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Senate Investigates NSA Leak; Sick Child Receives Lung Transplant

Aired June 12, 2013 - 15:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: With weeks to live, she waited. She fought. She captivated a nation. And now we know this 10-year-old girl is getting a lung transplant. We will tell you what to expect in the coming hours.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. The news is now.

(voice-over): Inside the hunt for Edward Snowden. Could his pole- dancing girlfriend provide any clues?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When they looked at this garage, they saw boxes.

BALDWIN: A rookie shooter can hit a target 10 football fields away. How? With this new gun available to the public.

A gay lobby inside the Vatican? The pope's not for going rogue, but this revelation is certainly a stunner.

Plus, the trial begins for one of America's most notorious gangsters. And Whitey Bulger's former protege tells me about the dreams he's been having.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In that dream, I snap his neck.

BALDWIN: And license, registration and cell phone? Get ready. Police could soon ask for a lot more on the road.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: And we continue on, hour two. Thanks for being with me. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

We begin with Edward Snowden. This is the name you have become familiar with the past couple of days because he's the guy behind what could turn out to be the biggest expose in American intelligence history. He says he has plans to stay in Hong Kong. He just gave another interview with more jaw-droppers. We will get to those details here in just a moment.

But, first, let me go straight to this hearing on Capitol Hill at this very moment that may give Snowden exactly what he wanted all along, because I want to remind you of what he told "The Guardian" newspaper about why he did this, why he leaked these documents showing the National Security Agency is secretly snooping on people. Here he was.

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EDWARD SNOWDEN, LEAKED DETAILS OF U.S. SURVEILLANCE: I think that the public is owed an explanation of the motivations behind the people who make these disclosures that are outside of the democratic model.

The public needs to decide whether these programs and policies are right or wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Snowden hoped for explanation, wanted debate, and I give you now this hearing on Capitol Hill. These are live pictures, may not only provide those details and that debate he wanted, but put them on the congressional record. Because now being questioned by the Senate Appropriations Committee here is the director of the NSA, General Keith Alexander, as well as tiptop leaders from Homeland Security, the FBI.

So, so far, it's been about cyber-security and budgets. That was the intention initially of this hearing. This was set actually before this news broke. However, it will likely get to the surveillance that the U.S. government is doing on millions of Americans and foreigners.

And who's been watching this very, very closely is our chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bash.

And, Dana, tell me. I know that you're reporting that this chief, this director of the NSA is already talking about this story and about terror attacks that were thwarted. Tell me about that.

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. It was under questioning from the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy, who was asking him to specify, OK, you say that this is very helpful with regard to national security. Well, tell me, how many terror attacks did this collection, this massive collection of phone records, really help stop? Here's what the answer was.

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GEN. KEITH ALEXANDER, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY: An approximate number to them in a classified --

(CROSSTALK)

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (D-VT), JUDICIARY COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: OK.

ALEXANDER: -- classified, but it's dozens of terrorist events that these have helped prevent.

LEAHY: OK. So, dozens. Now, we collect millions and millions and millions of records through 215. But dozens of them have proved crucial or critical. Is that right? Dozens?

ALEXANDER: Yes, for both here and abroad, in disrupting or contributing to the disruption of terrorist attacks.

LEAHY: And out of those millions, dozens have been critical?

ALEXANDER: That's correct.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So that certainly is a new piece of information. We had heard people on the Intelligence Committee, members of the intelligence community hint that there were more than one -- there was more than one terror plot that was thwarted.

Now we have more sort of meat on that bone. The other thing that the NSA director said was that he is -- he and his team are going to release much information in a nonclassified way, so release it to the public about these --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Dana, let me interrupt you, because I'm hearing Senator Durbin is asking about Snowden specifically, the man who's done all this leaking. Let's listen.

BASH: Sure.

SEN. RICHARD DURBIN (D-IL), MAJORITY WHIP: At age 23, he was stationed in an undercover manner overseas for the CIA and was given clearance and access to a wide array of classified documents.

At age 25, he went to work for a private contractor and most recently worked for Booz Allen, another private contractor, working for our government. I'm trying to look at this resume and background. It says he ended up earning somewhere between $122,000 and $200,000 a year. I'm trying to look at the resume background for this individual who had access to this highly classified information at such a young age with a limited educational and work experience, part of it as a security guard, and ask you if you're troubled that he was given that kind of opportunity to be so close to important information that was critical to the security of our nation.

ALEXANDER: I do have concerns about that, over the process, Senator. I have grave concerns over that, the access that he had, the process that we did, and those are things that I have to look into and fix from my end and that, across the intel community, Director Clapper said we're going to look across that as well.

I think those absolutely need to be looked at. I would point out that in the I.T. arena, in the cyber arena, some of these folks have tremendous skills to operate networks. That was his job for the most part from 2009-'10, as an I.T. system administrator within those networks. He had great skills in that area.

But the rest of it, you have hit on -- you have hit on the head. We do have to go back and look at these processes, the oversight on those, we have those, where they went wrong and how we fix those. DURBIN: Let me shift to another topic raised by Senator Leahy, Section 215. Ten years ago, I first introduced legislation known as the SAFE Act. It was a bipartisan bill to reform the Patriot Act.

My co-sponsors included Senators Chuck Hagel, John Kerry, and Barack Obama. My most significant concern with 215 was that it would be used to obtain sensitive personal information of innocent Americans who had no connection to any suspected terrorism or spy activity.

When the Patriot Act was up for reauthorization in 2005, I worked to establish a new standard for 215, and under the standard, the FBI would have broad authority to obtain any information even tangentially connected to a suspected terrorist or spy, such as the examples you used in the Zazi case -- 702 information could have led to 215 phone record information on any suspect.

But, under my provision, innocent Americans with no connection to any of these activities or suspects would be protected. The Republican- controlled Senate approved my reform to 215 unanimously. However, the Bush administration objected. It was removed in the conference committee.

2009, I tried again with no success to put this protection of innocent Americans back into the Patriot Act. Now that the cloak has been lifted by media reports that the NSA obtained phone records of millions of innocent Americans with no connection to terrorism, the data includes the numbers of both parties to the calls, the location of the callers, the time and duration of the calls.

I have been briefed on these programs, and I obviously won't discuss their details here. But it appears to me the government could obtain the useful information we need to stay safe and still protect innocent Americans.

My question to you is this. Section 215 can be used to obtain -- quote -- "any tangible thing" -- close quote. That could include, could include, medical records, Internet search records, tax records, credit card records. Last year, the government filed 212 section 215 orders. That's an increase from 21 such orders in 2009.

So, clearly, this authority is being used for something more than phone records. So, let me ask you, do you think Section 215 giving you authority to secure tangible things could include the categories of information that I just listed?

ALEXANDER: We don't. I don't use those. So I'm not aware of anything that goes that -- that would be outside of NSA.

All we use this for today is the business records FISA. I would point out, just want to characterize something that you have said here. As you know, this was developed -- and I agree with you. We all had this concern coming out of 9/11. How are we going to protect the nation?

Because we did get intercepts on Mihdhar, but we didn't know where he was. We didn't have the data collected to know that he was a bad person. And because he was in the United States, the way we treat it is he's a U.S. person.

So we had no information on that. And if we didn't collect that ahead of time, we couldn't make those connections. So what we create is a set of data and we put it out here. And then only under specific times can we query that data. And, as you know, Senator, every time we do that, it's auditable by the committees, by the Justice Department, by the court and by the administration. We get oversight from everybody on this.

DURBIN: I'm over my time. But I want to -- here's the point. If you knew that the suspect had made a call into area code 312, the city of Chicago, it certainly defies logic that you need to collect all of the telephone calls made in the 312 area code on the chance that one of those persons might be on the other end of the phone.

Now, if you have a suspected suspect -- suspected contact, that, to me, is clear. I want you to go after that person.

ALEXANDER: Right.

DURBIN: What I'm concerned about is the reach beyond that that affects innocent people.

ALEXANDER: So, the -- so we agree, at least, on that part. And the next step, I think, in the debate that we actually need to talk about is, so what happens if you don't know he's in 312 yet?

And so something happens. And now we say, who was he talking to? So let's take Mihdhar. You had authorized us to get Mihdhar's phones in California. But Mihdhar was talking to the other four teams. Under the business record FISA, because we had stored that data in a database, we now have what we call reasonable, articulable suspicion.

We can take that number and go backwards in time and see who he was talking to. And if we saw there were four other groups, we wouldn't know who those people were. We'd only get the numbers. We'd say this looks of interest and pass that to the FBI. We don't look at U.S. -- the identities of it. We only look at the connections.

DURBIN: I'm way over time. I'm not going to dwell on it. You have just given a clear illustration where you had specific information about telephone contacts, which I don't quarrel with. What I quarrel with is collecting all of the information in California on telephone records to try to find that specific case. That, to me, seems overly broad.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you very much.

Senator Johanns?

BALDWIN: OK. So, if you're just joining us and wondering what this was about, this exchange, this was between Senator Dick Durbin on the Senate Appropriations Committee as this hearing was scheduled before this entire NSA story really just rocked everyone, including specifically the government here. And so he's in this exchange with the director of the NSA. And I have both Dana Bash, who's been watching this hearing with me, can give us a little bit more context and specifics on the conversation, also Gloria Borger.

So, Dana, two points I just heard when Senator Durbin was questioning General Alexander. The first issue was -- this is a question a lot of people have had after this week from Edward Snowden, the fact looking into his history, a lot of questions on how this -- he's 29 now, but how basically he was a college dropout who ultimately got his GED, pretty young guy who had some stellar inside classified information here inside of this incredibly tight-knit, you know, National Security Agency, wondering how he could have -- how that could have happened.

What was your takeaway from that exchange?

BASH: From that exchange, the fact that that Director Alexander made clear he also is concerned about it. That, it seems to be one of the things that even those who support this program, like the chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee, who we will probably hear from in a little while -- she's also on this panel.

They want to pursue legislation to try to make sure that that doesn't happen, that people who are contractors like this don't have access to America's most important secrets. The other two takeaways from that exchange were -- that I got, first of all, were that Dick Durbin, who is the number two Democrat in the Senate, also suggested that because there were over 200 requests to actually use this statute, this 215 statute, it means to him that it's not just phone records, that it could be, as he mentioned, other things.

I'm just looking down at my notes here, tax records, medical records, credit cards, things like that.

BALDWIN: Credit cards.

BASH: Now, the NSA director was able to kind of punt, because that's sort of out of his purview. But that does raise so many more questions.

The other thing that I thought was fascinating was how Alexander turned this back to 9/11, reminding people, well, what if we had this web of information, this metadata around 9/11? Perhaps we would have been able to -- he didn't say this directly. But there certainly was the suggestion -- been able to understand more what the plot was before it actually happened.

So the fact that he's turning it to 9/11, and that's been a big discussion up here, Brooke, the fact that we are far away from 9/11. There are a lot of members of Congress who are new to Congress since that tragedy and people who are not -- don't have the same kind of zeal to get information in order to prevent something like that.

Again, they're more interested and concerned, rightly so, about civil liberties.

BALDWIN: Gloria, what about the fact that that went back to 9/11?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

BALDWIN: And then at the same time, then, you have people saying, well, you know, that's great if they're making all these -- there's all this surveillance. Then how come Boston happened?

BORGER: Well, you know, his more global point is that it's easier to connect the dots. We always talk about how you have to connect and how we missed doing that in 9/11, that it's easier to do that, and in some instances prevent these terror attacks, when you already have all of that data there and you just have to push a button and it's available to you, rather than having to collect it after the fact.

So his point was the fact that it's there doesn't mean that we're using all of it, obviously, but that when we need it, it's there. And it makes things happen a little bit faster and also prevents things. And that's part of this whole declassification process they're clearly going to go through, because they clearly feel the need to tell the American public, look, these are the dozens of instances that we can talk about in which we stopped attacks without giving away too much.

BALDWIN: Yes. And I know, specifically, Dana was -- she was alluding to Senator Dianne Feinstein, who is also the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

BORGER: Right.

BALDWIN: She's on the Appropriations Committee. So, we will be watching for her questioning as well. Ladies, stand by. We will continue to dip in and out as soon as news merits.

Meantime, though, let's go to some live pictures, because --

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: As we're watching what's happening in Washington, we are also watching this. This is New York. These are aerial pictures. And if you can see with me, according to the New York Fire Department, there has been a scaffolding accident. As we look together, look at this, very, very high up on this.

This is the Hearst Tower in Manhattan. Some sort of scaffolding accident has happened. I'm looking with you. I see two people on the scaffolding. Not quite sure exactly if it's broken or what. But it's been some sort of accident. And so you see these two workers. They are trapped at the moment many, many floors above the city streets in Manhattan. We're going to keep a close eye on this. And hopefully we can get those -- these two workers up and out and A-OK. We will follow this for you, again, Hearst Tower in New York, these two workers trapped.

Also, some good news on a Wednesday, major update on a story we have followed, you have followed very closely with us about this 10-year- old girl waiting for a lung transplant. Guess what? She's in surgery right now. She got that pair of lungs, Sarah Murnaghan in surgery, not out of the woods just yet though. We're going to talk live to a doctor who will tell us how this transplant works. How does it work getting adult lungs in a child's body? We have got a lot of questions. That's next.

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BALDWIN: All right, let's get you back to these live pictures here.

If you know this area, this is near Columbus Circle. This is West 57th and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan. And you see the scaffolding. This is according to New York Fire Department. These two workers, one on the right-hand side of your screen and one on the left, they are stuck. They are trapped, this building, 46 stories high.

And from the broader picture that I saw a half-second ago, they are just about at the tiptop of this building. So just imagine -- ooh, that gives me butterflies to think about it. Obviously, they're working, fire department, et cetera, on getting these guys out of there. But, for the meantime, there has been some sort of scaffolding accident. And they have to figure out how to get these two men to safety. We're watching it, live pictures, WABC in Manhattan.

To Pennsylvania now, to the day 10-year-old Sarah Murnaghan's parents fought so hard for finally has arrived. Sarah is in surgery right now getting a lung transplant. We have been following this story so closely, so much attention on her. But, again, the parents, we have talked to them. They say this is not just about her. This is about so many kids on lists like these under the age of 12.

Her story is this. She has cystic fibrosis. But until a judge intervened very recently, Sarah couldn't qualify for lungs because she was younger than 12. You have to be over the age of 12 to get adult lungs. Well, today, she's getting those lungs that she so desperately needs.

The donor is an adult. Her mother, Sarah's mother, announced the news on Sarah's Facebook page today. Here's what she wrote. Let me read it for you -- quote -- "Sarah got the call. She will be taken back to the O.R. in 30 minutes. Please pray for Sarah's donor, our hero, who has given her the gift of life."

Dr. David Weill is the medical director of the lung and heart/lung transplant at Stanford University in California.

Dr. Weill, welcome.

Start with just she's getting adult lungs. She's just a 10-year-old. How do they cut the adult lungs in order to fit inside of her?

DR. DAVID WEILL, STANFORD UNIVERSITY: You can do either that, or there are certainly some children that are big enough to accommodate an adult sized lung. So, you can actually do it either way.

BALDWIN: Is it a fairly simple process?

WEILL: It sounds complicated, but it is a simple process. The best-case scenario is to find an adult lung that actually will fit inside a child's chest cavity, because it's simpler. But if you're unable to do that, you can certainly cut a lung down to accommodate a child-size chest.

BALDWIN: It's incredible, with transplants, what can be done. And so once they get the lungs, the pair of lungs inside of her, how will -- when will the doctor know that she's able to breathe with these lungs, that she's beginning the steps to be in the clear?

WEILL: The first 24 hours are certainly the most precarious in terms of the postoperative recovery. And I think it's safe to say that everybody will be holding their breath, no pun intended.

I think that the first week is -- is particularly difficult for some patients, particularly ones that are as sick as Sarah has become over the last several weeks. So we should expect some complications after surgery, naturally. But we sure hope and pray that she does well.

BALDWIN: So, of course we do. So, it's really the precarious 24 hours, and then really the week. What are the chances she could reject the lungs?

WEILL: I think rejection always is a possibility, although it doesn't really happen as much in the early postoperative period as one would think.

The early postoperative period complications are more typically those related directly to the surgery, in other words, bleeding complications, or problems getting the transplanted lungs to work properly. Rejection is something that generally happens further on down the road.

BALDWIN: And this has been -- this is life or death for this family. We have been in touch with them. Sarah's sort of aware of her, it seems like, her mortality at the age of 10.

What do you, Doctor -- you're walking out of surgery, what do you tell the parents?

WEILL: I think just very similar to what I just told you. I think that I would expect some complications to happen and for the recovery not to go just in a straight line.

There should be an expectation that the first day and the first week will be difficult, but that this has given her the best opportunity for a full recovery. And we should all be thankful for that. And I'm sure her parents are.

BALDWIN: Yes. Dr. David Weill, thank you so much for your perspective. And we're just thinking of Sarah and any -- any little one in a situation such as hers. Doctor, thank you.

WEILL: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, a controversial new rifle that makes any novice gun enthusiast an expert sniper.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good form, really good form, man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow. Wow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: It allows someone to hit a target more than half-a-mile away. The developer says it's perfect for hunters, could even maybe be used by the U.S. military. Not everyone, though, thinks this is a great idea, both sides of the debate next.

Plus, we're watching New York, this scaffolding accident. These two workers are trapped some 46 stories above, ooh, at the Hearst Tower. Stay with us.

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