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Heavy Rain in Florida; NSA Court Order for Phone Records?; Woman Found Alive in Philly Rubble; Latest in Zimmerman Trial; Interview with Karen Greenberg

Aired June 06, 2013 - 11:00   ET

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

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS ANCHOR: Even though Hollings missed the last few months of school, he had enough credits to graduate. But he wasn't expected to be well enough to walk at graduation. But Christi, this determined student wasn't going to let anything, even a shooting keep him from missing his high school graduation -- Christi. Christie?

CHRISTIE PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: (INAUDIBLE) take that inspiration with you today.

Thank you so much for spending some time with us. Go make some great memories.

CNN NEWSROOM continues right now.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD,CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, I'm Ashleigh Banfield.

We have a very busy show ahead, the day's main news and, as always, our take on "Daytime Justice."

And we begin with what's happening right this moment, the government secretly collecting phone records of tens of millions of us, Attorney General Eric Holder being grilled on what he knows about the stunning report in a British newspaper. It's happening on Capitol Hill just a short while ago.

IRS leaders also in the hot seat. Lawmakers just out raged over that agency's spending millions of taxpayer's money on a special conference for themselves, where employees performed silly skits and then, oops, just can't seem to find their receipts, yes, IRS workers.

And also buried alive for more than 12 hours, a survivor is pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building in Philadelphia, but is there anyone else still underneath?

At this very hour, Tropical Storm Andrea, the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, now lashing parts of Florida, we've got the live radar for you so you can see for yourself just what's happening here.

Heavy rain is in those pictures and gusty winds already pounding that state's west Coast. A tropical storm warning is right now in effect from north of Ft. Meyers to just south of Tallahassee, and that's a big swath. There's also a threat of tornadoes for the people who live in this area.

Our George Howell is in Clearwater, Florida, this morning with the conditions, and it looks like, as we watch the conditions deteriorate, it's getting tougher for to you report, George.

GEORGE HOWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ashleigh,, absolutely.

Just a few minutes ago, we really had that wind coming in. We know that, as this storm gets closer to us, that center of circulation, we see sustained wind gusts (inaudible) gusts of 60-miles-per-hour, can get up to 70 at times.

I'm kind of having to hold onto a few things that we have just to make sure that they don't blow away. In fact, yeah, these winds are picking up pretty substantially out here.

And here's the thing. This is a minor tropical storm when you look at it. We're talking about flooding in different places, anywhere from three to six inches of flood water. But right now, we're seeing some streets flooded, but minor flooding is what we're seeing.

And then the storm surge is the other big concern, anywhere from one to three feet higher than the average -- the tide out here, the high tide. So as the storm blows in, Ashleigh, you can tell I'm having some trouble. We are seeing those stronger winds as they come here into the Tampa area.

BANFIELD: All right, well, definitely, do take care, George. And we will continue to follow what the conditions are in your area.

I also want to go to Chad Myers, who is watching things develop in the CNN Severe Weather Center.

So, listen, George just said it. This is only a tropical storm, but you know what? If you're there, sometimes that does not matter, whether it's tropical storm or hurricane status. But what are these people expecting?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: There's still that flood warning today, that flood issue for all these areas.

Three to six inches of rain in Florida will flood streets, will flood roads, and possibly have enough water to wash your car off the road into the creek that it's flowing to.

Here's our George, right there. That is Clearwater Beach, Florida. He is in the worst of it right now. In about 20 minutes, if we go back to George, there won't be anything there. There will be clear skies. He may even see the sunshine because it's one of those ho-ho loops right through there.

This is where it's clear. Here's where it's raining, and it's raining all the way up and down the East Coast. There is even the potential for tornadoes today. We will see small tornadoes, not the EF-5 that I was right next to a couple days ago.

Small tornadoes, but they can do damage. They can still get, you know, 100-mile-per-hour winds. The storm will travel to the north, right across southern Georgia into the Carolinas, right on up to Richmond, and making heavy rain about everywhere it goes.

We will see 60-miles-per-hour today.

BANFIELD: OK, 60-miles-an-hour just today alone.

All right, keep an eye on it for us, Chad, if you would. You're always good about that, so let us know if it changes, Chad Myers, live in the Severe Weather Center for us.

We've got another one for you. The government is watching who you call and who calls you. This is a potentially explosive story that is still developing at this hour.

According to the British newspaper, "The Guardian," our National Security Agency obtained a secret court order forcing Verizon -- the company, Verizon -- to turn over the telephone records of millions of Americans, millions, not just a few, not just a swath, millions.

The White House is already having to react to all of this. And our Dan Lothian joins us now live from Washington.

I can only imagine there is damage control. This has been going -- make no mistake. This is not the first time we're hearing this has happened, but this is huge to hear that this many people, their data is being collected and it all happens in secret.

What's the White House say?

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And this is the kind of story I think, that gets the attention of a lot of people because everyone has a phone, and they make calls, and they're concerned when they hear a story like this, is the government listening to my conversation?

I should point out the administration, the Obama administration, is not confirming or denying the existence of this order because this is something that is top secret, but nonetheless, a senior administration official putting out a statement to CNN that read in part, quote, "The information of the sort described in 'The Guardian' article has been a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States as it allows counterterrorism personnel to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States."

Again, this senior administration official emphasizing that what we're talking about here is meta-data, such as time of call or length of call, but this is not someone eavesdropping on the contents of a conversation.

But nonetheless, raising eyebrows even up on Capitol Hill, some lawmakers concerned, but Senator Dianne Feinstein, just a short time ago, defended this practice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: This renewal is carried out by the FISA court under the business record section of the Patriot Act. Therefore, it is lawful.

It has been briefed to Congress, and the letters that we have distributed and this is -- you will note on the dates -- this is prior to the Patriot Act amendments coming before the body, each of those.

As you know, this is just metadata. There is no content involved, in other words, no content of a communication.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LOTHIAN: And again, experts will point out, this is all possible under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. There's great oversight by a court, by the Justice Department.

But nonetheless, there is a lot of concern with news of this getting out today on this top-secret document, this order.

The FBI which made the request for this information is not commenting. Verizon not commenting either.

Ashleigh?

BANFIELD: Well, guess what? Just as you were reporting, we got something in from Verizon, so this news is breaking right now, Dan.

Let me read this, and I'm going to do it as quickly as I can here. Effectively, Randy Milch, who's the Verizon executive vice president and general counsel, has released this.

"We have no comment on the accuracy of 'The Guardian' newspaper story or the documents referenced, but a few items in these stories are important, and I just want to go on to say Verizon continually takes steps to safeguard its customers' privacy. Nevertheless the law authorizes the federal courts to order a company to provide information in certain circumstances and, if Verizon were to receive such an order, we would be required to comply."

Here's what is so fascinating. Just go back another administration and Democrats were up in arms about the Patriot Act and the civil liberties that we were all going to suffer, you know, an encroachment on, but it's very interesting to see Dianne Feinstein suggest that this is all legal, this happens and it's just metadata.

Was that what we were expecting?

LOTHIAN : I think so. It is legal when you look at the law, and there is a process by which, as I pointed out, this oversight that exists to make sure that it stays within the law.

But, you know, a lot of people having been pointing out that this that did take place under the Bush administration, but what seems to be a little different this time is that what we're talking about is gathering records on calls within the United States.

In the past, what we were looking at are foreign phone calls, maybe having some link back to the United States, but this is solely calls that are taking place within the United States, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: And, by the way, Dan, I just want to clarify that comment that Randy Milch made from Verizon.

Actually wasn't a statement to us. This was a statement to its own employees that CNN was able obtain, so you're right. They are still not commenting publicly.

And it sounds like, while they are talking to their employees, they're not able to say a whole lot, other than the law is the law and we gots to do what we got to do.

All right, Dan Lothian at the White House, thank you. Thank you for that.

We've got a moment of joy for you, just a moment of joy for rescue workers in Philadelphia who've been sifting through the rubble of that collapsed building that we reported as that news broke yesterday right during this hour.

A 61-year-old woman was pulled out alive last night. This is after being trapped for over 12 hours beneath that rubble. She is the 14th survivor of this disaster. Six people sadly were killed, though, when that abandoned building that was in the process of being demolished instead crumbled onto a thrift store right adjacent to it.

The mayor of Philadelphia, Michael Nutter, said that they are still in search-and-rescue mode.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR MICHAEL NUTTER, PHILADELPHIA: Seventy-five percent of the site has been searched.

Obviously, that means that 25 percent yet still remains, part of which is the actual structure that you see behind you with the thrift store sign on it.

There is also a wall to the south of the building that needs to be taken down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Our Don Lemon is live now in Philadelphia following this story.

So you know, Don, I had heard that there was a brief pause in some of the rescue efforts. I'm not sure what it was for or if it's back on, but what's the status? DON LEMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, not a brief pause. The mayor came out just a short time ago and said there had been some false reports from some of the media here that there was a pause in the rescue and in the cleanup. Not at all. We never reported that.

The interesting thing, though, you can see it. They're still on the scene, trying to remove some of that debris. But there's a wall. You can see the workers that are working up there in the crane.

They are trying to remove and shore up at least as much of that south wall as possible because there are concerns that that wall in the back there, that it may collapse as well, and then they'll have a secondary collapse, and then who knows what they'll have on their hands?

On the other side of that is a viable building, residential and business as well, but, Ashleigh, as you know, these stories, not always what they seem when we come out to these stories, and having lived here, this is really just the beginning of this.

What you may have missed in that press conference, the mayor saying yesterday and all the city officials saying all the inspections were in place, all the permits, everything seemed to be -- seemed to add up.

Well, that was for the building next door. The building next door, the one that you see there standing, the parking and entrance, is 2134 and that's where all the inspection certificates and all of that stuff, that's what that was for.

But the building that collapsed was 2136 and the building next door to that, the thrift store, was 2138, so it appears that the city is now saying -- they're saying, well, we can't talk about it.

Were there inspection certificates, were all of the permits in place for 2136? I'm not at liberty to talk about that right now.

There's a citizen complaint for 2134 that they came out for on May 14th, but nothing for 2136, and what they're saying is, it was a contractor's responsibility to notify the city that it was going to demolish the building at 2136. Well, apparently, that never happened.

BANFIELD: Oh, lord. Well, and I know there's some issues with the contractor as well. We'll be discussing that at another time.

Don Lemon, thank you for that reporting. It's interesting information, without question.

Sanctioned snooping, we just talked about it, the government getting up in our business. A British newspaper reporting Verizon forced to hand over the phone records of millions of Americans. That's you, your neighbors, everyday Americans.

Is this actually legal? How legal and where is the line? We will ask the director of the Center for National Security coming up in this hour. Also, saving Sarah, a judge cuts through the red tape and now Sarah may just get the lungs that she needs to continue living. But is this at the expense of someone else?

And Michael Jackson's daughter, a 15-year-old seemingly living the life, so what pushed Paris Jackson to apparently try to take her own life? And is her family highly publicized court case stressing this child out?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: The government is watching you, watching who you call, watching who calls you back. According to British newspaper "The Guardian," the National Security Agency here in the U.S. obtained a secret court order forcing the company Verizon to turn over the cell phone records of millions of us Americans.

A lot of people are pretty outraged over this. The director of the center on national security at Fordham University law school is concerned about it. Karen Greenberg joins us from Washington. Ms. Greenberg, thanks for being with us.

I get it. I get there is national security. I get there is a FISA court and I get the government has to go to that FISA court sometimes secretly to get a warrant, to get information on what potential bad guys might be doing. But doesn't it have to be pretty darn narrow and isn't this extraordinary in its scope and breadth?

KAREN GREENBERG, DIR. CENTER ON NATL. SECUTIRY, FORDHAM LAW: Well, it couldn't get any broader in its scope and breadth from what we have learned in the past 24 hours. The question really is, and I think you have really hit at the center of it. It's usually, these kind of requests for information and data are -- come with minimization procedures that are tacked onto the order that comes from the FISA court that says, there will be a minimization that will take place about this information as it comes in. So that's one kind of target of selectivity.

Another kind is in the actual collection, itself. This seemed to be -- make the case that is all data could potentially be important? Therefore, we have to be all the data we can get? So you are exactly right to focus on, I think, to focus on just how broad this is, what that really means from a national security point of view.

BANFIELD: You know, Karen, most people say, honestly, hey, whatever the government needs to do to protect me. I'm okay with it because I'm a good guy. They're never coming knocking on my door, because I'm a good guy. Doesn't this tell us, even if it's me the metadata -- and metadata that's a tough word but it's effectively, what time called, what phone number you called, what phone number called you. It's a bit freaky. I think, let me see the American Civil Libertyies Union called it :beyond Orwellian." Isn't there some kind of limit or maybe not, might this be showing critical pattern that the government needs?

I'm playing the devil's advocate. Is there something you can see in this extraordinary, again, geeze, all calls between April 25th and July 19th when the order expires, is there any merit that you can ascribe to that broad request?

GREENBERG: Well, think about it logically. If you are collecting this amount of data, how do you know how to parse through it? How do you know what you apply to it as a resource mechanism, as a search mechanism is going to work? The more data you have maybe the more difficult that is. So, to say the more the better we can secure ourselves, the more we can know, I'm not sure that's so true.

Isn't the value of intelligence and intelligence operation and intelligence collection to be able to know how to specify? So this seems to me perhaps not the best tool in a national security arsenal.

BANFIELD: Let me ask you this --

GREENBERG: -- This order did come a week after the Boston bombings. I think that's very relevant to your point and, you know, that's something that you could put into that, but it's something you want to know about. It's something you want to think about. We don't know that Verizon is the only company that received such an order, so we actually -- don't know how bad this was.

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: That is my -- I have to make it quick, I'm out of time, but poor Verizon, they're taking it on the chin today. Do stray a recourse? They put out a statement saying we have to what the government asks us, but what if they start losing business out over this? Can they go after the government and say back off?

GREENBERG: This could be a bigger story. So, I think we have to see how the story plays out. If and whether -- to what extent other companies may be involved and therefore will think in the future about damages and what this all means.

BANFIELD: Karen Greenberg. Good to have you. Thank you for your insight. Appreciate it. From Washington live for us.

To a courtroom in Sanford, Florida now, live. We are just days away from the start of that man on the right-hand side of your screen, George Zimmerman, his block buster trial. Today the judge is deciding on something very important. What the jury gets to hear in this case and maybe more importantly, what it will not hear.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: A key hearing happening right now. This is a live picture in a courtroom in Sanford, Florida. This could be the last time that George Zimmerman and the lawyers involved in his case will be in this court before his actual murder trial starts on Monday. He's listening to witness testimony right now. He is charged with second-degree murder, of course you will probably remember this was the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin back in February of last year. The big question today that seems to be grabbing a lot of attention: who were saying what on the recorded phone calls from that night? Like the 911 call we are about to play for you is from a neighbor and on the call you can hear someone screaming in the background. Have a listen. (BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Does he look hurt to you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't see him. I don't want to go out there. I don't know what's going on. They're sending --

(SCREAMS)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think he's yelling help?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right. What is your --

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BANFIELD: That ended with the gunshot.

Look, this case is all about whether the man on the right was in self- defense acting when he shot Trayvon, on your left hand side of the screen, dead or whether he was being far too aggressive in targeting that young man.

Whose voice was it screaming for help? George's or Trayvon's? Here's the deal, voice identification experts have tried to determine exactly that, in fact from both sides of this case. And unfortunately for everyone, different conclusions were reached and neither conclusion could be conclusive, sadly, in terms of the opinion.

But today lawyers are going to argue on the admissibility of this. What the defense claims now is it's new technology is being used to perform this analysis, and should that new technology even make its way into the case? Is it good enough? Our Martin Savidge is live in Sanford Florida. He's following this case. Before we even talk about that, let's talk about the defense getting slammed yet again on one of its motions. It was a loss. I'm not sure how big or small, maybe you can let me know what it was like.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, if are you talking about the loss as far as the non-identified witnesses.

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: The witnesses I believe. Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

SAVIDGE: Yeah, then, you know, this is a point that the defense has made, that this case is so emotionally charged that tempers have flared as we have seen in the lead-up. They believe there are witnesses, witnesses that could support George Zimmerman that are fearful to come forward and testify because if they're seen on television, if they are identified, that they could suffer some sort of backlash. So that's why I think Mark O'Mara, the defense attorney was saying, look, we would like them to give their testimony, but we don't want them seen. Put a screen up, do something so you don't know who they are. The judge said, no, they will be identified. So that's why it could be seen as a setback, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: For those who don't understand why, I mean public process, that's something a lot of people believe is critical. It's transparency in these processes. Martin, to the tapes, it would seem to me that in most murder cases, any case where you have expert analysis, both sides can hire experts, both sides can present the analysisand if it's conflicting, it's a bit of a wash and it's the jury's decision. So, why is there a battle to exclude the experts when both sides came to different conclusions?

SAVIDGE: Because this particular tape, that 911 call you played is so crucial to the crux of this particular case and both sides know it. And so, the problem is, remember, it was a very dark -- it was gloomy, it was rainy. Most people -- in fact we've only heard of maybe one person that might have seen something, otherwise, this confrontation, the altercation between these two people was not seen, but it was heard and that means, that tape is a crucial witness. It's not a human witness, but it's a witness.

So, understanding what was being said and how is vital potentially to the outcome of this case. The problem is, those who have been brought in to make a determination of whether that was George Zimmerman crying for help or Trayvon Martin screaming for help, they have had conflicting opinions, as you point out, and the science there is a point that the defense says is just too debatable. Don't introduce it.

BANFIELD: Well, the defense may say that, but the Martin family, through their attorney Ben Crump (put up the statement. Let me read it quickly for you. We are getting a lot of statements very last minute on this program. This is what Ben Crump says: "it is ridiculous for the Zimmerman defense team to argue that expert voice analysts should not be permitted to testify at the trial when George Zimmerman himself stated that the voice crying for help on the 911 recording doesn't even sound like me."

Martin, I know you're there for the rest of the hearing and for the day, so if do come to some resolution, we'd love to hear it from you. Thanks, Martin.

Jut five days into hurricane season, and our first tropical storm is dumping heavy rain on Florida. But just how bad is it going to get, and where is that storm going to go after Florida? The very latest next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)