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The NSA's Headache has a Name; Nelson Mandela Battles Pneumonia; Fifth Shooting Victim Dies; Sean Benschop Charged; Snowden in Hong Kong

Aired June 09, 2013 - 19:00   ET

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

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, I'm Don Lemon in the CNN NEWSROOM. We are going to begin tonight with breaking news at the top of the here on CNN.

The person who says he leaked top secret information about a U.S. government surveillance program has emerged from the shadows and identified himself. He is Edward Snowden and he says he was privy to classified details of the so-called Prism Program when he worked for the CIA. National security officials do confirm that Prism exists and that it secretly tracks telephone and computer communication for anti- terrorism work.

Snowden says he walked away from six-figure defense contracting job in Hawaii, is hiding in Hong Kong and intends to seek permanent asylum abroad.

Already we have reaction from Capitol Hill. Republican Congressman Peter King wants Snowden prosecuted and wants him back in the United States. King calls the leak of top secret information a matter of extraordinary consequence to American intelligence.

I want to say we're getting this information in from the White House. The White House will not respond. We're told by our folks at the White House that the White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters on the tarmac at joint Andrews Airbase that there would be no comment tonight from the White House on the identification of the NSA leaker. And President Barack Obama on arrival on the south lawn via Marine One did not answer questions shouted by reporters about the NSA whistleblower.

We are getting some new information in, though. This is from the director of national intelligence in Washington -- new information just in to CNN. It says, "We have seen the latest report from "The Guardian" that identifies an individual claiming to have disclosed information about highly classified intelligence programs in recent days. Because the matter has been referred to the Department of Justice, we refer you to the Department of Justice for comment on any further specifics of the unauthorized disclosure of classified information by a person with authorized access.

The intelligence community is currently reviewing the damage that has been done by these recent disclosures. Any person who has a security clearance knows that he or she has an obligation to protect classified information and abide by the law."

That is Sean Turner, director of public affairs, office of the director of National Intelligence. Again, that is the official word from the government tonight. Again, the White House is not responding tonight. Not making any comment, but the director of National Intelligence through a spokesperson, they are commenting tonight.

You're about to see the entire on-camera interview that Edward Snowden gave "The Guardian" newspaper. And remember, he is holed up in a hotel in Hong Kong and he says he can never return to the United States after what he did.

Here's Edward Snowden explaining why he gave away American secrets. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EDWARD SNOWDEN, LEAKED NSA DOCUMENTS: My name is Ed Snowden, I'm 29 years old. I work for Booze Allen Hamilton as an infrastructure analyst for NSA in Hawaii.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are some of the positions that you held previously within the intelligence community?

SNOWDEN: I've been a systems engineer, systems administrator, senior adviser for the Central Intelligence Agency, solutions consultant, and a telecommunications information systems officer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of the things people are going to be most interested in, in trying to understand what, who you are and what you're thinking, is there came some point in time when you crossed this line of thinking about being a whistleblower, to making the choice to actually become a whistleblower. Walk people through that decision-making process.

SNOWDEN: When you're in positions of privileged access, like a systems administrator for the sort of intelligence community agencies, you're exposed to a lot more information on a broader scale than the average employee. Because of that, you see things that may be disturbing, but over the course of a normal person's career, you'd only see one or two of these instances.

When you see everything, you see them on a more frequent basis, and you recognize that some of these things are actually abuses. And when you talk to people about them in a place like this where this is the normal state of business, people tend not to take them very seriously and, you know, move on from them. But over time, that awareness of wrongdoing sort of builds up and you feel compelled to talk about it.

And the more you talk about it, the more you're ignored. The more you're told it's not a problem until eventually you realize that these things need to be determined by the public. Not by somebody who is simply hired by the government.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Talk a little bit about how the American surveillance state actually functions. Does it target the actions of Americans?

SNOWDEN: NSA and the intelligence community in general is focused on getting intelligence wherever it can, by any means possible. It believes on the grounds of a sort of a self-certification that they serve the national interest. Originally we saw that focus very narrowly-tailored as foreign intelligence gathered overseas. Now increasingly we see that it's happening domestically.

And to do that, they, the NSA specifically targets the communications of everyone. It ingests them by default. It collects them in its system and it filters them and it analyzes them and it measures them and it stores them for periods of time simply because that's the easiest, most efficient and most valuable way to achieve these ends.

So while they may be intending to target someone associated with a foreign government, or someone that they suspect of terrorism, they're collecting your communications to do so. Any analysts at any time can target anyone, any selector anywhere. Where those communications will be picked up depends on the range of the censor networks and the authorities that that analyst is empowered with.

Not all analysts have the ability to target everything. But I sitting at my desk certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone from you, or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President if I had a personal e-mail.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of the extraordinary parts about this episode is that usually whistleblowers do what they do anonymously and take steps to remain anonymous for as long as they can which they hope often is forever. You, on the other hand, have this attitude to be the opposite which is to declare yourself openly as the person behind these disclosures. Why did you choose to do that?

SNOWDEN: I think that the public is owed the explanation of the motivations behind the people who make these disclosures that are outside of the democratic model. When you are subverting the power of government, that's a fundamentally dangerous thing to democracy, and if you do that in secret consistently, you know, as the government does when it wants to benefit from a secret action that it took, it will kind of give its officials a mandate to go, hey, you know, tell the press about this thing and that thing so the public is on our side.

But they rarely, if ever, do that when an abuse occurs. That falls to individual citizens, but they're typically maligned. It becomes a thing of these people against the country, they're against the government, but I'm not. I'm no different from anybody else. I don't have special skills.

I'm just another guy who sits there day-to-day in the office, watches what's happening and goes "this is something that's not our place to decide. The public needs to decide whether these programs and policies are right or wrong." And I'm willing to go on the record to defend the authenticity of them and say I didn't change these, I didn't modify the story. This is the truth. This is what's happening. You should decide whether we need to be doing this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you given thought to what it is that the U.S. government's response to your conduct is in terms of what they might say about you, how they might try to depict you, what they might try to do to you?

Yes, I could be rendered by the CIA, I could have people come after me or any of their third-party partners. You know, they work closely with a number of other nations. Or, you know, they could pay off the tri heads. Any of their agents are assets. We have a CIA station just up the road in the consulate here in Hong Kong. I'm sure they're going to be very busy for the next week. And that's a fear I'll live under for the rest of my life, however long that happens to be.

You can't come forward against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and be completely free from risk because they're such powerful adversaries. No one can meaningfully oppose them. If they want to get you, they'll get you in time.

But at the same time, you have to make a determination about what it is that's important to you, and if living un-freely, but comfortably, is something you're willing to accept, and I think many of us are, it's the human nature. You can get up every day, you can go to work, you can collect your large paycheck for relatively little work against the public interests and go to sleep at night after watching your shows.

But if you realize that that's the world that you helped create, and it's going to get worse with the next generation and the next generation who extend the capabilities of this sort of architecture of oppression, you realize that you might be willing to accept any risk. And it doesn't matter what the outcome is so long as the public gets to make their own decisions about how that's applied.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why should people care about surveillance?

SNOWDEN: Because even if you're not doing anything wrong, you're being watched and recorded and the storage capability of these systems increases every year consistently by orders of magnitude to where it's getting to the point you don't have to have done anything wrong. You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody even by a wrong call and they can use the system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you've ever made. Every friend you've ever discussed something with. And attack you on that basis to sort of derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are currently sitting in a room in Hong Kong which is where we are because you traveled here. Talk a little bit about why it is that you came here and specifically there are going to be people who will speculate that what you really intend to do is to defect to the country that many see as the number one rival of the United States which is China, in that way what you're really doing is essentially seeking to aid an enemy of the United States with which you intend to seek asylum. Can you talk a little bit about that? SNOWDEN: Sure. There are a couple assertions in those arguments that are sort of embedded in the questioning of the choice of Hong Kong. The first is that China is an enemy of the United States -- it is not. There are conflicts between United States government and the Chinese PRC government, but the peoples inherently, you know, we don't care. We trade with each other freely. You know, we're not at war. We're not in armed conflict. We're not trying to be. We're the largest trading partners out there for each other.

Additionally, Hong Kong has a strong tradition of free speech. People think, oh, China, great firewall. Mainland China does have significant restrictions on free speech, but the Hong Kong, the people of Hong Kong have a long tradition of protesting in the streets, of making their views known. The Internet is not filtered here, no more so than any other western government. And I believe that the Hong Kong government is actually independent in relation to a lot of other leading western governments.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If your motive had been to harm the United States and help its enemies or if your motive had been personal and material gain, were there things you could have done with these documents to advance those goals that you didn't end up doing?

SNOWDEN: Absolutely. I mean anybody in the positions of access with the technical capabilities that I had could, you know, suck out secrets, pass them on the open market to Russia. You know, they always have an open door, as we do. I had access to, you know, the full rosters of everyone working at the NSA, the entire intelligence community and undercover assets all around the world. The locations of every station we have, what their missions are and so forth.

If I had just wanted to harm the U.S., you know, then -- you could shut down the surveillance system in an afternoon, but that's not my intention. I think for anyone making that argument they need to think if they were in my position, you know, you live a privileged life. You're living in Hawaii in paradise and making a ton of money. What would it take to make you leave everything behind?

The greatest fear that I have regarding the outcome for America, of these disclosures, is that nothing will change. People will see in the media all these disclosures. They'll know the length that the government is going to grant themselves powers, unilaterally, to create greater control over American society and global society. But they won't be willing to take the risks necessary to stand up and fight to change things, to force their representatives to actually take a stand in their interests.

And the months ahead, the years ahead, it's only going to get worse until eventually there will be a time where policies will change. Because the only thing that restricts the activities of the surveillance state are policy, even our agreements with other sovereign governments. We consider that to be a stipulation of policy rather than a stipulation of law.

And because of that, a new leader will be elected. They'll flip the switch, say that because of the crisis, because of the dangers that we face in the world, you know, some new and unpredicted threat, we need more authority. We need more power. And there will be nothing the people can do at that point to oppose it and it will be turnkey tyranny.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Now the fallout for you Americans, our government politically, and for that young man. From people who know, Bob Baer, a former CIA operative will join us; Tom Fuentes, a former FBI assistant director; and Daniel Ellsberg, a whistleblower of the Pentagon papers right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: More now on the breaking news. Edward Snowden is the man who leaked details of a top secret government program tracking Americans' phone calls, phone call records inside the country and e-mails of non- Americans living overseas. The 29-year-old computer technician says he talked with the "Washington Post" and Britain's "The Guardian" newspapers. He has worked for the CIA and defense contractors. And right now he is holed up in a Hong Kong hotel preparing for the expected fallout from his disclosures.

We have a response now from the office of the director of National Intelligence and it read's in part, "We have seen the latest report from "The Guardian" that identifies an individual claiming to have disclosed information about highly-classified intelligence programs in recent days. The intelligence community is currently reviewing the damage that has been done by these recent disclosures. Any person who has a security clearance knows that he or she has an obligation to protect classified information and abide by the law."

I want to bring in now CNN analyst and former CIA operative, Bob Baer, joining us from Orange County, California; and CNN law enforcement analyst and former FBI assistant director Tom Fuentes, he's in Vancouver; and on the phone, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.

So Tom we're going to start with you. How is it that someone like had access to classified information?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, because he's a technician, don, he has to be one of the people that make sure that the connections work, that one computer can talk to the other computer, and information can be passed. You know, there's been so much criticism about stove-piping. In order to prevent stove-piping you have to have the machines talk to each other across agency lines and company lines; in this case, corporations feeding information to the NSA.

So that takes a small army of technicians, like him, to make sure that those systems continue to operate and move the data.

LEMON: So was the FBI aware that he had access to this classified information? I mean, doesn't the FBI keep track of all people who have access to our classified information? FUENTES: No, there's 850,000-plus people in this country with top secret security clearance, according to the "Washington Post". The FBI is not in the position to track every one of those people along with the other 750,000 on the tied (ph) terrorist list. So the assumption the FBI can track all these people is just not true.

LEMON: Ok. So now to Bob -- some people will view Snowden as a hero, others as a traitor. How would you describe him?

ROBERT BAER, CNN ANALYST: The problem, Don, is that he released sources' methods. It's one thing to expose a crime that's not being investigated, that Congress won't look at and blowing the whistle. When you've exhausted all avenues, it's a different matter. In this case, he revealed sources and methods, and he's clearly crossed the line. And there's no doubt in my mind that the Department of Justice will come after him in a very serious way -- they cannot not do it.

LEMON: So if he thought what the government was doing was wrong, then what alternatives did he have, Bob? You're saying he should have done it a different way. But what real alternatives did he have?

LEMON: Well, you know, frankly the way I look at it, if he can identify the abuse of this system, he would be on much stronger ground. If they were actually going after somebody that wasn't involved in terrorism or counterintelligence, there was abuse of power he then has to go to Congress. There's inspector generals he could go to. And so forth. Apparently this didn't happen. I can't say for certain.

And I also have a big problem with his going to China. China is not a friendly country. It's the absolute worst place he could go and do this interview. If he'd gone to Iceland, if he'd done it on Capitol Hill, we'd be more sympathetic. I think he's not -- doesn't quite have it all together.

LEMON: That's one legal aspect of this, Jeffrey Toobin. There are many more. He's in big legal trouble, isn't he? Jeffrey?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST (via telephone): Yes, Don. I'm sorry. It's hard to hear.

LEMON: He is in big legal trouble, isn't he?

TOOBIN: He is in a world of legal trouble and he should be -- anyone who has access to classified information, whether a government employee or a government contractor like Snowden is, signs forms and is told in no uncertain terms that it is a very serious crime to disclose classified information. He has done that on an enormous scale and then he's run off to Hong Kong.

You know the idea that he's some sort of hero and wants to be engaged in civil disobedience, why didn't he hang around and face the music? Now he's in essentially part of the People's Republic of China where it will be difficult, if not impossible, to get him back. I find his behavior appalling. LEMON: Is there -- you said difficult, if not impossible. He seems to think there are mechanisms the government can use and will use to get him back, however, Jeffrey.

TOOBIN: Well, frankly, Don, I am just researching this now. Apparently there is an extradition treaty between Hong Kong and the United States. But remember, Hong Kong is a quasi-independent but mostly a subordinate province of the People's Republic of China.

We are now engaged in an enormous battle over access to information with the People's Republic of China. So in theory, I think, it is possible that he could be extradited and returned to the United States to face trial. In practice, I think it's going to be enormously difficult, and he seems to have picked one of the few places in the world where he is likely to get away with it.

LEMON: Tom, what will the government do next? How will the government try to get him back here because they're going to try to do it?

FUENTES: I think first of all, Don, they're going to bring the charges which will be the basis for even requesting extradition in the first place. Secondly, once they've charged him with a serious felony, the Department of Justice can request the Department of State to revoke his passport and that will push the Chinese to decide whether to actually grant him asylum or not because he will be in their country illegally without a U.S. passport. And I've done that procedure several times when I was in the FBI having someone's passport revoked.

then there are immigration authorities under international law can deport him to the country that he entered from or his country of citizenship which would be the United States. So that will be a decision the Chinese have to make, and, yes, the accusations have been made of the tremendous amount of hacking and other activity of Chinese intelligence and military agencies, but are they going to want to publicly acknowledge having done that or supporting that by letting him stay? So they've got an interesting decision to make in China politically and otherwise in terms of whether to give him asylum or not.

LEMON: Tom Fuentes, Bob Baer and Jeffrey Toobin -- thanks to all of you gentlemen.

This conversation is far from over. Coming up, I'm going to talk with Daniel Ellsberg, once called the most dangerous man in America for his role in the 1971 Pentagon papers leak.

Plus new developments in the deadly mass shooting in California. The details right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Back to our breaking news in a moment but first some other news. Prayers across South Africa today for former president Nelson Mandela -- Mandela is in the hospital with pneumonia. The 94-year-old was rushed there early yesterday. This is the fourth time he has been hospitalized since December. Very little information has been released since yesterday when he learned -- when we learned he was in serious but stable condition.

The death toll from Friday's mass shooting in California has risen to five. The family of Marcela Franco says the 26-year-old has succumbed to her injuries. She was with her father in an SUV on the campus of Santa Monica College when they were shot. Her father, Carlos Franco, died Friday. The gunman has been identified as John Zawahri who was shot and killed by police on campus. Authorities say he killed his father and brother in a Santa Monica house before carjacking a woman and firing at a public bus.

A judge in Philadelphia denied bail today to Sean Benschop. The crane operator charged in that deadly building collapse there. Benschop is charged with six counts of involuntary manslaughter. Prosecutors say he was operating the heavy machinery used to tear down the building that fell on a Salvation Army thrift store. Six people were killed and 13 injured. Law enforcement source says Benschop had marijuana and pain meds in his blood after Wednesday's collapse. His lawyer says this was an accident and his client is being made a scapegoat.

So who is Edward Snowden? And what inspired him to leak classified top secret information? We'll have more on that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: More now on our breaking news. Edward Snowden is the man who leaked details of a top secret government program tracking Americans' phone call records inside the country and e-mails of non-Americans living overseas. The 29-year-old computer technician talked with the "Washington Post" and Britain's "The Guardian newspapers." He has worked for the CIA and defense contractors. He says he leaked classified information as an act of civil disobedience.

Right now he is holed up in a Hong Kong hotel preparing for the expected fallout from his disclosures. Here's Edward Snowden now in his own words.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EDWARD SNOWDEN, NSA LEAKER: The NSA specifically targets the communications of everyone. It ingests them by default. It collects them in its system and it filters them and it analyzes them and it measures them and it stores them for periods of time, simply because that's the easiest, most efficient and most valuable way to achieve these ends. So while they may be intending to target someone associated with a foreign government, or someone that they suspect of terrorism, they're collecting your communications to do so.

Any analyst at any time can target anyone. Any selector anywhere. Where those communications will be picked up depends on the range of the sensor networks and the authorities that analyst is empowered with. Not all analysts have the ability to target everything. But I sitting at my desk certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president if I had a personal e-mail.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: If true, it's very scary. I want to bring in now CNN's Lisa Desjardins, she's in Washington. Lisa, I mean, what is this? What stands out to you about Edward Snowden?

LISA DESJARDINS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, we spent the last few hours getting to know this man who's actually going to be monumentally, potentially, important in this debate. And I think what stands out, Don, is how normal he seems. You know, this is a man who's 29 years old, doesn't have a high school diploma according to "The Guardian." He worked his way from being a security guard at the NSA to getting computer skills, showing he could be a computer expert, to getting some of the top access to our intelligence in the country.

Now what we don't know is how many other people had that kind of access. But he seems like a rather normal man. Let me show you a couple other facts about Edward Snowden that we've been learning from this "Guardian" article. 29 years old, as we said. Right now he's in Hong Kong. Now, how much was he making when he was working as a private contractor? His current job, $200,000. That's as a contractor for Booz Allen Hamilton, working with the NSA. He left the U.S. three weeks ago, Don, left Hawaii, left his girlfriend who he lives with, his family, his whole life there, and moved to Hong Kong as you've been reporting.

Don, there's so much to say, of course, about how this otherwise normal seeming guy is affecting our debate over security, justice, freedom, liberty. But I want to point something else out. This is what I've been thinking about, Don. I think the story is also about how the information age has changed. I know you're going to be talking to Daniel Ellsberg coming up about the Pentagon papers. Also think of another famous leaker, Mark Phelp, the famous Deep Throat from Watergate. Those two men were 40 in Ellsberg's case and upper 50s in Phelps' case. Older than this 30-year-old, 29-year-old. Also those two men had privy. They were among few, a small group of people who could access documents.

What we're seeing now, instead, Don, with these huge leaks is 20- somethings who are generally computer savvy who have not necessarily the same kind of clearance that top-level officials back in the Nixon era would have had but instead have clearance because of their computer skills. It's a complete change in the dynamic of information, and it's something that obviously the intelligence agencies are having a problem with. Don?

LEMON: Lisa, thank you very much. I'm glad you mentioned him because , put him up on the screen. There he is. Recognize this guy? This is Daniel Ellsberg once called the most dangerous man in America for his role in the 1971 Pentagon papers leak. You better believe he's got a lot to say about the NSA leaker, Edward Snowden. You're going to hear it, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LEMON: Leaking details of a top secret American program to British and American newspapers may be brazen, but what Edward Snowden did wasn't the first time an American has leaked secret government data. In 1971, an American military analyst named Daniel Ellsberg gave a "New York Times" reporter a copy of a Department of Defense study on U.S.- Vietnam relations. A series of documents that later became known as the Pentagon papers. Ellsberg became the first person prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act for releasing classified information to the public. The case was later thrown out after the judge learned that the government had engaged in the illegal wiretapping of Ellsberg. Daniel Ellsberg joins me now live from Berkeley, California. Thank you, sir, for joining us.

DANIEL ELLSBERG, FMR. OFFICIAL WHO RELEASED THE PENTAGON PAPERS: Thank you for the opportunity.

LEMON: So what do you think of all of this?

ELLSBERG: I'm very impressed by what I've heard in the last couple of hours including Snowden's own video here. I think he's done an enormous service, incalculable service. It can't be overestimated to this democracy. It gives us a chance, I think, from drawing back from the total surveillance state that we could say we're in process of becoming, I'm afraid we have become. That's what he's revealed.

I really didn't expect that there was any chance of reversing that course toward, what was called earlier, total information awareness, total surveillance. I think if the public now is given authentic documents or official documents that Congress simply can't plausibly deny or plausibly claim ignorance of, maybe we will see hearings with genuine oversight that can reign in this extremely abusive surveillance program.

LEMON: You've been waiting, first of all, you said you like what he has done. But he has broken the law.

ELLSBERG: Yes, you know, in this case, I would say he has clearly broken, I could even give you 18 USC 798, the communications intelligence law. That is a clear-cut law which, by the way, I support on the whole. Most of such communications intelligence deserves secrecy. I was cleared for that. I put none of that out. That's higher than top secret. I had the clearance for that and I didn't put any out because this system that has just been disclosed did not exist then and could not exist. Could not have existed.

We just didn't have the physical digital capability for it. If I had known that the NSA, the National Security Agency, as I say, to which I had access, if I had known that they were spying on every American multiple times, different phone lines, bank data, credit cards, GPS, everything else, if I had known that, I would have done just what he's done. I would have broken that law of civil disobedience. And I must say, it would raise - he undoubtedly, they will make every effort to prosecute him. I think probably sooner or later they will succeed if worst doesn't happen to him. And it will be a very significant case to address the question, can it really be criminal to reveal secrets of unconstitutional activity? I have no doubt that this violates the fourth amendment of the constitution and probably other parts of the Bill of Rights and should have been exposed. Can it really be a crime to expose crime? Or that's never been judged by any court. Including the Supreme Court. I think this is a good time to look at it.

LEMON: Now back to the original question -

ELLSBERG: If he'd given those documents to me right now, if I had been made aware of what this government, and administration I supported, by the way, in both elections. If I'd been aware, I certainly would have put them out even though I would expect to go to jail for the rest of my life, as I did 40 years ago. I don't have that much left in my life, but he does.

LEMON: Yes. Back to my original question that I was going to ask you before I changed course. You said you've waited decades for this moment?

ELLSBERG: Decades in a sense that of seeing somebody who really was prepared to risk his life for his country as a civilian. To show the kind of courage that we expect of people on the battlefield. There have been very good leaks, but there haven't been leaks of enormous scale until Bradley Manning, by the way, who I also support. But he didn't have the kind of access that either I had or Snowden has had. It wasn't as valuable to the public to learn this. He had only field- level information.

But even then I think that Snowden here now has opened the possibility for democratic debate on the question of whether we really want the executive branch to know every detail of the private life of every member of Congress, every member of the so-called oversight committees which I would say have been shown to be totally co-opted here. Every member of these so-called foreign intelligence surveillance court which is shown to be what one former analyst has called a kangaroo court.

LEMON: Mr. Ellsberg, let me jump in here. With all due respect. You're going on the assumption that everything that Mr. Snowden is saying is accurate. That may not be the case.

ELLSBERG: I think it's been authenticated by Mr. Clapper, already, the director of Central Intelligence. Has confirmed that there is a PRISM project which was revealed actually -

LEMON: I understand that. But he had the capability and the capacity to, you know, get records and phone calls and to intercept e-mails for people as high as the president of the United States.

ELLSBERG: Yes. Let me tell you what I do assume. Far beyond what has been revealed so far, if there was a true investigation, and that would take a special committee, a select committee of Congress in which very few members of the oversight committee currently ought to be on it, really, with the record that they've shown. Except for Ron Wyden and Mark Udall. But if there was a committee that looked into this, like the church community looks into the abuses of the CIA and NSA back after Watergate.

I believe what they would find is the CIA, I should say the NSA, FBI, essentially the NSA, collects everything and is not defined only by metadata, what they call metadata. I'm sure, I feel personally subjectively sure subject to this investigation that they listen, that they have collected all the content of this, that they are not neglecting names inside the message, not just a to and from part. In short, I think they have everything, and that is the recipe for a potential tyranny in this country.

LEMON: Daniel Ellsberg. Thank you, sir. Appreciate you joining us on CNN.

ELLSBERG: Tank you.

LEMON: Coming up here on CNN, are you ready for this guy? I'm not sure you are. He's already wreaking havoc on the CNN staff here. His name is George Stroumboulopoulos. We'll shorten it and call him Strombo. You may just be hearing about him, but I've had my brush with him already.

Strombo, you're going to meet him. Coming.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Big night for CNN tonight, 9:00 p.m. Eastern, there's the season finale for Anthony Bourdain's "Parts Unknown." Then we're welcoming someone new to the CNN family, George Stroumboulopoulos. He already has a talk show that's huge in Canada. I sat down with him and he told me why Americans really don't know who he is and why you will, very soon.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON (on camera): It's funny. I know you, I'm sure you're tired of people saying "Americans don't know you." You like it?

GEORGE STROUMBOULOPOULOS, CNN HOST: It's cool. It's sort of liberating. I walk down here and kind of just sneak under.

LEMON: Yes.

STROUMBOULOPOULOS: I like that idea.

LEMON: But who are you? Who is Strombo?

STROUMBOULOPOULOS: I don't know how to answer it, to be honest with you. I genuinely fell into this game. I wanted to be an architect, I wanted to be a graphic designer, but I failed all the classes, I got kicked out of the schools, that kind of stuff that happened that I couldn't pursue my dream. And somehow I ended up in radio which I always loved but I just didn't know you could be in radio. The last 20 years, I went to work every day, and I'm really interested in a lot of things. I'm a curious person. I like people. So I started interviewing people. I just got further into them, and further into them and then somehow I ended up here. LEMON: I was on your show. It was the best and most interesting interview that I had ever had that anyone had ever done on me.

STROUMBOULOPOULOS: You're great man. The audience loved you in Canada. They like some Lemon. They really do.

LEMON: Well, thank you. I really enjoyed being on your show. And you scared the bejesus out of me. Because you were putting up things, pictures that I had never seen.

STROUMBOULOPOULOS: The picture thing is fun. Because I genuinely want to elicit an emotion, but not for the sake of it, not in a gratuitous way. I find that you're the interviewee, you're some sort of a celebrity, which you do on impact that nothing alienates you from your audience more than your celebrity. We're in an era where so many people are famous, that certain celebrities for the sake of it is boring, I think it's just not enough for me. I want you to connect with them. That's why.

LEMON: Why do you pick the guests you pick?

STROUMBOULOPOULOS: I think that people hearing your story, it will have an impact on their life in a better way. That's what it is. I want to talk to somebody who the conversation can affect somebody at home. That's all we do, man, is serve the people at home.

LEMON: Why should somebody tune into you?

STROUMBOULOPOULOS: Because I'm a different connector. I'm a different connection to the guests. The interview is not about me on any level. And so I'm just going to be a connector to the audience. That's what I look at it. I'm just an emotional archaeologist. That's what I do.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: All right. There he is. Come back to me on camera. We only see George. Let me tell you. Come back to me. Make sure you watch him. Look at me. Watch George Stroumboulopoulos, one of the best interviewers ever, tonight at 10:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN. I'm serious.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was 2002 when Bill and Lauren Smith ended up at this garbage dump out Phnom Penh. They were sightseeing when their driver asked if they wanted to see the children.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were just starving, picking through garbage for a few cents a day.

WHITFIELD: So the Smiths decided to help one person.

LAUREN SMITH, HELPS CAMBODIAN GIRLS GO TO SCHOOL: I remember seeing this little girl with the red hat. I don't know if it was the red hat or if it was her eyes. But just looked kind of hopeless.

SREYNA OUN, SCAVENGED AT DUMP AS A CHILD: The motor guy, he came up to me and said, "Hey, these foreigners want to talk to you. They want to help you, take you go to school."

WHITFIELD: They took the 10-year-old Sreyna home to talk to her mother and met 12-year-old Celine.

LAUREN SMITH: Well, we got to help the sister, too.

WHITFIELD: The couple agreed to pay the girls' mother what the children earned at the dump, about $10 a month each.

BILL SMITH, HELPS CAMBODIAN GIRLS TO SCHOOL: The deal was that they could never go back to the dump again. And that we would put them in school, we would pay for everything.

WHITFIELD: Over the years, the girls became close to the Smiths.

SALIM: We feel like we have a second family. I get emotional. I don't have, like, a feeling with my family that much.

WHITFIELD: Now the two young women are attending college in Chicago.

SREYNA: Education, to me, is like a second life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: I'm Don Lemon. Bourdain now, Strombo at 10. Don Lemon, out.