Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Some Testimony on 911 Calls Excluded; George Zimmerman Murder Trial; NSA Leaker Charged with Espionage; NFL Star May Be Tied to Murder Probe; Obama's Approval Rating Drops; Behind Obama's Approval Slide; New Questions about Plane Crash; New Challenge for High-Wire Walker; When Clerks Ask for ZIP Codes

Aired June 22, 2013 - 13:00   ET

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


FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello again, everyone. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Here are the top stories we're following in the NEWSROOM.

Heavy-duty charges have been filed against the man who leaked top secret information and then fled to Hong Kong. We have the latest on Edward Snowden and what another famed leaker is saying about him.

The judge in the George Zimmerman's murder trial makes a crucial ruling. Testimony from prosecution audio expert will not be allowed at trial. I'll explain what that decision means straight ahead.

When TWA Flight 800 crashed in 1996, investigators ruled it was an accident. In a few minutes, I'll tell you why some are now saying the jet may have been brought down deliberately.

Let's start with the George Zimmerman case in Florida. A judge just issued a ruling this morning that could change the course of this trial. She says testimony from two experts who analyzed voices screaming on the 911 calls cannot be used.

George Howell joins me live now.

So, George, what does this all mean?

GEORGE HOWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It comes down to this. The methodology, the methods used by Tom Owen and Dr. Allan Reich and the science. Is it science universally accepted or is it new and novel?

We're talking about this 911 audio clip. A lot of people called 911 the night of February 26th, 2012. There's one call in particular that's been highly scrutinized where you hear screaming in the background. You hear someone screaming "help." Was it George Zimmerman or was it Trayvon Martin? Let's listen to that tape.

(BEGIN VIDEO 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 so -- they're sending.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Help.

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

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is your --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOWELL: So the defense wants to prove that that's George Zimmerman screaming for help, screaming for his life. But the prosecution instead wants to show that Zimmerman was the aggressor in this case and that, in fact, it was Trayvon Martin screaming for help.

So, Fred, they brought their own experts in. They brought Tom Owen in. Tom was initially hired by the Orlando Sentinel. But he went back and he had a method where he took small clips of that audio, looped them together where he had a longer sample, and compared the scream that he heard to a scream test of George Zimmerman. And in his opinion he was able to rule out George Zimmerman.

Also, Dr. Allan Wright, that's another witness for the prosecution. He amplified the audio. And he says because of the high pitch, it's likely a voice still being in developed -- being developed, likely that of a younger person, likely Trayvon Martin.

But the defense, they brought in their own witnesses, their own experts. I want you to hear Dr. John Peter French. He is an audiologist who said, you know, this wouldn't even be scrutinized, he wouldn't even examine the tape. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. JOHN PETER FRENCH, FORENSIC SPEECH/AUDIO EXPERT: My view in this case is that that recording isn't even remotely suitable for speaking comparison purposes. If it had been submitted to my lab just for that by prosecution agency, it wouldn't have even got to first base.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOWELL: Wouldn't have gotten to first base with him.

WHITFIELD: That's interesting. The judge said it's one thing to have voice analysis of a spoken word.

HOWELL: Right.

WHITFIELD: It's another thing to have analysis of a scream. But this is a blow, say some, to the prosecution.

HOWELL: Absolutely. Because now the prosecution, they cannot rule out that it might have been George Zimmerman screaming for help. We had CNN legal analyst Mark Nejame give his opinion about exactly why this is such a bad ruling for the prosecution. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MARK NEJAME, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: What the state was trying to get in is that their witness who ended up having a financial, vested interest in the method that he used, because he gets a commission on it, but basically needs 16 seconds of tape, and all they had was seven seconds. So he thought, well, I'll just loop it. So he looped it twice to get a larger segment and everybody has basically concurred that that was somewhat preposterous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOWELL: So Nejame there explaining that method, the method used by Tom Owen, saying that, you know, it's a method that wouldn't be universally accepted by science, something now that will not be heard in this trial. It is a blow to the prosecution.

WHITFIELD: But we did see from the judge that testimony can come from those who know the voice of Martin or --

HOWELL: It's really important. The witnesses can come in. They can -- they can, you know, give their opinion.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

HOWELL: We'll still hear that audio, but now we can't hear that expert testimony that the prosecution desperately wanted to get into that case.

WHITFIELD: Right. All right. Fascinating stuff. And again, I mean, opening statements now beginning on Monday.

HOWELL: I'll be there in Sanford Monday.

WHITFIELD: I know you will.

HOWELL: Yes.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks so much, George Howell. Appreciate that.

All right, the man who admitted to leaking top secret details about NSA surveillance has now been charged with espionage. Those charges against Edward Snowden were just unsealed today. And according to "The Washington Post" the U.S. is asking Hong Kong to detain him.

Dan Lothian now joining me live from Washington.

So, Dan, what's the latest on these efforts to have him detained while in Hong Kong?

HOWELL: Well, you know, a U.S. official telling CNN that the State Department would be sending paper work, legal paperwork to the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong. That paperwork work then would have to be turned over to Hong Kong officials and then ultimately get to a judge who would issue a local arrest warrant.

The question, though, remains whether this process has completely played out, whether the judge has gotten those documents and has issued that warrant we simply don't know. But what is clear here is that this is sort of the first legal move in trying to get Snowden back here to the U.S. and into court.

You know, at least one prominent, though, attorney here in the U.S., Alan Dershowitz, believes that the federal government has already made a mistake.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALAN DERSHOWITZ, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL: I think it's a dumb decision by the Justice Department to charge him with espionage. That's a political crime under the extradition treaty we have with Hong Kong. It gives Hong Kong an excuse to say we don't have to expedite him. They should have indicted him only for theft and conversion of property, then Hong Kong would have to comply with the extradition treaty and turn him over.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LOTHIAN: Now, of course, hanging over all of this is China. Hong Kong, as you know, is a Chinese territory. And so at any point Beijing could step in and block an extradition from taking place. So we do know all of the various steps that need to take place here, but unclear how it will all play out -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Interesting. And then we've heard from another voice, from WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, I mean, he's being --

LOTHIAN: That's right.

WHITFIELD: You know, held while in Great Britain, thanks to an embassy kind enough to hold him. But he has a statement showing that he is in great support of Edward Snowden. No surprise there, though.

LOTHIAN: He -- yes, no surprise there at all. He was supposed to deliver a speech this morning, but according to WikiLeaks, they decided to postpone that speech for security reasons. But we did take a look at the transcript of what he was to deliver and he talked about how Snowden was essentially being intimidated or that the -- these charges were meant to intimidate any countries that might be willing to help Snowden out.

He also said that this is a time now for supporters of Snowden to really push hard in an effort to find a place for him to find asylum. You know, we've heard Snowden mentioned Iceland as a possibility, and there's a businessman from Iceland who's talked about having private jets at the ready to take him there if, in fact, he wants to go there, but no indication at this point that that is what he plans to do.

But there are these charges now. And so sort of the ball -- the legal ball is rolling as we wait to find out how the U.S. government will actually find Snowden and then get him back here.

WHITFIELD: All right. Fascinating stuff. Thanks so much. Dan Lothian at the White House. All right. This very frightening moment for a woman who is now in critical condition after a tiger clamped its jaws on her head. The attack happened at an exotic animal rescue center in Indiana. Police say the woman was cleaning the tiger's cage when it escaped its holding area.

Authorities say its door was not properly shut. The tiger let the woman go after the center's director sprayed the cat in the face with a hose and then lured it away with food.

And some very good news about the little girl who had a lung transplant recently. According to her family, Sarah Murnaghan is out of a coma and responsive. The 10-year-old received new lungs just last week after her parents won a court battle allowing children to receive adult lungs. Her surgery lasted six hours and included resizing the lungs from a grownup.

All right. Here is a look at what's trending right now. Shortly after celebrity cook Paula Deen apologizes for using a racial epithet, well, she loses her job at the Food Network. The network decided not to renew Deen's contract which runs out at the end of the month.

And if you think the price of coffee is already too high at Starbucks, well, get ready, it's about to get a bit higher. Starting next week the coffee chain is raising prices on some of its drinks. A latte, for example, will be around a dime more depending on where you live.

And parts of Calgary, Canada, still under water today. The flooding has killed at least two people in Alberta. And now authorities are looking for a third possible victim. 85,000 people have already begun evacuating across the province.

When TWA Flight 800 crashed off Long Island, it was ruled an accident. I'll tell you why some former investigators don't agree with that finding.

And this man is trying to outdo himself. I talked to the tightrope walker who plans to cross the Grand Canyon tomorrow. But that's not the scariest part. What is? Well, that's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Now the case involving New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez. Police are investigating the murder of a 27-year-old man whose body was found less than a mile from Hernandez's home.

Hernandez has not been charged in the man's death. Hernandez's house has been surrounded, however, by reporters waiting for comment.

CNN's Alina Cho is there with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you very much, Aaron.

ALINA CHO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is Aaron Hernandez, August 2012, in the glow of signing a five-year contract extension with the New England Patriots worth as much as $40 million. Nearly $500,000 per game.

AARON HERNANDEZ, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOT TIGHT END: All I can do is play my heart out for them, make the right decisions and live like a Patriot.

CHO: That was 10 months ago. This is now. The 23-year-old Patriots' tight end is trailed by the media wherever he goes, leaving his lawyer's office on Friday, coming home. An O.J.-Simpson-like helicopter chase on Thursday, followed by this exchange at a gas station.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Can you tell us anything you want to say? What happened on Monday night? Can you just tell us what happened on Monday night?

CHO: Investigators are looking for clues in the mysterious death of 27-year-old Oden Lloyd whose body was found in the woods less than a mile from Hernandez's home, about an hour outside Boston. Police are not calling Hernandez a suspect, but investigators have searched his home. Lloyd's sister confirms the two were friends and went to a Boston nightclub together Friday night.

Olivia Thibou says there was even a deeper connection. Lloyd's girlfriend and Hernandez's fiancee are sisters.

OLIVIA THIBOU, VICTIM'S SISTER: Like to know why. You know, he was a very great guy. What could he have possibly done to anger anybody to do that?

CHO: Hernandez's attorney says neither he nor his client will have any comment at this time.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Alina Cho joining us live now.

So, Alina, we also know that he has had a bit of trouble in the past. What can you tell us about that and if there are any connections here.

CHO: We don't know about any connections, Fred. But I can tell you that there was a civil lawsuit that was filed that stems from an incident at a Miami nightclub back in February. According to court documents, Hernandez got into a fight with a man, allegedly shot him. That man ultimately lost his right eye as a result.

What's interesting about this, though, is at the time he went to police, did not name names, certainly did not name Hernandez's name and there were never any charges filed. There was another incident much earlier in 2007 in Gainesville, two men were shot. Hernandez was a student at the University of Florida at the time.

Again in this case he was brought in for questioning very briefly by police, Fred. But again in this case there was -- there were never any charges filed. WHITFIELD: And no investigators coming and going from his home at this juncture?

CHO: No. What's interesting about this, Fred, is that the information over the past 24 hours has pretty much dried up. And so that has largely left us what we like to call house watch here, we're outside Hernandez's home here in North Attleborough, Massachusetts. And last we saw within the past hour or so a silver car carrying two women left. They picked up the mail.

And actually within the past minute -- a couple of minutes they came back with what appeared to be lunch. But other than that, there hasn't been much activity. There certainly has been no sign of Aaron Hernandez who we believe is still inside the home behind me and remains in seclusion -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right. Alina Cho, thank you so much.

Coming up, the IRS, the NSA, the alphabet soup of scandals is taking a toll over the president's approval rating. Hear just how deep the plunge goes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: From Benghazi to the IRS to the NSA, the White House has had its hands full of controversy this month. And President Obama may not have weathered the controversy too well.

CNN's political editor Paul Steinhauser has more on that.

PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN POLITICAL EDITOR: Hey, Fred. A good way to gauge how the president is doing is to check how he's faring in the pools. Our CNN/ORC survey which came out at the beginning of the week indicated the president's approval rating was down eight points from 53 percent in May to 45 percent as of last week.

Our poll is one of six non-partisan Live Operator National Surveys conducted in the past two weeks since the NSA's massive government surveillance program first started making headlines. Add them altogether in our CNN Poll of Polls, and Americans are divided in the job Mr. Obama is doing, with 47 percent saying they approve and 48 percent giving him a thumbs down.

The numbers are giving late-night talk show hosts plenty to play with.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAY LENO, HOST, "THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO": President Obama's approval rating has dropped eight points over the past month, down to 45 percent, his lowest in more than a year and a half. But Obama is not letting it get him down. He's vowing to find out whose approval he's lost, track them down using their e-mail and phone records and personally win them back. Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP) STEINHAUSER: Laughs aside, remember, polls are a snapshot of how people feel right now. People change their minds and polls can go up and down -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: Thanks so much. So true, Paul. So chief political analyst Gloria Borger weighed in on what the president needs to do now. And she wrote in a column for CNN.com saying this, quote, "The president has rightly called for a public debate about the proper balance between national security and privacy, but the debate can't happen without him. In fact, he needs to lead it. That's what presidents are supposed to do when the country is having a national conversation," end quote.

That from Gloria Borger. So I asked Gloria about what the president's next step should be.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: I think he's going to have to say or do a lot more about this. It's very clear that the public is concerned about it, although if you look at the polls, Fredricka, you know a majority of people say that if it's to stop terrorism, they can understand why there is a certain amount of surveillance.

However, younger voters, we saw his poll numbers drop precipitously, like 17 points with younger voters, and that's really his base. And so what the president is doing, he met with his privacy board to sort of push for more declassification of these matters. And he wants to kind of lift the veil for the American public about how the secret court makes decisions when it does issue warrants to listen in on conversations when there's proof that you should.

So I think what he's trying to do is say, look, we're not eavesdropping on your telephone calls. And when there is a process, Congress knows about it and we -- and this court is something that really pays an awful lot of attention to your civil liberties.

WHITFIELD: Well, is it something else -- I wonder if, you know, lately the president is kind of waking up in the mornings and asking, you know, how is it that government intrusion is driving conversations, especially when a senator -- and you remind us in your article, Obama railed against President Bush's warrantless taps.

BORGER: Right.

WHITFIELD: So has the president lost control of his own presidency or is it the issue that things look different once you're in the White House?

BORGER: You know, I don't think he's lost control. But I think he might wake up in the morning scratching his head and say, how is it that these problems are coming on my lap right now? Because after all, don't forget where the president comes from. He's a constitutional scholar who has been a very strong civil libertarian. And suddenly the conversations we're having in the country are about drones, are about leak investigations, are about surveillance, are about the IRS targeting. And this is not the conversation he intended to be having in his second term.

WHITFIELD: There was some movement this week in the Senate to kind of quell conservative anger over immigration reform and those plans. So by proposing more efforts at border security, so how important were those moves? What do you see as the outlook for immigration reform?

BORGER: Look, the only way you are going to get a certain group of Republicans to sign on to this immigration reform effort is border security, and that's because that's what people care about. And Democrats care about it, too. But we did some polling this week which showed that by an almost two-to-one margin, people believe that the first thing you have to do is get control of the borders.

So what Republicans did this week is say, look, we're going to spend a lot of money and put a lot of boots on the ground to make sure that before we start this path to citizenship which, by the way, doesn't occur overnight, 13 years is the path to citizenship, so it's not exactly short. But before we even get there, we are going to guarantee the American people that we are making progress at the border.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks so much, Gloria Borger.

A new documentary claims TWA -- that TWA crash that killed more than 200 people was no accident. Coming up, I'll talk to the man who led the FBI investigation.

And Nik Wallenda is set to walk across the Grand Canyon tomorrow. I'll show you how he's preparing for his more daring -- maybe this is the most daring high wire stunt he's ever done.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Disturbing new questions about TWA Flight 800. It crashed off Long Island in 1996 killing everyone on board. The official cause of the crash was listed as an accident involving faulty wiring.

Rene Marsh looks at new claims the plane may have been deliberately brought down and that the real cause may have been covered up.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It blew up in the air and then we saw two fireballs go down into the water.

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was 1996, TWA Flight 800 exploded mid air off the coast of Long Island, New York. All 230 people on board the 747 died. After a four-year investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board ruled a short circuit near the fuel tank caused the explosion.

Now a twist in the case. Out of scores of accident investigators involved, six now say in a new documentary the agency's findings were wrong.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The primary -- the primary conclusion was the explosive forces came from outside the airplane, not the center fuel tank.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The agenda was that this is an accident, make it so.

MARSH: The now retired investigators say they have new evidence proving a missile caused one of the country's most deadly plane crashes. That evidence includes FAA radar data, explosive residue in multiple locations of the plane and witness accounts of a rising streak of light through the sky. The documentary's producers and the former investigators suggest a CIA, FBI and NTSB cover-up.

TOM STALCUP, PRODUCER, "TWA FLIGHT 800": They had some political agenda to show that this was an accident irregardless of what the evidence showed.

MARSH: John Goglia was one of the five NTSB board members assigned to the case.

JOHN GOGLIA, FORMER NTSB BOARD MEMBER: I would never be part of any cover-up. You have to take all the pieces and look at them as a whole. The sequencing report that told how the airplane came apart, none of it supports a theory of a missile.

DEBORAH HERSMAN, CHAIR, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD: The NTSB conducted a very thorough investigation. We collected over 17,000 pages of documents. All of those items are available to the public.

MARSH: At the time NTSB investigators considered and rejected a missile brought the plane down. They insist the streak witnesses saw was burning fuel from the plane. Wednesday morning former investigators filed a petition with the NTSB to reopen the case.

Renee Marsh, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: So will there be a new investigation? James Kallstrom led the criminal investigation into the crash for the FBI. He was the former assistant director of the FBI. And he's joining me now.

Good to see you.

JAMES KALLSTROM, FORMER FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Yes. Good to see you.

WHITFIELD: So you have said that your investigation was exhaustive. That the conclusion was that there was no criminal intervention. What led to that conclusion at the time? Interviews? Photographs? What?

KALLSTROM: Well, first off, the FBI was there because of Title 18 jurisdiction, crime aboard aircraft or destruction of the aircraft. So the public's sense, the NTSB was there for, you know, other reasons for the crash -- pilot error, weather, mechanical, et cetera, et cetera. The FBI operates under the rules of federal procedure, the rules of evidence, the chain of custody. So, you know, we can't have all these people -- most of these investigators were low-level people, probably good people, but they were not the decision makers on the -- on the technology.

They weren't -- they were not the metallurgists, they were not people capable of making those types of decisions. The fellow that was talking first that was putting the plane back together was basically an NTSB bus accident investigator. So you're talking about people that are not in my view, not qualified to make any assessment of this. When we had the foremost experts in the world on our team looking at this.

We had the National Laboratories. We had people from universities. We had our own FBI laboratory. We had the NTSB laboratory, we had the FAA laboratory. We had -- you know, we spent days and months dredging to get the plane off the bottom of the ocean.

WHITFIELD: So --

KALLSTROM: And we looked at every piece of this airplane multiple times. Three times minimum, looking for all the different scars and pitting and different characteristics in the metal of a bomb or a missile, any kind of a missile inside or outside.

WHITFIELD: So you saw no scars, no pitting, nothing that would indicate that there was any kind of missile contact or anything that would pierce that plane, and that's why you stand behind that conclusion that there could not have been any kind of missile that would have brought it down?

KALLSTROM: Well, not just that. I mean we had 1,000 agents working this. Consider this, the day -- the night that this happened, the next day we had hundreds of agents. What just happened is all of Long Island shore facing south and the ocean out there became a crime scene, a potential crime scene. So there was literally thousands of people that have to be interviewed immediately, you know, in the criminal investigation.

WHITFIELD: Well then, let's talk about some of the --

(CROSSTALK)

KALLSTROM: So all these -- all these things put together --

WHITFIELD: OK, because --

KALLSTROM: Including overhead satellites, I mean, there was no end to what we did to -- you know, and the FBI can't be in a position of claiming something was terrorism if there's no proof or with 20 percent of the airplane in the ocean.

WHITFIELD: Because so you --

KALLSTROM: That's where we found ourselves.

WHITFIELD: Yes. And you talk about some of the NTSB folks who were involved in the investigation really were not equipped, you know, perhaps, to be part of the investigation at the level that the FBI was. And among those, the NTSB accident investigator Hank Hughes was among those who said that the interviews of some of those eyewitness accounts were kind of brushed aside and that there were a number of interviews from people who said that they saw a flash, a stream of light shortly before that plane went down and those accounts were not taken into consideration. What did you find from those interviews and those witnesses?

KALLSTROM: Of course they were. And the reason they were interviewed by the FBI, NTSB came with three people, and we had to interview thousands of people in a potential criminal investigation. We interviewed all of them, multiple times in some cases. We took it extremely serious.

(CROSSTALK)

WHITFIELD: And what was the matter with those stories?

KALLSTROM: And one of the first -- at one of the first press conferences I said there's the potentiality this was a missile.

WHITFIELD: And what were the -- what was wrong with the stories? I mean, once you did follow up with some of those eyewitness accounts, what was it that wasn't there --

KALLSTROM: Well --

WHITFIELD: -- that kind of reaffirm their --

KALLSTROM: Fredricka -- yes.

WHITFIELD: -- thoughts?

KALLSTROM: Fredricka, eyewitness testimony is not really evidence, but it's helpful. In this case in particular, a very high percentage of the eyewitnesses on the shore heard -- looked up at the sky when they heard the explosion. The laws of physics, the speed of sound, the speed of light, those witnesses, those high percentage of witnesses I'm talking about, looked up there somewhere between 32 seconds and 56 seconds after the plane blew up.

So those -- the large extent of all the witnesses saw an event after the plane blew up. And there were a few other witnesses that were looking up and happened to see it when it happened.

WHITFIELD: So it must --

KALLSTROM: But that's not evidence. You don't go into court with evidence like this. The evidence is the actual metal itself and the -- you know, the fingerprint of the criminality. That's the evidence.

WHITFIELD: So it must bother you then that this documentary concludes that the investigation needs to be reopened, that there are some former investigators who were saying that the investigation needs to be reopened because the technology is different today and the conclusion might be different, too. KALLSTROM: Well, yes, and I'm not demeaning the investigators. I'm just saying they weren't the scientists. You know, the scientists, the people in the laboratory, you know, we hired independent metallurgists. We hired all kinds of independent radar people. So we looked at the radar every which way but south and west. I mean, it was overwhelming the work that was done on that.

And I would have bet my meager government check that first couple of weeks that it was an act of terrorism. You know, why would I make up some story that it wasn't? I would never go along with some story like that.

WHITFIELD: OK.

KALLSTROM: And I couldn't keep a thousand FBI agents quiet if I wanted to.

WHITFIELD: Yes. All right. James Kallstrom, thanks so much for joining us. Appreciate it. I know this is a tough situation because so many investigators have said they've built great relationships with many of the family members of the victims of --

KALLSTROM: Well, I feel bad for the -- I feel bad for the family people having to listen to all these BS.

WHITFIELD: All right. Well, we appreciate your thoughts and your time. Appreciate it, Mr. Kallstrom.

All right. Well, you think it's OK to give retailers your ZIP code when you make a purchase? Brian Todd will explain why it may not be such a good idea after all.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right. Silence may be golden for some, but for millions of LeBron James Twitter followers, he's been a little too quiet for too long.

Joe Carter is here with the "Bleacher Report" to tell us LeBron's followers are now smiling again.

JOE CARTER, BLEACHER REPORT: Yes, Fred, LeBron James has about 8.7 million Twitter followers out there. And before yesterday, fans had not seen a tweet for him since April 20th. He said he gave up Twitter for about two months to focus on winning a second NBA championship. And obviously mission accomplished on Thursday night.

So as promised, LeBron James broke his Twitter silence. He actually did it with a video laying on his couch directed to all the haters out there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEBRON JAMES, MIAMI HEAT: Man, I don't know what to say. I'm a champion, two-time, two rings. (EXPLETIVE DELETED) stink, don't it?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARTER: All right. It's a little pompous, but hey, he's earned the right to gloat for about 15 seconds. He is on top of the NBA world right now. He's won two titles, two Finals MVPs, two gold medals. Wow, what a bright future this guy's got. And he's only 28 years old.

You know, it's incredible how social media can connect sports stars with fans. Russell Westbrook, obviously a star player for Oklahoma City, was recently contacted by fan named Charlie on his Facebook page. Charlie asked Westbrook if he would help him propose to his girlfriend Rachel. So Westbrook did. He actually did it via Twitter. And he said, "Rachel, Chuck loves you. He wants you to know if you'd like to spend the rest of your life with him watching Thunder games." And one hour later, Rachel posted this, and obviously she said yes.

San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick was invited out to the Giants game to throw out the very first pitch. And I'm thinking when the Giants saw him throw this ball, they were like, wow, I wish we would have drafted this guy. This pitch clocked at 87 miles per hour. You know, this guy could have actually played professional baseball. The Cubs drafted him back in 2009. He obviously declined the offer. And after a Super Bowl appearance last season, it looks like he has a very bright future ahead of him in the NFL.

That's your "Bleacher Report" update. Back to you, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Cool. Thanks so much, Joe. Appreciate it.

All right. He is the daredevil who walked across Niagara Falls on a tightrope. Whoa, now you won't believe what jaw-dropping stunt Nik Wallenda is daring to do next. We'll tell you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Nik Wallenda holds seven world records for his daring exploits on the high wire. And tomorrow millions of people will watch on live television as he tries something that has never been done before. He'll walk on a wire stretched across the Grand Canyon.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD (voice-over): Remember this? Last year Nik Wallenda high above Niagara Falls. He becomes the first to cross from the U.S. to Canada on a high wire, and he does it live on national television. Now he wants to top that with a walk over the Grand Canyon.

NIK WALLENDA, HIGH-WIRE WALKER: And no one in the world has ever done that. I try to find a unique twist on everything that I do and try to find places that no one in the world has ever walked before. And this is truly a dream come true.

WHITFIELD: He'll be 1500 feet high, higher than the Empire State Building with nothing but a wire between him and the ground far below. No net, no tether.

Wallenda has been training for years at his home in Sarasota, Florida. Not even tropical storm Andrea kept him off the wire in early June.

Why does he do it?

WALLENDA: This is something I've done since I was 2 years old. And it truly is my passion.

WHITFIELD: He's the seventh generation of the famous Wallenda family to do high-wire stunts. The family was known for its seven-person pyramid. But in 1962 in Detroit something went horribly wrong. Two members of the family fell to their death and a third was paralyzed.

When Nik Wallenda was a teenager, he helped the family re-create the same stunt at the same Detroit arena. This time success.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The flying Wallendas.

WHITFIELD: Nik is dedicating his upcoming walk across the Grand Canyon do his great grandfather, Carl Wallenda. I asked him about what's driving him to do this.

(On camera): It seems as though you probably have, you know, divide -- far extended all expectations of your family. You said your great grandfather is one that you are honoring, Carl Wallenda. But do you think your family thought that you would take it to these heights, so to speak?

WALLENDA: I don't know if they thought that I would or not. It is just the way that I've thought since I was a child. I believe that no matter what you do, you should do it to the best of your ability. I believe in doing things big. I am doing everything I can to honor my great grandfather, Carl Wallenda, and really put our name back on the map.

WHITFIELD: Why is this something you're looking forward to?

WALLENDA: Well, because my family has done this for seven generations and 200 years. I'm carrying on a legacy. Hard for you to relate to. But my great grandfather Carl said it best, he said life is on the wire, everything else is just waiting. And for our family that's true.

WHITFIELD: How do you prepare yourself -- you know, days prior to the walk?

WALLENDA: Well, you know, it's a lot of mental prep. I've also trained very hard in my hometown in Sarasota, Florida, where we put up a cable that was about 1,000 feet long, but it was rigged identical to the way that it would be rigged -- that it's rigged over the canyon. When you're walking at a height greater than the Empire State Building, it can play tricks on your mind. So it's important that I'm always in control of those thoughts.

And one of the challenges leading up to a big walk like this is all the media that wants to talk about the doom and gloom. This is real. This is untethered. So this is life or death, this crossing. And it's important that I'm mentally in control of everything. And as the media wants to play up, well, it's so dangerous and you can lose your life, and what about your family, I have to be able to filter all those thoughts out and continue to focus on the positive.

WHITFIELD: Right. So you're not thinking about -- don't want to think about the doom and gloom, as you put it, so what are you thinking about when you are walking?

WALLENDA: I'm really just putting myself back in the training grounds. As I was training last week in Sarasota, I actually trained with wind gusts of 45 to 50 miles an hour. And I also stayed on the wire with wind speeds of 92 miles an hour. And all of that is mental prep.

WHITFIELD (voice-over): Mental preparation for the huge challenge. What does he do in the moments just before a big high-wire walk?

WALLENDA: You know what, I say a prayer with my family and give them a hug and a kiss, and tell them I'll see them in a few minutes. That's it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Daddy is going off to work. As if. So we'll be watching Wallenda's Grand Canyon crossing attempt. You can see it live tomorrow night in a special called "Sky Wire Live with Nik Wallenda." That's on the Discovery Channel 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, 5:00 p.m. Pacific. We wish him well.

And if a sales clerk asks for your ZIP code after swiping your card, do you need to comply? Do you need to do it? Why you may want to think twice before you say yes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right. You'll agree it happens a lot when you're shopping. You use a credit card to pay and the sales clerk asks, what's your ZIP code? But if you casually give up that information, you may want to rethink that from now on.

Here's CNN's Brian Todd.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jo Anna Davis says the situation was so absurd she laughed out loud in her car afterward. She had tried to return an item at an Ulta Beauty store near Sacramento. They asked for her ZIP code, which she didn't want to give them.

(On camera): What happened when you refused to give them your ZIP code?

JO ANNA DAVIS, WOULDN'T PROVIDE ZIP CODE: When I refused to give them my ZIP code, they called the manager. She wanted it and then said that she couldn't go forward with providing me with a refund or a store credit or whatever. TODD (voice-over): Davis says it led to an ugly confrontation in the store.

For many of us, it doesn't get that far. We're often asked for our ZIP codes when we make a purchase and think nothing of giving it, but if a sales clerk sees your name while swiping your card, then gets your ZIP code --

CHRIS HOOFNAGLE, UC-BERKELEY LAW SCHOOL: Stores can take this information to a data broker and ask them to match up the name with the ZIP code in order to get the person's home address, and they can get other information, too. They might able to get e-mail address or phone number as well.

TODD: Chris Hoofnagle, who teaches privacy law at the University of California-Berkeley, says retailers can take that information and target you for marketing campaigns, even share it with other retailers. He says they can gain information about your income, whether you've gone through bankruptcy.

(On camera): Experts say the practice is not unlike what political targeting groups use to find independent voters in certain ZIP codes, but those political groups usually don't match names to addresses. Retailers, experts say, often do.

(Voice-over): There are now lawsuits in some states over whether the practice is legal or should be. Hoofnagle says retailers are usually playing within the rules when they go to data brokers to get added information about you. A worst-case scenario, he says, is the possibility that some employees might move outside the lines.

HOOFNAGLE: Employees of a store might decide to stalk you or might simply decide you're good looking and to show up at your house or call you.

TODD: It's Jo Anna Davis' own sense of those possibilities that raises her guard when a clerk asks for a ZIP code.

DAVIS: I am a domestic violence survivor, and so I highly regard my privacy. And whenever there are those rewards programs, I do give a fake birthday. And you know, in this case I could have given them a fake ZIP code, but why should I have to do that?

TODD: Davis' story first appeared on Forbes.com. As for that beauty products chain, Ulta, where she had that experience, an official told us it's disappointing to know they've lost a valuable customer and that the service in one of their stores was less than stellar. The company says it still collects ZIP codes, but only for its Shopper's Club.

And we have to say many retailers ask for ZIP codes simply to understand where their visitors are coming from so they can make decisions about how to use advertising resources.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right. And much more NEWSROOM coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right. Stay with us for what's ahead in the CNN NEWSROOM in the 3:00 hour.

A new guns device for gamers? It is so close to the real thing that the wife of the man who makes it calls the device terrible. Could it lead to violence?

Also at 3:00, passengers -- there could be a less turning off before taking off. The FAA could start letting you use more gadgets at the start of a flight. Hear which ones.

I'm Fredricka Whitfield. I'll see you in the NEWSROOM one hour from now.

First, stocks and likely your retirement savings take a tumble this week. Much more on "YOUR MONEY" with Christine Romans.