Hackers Target U.S. Olympians; Syrian Cease-Fire Successful So Far; U.S. Olympians' Medical Records Hacked; Rise In Public Attacks Against Muslims In U.S.; Oliver Stone Film 'Snowden' Releases This Weekend
SESAY: You are watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. I'm Isha Sesay.</s>VAUSE: Thanks for staying with us. I'm John Vause. Let's check the headlines. The strongest storm of the year is passing the southern tip of Taiwan. Super typhoon Meranti is forecast to reach mainland China Thursday morning. Winds have reached more than 300 kilometers per hour. Meranti is the second strongest typhoon on record since 1970.</s>SESAY: Our hospital (ph) spokesman says Shimon Peres is in critical but stable condition and is being monitored around the clock. The 93- year-old former Israeli president and prime minister suffered a major stroke Tuesday and is in the intensive care unit at a hospital near Tel Aviv. Mr. Peres' son-in-law and personal physician says his medical team has determined there is no need for surgery.</s>VAUSE: Children were out playing in Aleppo the first full day of the Syrian cease-fire. No major violations have been reported. But aid agencies still have not been able to reach rebel held eastern Aleppo with food, fuel, and other supplies. They're waiting for authorization and security guarantees from the Syrian government.</s>SESAY: Now, several U.S. Olympians have found themselves caught up in a hack of the world anti-doping agency.</s>VAUSE: Tennis player Venus Williams and gymnast Simone Biles are among the athletes who are targeted. CNN's World Sport Don Riddell has the details.</s>DON RIDDELL, CNN WORLD SPORT CORRESPONDENT: During the Olympic games in Rio, there was something of a cold war revival as tensions simmered between Russian and American swimmers in the pool. And of course, many Russian athletes were banned completely from competing because of concerns about doping. The games are over, of course, but now there is a new scandal. The world anti-doping agency has today accused Russian hackers of breaking into their database, stealing, and then posting confidential medical data of some American athletes online. And they aren't just any old athletes. We're talking about some of the biggest names in American sport. Taking responsibility for the attack is a group called Fancy Bears, and the hackers have claimed that these athletes have been doping. According to their website, they quote regularly used illicit strong drugs justified by certificates of approval for therapeutic use. It is a nightmare for the athletes caught up in this and who've now had their medical records published for the whole world to see. The gymnastic sensation, Simone Biles, who won four gold medals in Rio responded on Twitter saying, quote, I have ADHD and I have taken medicine for it since I was a kid. I believe in clean sport. I have always followed the rules and will continue to do so as fair play is critical to sport and is very important to me. The tennis star Venus Williams said, I was disappointed to learn today that my private medical data has compromised by hackers and published without my permission. I have followed the rules established under the tennis anti-doping program in applying for and being granted therapeutic use exemptions. And the American basketball player, Elena Delle Donne tweeted, I would like to thank the hackers for making the world aware that I legally take a prescription for a condition I've been diagnosed with which WADA granted me an exemption for. Thanks, guys. The U.S. anti-doping agency is absolutely livid. Its CEO, Travis Tygart said, quote, in each of these situations, the athlete has done everything right in adhering to the global rules for obtaining permission to use a needed medication. Now, the Russian government has denied any involvement. But whoever is behind it, this hack really isn't going to make it any easier for Russian sports or Russian athletes who have been ostracized during this doping crisis. WADA's new director general, Olivier Niggli said, let it be known that these criminal acts are greatly compromising the effort by the global anti-doping community to reestablish trust in Russia. I suspect we're going to hear much more on this in the coming days. I'm Don Riddell. Back to you.</s>SESAY: Thanks to Don for that. Well, the White House plans to increase the number of refugees in the U.S. and will accept next year, that the U.S. will accept next year, rather, to at least 110,000 people. From 2013 to 2015, the goal was 70,000 refugees. And this year, the White House increased it to 85,000.</s>VAUSE: The U.S. refugee policy has been a big issue in the presidential race. Republican Donald Trump has proposed a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country while Democrat Hillary Clinton wants to bring in more refugees from Syria.</s>SESAY: Well, there has been a rise in public attacks against Muslims in the United States. On Monday, police in Florida say someone deliberately set fire to the mosque that Pulse Nightclub shooter Omar Mateen attended. Mateen killed 49 people at the Orlando nightclub in June.</s>VAUSE: In New York, police released surveillance video of a man suspected of setting a Muslim woman's blouse on fire over the weekend. Authorities are treating that incident as a hate crime. And just last month, a New York imam and his assistant were gunned down while walking home after prayers at a mosque. A Brooklyn man has been charged with their deaths.</s>SESAY: Well Edina Lekovic is a communications director for the Muslim Public Affairs Council. She joins us now here in L.A. Edina, thank you so much for coming in suddenly under these circumstances. The Council on American Islamic Relations has in the past said that Islamophobia in America goes through cycles of intensity. Is that what we're witnessing right now?</s>EDINA LEKOVIC, MUSLIM PUBLIC AFFAIRS COUNCIL: Absolutely. What we see after each major terror plot or even in every major election cycle is we see these upticks in hate rhetoric and then also hate crimes. And that's certainly what we're seeing. We just got a small taste of the dozens of hate attacks, hate incidents, vandalism, death threats that have been taking place against mosques, community centers, and individual Muslims. And I think that's what's so frightening to the average, everyday person is that -- a South Asian grandmother was stabbed to death on her front stoop for no reason. These two women were attacked last week walking down the street with their stroller also in New York. One of them was punched in the face by another woman, this attacker who told them to go back to their country. These kinds of attacks, they're un-American, because fundamentally, we're supposed to have freedom of religion, and that's a core American value. So these attacks are an attack on America. They're an attack on American values. They're not a Muslim problem. They're an American problem, and they should signal to us that we need to take this political rhetoric more seriously and that we need more direct counter speech to that political rhetoric.</s>VAUSE: So with that in mind, when the presidential nominee of the Republican Rarty says statements like, I think Islam hates us, and he proposes that temporary ban on Muslims from entering the country, does that empower someone to act? Does it suddenly mean that it's OK in that political climate to go out and maybe not attack somebody, but to say something, to be abusive, and the entire atmosphere changes?</s>LEKOVIC: It's lighter fluid on a pile of coals. People are only as good or as bad as what their political leaders feed them, what their media feeds them, all of the information that ends up leading them to come to certain conclusions. But when we have political leaders who are vying for the highest land in the office, highest office in the land, who are using this kind of rhetoric, it emboldens people to make bad decisions, and when people get stupid, they make awful decisions. People who are not even Muslim who have been Sikh and other faiths have been targeted and killed by hate mongers. A Christian-Arab man was killed by his neighbor in Tulsa, Oklahoma after that same neighbor ran over his mother. This just happened a few weeks ago. And many of these cases, local folks are just struggling to get them acknowledged as hate crimes. While there are certainly murder charges that are in the works. It means something to put hates crimes charges to them. It's also the same reason that we need political leaders to be pushing back.</s>SESAY: And to that point of pushing back, what are your thoughts as to -- about the counter speech, about the countering of this, how those in power right now are responding to this moment that America finds itself in?</s>LEKOVIC: You know, I've been really heartened and felt reassured whenever I hear President Obama remind us of what our values are as Americans and express a zero tolerance policy towards hate towards any group. And we also need to see more of our congressional leaders follow their lead. Well need to see both Trump and Clinton follow their lead and express a zero tolerance policy. Unfortunately, Donald Trump is expressing the opposite now. Calling for a ban on Muslims, saying that Obama created ISIS. Proposing to -- that we should question the loyalty of Muslim parents of military officers. These kinds of things send exactly the wrong message at a time when American Muslims are valued voters, if they're nothing else, and our votes count just like everybody else's in the election, and we could play a pivotal role in certain swing states like Florida and Pennsylvania.</s>VAUSE: Yes, I read that Muslims are getting very politically active this season, which may be the way they bring about change.</s>LEKOVIC: Yes, but fundamentally, every person has a right to life and nobody should fear fearful walking down the street in any of our free societies.</s>SESAY: Edina, thank you so much for coming in and just driving the point home.</s>LEKOVIC: Thanks for creating a platform.</s>VAUSE: Thank you.</s>SESAY: A quick break now. A new Oliver Stone film explores the case of Edward Snowden, and the filmmaker challenges the current U.S. presidential candidates to go beyond Snowden's story.</s>OLIVER STONE, FILM DIRECTOR: Neither candidate has talked about surveillance in any depth or with any authority. It's not even mentioned. So that's what's scary, too, is because we are in a surveillance state.</s>VAUSE: NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden wants to come home from Russia a free man. Snowden made his case for a presidential pardon in a video interview with "The Guardian" newspaper.</s>SESAY: He says his decision to leak highly classified documents helped bring about much needed change. "The Guardian" interview coincides with the release of "Snowden", a film from Oliver Stone. The director spoke with CNN's Christiane Amanpour.</s>CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Do you think that he will get a pardon, first and foremost? Does he really think he will?</s>STONE: Well, I think he deserves one, and I hope he does. But the odds are long with Mr. Obama. The two central truths that emerge from the movie in my opinion are the fact is that the United States government developed and deployed a massive global surveillance system without Democratic consent. And it was one person who revealed that. That was Mr. Snowden. And he did so with conviction and with love of country.</s>VAUSE: Stone's new (inaudible) about Edward Snowden releases this weekend.</s>SESAY: I interviewed the director and the stars of the film.</s>SESAY: Some call him a traitor. Others call him an American patriot.</s>EDWARD SNOWDEN, NSA WHISTLE BLOWER: I'm 29 years old. I work as a private contractor for the NSA, for the CIA. I work in various jobs in the intelligence industry for the last nine years.</s>SESAY: More than a year after the documentary "Citizenfour" won an Oscar for showing Edward Snowden's quest to expose the U.S. government's surveillance programs, "Snowden", the feature film, will hit the big screen this Friday.</s>SNOWDEN: My name is Edward Joseph Snowden.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How is this all possible?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Think of it as a Google search, except instead of searching only what people make public, we're also looking at everything they don't.</s>SESAY: Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt now steps into the shoes of the controversial former CIA contractor. He even met with Snowden in Moscow, where he is currently living under temporary asylum.</s>JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT, ACTOR: The thing about him is he's always trying to take the attention off of himself personally and put it on the issues that he raises. But I'm an actor. And I was going to be playing him in a movie. So I had to sort of try to observe him as a human and get a sense of, well, how does he sit? How does he stand? How does he talk? How does he eat lunch? How does he shake your hand?</s>SESAY: We also learned more about the trials and tribulations with Snowden's unique relationship with Lindsay Mills, played by actress Shailene Woodley.</s>SHAILENE WOODLEY, ACTRESS: This film shows you a narrative and a side to a story that we haven't been told. A lot of us know about Edward Snowden and have strong feelings about him. But those feelings are based off of a narrative that mainstream media fed us when this issue broke out a few years ago.</s>SNOWDEN: The conversation occurring today will determine the amount of trust we can place both in the technology that surrounds us and the government that regulates it.</s>WOODLEY: And what this film allows us to see is why Ed chose to do what he did. And a big reason, again, that their relationship to me feels so dynamic in this project is because you recognize that he was selfless enough and courageous enough and believed enough in the understanding of everyone being empowered.</s>SESAY: This film brings you inside the U.S. power structure, and the stars emphasize the importance of forming an opinion independent of what you may have already heard.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you only read one article, you listen to one opinion, you are really not going to get the whole story. It's not a simple story. It's complicated.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How is this all possible?</s>SESAY: Director Oliver Stone suggests the political peg is one of the most important and timely messages of the story.</s>STONE: Neither candidate has talked about surveillance state in any depth, or with any authority. It's not even mentioned. So that's what's scary, too, is because we are in a surveillance state. Our privacy has been violated consistently and is being violated. On top of that, you have the issue of cyber warfare, which has been kept in the closet. But this is a very dangerous business. And cyber warfare endangers the entire world.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is something going on inside the government that is really wrong and I can't ignore it. I just want to get this data to the world.</s>SESAY: But ultimately, this personal look into one of the most polarizing figures of the 21st century is bound to spark more debate about U.S. intelligence in the near future.</s>GORDON-LEVITT: After I looked into it further, I came to the conclusion for myself I think what he did was a valuable service to the country and to the world.</s>VAUSE: It's a debate which will go on and on for some time. Good movie?</s>SESAY: YEs. I really enjoyed it. I thought it was very well made.</s>VAUSE: Two thumbs-up. We'll take a short break. When we come back, amazon.com is trying something different. The pros and cons of a shorter workweek. Bring it on. Oh, yes, after the break.