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U.S. Intelligence Mining Your Data; Polls Split on National Security; East Coast Drench by Andrea; Obama to Speak in San Jose; Ex Cop on Stand in Murder Trial.

Aired June 07, 2013 - 11:30   ET

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

JAMEEL JAFFER, DEPUTY LEGAL DIRECTOR, ACLU: That's quite different from asking for everybody's metadata for a three-month time or a seven-year period, which has gone on here. This is surveillance on a scale that I don't think the Supreme Court has ever considered.

The other thing is, are you right, there is a difference between metadata and content. But metadata can be quite sensitive, too. If you imagine a program under which every American had to, at the end of each day, submit to the government a list of the people they had called, how long those conversations were, where they were when those conversations took place, I don't think anybody would stand for it. But that's exactly this program. The only difference is the government did it in secret.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: That poor civil servant would be bored to tears with my list. Let's get your reaction to this. When it comes to the Supreme Court, in 1979, Smith vs. Maryland, regarding the Fourth Amendment and search and seizures, the Supreme Court, you know, has held that there is no legitimate expectation of privacy for phone records that are held by a third party, which can be seized without a warrant. Again, that's for the meta, not for the content. My question to you is, when a lot of people hear of what's going on, they hear it's meta, they sort of think, that's a slippery slope, ain't it? Is it?

JAFFER: Well, it is a slippery slope. I don't want people to accept that metadata is not sensitive. It is sensitive. Just think for a second -- you know, if --

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: It's been settled, Jameel. That's been settled. Right there. Case in '79 suggested if something is held by a 3rd party, it can be accessed without a warrant.

JAFFER: No, but again, that was a case involving a discreet amount of information about a small group of people. There is a huge difference. There is a case from last year called U.S. v. Jones in which the court actually said that it's one thing to gather a small amount of meta information -- in that case it was location information -- over a small period of time, a short period of time, and quite another thing to get it over a along period of time involving many people. So I think there is a difference between a discreet amount of information and infinite amount of information, which the government is collecting here.

BANFIELD: I hear you. When you look at it, no matter where you fall on the political spectrum, the Bush administration's requests for FISA material have dwarfed -- have been dwarfed by the Obama administration. Rudy Giuliani said publicly, as a conservative Republican, this is the kind of tool I wanted to be able to target terror. So in your estimation, you have a Democratic administration. Why do you think that it is doing this if it weren't for the democratic principles of safety as opposed to far-reaching conservative principles of targeting?

JAFFER: Well, I think there are many reasons for it. It's nothing new. Every government wants power. It's not limited to Republicans or Democrats. It's just a fact about the world. And you need to have institutional checks and balances to make sure that that power isn't abused. None of this is, you know, none of this is controversial. These are principles that were a part of the -- this is why the founders of the United States founded the United States because they believe that there ought to be checks on government power.

Now, I think that the disclosures over the last couple days make entirely clear that the checks that exist right now are insufficient, that there hasn't been sufficient congressional oversight, there hasn't been sufficient judicial overnight, and most important there hasn't been sufficient public oversight because the government has disclosed far too little information about what it's doing. Now, everybody accepts that there has to be some degree of secrecy.

BANFIELD: Well, let me stop you there for a moment. Wait. The oversight -- I don't know if this is sufficient or not. It sounds good. Every 90 days Congress is inform about these institutional checks and balances. Sadly, it is classified, therefore, you and I are not privy to what these institutional checks and balances are. There is that mechanism in place.

JAFFER: Let's ask that question. Why is it classified? Why is so it sensitive? Why can't government say to the American public, we are checking this information, everything about every phone call you make and we can't tell you about any specific investigation? But here's why we put the program in place. This is why it's necessary. These are the checks in place to protect privacy. Now, you make the decision. Is this a wise policy or isn't it?

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: Thomas Jefferson once said, people who expect to be ignorant and free accept what never was and never will be. I am wondering if he was talking about the bad guys or us and what we want to know about our government.

(LAUGHTER)

Jameel Jaffer, thank you for being with us.

JAFFER: Good question.

BANFIELD: Good to have you. Thank you for your insight. It's great insight as well.

In about 20 minutes from now, we are expecting to hear from the president himself. What is he going to say about this? Probably nothing. He is in San Jose, California, wanting to talk about health care and health care law there. But people throughout the country want to know why the government is engaged in this big spy operation. Will he take questions? More in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: The east coast is getting absolutely drenched by Tropical Storm Andrea as it continues to roar northward up the country. Flash flood warnings are in effect now for 13 different states, all the way from Georgia up to Maine.

Chad Myers is in the Severe Weather Center in Atlanta.

So in this path, flash flood warnings not for every state, but a significant portion of these states?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Even the North Carolina with the flash flood warnings. Flash flood warns mean rain can happen at any time when rain stays in the same spot. So these watches are all the way from Maine to North Carolina. And even though the center is still in North Carolina, it's raining in Boston, New York, Washington, through these big cities. It's not so much we will have major flooding and major rivers, but it's that urban flooding, five, six, 10 inches of rainfall in the streets of the city because it can't run off, because there is concrete in the way for it to soak in.

So here's the path in the Carolinas, moving up over Boston by 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. Those watches, as you said, from Maine all the way down south of Norfolk in this red zone through here. That's I-95 with flood warnings right through there. Eight inches of water on some of the roadways in parts of the Carolinas.

The rain continues today. We've already had a couple inches across Georgia. The big story is how much more is to come in the big cities. Two-to-four, New York City the Poconos, the water gap, Philadelphia, everywhere you expect water not to be able to run off because of the concrete will get a couple more inches, if not more than that, today.

BANFIELD: I heard Christine Romans and John Berman saying on the morning show this is going to be comparable to the rain during Sandy but not the wind.

MYERS: Exactly, not the wind. In some spots in Sandy, if you move up into Vermont, you had eight to 12 inches. That's not going to happen. We're two to four but that's in the big cities, exactly what we have in Sandy. Yes.

BANFIELD: What's that statistic, more people die in flooding than lightning or winds or tornadoes?

MYERS: You see it all the time. We tell them, don't drive in the water? What do they do? They drive in the water. They think the road is there. Sometimes it isn't there. You fall into the gully and it washes you away.

BANFIELD: There you go.

Great advice, thank you. He is keeping an eye on it as well.

I want to go back to that top story, just how much does the government know about you? Do they have your records right now? Are they watching you as you type, which one of the leakers says. Mr. President? Really? Honestly? Is Mr. President going to speak about this when he takes to that live mic soon? You will find out in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: President Obama is in California right now for talks that could set the agenda for Washington and Beijing for decades to come. He is meeting China's new president.

Cybersecurity is supposed to be the hot button issue for these two. We are accusing China from stealing a whole bunch of sensitive information from us, like military information, trade information, important stuff. China says they're not doing that. They're denying these charges, saying hacking is a problem all over the world.

Chief White House correspondent, Jessica Yellin, joins us live from Palm Springs.

Jessica, I thought you and I would talk about this. Today, I think we will talk less about this and more of what everyone else wants to ask the president, and that is what is going on? But are we going to be able to get answers from him today on this?

JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I think we'll get answers. I don't know if they will satisfy his critics. I doubt they will, Ashleigh.

You know the president, he will be speaking shortly, but in a statement in which he will be addressing the health care law and its impact in California. So he is expected, I think at some point today, to at least take a question about the NSA, and reporters will be shouting it at him all day.

So all along, he has been, essentially, unambivalent about his position on continuing certain aspects of President Bush's war on terror, though he doesn't use that term, he continues those policies, this is one of them. I think you could expect him to say, when he does address it, Ashleigh, that he is acting within the limits of the law that were passed and authorized by Congress. Congress reauthorized this law in December, and if the American people have a problem with it or if the members of Congress did, they had their chance to speak then. Of course, we will wait for him to say it. You have heard this from him before, where he said there is a careful balance between privacy rights and need to protect. It's just a heightened dramatic contrast when he is doing this, seated beside the president of China, who we've criticized China for so many years for their intrusions into the privacy of their own people -- Ashleigh? BANFIELD: That's actually up with of the first questions I had at work this morning was, gee, if China is hacking into all of our sensitive information, what about that big fat trove of all our personal data that the government is sitting on that apparently at least one person has decided to leak to the newspapers.

YELLIN: Well, the president I think would make the distinction. And we should point out that, for China, the criticism -- the U.S.'s beef on cybersecurity is largely China's theft of American intellectual properties. So one of the big issues that will come up in the president's meeting with China is that there are these accusations that they've stolen enormous amounts of very valuable, crucial information from major American corporations and basically remanufactured or put American products, and now China has this intellectual property and can put it on the market and is stealing American know-how. And that is one of the issue the president is being pressed to bring up in these meetings. So slightly, somewhat different from the charges the president has to confront of whether the government is watching Americans.

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: It's all fascinating for the Chinese president to watch unfold while he's here. At the same time, we want to remind everybody what you said, what I said at the top of this interview, the president is in California in San Jose to talk about the Affordable Care Act in that state. It's unknown whether there will be any mention or questions fielded, Jessica, on what everyone else is talking about.

YELLIN: Yeah, I don't expect him to the address it in his statement. I think he could get asked a question about it.

Just briefly, he will be talking about the fact in California there are some five million uninsured Americans who could get coverage under the Affordable Care Act, and announcing that Latino television stations will be rolling out, yeah, advertisements to enroll people.

BANFIELD: A big story.

(LAUGHTER)

YELLIN: So you will hear him talk about how this could be a model for the nation.

BANFIELD: A big story. On any other day, probably the biggest story. Not today.

Jessica Yellin, thank you for your time. I appreciate it.

It's good to talk to Jessica. She nails it on the head.

There's an ex police officer is sitting in a place he does not want to be. None of us ever wants to be on the stand in our own murder trial. Guess what? A live picture for you. Brett Seacat is doing just that. He does not want his face shown on camera, though. The judge obliging. So listen in and hear what he says. He's making some confession. But not the one you think he might be making. More after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Right now, live, we are able to listen-in on a former sheriff's deputy as he talks to a court about the accusations he murdered his own wife. He's explaining what happened on the day that she died. You're not looking at him though. You're looking at the judge because Brett Seacat has asked, while he's on the stand in his own defense, that he does not be shown on camera. This is what he looks like when he's sitting at the defense table. But you do not get to see him unless you're sitting in that courtroom yourself.

Prosecutors say that he shot his high school sweetheart who then became his wife, Vashti, and then he burnt their home down with her in it to cover up the crime. He denies all of that. The one thing he does say he did is that he's blaming himself for her death.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRETT SEACAT, ACCUSED OF WIFE'S MURDER: It was my fault. For 19 years, I was the one who protected Vashti, and finally I pushed her into what I was supposed to be protecting her from. It's my fault.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: You can hear the voice wavering, but you can't see the face.

Ted Rowlands is live in Kingman, Kansas. Also with me live is HLN legal analyst, Joey Jackson.

First to you, Ted Rowlands.

Hard to see what that's like, that reaction he's giving us in the courtroom. But how does he seem, and essentially what is he saying?

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, he is laying out some doosies this morning, Ashleigh. Boy, I wish you could see him because he is either a really good actor or really bad actor, depending on your take on his presentation. He's blaming himself for his wife's murder now twofold. First of all, he's blaming himself because the night of the death, not murder -- he says suicide, he says they got in a huge argument and he threatened her to this point where he thinks he drove her to suicide saying if we get divorced, I'm going to take the kids, you'll never see the kids again. And I'm going to publish private photos of you on the Internet and I'm going to expose your affairs.

Take a listen to this. He claims she had multiple affairs at work and that he was going to expose her and she was going to lose her job.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEACAT: I knew that Vashti had had an affair with the vice president. And I was suspecting she was having an affair with her boss -- or had an affair with her former boss.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROWLANDS: But after that, Ashleigh, he made -- he basically said to this jury that his wife had attempted suicide several times before. Immediately there was an objection. They went into chambers. He was not supposed to say that. There was even talk of a mistrial. He's up there trying to engineer this whole thing. Boy, today has been quite an eventful morning.

BANFIELD: Well, it usually is the most dramatic time when the defendant takes the stand.

Joey Jackson, speaking of that, this is not any defendant. This is a police officer.

JOEY JACKSON, DEFENSE ATTORNEY & HLN LEGAL ANALYST: Oh, yes.

BANFIELD: So you know a lot about murders and investigations. But you can know too much as well because the average guy on the stand is supposed to answer honestly, not strategically.

JACKSON: Absolutely. And remember this. He gave a seven-hour interview, right? He gave statements to the police explaining it and the police had some questions about the things he said. A lot of things don't make sense here. It depends upon whether he can explain it effectively, like what? Like it's supposed to be a suicide and the gun is found underneath the body. How does that happen? Like something else he says he went to save her, however he doesn't have really things associated with the burns on his body that are of the nature or gravity you would think if you're going to save someone. And also there's no blood on him. So it makes -- it begs the question did this really happen?

In addition to that, Ashleigh, you look at the cell phones he burned the day prior to her murder, you look at the hard drives he burned the day prior to her death. And the fact is that while you may have good explanations when juries look at things in context of everything, it sort of, you have to wonder, does it all add up. He has some explaining to do, whether he explains it effectively is always another matter.

BANFIELD: There's such a dynamic. His demeanor and the whole Jodi Arias-checking off every perfect thing and didn't work out well for her.

JACKSON: No, it did not.

BANFIELD: Joey Jackson, thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: A lot more coming on that.

I want to get you to a live picture right now the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California. This is no vacation for the president, by the way. He's expected to speak any moment. The question is, will he address the latest controversy that seems to be rumbling through his administration, the government secretly gathering vast, massive, huge swaths of your information right across the country, or will he just stick to China? All that in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to AROUND THE WORLD. I'm Suzanne Malveaux.

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Michael Holmes. Thanks for your company today.

MALVEAUX: We are watching now -- this is out of San Jose, California. This is the Fairmont Hotel. President Obama about to speak in a moment or so. You see they've all gathered at the podium. We are in that two-minute warning that the White House often gives when the president comes out or is about to come out and speak.

The topic that is on the agenda, he's going to be talking about his health care plan, the importance of people to sign up for insurance. But obviously, a lot of questions that the reporters have. We don't know whether or not if he'll take them or about the widespread reports of the administration listening in or at least collecting -- not listening in but collecting phone records through Verizon.

HOLMES: Yeah. John King's standing by.

John, in the context of what this is meant to be about today, are we likely to be hearing anything about the elephant in the room?

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the main event, Michael and Suzanne, is about health care. Then the president goes on, the main reason he's in California, very important, very sensitive meetings with the president of China.