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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

DiMaggio Family Wants DNA Sample; Intern Sues for Having to Fetch Coffee; NSA Reach Broader Than Disclosed; Guardian Report Has Sharp Words for Government.

Aired August 21, 2013 - 11:30   ET

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


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ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: There's a stunning new development in the investigation into the kidnapping of Hannah Anderson. The sister of the now dead kidnapper, James DiMaggio, is asking for DNA samples from Hannah and from her brother Ethan, whose body was found in DiMaggio's burned-out house along with Christina.

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ANDREW SPANSWICK, DIMAGGIO FAMILY SPOKESMAN (voice-over): There's been rumors about whether Jim may be the father of Ethan or Hannah. We find it strange that he left the money without any explanation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: That was the voice of Andrew Spanswick, a friend of DiMaggio, who tells CNN DiMaggio left behind a life insurance policy and named the children's grandmother as a beneficiary, reportedly worth more than $100,000. However, an Anderson family representative is saying that they did not meet DiMaggio until she was six months pregnant with Hannah. And that Brett Anderson's DNA was used to I.D. Ethan's remains.

Then there's this intriguing new detail. Law enforcement is now confirming that Hannah and Jim DiMaggio were spotted in DiMaggio's car at a U.S. border patrol checkpoint after midnight some 20 hours before DiMaggio allegedly used a timer to set that fire to his house with Ethan and Christina inside. What's odd is that it's not clear what Hannah and DiMaggio were doing at that checkpoint or if Hannah was held against her will.

A day after the school shooting we told you about in Decatur, Georgia, at the top of the program, something else this morning. Police in Cherokee, Georgia, found a suspicious man standing on school property at Cherokee Charter in Canton. One of the deputies started to approach the 31-year-old named Todd Grig (ph) but he started to walk and then eventually run from the deputies. No worries. They caught him. They took him in to custody and then they found this, a B.B. gun that looked like a semiautomatic handgun. They also found three knives that you're looking at and the leather gloves that you're looking at in that picture. Obviously, questions and detectives are doing that right now, asking those questions. Four former Vanderbilt University baseball players are pleading not guilty to rape and sexual battery charges in what can only be called a disturbing case. They are being accused of sexually assaulting a female friend of one of the players in a dorm room while she was unconscious.

An elderly man shot and killed an escaped inmate. It was an inmate holding him and his wife hostage inside their own home in Bedford, Iowa. 71-year-old Jerome Motterly (ph) is a retired prison guard and he knew that Rodney Long was on the loose, that he was armed and also dangerous. So he loaded his shotgun and he kept it next to his bed before going to sleep. It turns out that Long broke into his house and took his loaded shotgun but while Long was rummaging through the house, god knows looking for what, Motterly (ph) got it back, got his own shotgun back and then shot and killed that break-and-entering escaped felon. So there you go. A four-hour ordeal over and that escaped inmate is dead.

For more than a year, there has been a string of thefts at a convenience store chain, oddly enough, of cardboard cutouts featuring the actor David Hasselhoff. While some find that funny, it's a sad story because a recent break-in has turned serious. The clerk went after those thieves and when the driver sped away, the clerk got dragged and flipped backwards and landed on his head and now he's in critical condition. And police say the alleged driver, a 19-year-old boy, has come forward in this incident.

Two brothers who suffer severe life-threatening allergies are making sure that their kids and others can live a better life. What they are making and what they are designing and what they are going to say about it, you're going to hear next.

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BANFIELD: So, I remember about 10 or 15 years ago, my best friend Shannon told me that her daughter had a deadly peanut allergy, and she was devastated because she was going to have to make sure that her daughter carried an EpiPen with her everywhere. Have you ever tried to insist that your preteen or teen carries an EpiPen everywhere? It just doesn't happen and it can be life threatening. So two brothers, who have suffered with allergies since childhood, have come up with something awesome.

Here today's "Human Factor" with Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

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DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As long as twins Evan and Eric Edwards can remember, they had allergies. The official diagnosis came when they were 3.

ERIC EDWARDS, HAS SEVERE ALLERGIES: We grew up allergic to all egg products, all seafood, including shell fish and peanuts and most antibiotics.

GUPTA: Plus, seasonal allergies as well. For them, school was a challenge.

EDWARDS: We were those guys who had to be placed at a special table at lunch to try to ensure that there was no potential for contamination.

GUPTA: With the near constant threat of a severe life threatening allergic reaction, the twins had to have an EpiPen available at all times, a pen-like device that ejects doses of Epinephrine to stop a sharp drop in blood pressure and serious breathing problems. But they thought that their EpiPens were too bulky and didn't always carry them. Both had several close calls. So when they left high school, they decided to invent a smaller, more portable device. They tailored their college classes around the new invention that they were designing. After college, they started their company, Inteliject, and last year, the FDA approved Auvi-Q, an Epinephrine auto-injector which is about the size of a credit card, and it is the first to talk you through an injection.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.

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BANFIELD: And you can make an appointment to watch "Dr. Sanjay Gupta, M.D.," Saturday afternoon at 4:30 eastern or Sunday at 7:30 a.m. eastern as well. I always do.

I don't know if you had an internship when you were a kid but did you get coffee and answer phones and do a bunch of menial stuff and maybe get paid or not get paid? Because there is a whole lot of criticism out there right now for everyone from the president to P. Diddy for making interns do things and maybe not always paying them. Christine Romans has that next.

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BANFIELD: Most of us have gone through those agonizing summer months as an intern for a company and maybe got course credit for it. A lot of people say it's a lot of fun. A lot of people are not complementary of the program but many interns don't get paid for what they do and they work pretty hard. It involves doing a lot of stuff that maybe isn't always part of the deal, like get some coffee, take some phone calls, answer the phones and do it without grumbling because, let's face it, an intern is kind of at the bottom of the food chain, it seems, in most organizations.

But an intern who worked for Bad Boy Entertainment is furious about it and she's actually taken to the courts about it. She's suing. If you recognize bad boy, that's P. Diddy, the bad boy himself.

What is the complaint? What did she have to do, for crying out loud?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: She worked there for six months in an un-paid internship. Her name is Maseda Milan (ph). She's being represented by a New York law firm. She interned last year for six months. She'd work from 9:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. or later. Here's what she tells us. She tells us that she did a lot of work that was like a regular employee but she was not paid for it. Se gave us this quote, "Just because you agree to a free internship: -- an unpaid internship -- "does not mean you give up your rights to fair pay. She's got a class-action lawsuit filed on Tuesday in Manhattan federal court against Sean P. Diddy Holmes, Bad Boy Entertainment, the parent company, Universal Music Group, of violating minimum wage laws. She was asked to the following in her internship -- answer the telephone, get lunch, get coffee, book trips for Diddy; prepare expense accounts. She says other interns were asked to do things like wrap presents for his kids and do shopping and the like.

The lawsuit seeks back wages plus interest for the hours that she and her peers worked. An amount to be determined at trial. The lawsuit estimates 500 people interned at Bad Boy and should be eligible to join the claim.

In the arts, in television, in film, in music, there's a long history of these unpaid internships. It's your way to get in. But the courts have found and the U.S. Department of Labor have found that you can't use someone as free labor. They have to get something out of it, either course credit or they have to be learning. They can't be just replacing another worker.

BANFIELD: You would think that the White House knows about this. There are free interns.

Before you go, I got you your coffee this morning.

(LAUGHTER)

And I also picked up your dry cleaning. I hope you're OK with it. I hope you're not mad.

ROMANS: Ashleigh Banfield is my intern.

(LAUGHTER)

My dress is wrinkled. You'll have to do it again.

(LAUGHTER)

BANFIELD: Christine Romans, thank you.

So the reporter who talked to Edward Snowden about the NSA leaks is now speaking out about the British government detaining his partner. Glenn Greenwald, on the right, has remarks about the legal implications about what went on and he is not mincing words. You've got to hear this.

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BANFIELD: Edward Snowden stunned the world with details of NSA surveillance of Americans phone and e-mail records. And now if you look at the "Wall Street Journal" today, it's reporting, it's suggesting that the spy agency's reach is even broader than we first thought. The newspaper's reporting that the NSA has the capacity to reach 75 percent of all U.S. Internet traffic. Just imagine that volume. It also keeps copies of e-mails sent between citizens within the United States and that it can also filter domestic phone calls, albeit certain phone calls made in certain ways.

Joining me is Joe Johns.

Can you make this really clear, what's so significant about what the "Wall Street Journal" found out that we didn't know?

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Ashleigh, I think you hit the nail on the head. The main thing this report shows is the scope and the capacity of NSA electronic snooping program on the Internet. It appears there's a capability, a capacity for NSA to collect 75 percent of the nation's Internet traffic with its programs. The question is, how much they're actually keeping. And the article says the filtering say the phone calls are done at more than a dozen locations in the U.S. where it was previously thought filtering was done outside of the country. Yes, there's a bit of new information in here. It's all about scope and the way they do things.

BANFIELD: Joe, just because the government can access that broad scope of data, does it mean that it is accessing all that data?

JOHNS: That's very blurry. NSA has made it clear they have the capability to track almost anything that happens, but they say they get court orders to do that. When they want to get something especially specific or sensitive, they have to follow legal standards. They say a lot of this data gets destroyed. Obviously, the question will be, what are they keeping? We don't know everything because the programs are supposed to be secret.

BANFIELD: What about the court? Are they active and engaged in this and our watchdogs or are they hanging out on the sidelines?

JOHNS: That's a good question. Talking to people, they say the court is active and engaged. The problem is there's no advocate representing the public or representing the other interests. It's basically the FBI or the Justice Department saying we need this and then the judges say whether or not that's a good idea.

BANFIELD: All right, Joe Johns, thanks for keeping an eye on it for us. Good to see you. Thank you, sir. Good lawyer, too, by the way, Joe Johns.

Got a couple of sharp words for the British government from "The Guardian" reporter who broke the news about the surveillance program. Glenn Greenwald's partner was detained under an anti-terror law for nine hours at London's Heathrow Airport as he was just traveling through.

Greenwald and David Miranda spoke with CNN's Anderson Cooper last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GLENN GREENWALD, JOURNALIST, THE GUARDIAN: All it did, as I said this week, is give them a huge black eye in the world and make them look thuggish, interfering in the journalism process, creating international incidents with the government of Brazil, which is indignant over what was being done, for no benefit at all to themselves, which is why I said I truly believe they will come to regret what they have done. It's just, aside from being oppressive and dangerous, it's also quite incompetent and really quite dumb.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Wow. That's pretty strong stuff.

British officials say they had the right to do what they did. But Greenwald and Miranda are suing and asking for a declaration that what authorities did is illegal. They are asking for the return of the computer and the electronics items confiscated in this incident.

A whole lot more coming up next.

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BANFIELD: A little bit of breaking news for you. A pretty significant day when it comes to WikiLeaks. The guy responsible for harvesting all that information and passing it over the WikiLeaks, Bradley Manning, one of our soldiers he was sentenced. He could have faced a long sentence, to 90 years. The military judge said 35. 35 years in prison, dishonorable discharge. Forget your benefits, forget your pay, you won't get that either. He leaked about 750,000 classified documents to that anti-secrecy group, WikiLeaks. He will get some credit for the roughly three and a half years he's already served. He's going to be required to serve one-third of the sentence before he becomes eligible for parole. So lest you think that 90 years means 90 years, and 35 years means 35 years, no. In the military system, where he was prosecuted, it's almost the same as some state-run kinds of courts. Then there are the hearings. Good behavior, et cetera. He's 25 years old. If he serves the entire amount, that will take him until he's about 60. Pretty tough stuff. This is a very tough time for folks who are leaking information and being involved in those kinds of distributions of classifies materials. You can ask those folks.

Thanks everyone for joining us. It's been great to have you here on the "Legal View." The next program with Suzanne Malveaux begins now. Stay tuned for AROUND THE WORLD.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: As U.N. weapons inspectors evaluate Syria, the opposition makes a stunning claim. It says the government recently attacked its on people with chemical weapons, killing hundreds.

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: A court in Egypt orders the release of deposed President Hosni Mubarak. He's not out of trouble by any means. We'll have a live report from Cairo.

Plus -- (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK ZUCKERBERG, FOUNDER, FACEBOOK: -- Facebook. I just tell them, come in and try to make the biggest impact you can have. If we keep building a service that people love and that more and more people use every day, which we seem to be doing pretty well at the time, then we're going to be fine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: The founder of Facebook speaks candidly to CNN.