Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Alberto Gonzales Pushes for Domestic Spy Program; Exposing Underground Fertility Market; Week Three of 'New You' Resolution

Aired January 24, 2006 - 08:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: You're watching AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Miles O'Brien.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The sun's risen, it's going to be a nice day here in New York. Welcome back, everybody.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good to have you with us this morning. Let's get over to Carol Costello with some headlines. Good morning, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Good morning to all of you. Turning to Iraq right now, Saddam Hussein's trial is delayed until Sunday. It was set to resume this morning after a month at recess but some witnesses never showed up. The delay comes one day after the Iraqi high tribunal appointed a new chief judge.

Some 22 U.S. marines are helping claw through the rubble in Nairobi, Kenya. A building collapsed downtown in the midst of construction. We brought you this story as it happened on Monday. At least eight people are known to have died in this accident, but there is some hope after 12 hours trapped in the rubble, rescue crews did manage to find one man. He was covered in dust, but he got out on his own two feet.

Canadian voters sending their liberal leader packing. Prime Minister Paul Martin is out and the conservative leader Stephen Harper is in. He's set to take over in a couple of weeks. Harper's platform is actually much more in line with President Bush's. That means U.S./Canadian relations are expected to warm up.

The first ever weight loss pill could soon be available over the counter. An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration giving its recommendations to sell a form of Xenical without a prescription. A final FDA decision is expected within weeks.

And Richard Hatch survived a T.V. reality show, but can he win in real life? He's accused of federal tax evasion and fraud. Hatch apparently didn't pay up after winning a million bucks on the first season of "Survivor." He told a judge that he thought the show's producers would pay the tax. Closing arguments in the trial are set for today and we are eagerly awaiting the verdict. And when we have it, Miles, we'll pass it along.

M. O'BRIEN: It's a good thing he's wearing clothes in the courtroom. That's all I'm going to say on that one.

COSTELLO: Oh my goodness. He could be charged with something far different.

M. O'BRIEN: More of Richard than we ever wanted to see. Thank you very much, Carol.

The White House is pushing hard to sell that domestic spying program that allows a super-secret spy agency to listen in on conversations of U.S. citizens without checking with a judge. This morning, it was the attorney general. Yesterday, one of the nation's top spies and the president himself all pitching in for this program.

Senior legal analyst Jeff Toobin is here with me. He'll explain the legalese behind all this. And in particular, the attorney general's comments. And joining us from Washington, our national security correspondent David Ensor, we have some questions for him too about the logistics of all this. I want to begin with you, Jeff.

First, let's listen to the attorney general just a little while ago with Soledad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALBERTO GONZALES, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I would challenge anyone who is saying that to look at the analysis of the Supreme Court in the Hamdi decision regarding their interpretation of the authorization to use military force. And what they say that authorization allows the president to do, which is to engage in all activities that are fundamentally incidental to waging war. And engaging in electronic surveillance of the enemy is a fundamental incident of waging war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

M. O'BRIEN: A fundamental incident of waging war. Now, it doesn't spell it out but it doesn't say you can't do it. Seems a little vague to me.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: It is a little vague. And the administration's problem is though they have vague authorization for waging war either in the Hamdi decision or in the authorization granted to the administration by Congress after 9/11 to attack Afghanistan.

The problem is there's this law called FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which specifically addresses exactly the activity that is at issue here, wiretapping phone calls from the United States to foreign country or vice versa from the foreign country to the United States.

And that specifically calls for going to this court and getting a warrant. That's what they seem to be trying to get around and I think the consensus view is, although it's not a hundred percent, is that the administration's position here is pretty weak. M. O'BRIEN: It is clear it is a get-around FISA, we're going to talk a little bit more about that, but I want to bring David in here because yesterday I was fascinated by General Mike Hayden, who at one time headed NSA, still remains one of the nation's top spies. He had a long and rather contentious Q+A where he was defending this program as best he could without violating, you know, security clearances and so forth. But listen to this one point he made here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN, DEPUTY NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE DIRECTOR: Had this program been in effect priority 9/11, it is my professional judgment that we would have detected some of the 9/11 al Qaeda operatives in the United States and we would have identified them as such.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

M. O'BRIEN: All right, let me ask you this, David. I read the 9/11 commission report. I thought we had identified some of the 9/11 conspirators. We just weren't able to connect the dots and paint the picture. When the general says that, should we just take that at face value? What do you think?

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, he says it's the case and he's an expert on signals intelligence, so it certainly has some weight to it. But, you know, if the administration wants to make that argument, they're probably going to have to come up with a little more evidence and the problem is all of this is so secret that it's very difficult for them to do that.

M. O'BRIEN: It's a bit of a conundrum, isn't it?

ENSOR: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: But when they say they that, when they said, you know, we could have stopped 9/11, I mean, it's difficult to -- how do you respond if you don't have those clearances, you know?

ENSOR: Well that's the problem. All of this is so top secret that they've had to very carefully frame their arguments to be able to say something publicly in favor of them. And it's a problem for Hayden, it's a problem for anyone who wants to talk about this, including us.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, listening to -- go ahead, you want to pick up?

TOOBIN: I just think the fundamental issue here is this is much more political than it is legal or even national security at this point, because there is not going to be a definitive resolution.

You know, Arlen Specter says it's not authorized. The president says it is authorized. There is no case before the Supreme Court and there's unlikely ever to be a case before the Supreme Court because there is no individual who knows he was tapped who can file a lawsuit. So the question is really, does Congress get upset about this? Does the president successfully defend it? But in terms of a definitive judgment, we're just not going to get one.

M. O'BRIEN: Here's the thing on the FISA courts, Jeff. In Listening to General Hayden yesterday, it has a provision where you can tap somebody right away and then within 72 hours, go see a judge and get it signed, sealed and delivered.

The concern is that some of these taps don't meet the level of probably cause, in other words, wouldn't rise to the bar of getting in court in the first place. They're reasonable and that is where there's a lot of judgment made by people, shift supervisors at the National Security Agency. Is that admission that they're circumventing the law?

TOOBIN: Well it seems to be. And Congress passed the law in 1978 because they didn't want wiretapping unless there was the level of suspicion specified in the law. Congress could have -- I mean, the administration could have gone to Congress and said, "You know, we think it's important, we need to change the law." They changed FISA in the Patriot Act, they could have asked for this then. They didn't, which suspects that they, you know, I think damages their position.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, final thought, David Ensor. One of the other things the general said yesterday, essentially he said, "Look, these are people like you and me who work at the NSA. They're good Americans, they hold very dear the Constitution, particularly the Fourth Amendment, which is applicable in all of this. You got to trust us." You know these people. Should we trust them?

ENSOR: You know, on balance, they're good people. I've met a lot of the people who work at the NSA and who do this kind of work and they're admirable Americans.

The problem is though, our system of government says that they're supposed to be checks and balances. And the question will be whether or not a judge or a court shouldn't at least have some kind of oversight of this program.

Even those, the lawyers that I've talked to privately in the government who worked on the government's arguments for this will privately tell you they expect the FISA law to be amended and they expect this kind of surveillance to probably be brought under it when all the smoke and fire dies down.

M. O'BRIEN: David Ensor, our national security correspondent in Washington, Jeff Toobin, senior legal analyst here in New York, thank you so much for your advice and counseling. Soledad?

S. O'BRIEN: A new kind of underground drug market to tell you about this morning. It's for couples who are having trouble getting pregnant. Fertility treatments are expensive and most often they're not covered by insurance. Randi Kaye has a special report on "ANDERSON COOPER 360" tonight. She joins us this morning though, with a preview. Hey Randi, good morning. RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad. More than six million Americans are unable to have a baby for one reason or another. But with the price of infertility drugs so high, couples are turning to the black market for these medications. They are bartering and begging online, cutting deals with complete strangers.

For many of these couples it's the only way to afford these drugs. They get them for hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars less than they might pay at the pharmacy. And as you'll see tonight, this is a dangerous, but growing trend.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE (voice-over): We'll call him Scott. He lives in one of 36 states where health insurers are not mandated by law to cover some part of infertility treatments. Without the mandate, neither his or his wife's insurance will cover the treatments. So just a few weeks ago, he found himself in a parking lot of a Kmart, exchanging an envelope of cash in an insulated cooler for a supply of drugs at a discounted price from a woman we will call Jennifer, who had extra medications after IVF was no longer a viable option.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I felt like a drug dealer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We laughed nervously. This is the Kmart connection, you know? We're passing drugs back and forth through a window.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I didn't make any financial gain. That wasn't my intention. I had medication left over, so I just thought the best thing to do would be to maybe sell it to somebody else who could use it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If the health insurance industry paid for the medications and the procedure, there on would be absolutely no reason to have to do a deal through a car window.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE: Now you may wonder why these people are so desperate. Well, infertility treatment can cost $12,000 to $15,000, and it is not covered by insurance. That is the problem. Only 14 states mandate infertility medications be covered. The insurance company say it's up to the employers, and the employers say they can't afford to cover everything, yet they cover medications like Viagra. Insurance even covers an abortion. So, Soledad, it will help a woman get rid of a child but it won't help a woman have a child.

S. O'BRIEN: And certainly, it's such an emotional, I mean, you can see in your piece, an emotional time for these couples. But the people who are buying these drugs on the black market, do they already have a doctor's prescription and they just pretty much can't afford to fill it?

KAYE: Right. Yes, that's what the answer would be, at least in the cases we looked at. But what's going on here, Soledad, is completely illegal. While you can certainly sympathize with a couple faced with an empty crib, they are breaking the law. This is a crime punishable by fines and jail time, and there is no plan in place right now to make any changes to the coverage of fertility drugs, to put an end to the problem.

S. O'BRIEN: Gosh, a real indication how desperate some of these couples are.

Randi Kaye, looking forward to your piece tonight on "ANDERSON COOPER 360," 10:00 p.m. Eastern. That's going to be the full in-depth report.

Randi, thanks.

(WEATHER REPORT)

S. O'BRIEN: We got some news just in to CNN. And actually we're going to update a story coming to us from the Associated Press. You're looking at live pictures from our affiliate this morning, WTTG, and this is of Germantown, Maryland, a day care center. A 5-year-old girl has been shot at this day care center. According to reports, some broadcast reports say it happened in the 12600 block of Gray Eagle Court around 7:00 this morning. They are reporting, our affiliate, that the girl was shot by another child who attends the center. The boy apparently brought the gun to the center, was showing it off, and the gun then went off.

Other children were inside the day care center at the time. No details on any of their conditions as well. The girl apparently has been transported to a Children's Hospital. She's reported by reports of being in serious condition. We're going to obviously continue to update the story. But what we know is a 5-year-old girl has been shot at this day care center in Germantown, Maryland.

M. O'BRIEN: While you were talking, I got another e-mail, Soledad. Montgomery County Police on the scene saying the injuries are considered non-life-threatening to the 5-year-old. So serious condition, you know, can mean a lot of things.

S. O'BRIEN: Right, Obviously.

M. O'BRIEN: It's almost pro forma in a case like this.

S. O'BRIEN: Thank God.

M. O'BRIEN: In any case, you know, parents if you have a gun at home, keep it locked up. Keep that gun locked up!

S. O'BRIEN: A 5-year-old shooting another kid at a day care center. Geez. Obviously, they'll be more on that.

(MARKET REPORT)

M. O'BRIEN: Coming up, week three of the "New You Resolution." Today we'll check on our military family, the Rampollas, the family, Rampolla. Their kids have a new nickname. They are the food police, and they're keeping mom and dad in line, maybe. We'll see, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Welcome to week three of "New You." The struggles and triumphs of our power pairs starting to be laid bare, as the competition continues.

S. O'BRIEN: Oh, I hope more triumphs than struggles.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, it's tough.

S. O'BRIEN: Fair to say, obviously, that making important change usually have big challenges associated with them along the way. Take a look at Pedro and Denise Rampolla. Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us, he's at the CNN Center this morning. Hey, Sanjay, good morning.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, guys. Yes, you know, triumphs and challenges for sure. You are right about the challenges. Maybe you guys would have predicted this, having kids of your own. But we did not predict the biggest challenges for the Rampollas would actually be their kids.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA (voice-over): Call them the food police. Emilio, P.D., Lorenzo, Roberto, four keys to Pedro and Denise Rampollas "New You" success.

PEDRO RAMPOLLA, NEW YOU PARTICIPANT: What we're supposed to be eating isn't what the kids want to eat.

GUPTA: Tonight's menu, lasagna with a few twists: ham, chicken, and a low-fat cream sauce, all of which takes time.

DENISE RAMPOLLA, NEW YOU PARTICIPANT: I'm hoping it becomes fun. It's a little tedious, right now to be honest with you.

GUPTA: So how do the kids like the new healthier food?

D. RAMPOLLA: Is it good?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

GUPTA: It's a big step for the Rampollas. Before "New You" fast and healthy were disparate concepts. Now, they're being proactive, planning their meals ahead of time.

P. RAMPOLLA: We could probably look at a whole month in advance and go, "OK, this day, this day, this day."

GUPTA: And Pedro's even offered to help more in the kitchen.

D. RAMPOLLA: You'll cook?

GUPTA: But the Rampollas still need help to fight off a family history of heart disease. D. RAMPOLLA: How are you?

GUPTA: That's coming from Chef Billy from "Cooking Light" magazine, who traveled to Wyoming with more tips for fending off the fat.

BILLY STRYNKOWKSI, CHEF: Always buy the light. The baked instead of the fried, I guarantee the numbers are totally different on the back.

GUPTA: As for cooking light...

STRYNKOWKSI: We have whole wheat pasta, fresh vegetables, we have chicken that was just lightly sauteed, does not have cheese in this. It's going to be a good alternative.

GUPTA: ... Two weeks in, the Rampollas are fine-tuning their routine. Even more importantly, the toughest critics approve.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's really good.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: So the kids seem to be doing all right there and Chef Billy actually flew out to Cheyenne, Wyoming, to spend some time with the Rampollas. So now we turn to our other pairs, the constantly competing twins, Mark and Stuart Rasch and the lobbyists, Frank and his assistant Donna. So what were their challenges this week?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELLEN CARROLL, NUTRITIONIST: All right, girlfriend, where have you been?

GUPTA (voice-over): Donna admitted another delay to "Cooking Light" nutritionist Ellen Carroll -- beginning the "New You."

DONNA BRIGHTHAUPT, NEW YOU PARTICIPANT: I actually started this week, I pseudo-started last week.

GUPTA: But week two was a success.

BRIGHTHAUPT: Three pounds and one cigarette down from my four.

GUPTA: And her partner and boss?

FRANK PURCELL, NEW YOU PARTICIPANT: I'm starting to swim in some of my suits.

GUPTA: Frank lost almost 20 pounds by starting early.

PURCELL: I had to get started.

GUPTA: He's been eating salmon instead of steak for lunch. But they have a long way to go.

CARROLL: No, I think if you go lower than 1,200...

BRIGHTHAUPT: I'll hit Frank.

CARROLL: You're going to -- you might hit him.

GUPTA: They've got different trainers in different towns but the twins say they have the same problem.

MARK RASCH, NEW YOU PARTICIPANT: I'm convinced my problem is not my weight, it's my height.

STUART RASCH, NEW YOU PARTICIPANT: I'm not overweight, I'm just under height.

GUPTA: Maybe not, but these brothers are fully committed to their exercise regimen.

S. RASCH: This is actually being done by my stunt double.

GUPTA: Both alternate strength and cardio training five days a week. After his overnight shift in the E.R., Stuart hits the gym, focusing on his core muscles for now, before he picks up the pace of his workout program. Meanwhile, Mark and the trainer are getting along perfectly.

M. RASCH: God, you evil woman.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: And here are some take-home tips from "Cooking Light" Chef Billy. Stock your pantry with ingredients, like olive oil and chicken broth for easy access to healthy ingredients, giving fast food new meaning.

Also make sure to read product labels. Salads with low-fat dressing won't taste much different than the fattier version. And try whole-wheat alternatives, they're easier to digest, lower in fat, higher in fiber as well. So there are some tips there, Miles and Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Excellent tips. We're going to steal some of those, too, Sanjay.

M. O'BRIEN: Thank you, Sanjay. I want to have Chef Billy at my house. Can you arrange that? Send him over?

GUPTA: You guys have to sign up next year, you've got to compete again.

M. O'BRIEN: Thanks a lot, Sanjay.

S. O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning, a cereal you ate as a kid is -- believe it or not, it's now going gourmet. Inside one of those boxes is a secret ingredient for delicious crab cakes. Other recipes, too. We're going to talk this morning to the author of "The Breakfast Cereal Gourmet." That story's ahead, stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com