. More on that in just a minute.

But, first, I want you to take a look at these guys. All five of them, they are Americans. Today, they are in Pakistan, but they are probably all coming back here to the United States to answer some accusations that they are terrorist wannabes.

All five were rounded up and arrested this week by police in Pakistan. I am about to show you the maps that they had with them when they were caught, the jihad literature that they had, the computer Web sites that officials say that these guys were going to use for holy war and that they were really looking for a way into Afghanistan. All right.

Let's roll that Arwa Damon report now from the Islamabad, Rog.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These are the young men now at the focus of an investigation spanning two continents. They vanished from the United States at the end of last month.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik says authorities were quickly on their trail.

REHMAN MALIK, INTERIOR MINISTER OF PAKISTAN: Well, in fact, we have very good cooperation with the FBI. I received a communication giving details of five individuals who had already left U.S., and that was a good clue.

DAMON: Pakistani authorities say they tracked the men to the city of Sargodha.

MALIK: According to the investigation, they had gone to one of the organizations which is in fact on the watch list, Jamaat ud Dawa, and probably they said, we don't want you, because we always deal or we take people only with references.

DAMON: Each day, police say they are putting more pieces of this bewildering puzzle together. The interrogation report released by the police questioning them in Sargodha they were headed to Pakistan's tribal areas and then on to Afghanistan.

None has yet been formally charged, and the mother of one of the men told us he came to Pakistan to get married.

Police have their own theory, that they came to wage jihad. And as the interior minister acknowledges, some parts of Pakistan provide accessible ground for those seeking a path to terror.

MALIK: And let's not forget that al Qaeda had been operating for years and years on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Historically speaking, if you see all this (INAUDIBLE) of terrorists who were brought in during the war of Soviet Union and Afghanistan, there are those remnants. So, they had been living or their father had been staying here. Some way or the other, there had been a connection with that war.

DAMON (on camera): What worries the Pakistanis is the influx of young men in recent years coming seeking jihad as they struggle to cope with their own homegrown militants.

Arwa Damon, CNN, Islamabad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: All right, that is happening on that side of the world. Here the FBI in Virginia along with police there are scrambling to interview everybody these men may have possibly talked to or known. They know that they are Muslims. They know where they worship. They know where a couple of them went to school. And that is where they are starting.

Here is CNN's Jeanne Meserve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Behind bars in this jail in Pakistan, five young American Muslim men. State Department and FBI representatives have now met with some of them. And a law enforcement official says there are indications some may cooperate with law enforcement.

P.J. CROWLEY, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS: We are gathering information about -- you know, why they were there, who they were in the company of, and the implications of that. We have reached no conclusions on that.

MESERVE: Pakistani authorities say the Americans connected with militants after posting comments on YouTube videos. They then communicated by reading and deleting drafts of e-mails, rather than risking detection by sending them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were mercenaries. They were there for jihad. They could have done anything.

MESERVE: Computers, jihadi literature, and maps highlighting areas of Pakistan where terrorists have been active were all seized at the house where the five were arrested, according to the Pakistanis.

Authorities have to reconstruct the men's history, since none of them had come to the attention of law enforcement before their parents reported them missing.

TOM FUENTES, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: What's missing is knowing who they were talking to, who they were meeting with, what e-mail traffic was being sent at the time they were still in the United States.

YELLIN: Ramy Zamzam, pictured here on Facebook, is a student at Howard university. Investigators are checking out activities and contacts there, as well as George Mason University, where Umar Farooq, another of the Americans, went to school, also a mosque in Northern Virginia where several of the men worshipped.

(on camera): Though Pakistani officials say the men were intent on committing terrorist acts and made contact with two terror groups, U.S. officials are being much more cautious, law enforcement says it's too early to know what the Americans were doing in Pakistan and who they were in contact with. U.S. officials say they are in discussions with Pakistani authorities about returning the men to the United States. As of now, they have not been charged with any crime in either country.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: We could be walking down this tunnel for a couple of blocks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A good seven to eight blocks this way, over 1,000 feet.

SANCHEZ: That is a long way...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, it is.

SANCHEZ: ... to walk in the dark in a tunnel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just touch and feel, yes.

SANCHEZ: That has got to be real creepy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: How some undocumented immigrants sneak in and hide in the United States. I want to show you by going into one of those sewers and literally showing you what it is like.

And then my colleague Anderson Cooper finds a similar underground scene. He goes across the border to find his.

Also, Wall Street is reaping some huge profits with your bailout money. What is the president of the United States, what is Barack Obama going to do about it? Maybe if only he were French or he were British. I am going to explain that.

Arianna Huffington gets it. She is part of Rick's List today. There's the list. There is Arianna, first the list, now to Arianna. This is what we're -- you would not believe the people who are tweeting us on this today.

She says: "Taxpayers saved the executives' jobs. Yes, we did." She is 100 percent right. We did. They were crying several months ago. She is also suggesting a windfall tax is the least that we, she says they, can expect in return.

This is a very important story. I am going to break it down for you in just a little bit. Stay right where you are.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Welcome back. I'm Rick Sanchez here in the world headquarters of CNN.

The busiest, best known, most populated place in the entire world -- pardon me -- in the entire United States -- I misspoke -- per square mile, that is, and yesterday it turned into mayhem there. We are talking about Times Square, New York City.

All right, take a look at this, a gunman who turned up armed with a semiautomatic MAC-10. He opened fire on an officer right in the middle of a crush of holiday shoppers. This was just like a Pacino movie. The gunman is dead. Police took care of that. And thank goodness nobody was hurt.

But Mayor Bloomberg is using this to make a political statement. He's saying again this proves there are just way too many guns on way too many people in New York streets.

Then there's Sheriff Joe Arpaio. His deputy was seen -- in fact, you are looking at him right there -- he is literally taking a document away from the lawyer while her back is turned. He disobeys a judge's order, and now he gets out of jail pending an appeal. How powerful is Joe Arpaio?

This is mayhem inside Cuba. Have you seen these pictures, these latest pictures of what is going on in Cuba? In a country where there is no right to protest the government, this is what happens when you do.

And if only our president would do what the British and the French have the nerve to do to investment bankers. I'm going the explain that.

There is Richard Quest. In fact, while we look at Richard Quest, the person, let's go over to our Twitter board, if we possibly can. I want to show you what Richard Quest sent us just moments ago. And this is Richard Quest's tweet to us. He is letting us know that more than 1,000 bankers in London earn more than a million pounds a year, 1.6 million per year.

And then he asks, are one of them? I will bet you the answer is, you are not. He and I are going to get into it in just a moment. This will be good. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Welcome back. I'm Rick Sanchez.

This is important news that you should know about. Wall Street banks are having a hell of a year. The firms whose bad decisions and greed had us all staring down the barrel of another Great Depression -- certainly has been a great recession -- the firms who with the help of the federal bailout, i.e., your money, my money, got back on their feet, they are back on their feet, and then some.

And now guess what? It is bonus time again. Let me read you something I found at Bloomberg.com. This was posted just yesterday. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan Chase's investment banking unit will hand out $29.7 billion in bonuses, $29.7 billion.

That is according to analysts' estimates. That is a record, beating out what they did in 2007. Hold on a minute, $29.7 billion in bonuses, and just couple of months ago -- all right. Let's continue.

A year ago, they went begging to the feds, begging, crying, on their knees. Save us, they said. And we did. And now they are back to paying record bonuses? The bailout worked for them. By the way, how did it work for the rest of us? Let's look at that, shall we?

Here is something else I read yesterday. Home foreclosures will set another record this year in the United States, nearly four million filings in 2009, worse this year than last. And we all remember last, even though we would all like to forget, right?

Unemployment, let's talk about that. We are at double digits now, 10 percent. The White House keeps saying that recovery happens first, and then we will get the jobs back, maybe.

And I found this shocking as well. "The New York Times" is reporting late last month that hunger in the country has hit its highest mark in 14 years. Nearly 50 million Americans, 50 million Americans, do not have reliable access to adequate food in this country, the richest country on Earth.

And now the banks are back to paying themselves record bonuses. You know what they are doing? Europe, England and France this week have said to their investment bankers, we are taking away exactly one- half of each of your bonuses, so there.

And, by the way, they are doing it in such a way so that whatever is left over after they take the 50 percent, they still get taxed on that, in case you were thinking, oh, it is just 50 percent. Most people get taxed on almost 40 percent on something like that anyway. No, no, no, no, no.

Richard Quest is good enough to join us now from London.

Richard, always good to see you.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: That is quite a haircut for these guys, by the way, because, you know, that half that they keep, as I just mentioned, is going to be taxed. I would imagine that all of London is out celebrating this week.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Now, let's put a few facts into this, Rick.

Now, first of all, first things first, it is the bank, it is the employer that is going to be taxed 50 percent of the bonus pool for those bonuses over $40,000. Now, when you think that most bankers who get bonuses get in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, you start to see that the banks, themselves, are going to end up with some hefty bills, in addition to which, here in the U.K., the new top rate of tax is 50 percent.

So, you are quite right. Britain did it first. France has suggested it is going to do it today. And other European countries are looking at it, but, Rick, this is the core point here. It will only work to stop bankers moving from one place to the next if everybody does it. And ultimately that means the U.S.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: That's exactly right.

And I think it seems -- and I think you just mentioned it -- can you think of any reason why the United States of America, this president, this administration shouldn't follow suit, especially when you consider that most of the schemes, most of the deregulation takeaways, and most of the incompetent regulators originated here?

QUEST: Now, careful, Rick. Don't get excited. Don't get excited.

SANCHEZ: I am trying not to, but it is my money, baby.

QUEST: Well, your money, yes, your heart attack as well.

(LAUGHTER)

QUEST: The fact is, Rick, there are two sides to the argument.

And I'm not going to -- you are now putting me in the uncomfortable position of being an apologist for the banks. But they say, hang on a second. They made the money. They have got to attract the best. If they do not pay the bonuses, they will simply go to another bank.

What I think is fascinating is that the chief executives of these banks haven't had the moral high ground courage to come out and say, we are not paying bonuses, whatever the costs may be. That's what I think...

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: Let's do this. It is a Friday. And you and I like each other and we are both very animated and passionate about this, so let me stretch and get myself on a lot of blogs.

Should we not be surprised that this administration that has surrounded itself by nothing but hacks from Wall Street, by nothing but guys who have a lot to gain and have gained in the past by being investment bankers, why should we expect that this administration with guys like Geithner and the rest there would do anything to hurt their buddies on Wall Street, even if it is at the expense of the rest of us?

QUEST: You -- no, come on here. No, come on. You have elevated cynicism and skepticism to an art with that.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: Yes, I have. And I'm sticking by it.

QUEST: Well, I suggest that you are wrong on that, because you could arguably say the last administration, with Paulson and Geithner, who was part of the New York Fed, it's the same group.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: What is the difference between the guys there now and the guys who were there before? None.

QUEST: Because the janitor in the basement is not qualified to run the Fed or be the U.S. treasury secretary. Remember that. This is a complicated business.

These are people -- remember one other thing, Rick. You and I are doing this because we enjoy journalism. But many bankers, their creed is money. That is how you reward them. That is what they worship. That is what their god is. And when they believe that they are not getting paid the right amount of money, they will move.

Do I like it? No. It stinks to high heaven. It make me want to retch.

SANCHEZ: You can't help but trouble with the trickle-down theory, when the rest of us down here are the ones that getting, well, the short end of the stick.

Let me leave you there, because my producers are telling me I am way over already. I love talking to you, man. I appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time for us.

The joker accused of taking pictures of an ESPN reporter in her privates, he has the audacity to get mad at reporters. We're going to show you this. Look at this guy. That is ahead.

But you have got to see what happens in Cuba when middle-aged women, middle-aged women, complain against the government -- free speech denied. And CNN's cameras are there to capture it as it happened.

Also, what do you think would happen to you if you took an attorney's documents, perhaps as evidence while he had a case against you, while they weren't looking? You think that all you -- yes, all the judge would do would ask you to apologize, right? Sure.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: All right. Welcome back.

You just heard that conversation I was having with my colleague across the pond, as they say. Rick's List is hot and heavy today with people who have a lot to say about this. And, again, the question is, should we put some serious burdens or taxes or any kind of thing that we levy as a bit of a punishment on some of these investment bankers and these huge bonuses that they are getting already? Remember, these are the guys who were crying less than a year ago.

All right, let's start with -- who do we have here? We have got Dennis Kucinich, who just sent me this, after listening to that conversation. "We should tax the bankers' bonuses like they are proposing in Europe. I will be introducing legislation that will."

Well, that is interesting to hear. We are certainly going to follow up on that.

Let's go to Eric Cantor. As you know, he is the GOP whip, the Republican whip. He says: "New executive pay caps for TARP funds show why government needs TARP exit strategy. Get out of the boardroom."

Kind of a different perspective from him. And now we have got Andrew Sorkin. You remember Andrew Sorkin. We had him here on the show. I interviewed him after I read his really fabulous book, if I don't say so myself. It was good, "TIME"'s author of book "Too Big to Fail."

What does he say here? Oh, that is Goldman -- that is a symbol for Goldman Sachs. He says: "Goldman Sachs' bonus plan sends the right signal, but won't end the public outcry. To be total bonus -- because of total bonus package, we will still be so high," because the total bonus number will still be so high.

In other words, there's no way to appease the folks who are upset about this is what Andrew seems to be intimating there. We are going to continue to follow that story and your responses, and there will be a lot of them. I am assured of that.

Also, this. You can join us for the national conversation whenever you visit Atlanta. Just call 1-877-4CNN-TOUR.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Throwing out leftovers may soon be a thing of the past. In the California Bay Area, a utility district is recycling food and generating power from the methane gas created when it decomposes.

DAVID WILLIAMS, EAST BAY MUNICIPAL UTILITY DISTRICT: There's no shortage of food scraps. If it was all utilized to create renewable energy, you could provide enough power for around 25,000 homes.

SIMON: The plant processes about 100 tons of food a week, which is collected from local businesses like restaurants and grocery stores. And in San Francisco, residents are also doing their part to reduce what's being sent to landfills. In October, a law was passed requiring both residents and businesses to compost their own food scraps. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We keep the bin handy under the kitchen sink. When it's ready to go out, you tie it up and take it down the hall.

SIMON: Officials say this is the first step towards a long- term goal.

JARED BLUMENFELD, SAN FRANCISCO DEP. OF ENVIRONMENT: San Francisco is currently recycling 72 percent of the 2 million tons we collect every single year.

SIMON: Blumenfeld said he wants no waste going to landfills by 2020, and there may be another benefit. The city charges for garbage that goes to the landfill but not for what's recycled.

Dan Simon, CNN, San Francisco.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: We are in total darkness just to show you what is it really like for these immigrants as they try and get in here. Go ahead now and turn on the light, Orle (ph). This is how they have to go through these pipes, literally feeling their way, because they are not able to see anything. You can see the smudge and the dirt and the mud that's what you have to walk through to get through this thing.

What makes it worse, oftentimes, they come into these pipes thinking they're only going to be in here a few minutes, but it turns out one of these manhole covers will be shut, and they'll have to go the next one, or worse, the smuggler will simply lie to them.

And we could be walking down this tunnel for a couple of blocks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. A good seven to eight blocks this way, over 1,000 feet.

SANCHEZ: That is a long way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, it is.

SANCHEZ: To walk in the dark in a tunnel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: By just touch and feel, yes.

SANCHEZ: That has got to be real creepy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Real creepy.

SANCHEZ: What, do they just feel their way around?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Normally they're just holding onto the person ahead of them and just touching the walls and feeling their way out until they get to a point where somebody is tapping on the street.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: I have got to tell you, that place stunk. That was me and my cameraman Orle Ruiz (ph) way below the street level in San Diego, in the sewers, within eye-shot of the Mexican border, and certainly within walking distance, and that is why I was there, shining a light on a desperate and often deadly links -- or in this case the depths that people will go to to get back and forth illegally across the border from the United States to Mexico.

Now let me show you something that is just as amazing. It's a little slice of life on the Mexican side of the border in Texas (sic), this is in Juarez. We have told you a lot about Juarez on this newscast. It is a city's name that is, sadly enough, synonymous with crime and drugs and violence and death, a lot of death, officially more than 2,000 people killed there just this year alone.

Here is my colleague Michael Ware.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is only 9:00, we are now going and joining this police patrol. Since the killings this afternoon that we saw, there has already been another homicide bringing today's total to 13.

(voice-over): Every night joint patrols like this one between local and federal police and Mexican soldiers crisscross the city trying desperately to stem the flow of blood.

(on camera): Things were so bad that earlier in the year, the Mexican president had to call in the military to help protect the city. For a short time, there was a lull in the violence, but it quickly returned. Now, it is worse than it has ever been before.

(voice-over): By now, it is close to 10:00 p.m., and the reports of violence are streaming in over the police radio.

(on camera): (INAUDIBLE) has just received another call on the radio of some kind of incident, but those lights there, that is America. It is the U.S. border. This reminds you just how close this war on drugs is being fought to American soil.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: By the way, Michael goes on to report and show us just when he arrived at the crime scene with the Mexican police in Juarez what he saw there were four people executed, and one of them he says was a teenaged girl. Another one was a 12-year-old girl, victims of the drug trade, the drug war and the battle to provide drugs to buyers on our side of the border.

By the way, we are getting a lot of comments on my conversation that I had just a little while ago with my colleague overseas. Listen to this, this is the very top, these are just -- this is a sprinkling of what we are getting, and most of them sound pretty similar.

"Go, Rick, go, you are speaking for us all on the Wall Street bonus issue. Thanks." Right under that it says: "I hope all of those bank executives getting big bonuses have a great Christmas on the American taxpayers' money. Sleep well."

Also this...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. MARK SANFORD (R), SOUTH CAROLINA : I was down there last night and dropped by and saw the kids. You know, again, that is going back in that private sphere, everything is a day at a time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Well, the good news is he is not being impeached. That is Governor Mark Sanford. The bad news is his wife just talked to reporters, and what she said is not good. Governor Mark Sanford's reaction is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Welcome back. It is over for Mark Sanford. Wednesday, the embattled governor of South Carolina managed to beat the wrap. He will not be impeached, as you probably heard, right here. He is going to be formally rebuked instead for his trysts with an Argentine mistress.

So politically Sanford dodged a bullet, right? Then there is the question of his marriage, which most guys would consider really even more important. I know I do. The governor, primed after hearing about his political victory, seemed to be thinking that somehow he might get equally good news about his marriage. Here he was, I want you to listen to his words and watch him as he speaks. this is yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANFORD: Yes, I mean, you may have missed it, but I mean, I was down there last night and dropped by and saw the kids and drove back and I was driving back, I guess, at the time the interview took place. But, you know, again, that is going back in that private sphere, everything is a day at a time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: And here is the upshot today. Jenny Sanford filed for divorce. It must have been a shock to the governor who had just heard -- we just heard him there saying that he was working towards working things out, and just a short time ago we got a statement from Governor Sanford as well.

He said this, I will read it to you, he says: "While it is not the course I would have hoped for or would choose, I want to take full responsibility for the moral failure that led us to this tragic point."

By the way, I want to share with you now a tweet. Peter Hamby has made our "Rick's List" today, and Peter, I should mention, is part of our staff. And just as I went to him, it went away. Look at that black screen over there, go ahead, show the black screen. Let's show them the mistakes as well as the good stuff. Just as I was about to read Peter's tweet, it went out.

Are you guys going to try and get it back or are you going to let it go? We are experiencing technical difficulties. We apologize for that. And we will get back to Peter in just a minute.

It began as a silent march and turned into a full protest. This is Cuba, and they are called the "Women in White." I'm going to take you through this story. This is fascinating as you watch the video. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Welcome back. I'm Rick Sanchez.

I want to talk to you about Cuba now, the place where, as many of you know, I was born, where also this week, we may have learned that if we had hope of change with Fidel gone and all, we may be sorely disappointed. Those that you are about to see right there are middle- aged women in Cuba who call themselves the "Women in White." They are not exactly dangerous unless you think that ladies arguing for more freedoms are really a risky bunch. Are the people who attack them on the streets part of a government-orchestrated citizens' response or just average people with nothing else to do? I'm going to let you decide that as you watch this incredible report from our correspondent inside Havana. She is Shasta Darlington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHASTA DARLINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The message is loud and clear. The streets of Cuba belong to Fidel, Fidel Castro. Between shoves and insults, more than 100 of Fidel's supporters surrounded what had been a silent march to commemorate International Human Rights Day.

The target of the wrath was the "Damas de Blanco," or "Women in White," the mothers, sisters, and friends of jailed dissidents.

(on camera): Things have gotten a lot more confrontational and we have seen dozens of government supporters come out, and we have the "Women in White, the dissidents shouting "liberty," and the pro- government supporters shouting "this street belongs to Fidel," "out with the worms." Luckily there has not been a lot of (INAUDIBLE)...

(voice-over): For government supporters, this march was orchestrated by an enemy government. "They are mercenaries," one man shouts. They are paid by the United States of America, the same country that has a blockade on us, who threaten our children, who have killed more than 2,000 Cubans. The "Women in White" have marched in silence every weekend for six years, rarely meeting resistance to demand the release of men they say are jailed for their political beliefs.

"This is an intolerant totalitarian government says," says Laura Pollan (ph), "they don't want democracy, they don't want other people to express their ideas, they don't want freedom of movement."

Across town a handful of protesters were shoved into cars when they were tried to stage a separate human rights march. And a British diplomat was mobbed by government supporters as he talked to the foreign press.

CHRISTOPHER STIMPSON, BRITISH DIPLOMAT: I am here from the British embassy, just observing what is going on today. (INAUDIBLE) large groups of people, people talk about what (INAUDIBLE) and a lot of people and seeing people carried off and a lot of screaming, as you can hear, and (INAUDIBLE)...

DARLINGTON: After more than two hours, the "Women in White" make it back to the home where their march began, leaving the street to Fidel Castro's ardent supporters.

Shasta Darlington, CNN, Havana.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Smart with electronics, but not with car doors. This accused peeping tom squares off with -- look at him, with reporters. We are going to let you join the conversation on this one.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: I have never in my entire life seen something like what I am about to show you. It is, I swear, likely one of the most courageous acts that I have ever seen caught on tape. Call your friends, get ready to dance, because it is time for "Fotos del Dia."

I'm telling you this is amazing. It's Manchester, England. Gunshots outside of a pub. And of course everyone does what you and I would do, right? Run like hell, just get out of there. People are firing. Now watch this guy, the big guy with the white shirt, he doesn't seem to give a darn. He is upset that these hooligans are interrupting his gathering. The guy points a gun right into his face, he slaps the gun away, then takes the guy and beats the you-know-what out of him. I mean, this is amazing.

The guy continues -- well, let's watch it again, watch, the guy is coming up, look, he has got a gun pointed right into his forehead. He says, get out of my way. Takes the gun, slaps it away, beats the kid up. The gunman is captured. He is doing three years in prison after the big -- as for this big guy in the white shirt, sir, I bow to you. I am not worthy.

This guy right here has agreed to plead guilty to stalking ESPN reporter Erin Andrews. Michael Barrett is accused of drilling a hole in a hotel door and secretly talking pictures of Andrews while she was in her privates. As you can see, he is good with microscopic cameras, but with doors, let's watch. Oh, maybe not so good.

To Atlanta we go now. A full house last night at the Cobb Energy Centre for the hit NPR show "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me." Recorded last night, it airs this weekend and it really, really is funny. I was asked to take part, and of course, your tweets were a big reason for that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I heard that you guys have deadlines.

SANCHEZ: It all depends upon how you look at the numbers.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... is the bigger numbers are better and the lower numbers...

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: My thanks to Peter and Charlie and Amy and Roy, but most of all, to NPR icon Carl Kasell, who is announcing his retirement this month.

You have got to love NPR. All right. Now, let's go to politics gone wild in Maricopa County. Again, an officer in hot water for this, taking papers from a lawyer's file in court. A judge demanding he apologize, but good old Sheriff Joe Arpaio says, no, he doesn't have to apologize. Law? What law? Can you sheriff defy the law? We'll ask. That office's attorney is going to be joining me in just a little bit. As is criminal defense attorney Silvia Pinera-Vazquez, who has been keeping a close eye on this story. Both of them are welcomed, and we will enjoy the conversation on the other side of this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: "Fit Nation" now, and here is Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it all depends on what your goals are, certainly, when it comes to exercise. But this is a study that has caught a lot of people's attention. What derives the most benefit in terms of reducing risk of stroke? This is what researchers are trying to figure out. They studied over 3,000 people, average age 69, followed them along for 10 years, all from the New York area.

And what they found was that it really seemed to benefit men who did moderate to higher intensity exercise. If did you that, you got about a 63 percent risk reduction in stroke overall over that time period. Women, for some reason, didn't seem to get the same benefits. And either party, men or women, who did light exercise, didn't seem to get much benefit in terms of stroke reduction overall.

Again, we're just talking about a very specific thing here, reducing the risk of stroke. There's obviously lots of good reasons to exercise for both men and women at any age. In case you're curious, a lot of people are, when it comes to moderate or high intensity exercise, what they're talking about specifically is things like swimming, jogging, tennis, about 20 to 40 minutes a day and doing it three to five or most days of the week. Again, though, the message should not be that exercise is not beneficial to women at any given age.

As to why this might be, it's really unclear why men get benefit and women don't. If you look at the causes of stroke or the things that can increase your risk, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, but also something known as inflammation. Inflammation can be a big culprit here. And one of the theories is that men seem to be able to decrease their inflammation more so than women when they do exercise. So that could possibly reduce their risk of stroke. But, again, a lot more research needing to be done on that.

We're also inviting any of you at home to help us practice what we preach. We're creating something called the "Fit Nation Challenge." You can go to cnn.com/fitnation. We're going to invite five viewers from around the country to join us -- to join us for the New York City Triathlon, which is a mile swim, 26 mile bike, a 10k run. If you are chosen, we'll send trainers to your area, help you train, invite you out to New York and do the race with us, again, helping us practice what we preach, but also giving us a glimpse into your own workout routine, what works, what doesn't, and what the country can learn from you.

So, again, cnn.com/fitnation. It's going to be fun. I'm going to do it myself. Back to you for now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: All right. We've got to get into this really fast because we're running out of time. So go ahead, Raj (ph), if you've got that video, let's show it once again. You're going to see this officer, Stoddard, right? He's in Maricopa County. And he's in the middle of a case, and all of a sudden he goes behind this woman's back, this woman is an attorney, right? She is an officer of the court herself.

He goes behind her back, starts looking at her file, and then just reaches in there and grabs her file without permission, without asking her, takes it out. See, he is signaling his other friend over there. Takes it out, gives it to him. He goes and makes a copy of it.

There are several other things that he could have done, for example. He could have stopped the court. He could have gone to the judge. He could have said, your honor, I've got a question I want to ask. He could have frozen the moment. He could have asked for a warrant, but no, he just decides to take it upon himself to take the paper out. And as a result, the judge has held him in contempt and put him in jail and said that he has to apologize.

That's it. Just apologize. Not a big deal. She's not really throwing him in prison. Even that he won't do, why? Because Joe Arpaio says he doesn't have to because he really didn't do anything wrong. His lawyer is good enough to join us now. And he is joining us to take us through his reaction. He is deputy county attorney -- all right. Let me find your name on my script because I'm -- Tom Liddy is joining us.

Mr. Liddy, thank you for being with us, sir.

TOM LIDDY, , DEPUTY COUNTY ATTORNEY, MARICOPA COUNTY, ARIZONA: It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

SANCHEZ: Why in the world would your client pull something like that in the middle of a courtroom? All he had to do was go over to the judge and say, your honor, I saw something that kind of troubles me, do you mind if I -- if we talk about it real quick?

LIDDY: I'd be happy to talk about it. Just take a deep breath and let me explain to you what was going on there. And that is that...

SANCHEZ: Yes, maybe you could tell me if this thing was going to blow up.

LIDDY: Hold on just a second, Rick.

SANCHEZ: Go ahead.

LIDDY: Just a second, Rick. Out here, I don't know what's going on in the prisons in Atlanta, but out here in Arizona and in New Mexico and in Texas and in California, we have a brutal prison gang called the Mexican Mafia. This criminal defendant was...

SANCHEZ: Oh, please. Oh, please.

LIDDY: ... a member of that...

SANCHEZ: Please, sir, sir, sir, there is -- hold on, hold on, hold on.

LIDDY: ... prison gang. And their efforts are to move information from inside...

SANCHEZ: Hold on, yes, I know -- yes...

LIDDY: .. the prison, outside to the streets in order to give orders to the street gangs.

SANCHEZ: Just hold on a minute.

LIDDY: The weakness...

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: Before -- before you....

LIDDY: ... to get it through the court system. That is what we just...

SANCHEZ: Could you shut his mike off real quick? Could you shut his mike off? But before we start with my -- our bad guys are worse than anybody else's bad guys, I'm sure they're worse than in Afghanistan and Iraq as well.

Let me ask you a simple question, was that paper -- let me ask you a simple question, was that paper going to blow up? The paper he removed, how was that paper a danger in the moment to the courtroom? Go ahead, answer that.

LIDDY: Well, the potential of the message in that paper out to the streets may, of course, narcotics trafficking, intimidation of witnesses, killing of witnesses...

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: OK. Let me stop you. Good answer. Good answer.

LIDDY: It's not the modus operandi of the Mexican Mafia to blow things up. They usually use a .9 millimeter and they cap their opponents in the head.

SANCHEZ: Fine, fine, yes, yes. They're all really bad and it's like a "Starsky & Hutch" episode. Thank you very much.

Sir, here's the question to you, you ready? Why couldn't your client, knowing that, and I believe you, and I believe him that he was very worried about what was written on that document...

LIDDY: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Why couldn't he go to the judge and say, your honor, I just saw a piece of paper that troubles me, I'd like to come before the bench right now, show you this piece of paper, and ask that you allow me to record for the purposes of doing that investigation in our courtroom? Why did he take it upon himself, as if he were judge and jury in that moment, to execute the law, something our Constitution says he's not allowed to do?

Let's be fair about this, please.

LIDDY: Well, the Constitution also says that if you're going to put my client in jail, you have to do it -- give them due process of law. He has to have access to the evidence what will prove his good faith basis for taking the steps he did.

Now you can -- you ask a very legitimate question, could there have been...

SANCHEZ: All she asked him to do was apologize. LIDDY: Well, you can ask...

SANCHEZ: That's all!

LIDDY: He didn't ask him to apologize, he ordered him to apologize. And as you well know, Rick, in this country, no one who is in the government can order another free citizen to say something.

SANCHEZ: Did you think a police officer has the right to go into someone's property and just take it without asking for a warrant?

(CROSSTALK)

LIDDY: No, I don't, but do you think that a judge has the authority -- not the right, the authority...

SANCHEZ: Yes.

LIDDY: ... to order a citizen to make a public speech at a press conference? No, he does not. The First Amendment does not permit it. And we're going to go straight up to the court of appeals and prove it.

SANCHEZ: Let me ask you a question, with all due respect...

LIDDY: Go ahead, go ahead.

SANCHEZ: Is that where you and me -- and we were being tried in the court, and we decided to get off of our seat in the middle of a case and run over to the prosecutor, open her file, and start taking papers out of there, because we thought it was unfair or dangerous, what do you think would happen to you or me?

LIDDY: I -- to me? I'm in...

SANCHEZ: Would you just be asked to apologize?

LIDDY: I'm in court every day. To you they'd probably treat you like a lunatic because you're supposed to be in a TV studio. But in the courtroom what they'll do is they've got procedures. And if they're going to threaten to take away your liberty or my liberty, we deserve due process of law, and that's why we're going to the court of appeals.

SANCHEZ: All right. Thanks so much. You know what, let's continue this on the other side. We're going to go over the cnn.com/live right now.

Here's Wolf Blitzer with "THE SITUATION ROOM."

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Rick, thanks very much.