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CNN NEWSROOM

President Obama Speaks Out on Surveillance Programs; Arrest in Ricin Case

Aired June 7, 2013 - 15:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: It's not just your phones, the feds with access to your e-mail, your photos. You're about to hear both sides, why you should be worried and why you should embrace it.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. The news is now.

(voice-over): A judge changed the rules as she fights for a lung transplant. And now we're hearing she's not alone.

The moment the military blew up one of its own, the new form of blockbuster promotions, the element of surprise.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is the most intense thing you're going to see all summer.

BALDWIN: Plus, a valedictorian stuns the crowd in the middle of his speech.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our father, who art in heaven.

BALDWIN: This young man tells me live why he decided to break the rules.

And tonight could mark one of the most awkward get-togethers of Barack Obama's presidency.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: And here we go, hour two. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thanks for sticking with me.

Let's get right to the big story that is roiling the nation for a second straight day. Just a short time ago, the president weighed in for the first time on the government data mining that calls into question here the eroding sense of privacy. Right off the top, he referred to the fact that these programs are programs that he inherited.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I came in with a healthy skepticism about these programs. My team evaluated them. We scrubbed them thoroughly. We actually expanded some of the oversight, increased some of the safeguards. But my assessment and my team's assessment was that they help us prevent terrorist attacks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Part of what the president said today was the fact that you cannot have 100 percent security and 100 percent privacy with zero inconvenience. I believe the word he used was tradeoffs. And so he says he welcomes this debate, called it a mature debate.

So, we are going to have that legal debate here in just a second, but first want to go straight to our chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bash, because I hear you spoke with Democrat Senator Mark Udall, who, you know, he has really done everything short of leaking classified information. He's been waving the flag for, I know, a couple of years in his push to blow the whistle on this snooping on the phone records. What did he tell you, Dana?

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. From his perspective, it is sort of like screaming with a muzzle on your mouth. You can only scream so loud when you have information that is classified.

So when the president said today that members of Congress knew all about it, they voted for it, they could have objected to it, he is somebody, again, a member of the president's own party, who is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has the classified information, and did try to object. Listen to what he told me exclusively just a short while ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARK UDALL (D), COLORADO: I think that we overreached. I think that we ought to have this discussion and we can find the right balance. But if the people don't know, how do you have the discussion?

BASH: The president said clearly today, wait a minute, members of Congress knew about this, they authorized this, they were briefed on it. If they had problems, they should have raised questions.

UDALL: I did raise questions.

BASH: You did raise questions. And what happened?

UDALL: I went to the floor. I offered amendments. I did everything possible, short of leaking, and I would never leak any material. I came out with a smaller amount of votes. But I continue to push for this, continue to draw attention to it. I'm going to continue to do so today.

BASH: And, specifically, what were your objections?

UDALL: My objections were that we had a body of law, under 215, that was being secretly interpreted. I wanted that interpretation to be revealed to the American public.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BASH: Now, two other important points that he made.

One is that we now know in a public way that there are two issues that we're talking about. One is the broad surveillance of phone records. That is something that Congress did pass last -- a year-and-a-half ago, I should say, and then more recently something that allows access to the Internet, to people's movements on the Internet.

The senator is much more opposed to the way that the government is interpreting the first, the phone records, than the latter. But the other interesting thing is, again, because he's a member of the Intelligence Committee, has access to classified information. I said, what do you say to your chairwoman and to your -- who is a Democrat, fellow Democrat -- the top Republicans who say that they think that terror plots were actually thwarted because of this?

He said he really doesn't necessarily believe that. He says that there are other reasons that based on what he knows that the terror plots were thwarted.

BALDWIN: Wow. OK. Dana Bash with the interview with Senator Udall, who has been waving the flag, along with Senator, we know, Wyden of Oregon, Dana, excellent, excellent job there grabbing him, just to give us a little perspective and reaction of course to what we heard from the president today.

Let's continue the conversation. Let me bring in these two gentlemen, Jonathan Turley back with us, day two. He's professor of law at George Washington University who was with us yesterday. Also with us is Jeffrey Toobin, our CNN senior legal analyst.

So, Jonathan, since you were with me yesterday, you know, you expressed some serious problems with the data collection effort that we talked about initially. Yesterday, it was the phone calls. Today, we're talking the movements on the Internet. Since then, with the additional information that we have learned, thanks to these newspapers and the reporting, tell me -- between that and with the president said today, are you more reassured or less reassured than our conversation this time yesterday?

JONATHAN TURLEY, CONSTITUTIONAL ATTORNEY, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: Well, I don't know how to be more assured. It has gotten a lot worse.

What we're talking about is the creation of massive data banks that would allow transparency on how people are conducting themselves, who they are calling, who they are e-mailing, when, from where. This is critical information that most people consider to be private.

Now, whether or not the government believes it shouldn't be, it is a choice as to what society we want, that we're becoming this fishbowl society. That choice has not been presented to the American people. It has been presented between the White House and the intelligence community and a few senators. But the choice has never been given to us. And it is a very different country than the one that we're used to. BALDWIN: Jeff, jump in.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I'm not sure that's quite the case.

We have three branches of government in this country. All three have weighed in, in favor of this idea. So I don't think there is really a good argument that this is somehow illegal. The question, and it is a close one, frankly, is, is this is a good idea? Is this the kind of program we want to have, weighing the balance between privacy and security?

There has always been a less expectation of privacy in the numbers you call and how long you talk. That is something that the phone company always knows. That's something that everybody knows the phone company is keeping track of.

BALDWIN: But it is one thing for the phone company to know that, as some would say, and it's quite another for the government, right?

TOOBIN: Well, but that is -- when I was an assistant U.S. attorney, we would subpoena the phone company for records like that all the time as a matter of course. And the person wouldn't even know that we were subpoenaing them.

There is a big difference under the law between those records about phone calls and the content of phone calls. This is all about the numbers and the duration, and people historically and legally have less expectation to privacy there.

BALDWIN: And I think interesting, too, these nine mega-Internet companies, your Skype and YouTube and Google, five of the nine said they had no idea this was even going on.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Let me just jump in, because there is another interesting point I want both of you to weigh in on, because we sort of realize that this FISA judge whose name is on the order of approving the phone data program -- and here's the order -- I want to show it to you right here -- his name is Roger Vinson.

Roger Vinson just happens to be the judge who said if the government can mandate health care coverage, then, heck, you remember this, it can force us all to eat broccoli. This was the broccoli judge. You would think he would have a narrow view of the reach of the federal government, but here he is saying, sure, you know, go ahead, do the phone data collection. It just kind of makes you wonder whether this court would ever, Jonathan Turley, say no.

TURLEY: Well, it virtually never does turn down requests.

A long time ago, when I was a young intern at NSA, I went into that secret court and I -- from that experience, I had a lifetime opposition to the FISA court, which I think is a mockery. It is -- these judges have virtually no basis to turn down applications, which is why only a few out of tens and hundreds of thousands of cases and applications have ever been turned down.

But I want to say something about the earlier point by Jeff. Civil libertarians I think do not agree with him as to the legality of the scope of this. There are cases that say that pen registers, as Jeff said, are entitled to less privacy. This is something that we have not encountered before.

In most of those cases, like, as Jeff described, you're requesting a pen register on a person who has come up in investigation. Here, the government is demanding every call made by every citizen and putting them into a massive data bank. That's a different type of proposition. It is something we have not encountered in this way before.

BALDWIN: And final question, final question to you, Jeff Toobin. When I hear him saying that, I'm thinking to myself, it is a slippery slope. At what point does -- is it the government -- you mentioned the three branches of government, Congress. Where do you draw the line?

TOOBIN: Well, the courts ultimately have the authority.

And I would like to take the opportunity to agree with Jonathan about something...

BALDWIN: Here we go.

TOOBIN: ... which is that I think these courts are a joke. They are rubber stamps.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: You say they're a mockery as well?

TOOBIN: They are not something that is going to protect anybody's rights. I think we should just leave these things to the regular federal courts.

These things have to evolve on a case-by-case basis. Obviously, they're pushing the limit pretty hard here, but in the post-9/11 world, all the pressure has been moved in that direction. And Mark Udall notwithstanding, I don't see much pushback from Congress on this either.

BALDWIN: Jeffrey Toobin and Jonathan Turley, gentlemen, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

TURLEY: Thank you, Brooke.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: Let me get straight to this breaking news that we're getting now on this arrest, a rather surprising arrest in the case of the ricin-laced letters sent to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, President Obama, these anti-gun groups.

Ed Lavandera is live in Dallas.

And, Ed, what are you learning?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, if you remember, last week, we were outside of the home in a town of New Boston, Texas, a small town far in the northeast corner of this state. And we're now learning, sources are telling CNN, that the woman who lived at that house, a woman by the name of Shannon Rogers Richardson, was taken into custody and will be facing charges in connection with the ricin investigation.

We're still trying to get more confirmation and more details on what the specific charges will be. But the law enforcement source tells CNN's Susan Candiotti that she was angry at her husband. Remember, last week, we reported that it was a woman in that area of Northeast Texas that had called investigators, had told them she had found some suspicious substances in her house, and that she had called authorities and told them about this. And that's when investigators descended on this -- at this house in the northeast corner of Texas and started a full-throttle investigation there at the house.

They descended on this neighborhood intensely last week and now we're hearing that charges in -- there had been suspicion that they were looking at the husband in this case, because that's the way it was originally kind of reported, that our sources saying that it was the woman who had called out and said, you know, perhaps my husband had been involved in this.

But now sources are telling us that it is, indeed, the woman, Shannon Richardson, who is now facing charges in connection with this ricin letter investigation.

BALDWIN: Well, let me ask you this, because we see on the screen actress arrested in Texas ricin case. Who is she?

LAVANDERA: Well, it is interesting. We have been doing a little digging on that as well. And she is an aspiring actress. She has had very minor roles in several television shows, well-known television shows, like "The Walking Dead" and "Vampire Diaries." She lives in a very quiet neighborhood.

Many of the neighbors that we had spoken with didn't really know them all that well, that they had only recently moved into that neighborhood, I think it was about a year-and-a-half ago, many neighbors told us. And so someone that was an aspiring actress, to what extent she was intent on her career is hard to say. But she did have some minor roles in these very popular TV shows.

BALDWIN: And now she's arrested. Ed Lavandera on the breaking news for us this afternoon. Eddie, thank you so much. If you get more information, let us know.

Moving on, the family of a 10-year-old girl fighting to save her life, now we have learned their hard work may actually be helping save other children. We have told you the story about Sarah Murnaghan. She needs a new pair of lungs. Her parents won this crucial court ruling that could help speed up the process, and now CNN has discovered that that ruling could help save the life of this little boy. We will share his emotional story next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: How about this question? Should dying children get fast- tracked to receive adult organs?

A judge in Philadelphia has ruled that 11-year-old Javier Acosta here, who is waiting for a lung transplant, should be bumped up on the adult waiting list, this news here coming to us after 10-year-old Sarah Murnaghan's parents pushed and pushed for a change in that organ donation policy so that their 10-year-old daughter could get adult lungs more quickly.

Jason Carroll has been all over the cases for us.

Jason, this is another challenge to the policy that keeps kids younger than age 12 from getting priority, I know, on the waiting list for adult lungs, brings up all kinds of issues here. So who should get priority?

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it really does.

And just to be clear, when you listen to the parents of people like Sarah Murnaghan, whose daughter has cystic fibrosis, desperately needs a lung transplant, they're not looking for a fast track. What they're basically looking for is more of an even playing field.

They want a field where the sickest person has availability to these lung donations when they become available. That was not happening in the past, but now that this federal judge has stepped in and changed the policy, the so-called under-12 rule, which in the past basically prevented any child under the age of 12 years old from being put in that pool with the adults who are trying to get donations, now that under-12 rule has temporarily been suspended.

That's what these parents are asking for. They're just asking for a level playing field.

BALDWIN: And so with the level playing field, that was the issue with Sarah Murnaghan, her parents saying that the number -- the issue is the number of kids' lungs, right, is so small, which I don't know if that's a good thing or bad thing, but that, you know, that she should be added to the adult waiting list, correct?

(CROSSTALK)

CARROLL: Right. Yes. Right.

And just to put that in perspective, let's look at one number that we have got. Back -- since 2008, the total number of lung transplants that have been done in the United States total 8,775. Now, that's lung transplants. Only about 1 percent of that, just about 88 of those patients were children. So the numbers are very, very small. And so you have got a very small number of donations from children to other children. Children can take a modified lung from an adult. And so if you're a parent out there with a sick child that desperately needs a lung transplant, you're thinking to yourself, wouldn't it be better for my child and other children out there to at least to have access, the same access that adults do to these donations?

BALDWIN: That's what they want. Jason Carroll, thank you so much.

A ship under attack, whole thing caught on video. The day's best videos, "Hit Play," next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: And now to some of the hottest videos of the day. We call it "Hit Play."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN (voice-over): The Norwegian navy playing battleship with one of its own. Check out the explosive moment once again, this decommissioned ship now just target practice for the navy's new 800- pound missiles.

Sneak preview, surprise, Brad Pitt crashing a screening of his new zombie thriller, "World War Z."

BRAD PITT, ACTOR: It's the most intense thing you're going to see all summer.

BALDWIN: The Hollywood superstar and some free T-shirts sending the crowd into a frenzy.

PITT: Have fun. All right.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BALDWIN: We have got a runner, this adventurous black bear sending Albuquerque police on a wild chase for hours, before the bear escapes into the foothills. Would you believe the street this happened is actually called Black Bear Lane?

Big brother to the rescue, a 10-month-old choking on dog food.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was barely making noise.

BALDWIN: His dad desperately trying to help.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He says in a clear, confident, calm voice, you're doing it wrong.

BALDWIN: The 11-year-old brother had taken CPR training just one weekend earlier.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was telling dad to hit him on the back five times, turn him over, and then give him five chest compressions. BALDWIN: The quick thinking wound up saving the day.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He wasn't panicking.

BALDWIN: And did you see this? Game one, NBA finals came down to this, the Frenchman Tony Parker dipping, weaving, banking, a circus shot before the buzzer over King James. Spurs win.

And that's today's "Hit Play."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: We're learning more about government programs that mine your e-mails, some phone records, photos, maybe for data. Next, we're asking what is more worrisome, the fact that our government had these programs in place or the fact that they kept it a secret from Americans? We will debate that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: More revelations today about how the U.S. government tries to catch terrorists by spying on private communications. So, we first talked about this yesterday when we discovered that Uncle Sam is collecting the phone records of Verizon customers, you know, everyone from your kids' text messages to her BFF to your grandmother who is still trying to figure out how to send a text message.

Today, two different newspapers, you have "The Washington Post" and Britain's "Guardian," report the FBI and the NSA -- that's the National Security Agency -- are tapping into mega-huge companies, you see them here, to get everything from e-mails to video to photos. I'm talking Microsoft, Apple, YouTube, Yahoo!, Google, Facebook, and Skype.

We did hear from the president talking about this for the first time just this afternoon. Here he was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Nobody is listening to your telephone calls. That's not what this program is about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The president also says the Internet spying does not target any U.S. citizens or anyone living in the United States.

The president is taking some -- some brutal fire here over all this surveillance. Did you wake up and click on to your Huff Po? This was the front page of The Huffington Post this morning with the headline and the morphed picture, "George W. Obama."

With that, let me bring in these two guys, syndicated columnist David Sirota and CNN political analyst Cornell Belcher.

Gentlemen, welcome. David, to you first. What is more worrisome, in your opinion? Is it the fact that the government has had these programs in place for years and years, or that they kept it a secret from us?

DAVID SIROTA, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: I think they're both worrisome.

I think that the fact that this program is happening is the most worrisome part of this. I mean, there is always the crime, if you will, and the cover-up, but really what we're talking about here is the perception and the reality of privacy in America.

Now, the president saying that people are not listening in on people's phone calls, technically, that's true. But I would argue that's even more misleading than what we have already -- than really hiding what has been going on. It just is continuing the misleading part of this, in the sense that metadata, the data about phone calls, as national security experts tell us, the metadata actually can tell you almost as much about individuals and their lives, the intricate details of their lives, as listening in on the actual calls themselves.

BALDWIN: Cornell, does this bother you?

CORNELL BELCHER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, what would be bothersome is if in fact we know people are out there trying to kill us and they're using these spaces to coordinate and to -- and to set up attacks on us -- what would be bothersome if in fact our government was just throwing their hands up and not doing anything about it.

I think the American people would be a lot more outraged, quite frankly, if there were people using this -- this technology, using this space to coordinate attacks on us, and the government didn't do anything. Is it ideal? Absolutely not. It is not ideal.

But truth of the matter is, there are people who are trying to kill us, and the government has to -- has a responsibility to take actions to try to stop these people from killing us. But do we have to balance that with privacy? Absolutely, we do.