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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Profile of Growing Witness Intimidation Problem In U.S.; Robert O'Harrow Discusses Secret Datamining Operations; Profile of Growing Methamphetamine Problem in U.S.

Aired February 03, 2005 - 19:00   ET

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

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


CAROL COSTELLO, HOST: Good evening from New York. I'm Carol Costello.
His car hit by a careening plane, and he lives to tell the tale.

360 starts right now.

A fiery plane crash after a failed takeoff attempt in New Jersey. The jet smashes into this man's car, bursting into flames. Tonight, the survivor speaks of his brush with death.

An honor student, an ex-Eagle Scout, stands trial for a brutal slaying, proclaiming a gay panic led him to murder after sex. Tonight, was it cold-blooded murder, or did temporary insanity drive him to kill?

Everywhere you go, everywhere you turn, a camera lens peering down at you, capturing every move. Naughty or nice? Tonight, a 360 look at surveillance USA. Is it invasion of privacy, or a price you pay for security?

And a 360 special, Chasing the High. Crystal meth destroying the bonds of mother and child, all for a fix to get high. Tonight, meet a mother who chose drugs over her children and is now paying a heavy price for her addiction to meth.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I felt so ashamed and so guilty. I almost wanted to die because of what I had done to my kids.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Live from the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is ANDERSON COOPER 360.

COSTELLO: And good evening to you. Anderson is off tonight.

Incredible stories of survival from two horrific crashes that have made headlines coast to coast. In a moment, we'll share you with the biggest mystery of the deadly train crash in Los Angeles, that of a message left in blood.

But we begin with yesterday's plane crash in New Jersey. The more we hear about it, the more we are more amazed that no one died, from the passengers, to the pilots, to the people whose cars were cut in half by the burning jet. Tonight, their stories.

CNN's Adaora Udoji reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ADAORA UDOJI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Rohan Foster can hardly believe the horror he lived through. The 35-year-old father of three almost at a loss for words, describing how his car was hit by a runaway jet as he was driving to work with his friend James DeNal (ph).

ROHAN FOSTER, SURVIVOR: He said to me, he said, Look, you know, watch yourself. And (UNINTELLIGIBLE), I think I duck all the time, but I didn't go fully down. And I saw the plane was coming over the car.

UDOJI: It went over them, taking the roof of the car with it. The corporate jet leaving New Jersey's busiest private airport was headed to Chicago with investment bankers aboard. Instead, barreled across a major thoroughfare into a clothing warehouse and burst into flames.

FOSTER: I think that's a miracle. When I look at the car, and see the state of the car on the TV, I know definitely I'm lucky.

UDOJI: Foster got away with a broken nose. His friend James, 66 years old, fared much worse, now in critical condition with multiple injuries.

(on camera): All told, 20 people were injured. That's 11 on the plane, who authorities have not identified, and nine on the ground. But as witness after witness has said, it was miraculous no one was killed.

(voice-over): Some passengers walked out of the burning plane. Others crawled. Still others were pulled by witnesses like Claudio Gomez.

CLAUDIO GOMEZ, EYEWITNESS: I said, This thing going to (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I'm going to run out of here. When the girl called me, Help me, I couldn't run. I went back to help her.

UDOJI: As the survivors recuperate, National Transportation Safety Board investigators are trying to figure out went wrong. This is the second accident on takeoff in two months involving a similar jet. The last one, in Colorado, killed three people.

Armed with this plane's cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, investigators know pilots aborted the takeoff, and they know the plane was not deiced before takeoff. But they can't say for sure if that played any role in the accident.

Rohan Foster knows the answers will come. For now, looking at pictures of his Camri...

FOSTER: You don't -- I don't know the back different from the front.

UDOJI: ... he sees the crash as a sign.

FOSTER: I know, definitely, maybe God wanted to do something (UNINTELLIGIBLE) walk away from it, because it wasn't a car running into my car or a truck running into my truck. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) plane run me over, and I'm still alive. So maybe (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I have something to do. That's why I'm still alive.

UDOJI: And he's praying his friend will make it too.

Adaora Udoji, CNN, Teterboro, New Jersey.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Wow.

Now to the train crash last week in Los Angeles and the story of a man who was so certain he was going to die, he scrawled his farewell in blood.

Here's CNN's Ted Rowlands.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): While looking for signs of life in the twisted wreckage of a commuter train crash, Los Angeles firefighters came across John Phipps trapped in the twisted rubble.

CAPT. BOB ROSARIO, LOS ANGELES FIRE DEPARTMENT: To see a live person trapped inside all this rubble and debris was pretty amazing.

ROWLANDS: After pulling him out, firefighters noticed something, a message written in blood on the back of what was left of a passenger seat. "I love my kids," it said, using the heart sign. Below that, also in blood, it read, "I love Leslie."

Eleven people died in the train wreck, but John Phipps survived. And in an emotional meeting this afternoon with his wife, Leslie, and children, Shara (ph), Jeremy, and Josh, John thanked the firefighters that pulled him out.

John, who still has 24 staples in his head, says blood was all over his hand when he wrote the note.

JOHN PHIPPS, SURVIVOR: "I heart Leslie." Then there was a little bar above that, and I thought, Well, there's plenty of blood. So, I wrote, "I heart my kids."

LESLIE PHIPPS, WIFE: It's moving and it's thoughtful and it's chilling, all at the same time, to think that you would think, I'm going to die here. I could die here. And to think of somebody else is amazing. It really is. And he thought of all of us. And that's just terrific. JOHN PHIPPS: I got to tell my wife and my kids what I thought were going to be my last words. And God blessed me and made sure that they weren't my last words.

ROWLANDS: Words written by a man, who, when faced with death, truly appreciated the importance of life.

Ted Rowlands, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And after all of that, this just in to CNN. Firefighters now on the scene of a freight train derailment in northeast Kansas. At least one car of a Burlington Northern Santa Fe train caught fire. We're told there was one injury, not life threatening. And there is apparently no hazardous material involved in this accident. When we get more of an update, of course, we'll pass it along to you.

It has been a difficult week for the Catholic Church. The pope's illness, and now a new spotlight on what's perhaps the most notorious of all the Catholic Church sex abuse cases, the case against Paul Shanley, a defrocked priest from the Boston area.

It's a case that has come to symbolize the most agrarious (ph) efforts by church officials to cover up the sex abuse scandal.

Tonight, the Shanley case has gone to the jury, and, in the end, what happens hinges on the testimony of just one man, a man who claims he was Shanley's victim as a child, but only remembered the abuse a few years ago.

CNN's Jason Bellini reports on today's closing arguments.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This case is, after all, about two things, old memories and really, really old memories.

JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From the beginning, the defense zeroed in on the big question for the jury. Is it possible to repress memories of sexual abuse for some 20 years, memories the accuser found it difficult to talk about?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please don't make me. Every time I come back, I have to start over. I can't (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

BELLINI: The prosecutor says it all came rushing back during a phone call three years ago.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He is crying. He is sobbing. He hangs up the phone. He will tell you he started to remember being touched by the defendant. He remembered things in the bathroom, in the church.

BELLINI: Defrocked priest Paul Shanley, who turned 74 on the first day of the trial, sat quietly listening with the help of a hearing aid. The alleged rape victim, whose photo could not be shown, tearfully testified about what happened to him in church when he was taken out of religious class as a 6-year-old.

The defense presented only one witness, a University of California psychologist who questioned the validity of repressed memories.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And so most people think these are false memories. But the individuals who hold these beliefs hold them with a great deal of detail and emotion.

BELLINI: Prosecutor Lynn Rooney (ph) says the pain felt by the accuser, now a 27-year-old firefighter in a Boston suburb, was evident and real.

LYNN ROONEY, PROSECUTOR: He came in here, and he told you what happened because that man, that defendant, that priest raped him and molested him when he was a little boy, over and over again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just a lie.

BELLINI: Defense attorney Frank Mendano (ph) says the evidence doesn't add up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This isn't a case of reasonable doubt, this is a case of massive doubt on the evidence in this case.

BELLINI: The jury must decide on two counts of rape of a child and two counts of indecent assault. If convicted on all counts, the defendant faces up to life in prison.

Jason Bellini, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Startling revelations tonight about what went on behind the scenes between Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush, during one of the lowest points for the U.S. in the war in Iraq. Rumsfeld made an offer he hasn't revealed until tonight.

CNN senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre has details for you.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: It was in May of last year, at the height of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, when the halls of Congress were ringing with calls for Donald Rumsfeld's head.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what do you say to those people who are calling for your resignation?

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Needless to say, if I felt I could not be effective, I'd resign in a minute. MCINTYRE: But what Rumsfeld didn't say then, and reveals now for the first time in an interview with CNN's Larry King, is that he did offer to resign, not just one, but twice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "LARRY KING LIVE")

RUMSFELD: I submitted my resignation to President Bush twice during that period. And I told him that I felt that he ought to make the decision as to whether or not I stayed on. And he made that decision, and said he did want me to stay on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Mr. Secretary, thank you for your hospitality.

MCINTYRE: After a few days of speculation about Rumsfeld's fate,, President Bush gave him a public vote of confidence after a Pentagon meeting.

BUSH: You're doing a superb job. You are a strong secretary of defense. And our nation owes you a debt of gratitude.

MCINTYRE: Rumsfeld's critics accuse him of setting a tone that allowed the abuse to take place, and of authorizing interrogation techniques that are tantamount to torture, a charge he flatly rejects.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: Rumsfeld told Larry King that while he was startled by the abuse that took place at Abu Ghraib, he had no regrets, arguing that what happened on what he called "the midnight shift" at the prison could hardly have been managed, he said, by somebody here in Washington, Carol.

COSTELLO: Jamie, why now is he admitting to this?

MCINTYRE: Well, the simple question is, he was asked. Now, he's been asked this before, and he's never made any on-the-record comments about it. But (UNINTELLIGIBLE) asked about the situation, you know, he basically has added to the historical record of what happened during that chapter of U.S. history last year.

COSTELLO: Jamie McIntyre reporting, thank you.

From an attempted resignation to a confirmation, a quick news note tonight. Alberto Gonzales was confirmed today by the Senate as the nation's new attorney general. The vote was 60 to 36, with all the no votes coming from Democrats and one independent. Gonzales becomes the first Hispanic attorney general.

Hard-selling Social Security, that story tops our look at news cross-country tonight.

Fargo, North Dakota, President Bush is taking his plan for Social security overhaul on the road. He laid it out in detail last night in his State of the Union address, and he'll lobby for it in five states today and tomorrow.

Charleston, South Carolina, in the Zoloft double murder trial, the prosecution rested its case today against 15-year-old Christopher Pitman (ph). His lawyers say he was hallucinating on the antidepressant Zoloft when he shot his grandparents in the head.

Lake Jackson, Texas, a woman is indicted for allegedly killing her husband in a most unusual way, with a sherry enema. Michael Warner was an alcoholic who could not swallow alcohol because of ulcers and heartburn, so he apparently convinced his wife to give him the sherry. It sent his blood alcohol level way up. He died, and she is now being charged with negligent homicide.

Jacksonville, Florida, a Super Bowl casualty even before kickoff. Here's an ad you will not be seeing after all.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, FORD TV COMMERCIAL)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: See you next week. Thank you very much.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): Is it a sin, is it a crime, loving you, dear, like I do?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: As you can see, the ad shows a priest tempted by a Lincoln truck after a little girl put the key in the collection basket. Ford withdrew the commercial after complaints that it exploits the sex scandals involving the Catholic Church.

And that's a look at stories cross-country tonight.

360 next, straight-A student, Eagle Scout, killer? He says he did the crime, but the question is, why?

Plus, security cameras catch a fiery robbery. But what else are they watching? You may be surprised.

And when reporting a crime could end your life. We'll visit one place where witness intimidation is violent and rampant.

But first, your picks, the most popular stories on CNN.com right now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: In Wisconsin, a 19-year-old Eagle Scout is being tried this week for murder. There's no doubt the defendant shot and stabbed the victim to death, he's pleaded guilty to that. But what the jury must decide is if he killed for the thrill of it, or because he didn't know it was wrong.

CNN's Keith Oppenheim has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Gary Hirte was caught on tape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where do you, where did you, like, shoot him?

GARY HIRTE: I shot him in the back of the head.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In the back of the head?

GARY HIRTE: Yes, I did.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where did you stab him?

GARY HIRTE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE), I stabbed him in the back twice and in the heart once.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OPPENHEIM: That conversation, played in court this week, was between Hirte and an ex-girlfriend who'd gone to police. Hirte, now 19, admits in August of 2003 he went to this house and murdered 37- year-old substitute teacher Glen Kapitski (ph). Afterward, friends testified, Hirte began to brag.

LAURA POKRZYWINSKI, FRIEND OF GARY HIRTE: And Gary said, he had the shotgun, and he thought about the consequences, and he went, he, like, shrugged his shoulders, and he shot the guy in the back of the head.

OPPENHEIM: Friends said, at first, it was hard to believe. After all, in Wyowega (ph), Wisconsin, Gary Hirte was a star, the town's first Eagle Scout in 20 years.

DEANA HIRTE, DEFENDANT'S MOTHER: I want a specific diagnosis for my son, and I want him to be helped.

OPPENHEIM: Defense lawyers say help is what Hirte needs. They say he has a borderline personality disorder. They also contend he had sexual contact with Glen Kapitski, which ultimately sent him into a rage.

DR. GEORGE PALERMO, FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIST: And I believe that he killed this man because he wanted unconsciously, probably, to kill his own homosexuality.

OPPENHEIM: Prosecutors say there was no sexual encounter, and that Hirte explains the real motive on tape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE), why would you do something like that?

GARY HIRTE: I just wanted to do it to see if I could get away with it, OK? (END VIDEO CLIP)

OPPENHEIM: Hirte didn't get away with it, and it will be up to a jury to decide if he should be held in a hospital, or behind bars.

Keith Oppenheim, CNN, Chicago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Security forces edge closer to Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi. That tops our look at global stories in the uplink.

Iraq's interior minister says the most-wanted terrorist in Iraq is near capture. He said U.S. and Iraqi forces had almost caught Zarqawi two or three times in the past month. Once, he said, they may have missed him by just an hour. The U.S. government has a $25 million bounty for Zarqawi's head.

London, England, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived there just a couple of hours ago. She's on her first trip abroad since she was sworn in. She'll tour Europe and then stop in the Middle East for separate talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Tehran, Iran, Western diplomats say Iran is testing parts that could be used to develop nuclear weapons, even though the Islamic republic had promised to stop such activities. In the meantime, a senior Iranian supreme leader is responding to President Bush's remarks against Iran last night. He says President Bush, like his four predecessors, would fail to topple Tehran's clerical leadership.

And that is tonight's uplink.

Coming up on 360, a splash of color at the capital. Why some lawmakers are suddenly doing a little finger painting.

Also tonight, caught on tape. Few things like this brawl escape a camera's lens. So who's watching you?

Plus our special series, Chasing the High. Meth cases on the rise, and children are the victims. We're covering all the angles.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "STOP SNITCHIN'")

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To all you rats and snitches lucky enough to cop one of these DVD, I hope you catch AIDS in your mouth, and your lip's thing to die.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Ooh, crazy threats. That's just the tip of the iceberg as police try to protect the people who help them most. Authorities estimate there are 21,000 gangs nationwide, and they say juvenile gang murders are up 25 percent since the year 2000.

More crime means more concern and more danger for the people who witness them.

CNN's Kelli Arena looks at the growing problem of witness intimidation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right, come on. Get something to eat.

KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Carol Grim lovingly tends to the parakeets her youngest daughter gave her shortly after her eldest girl was killed.

CAROL GRIM, MOTHER OF MURDER VICTIM: There's nothing like losing a child. You never get over it. Doesn't matter how old they are or how young they are. Your child is your child.

ARENA: Carol's daughter Angela, the brunette on the right, witnessed a murder six years ago and told police about it. For that, she was fatally shot.

GRIM: Angela was trying to run up the steps, and then she was shot once in the back and twice in the back of the head and was killed instantly.

ARENA: The killing took place in suburban Maryland, not far from the streets of Baltimore, where prosecutors say witness intimidation touches nearly every homicide case.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "STOP SNITCHIN'")

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To all you rats and snitches lucky enough to cop one of these DVD, I hope you catch AIDS in your mouth, and your lip's the first thing to die.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARENA: The problem is so pervasive that when local filmmaker and business owner Rodney Bethea told locals to rap on camera about what was on their minds, it is all they talked about.

RODNEY BETHEA, PRODUCER, "STOP SNITCHIN'": As we started to gather that footage, and we were looking back at it, we, everyone was pretty much talking about the snitching topic. So that's how "Stop Snitchin'" was born.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "STOP SNITCHIN'")

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I do talk tough, and I do (UNINTELLIGIBLE) your face.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARENA: The DVD is extremely controversial, because the message seems to be, Keep your mouth shut, or else.

BETHEA: There are greater issues that cause these things to happen. Only thing I'm doing is showing you the reality of what happened. I'm not glorifying it, I'm not saying I agree with it. I'm just showing you the reality.

ARENA: Copies of the DVD are in nearly every office at Maryland's state capital, courtesy of veteran prosecutor Patricia Jessamy, who says witness intimidation is growing more violent.

PATRICIA JESSAMY, BALTIMORE CITY STATE'S ATTORNEY: I've been in Baltimore city state's attorney's office now for 18 years. I've prosecuted arson cases and all kinds of other violent crime cases. But this is the first time I have seen criminals who are so emboldened.

ARENA: Jessamy is lobbying in support of a state bill to increase the maximum penalty for witness intimidation from five to 20 years in prison, and to allow witness statements to be used in court even if the witnesses themselves do not or cannot appear.

JESSAMY: We lose 25 percent of our nonfatal shootings because witnesses either go underground, they cannot be found, or, when they come t court, if we can find them, they recant their testimony.

ARENA: Baltimore's police department even created a special squad for the sole purpose of tracking down witnesses to homicides who don't show.

DET. LIEUT. BRIAN MATULONIS, BALTIMORE POLICE HOMICIDE: Right now, we're going to go to the south part of Baltimore City. And we're looking for two witnesses that have failed to appear for a trial that's going on right now.

ARENA (on camera): Part of the problem is fear. The other is money. States cannot afford to provide protection for all witnesses, and those who do get protection usually only get it for as long as the trial lasts.

(voice-over): Carol Grim says that should not stop anyone from coming forward and doing the right thing, just like her daughter did.

GRIM: I'm very proud of her for standing up for her rights, for not being afraid, for telling the police what he did, and, at least, getting him and a couple other ones off the street.

ARENA: Kelli Arena, CNN, Baltimore.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Everywhere you go, everywhere you turn, a camera lens peering down at you, capturing every move. Naughty or nice? Tonight, a 360 look at surveillance USA. Is it invasion of privacy, or a price you pay for security?

And a 360 special, Chasing the High, crystal meth destroying the bonds of mother and child, all for a fix to get high. Tonight, meet a mother who chose drugs over her children and is now paying a heavy price for her addiction to meth.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I felt so ashamed and so guilty, I almost just wanted to die because of what I done to my kids.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: 360 continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: In the next half hour on 360, the meth epidemic. Mother's get high, children suffer, our special series continues.

Plus, when something happens, there's often a camera recording it all. Is it security or an invasion of privacy. But, first, tonight's "Reset."

In Los Angeles, California no criminal charges. The police officer who was caught in this videotape last June apparently beating an African-American car theft suspect with a metal flashlight will not face any charges. After a 5 month review, the district attorney's office concluded there was not sufficient evidence of wrongdoing.

In Iraq, insurgents attacked an Iraqi police convoy near the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. An Iraqi policeman was killed, 3 others injured.

And more problems for the United Nations. An initial investigative report released today says the man in charge of the U.N.' oil for food program repeatedly solicited several million of barrels of oil worth about 1 million bucks. He denies the allegations.

And that is tonight's "Reset."

Also tonight, we continue our series, "Chasing the High." We look at the meth epidemic. Methamphetamine has become the most dangerous drug problem in small town America. And many of its victims are children.

The DEA says 12 to 14-year-olds living in smaller towns are more than twice as likely to try meth than those who live in big cities. As Randi Kaye reports, some of those kids get hooked before they are even born.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Thorton, Colorado 10 miles outside Denver, a drug raid underway. But this bust will reveal more than just drugs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sit there. KAYE: A victim. One you wouldn't expect. His name is Brandon. Just 18 months, exposed to a world no child should even see. Brandon and his mother are in this home where the drug methamphetamine is being made. It's a meth lab.

Right next to Brandon's toys, deadly chemicals. His mother reaches out to him to assure him, but it's too late. His mother is arrested, later convicted for drug procession and child abuse.

This little boy now faces a tough journey. He's not the only one.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We see it over and over and over again. I'm sick of it. I'm angry. I'm tired of it.

KAYE: Meth use is the spiking across the country and children are suffering.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who's going to raise these children? Who's going to care for these children?

KAYE: Juvenile court judge Peggy Walker sees it in her Douglasville, Georgia courtroom every day.

JUDGE PEGGY WALKER, JUVENILE COURT: It's the most addictive drug I have ever seen.

KAYE: Meth is made using everyday house hold items like hydrochloric acid, found in toilet bowl cleaner. That chemicals are used to convert common cold medicines containing psuedoephedrine into meth. That process creates toxic fumes that are especially harmful to children.

(on camera): According to the national alliance for drug endangered children, kids are found in more than 30 percent of meth labs raided nationwide. It also says most women who are meth cooks are of child bearing age. And when a pregnant woman gets high on meth, so does her baby.

Dr. Rizwan Shah is a pediatrician who studies the effects of meth on children.

DR. RIZWAN SHAH, PEDIATRICIAN: Methamphetamine crossing placenta can cause a sudden rise in the blood pressure of the brain. And that can cause a stroke in an unborn child, resulting in convulsions, muscle tone problems, tremors, and sometimes even paralysis.

KAYE: This is what a meth baby looks like: premature, hooked on meth, and suffering the pangs of withdrawal. They don't want to eat or sleep and the simplest things cause great pain.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And she would cry when she would have her diaper changed, because it was so tender and sore.

KAYE: This baby's bottom is burned. When her mother inhaled meth, so did she. Now, every time the baby goes to the bathroom, the acids from the meth in her system burn her own skin.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The buttocks actually is bleeding.

KAYE: Ron Mullins is a cop turned coordinator with the National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children. During his years on the street, he shut down hundreds of meth labs. Today, he helps states care for children of meth.

RON MULLINS, NATIONAL ALLIANCE FOR DRUG ENDANGERED CHILDREN: These children are being raising in homes that are absolutely filthy, there's rotting food everywhere. There's animal and human feces everywhere. It's deplorable conditions.

WALKER: Parents are walking away from their children, they walk away from their spouses, they walk away from their home, they walk away from their jobs, they walk away from their life as they knew it.

KAYE: No one knows that more than this woman. Her name is Tiffany. She's a meth addict and a mom. Her life offers a glimpse at the power of meth. It's so powerful, it can pull a mother away from her child.

"TIFFANY," METH ADDICT: I felt so ashamed and so guilty. I almost just wanted to die, because of what I had done to my kids.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: 360 next, more on the meth epidemic. We'll hear Tiffany's wrenching story. How the power of meth made her do things she says no mother should ever do.

Also tonight, caught on tape cameras everywhere. Are you being watched?

And later, a colorful new symbol of solidarity around the world.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Before the break, we briefly introduced you to a woman named Tiffany. She's a meth addict and a mother who says she wanted to die because of what she'd done to her kids. CNN's Randi Kaye has more of her story now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE (voice-over): Look into the eyes of this woman. You'll see a life full of drugs, abuse, neglect and violence. Her name is Tiffany. She asked that we not use her last name. She says she's been around meth since she was young child. A meth addict since her early teens. She's also a mom who chose drugs over her own children.

TIFFANY: I would never make that more important than getting another dose.

KAYE: At 25, Tiffany says she is clean. She was hooked on methamphetamine for a decade. It's like speed, but far more addictive. On the street, they call it ice, glass or crank. Some women take it to lose weight, others to help them get chores done and some, like Tiffany, because she didn't know any better.

TIFFANY: Your heart just, you know, starts racing, 200 beats a minute, and then your legs go weak, and you try to get up and walk around, but you're not going to walk straight for a few minutes. And then after about 30 minutes the rush is gone, and you're just up, and you're just wide open, 90 miles an hour.

KAYE (on camera): How long had you gone at some point without sleep?

TIFFANY: I think the most I'd ever stayed up was right at three weeks.

KAYE (voice-over): Tiffany tried meth for the first time when she was 12. She snorted it.

(on camera): And do you remember the first time, what it felt like?

TIFFANY: I remember it burned. It hurt.

KAYE (voice-over): Still, Tiffany kept doing it. Meth is so powerful, it takes a hold of you and doesn't let go.

That taste led to a lifestyle Tiffany never imagined for herself.

TIFFANY: It had become a daily thing, pretty much. And if I wasn't using meth, I was smoking marijuana or drinking or taking pills, whatever.

KAYE: At 15, Tiffany had her first child, Terrell (ph). But meth was still her baby. She'd hit the street, searching for the next party, the next high. Gone weeks at a time, family members looked after her son.

TIFFANY: It's really sad to say this, but my son had gotten so used to it, he'd quit worrying about me.

KAYE: And she quit worrying about herself, then she got pregnant again. Even that didn't stop her from taking the drug.

TIFFANY: I think I was almost three months pregnant when I found out, and I was pregnant and I'd been using pretty heavily.

KAYE: Her daughter, Audrey (ph), is now almost 3.

TIFFANY: I wouldn't shoot up in front of them. I wouldn't smoke it in front of them. I would hide in the bathroom. But my son always new something was going on. I left my son at school a few times. I would be so caught up in what I was doing, I just wouldn't remember him. KAYE: Typical behavior for a mom on meth, too high to know where her children are, too high to even care. A meth high can last 12 hours, plenty of time for a child to get into trouble.

And when Tiffany came down...

TIFFANY: I felt so ashamed and so guilty. And I almost just wanted to die.

KAYE: And she almost did. She downed a bottle of pills, cut her wrists.

TIFFANY: I could be dead right now. By all rights, I should be.

KAYE: Then, the car accident. These photos, and ugly reminder.

TIFFANY: That made me think how close I came to death.

KAYE (on camera): So what would drive a mother to take such risk? Remember, before Tiffany was a mom who used meth, she was a child who used meth. Where she learned to do this drug is at the heart of her story.

TIFFANY: I think how a child turns out has got to do a lot with her parents. And what I was shown was how I turned out to be.

KAYE (voice-over): Tiffany's mom was arested and charged in 2003 with running a meth lab. She has not yet entered a plea.

TIFFANY: For a long time I wanted to blame her for everything.

KAYE: But now Tiffany blames herself, at least for what she did to her kids. This photo was taken on the night she was arrested for possession of meth, the night her life started to turn around.

TIFFANY: It's real hard to look back at what I did to my kids.

KAYE: Her family refused to bail her out of jail. Tiffany's time away from home hit her son Terrell hardest.

TIFFANY: He stayed with my step-sister and she would tell me he would cry himself to sleep at night (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

KAYE: Jail sobered Tiffany, gave her time reflect. It forced her into recovery, something she still struggles with 2 1/2 rears later.

(on camera): Do you feel you're broken the cycle in your family?

KAYE: I hope so.

I'm watching you, baby.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE: Tiffany and her children leave in northern Georgia where these days she holds down a job and goes to school. In her free time she counsels other meth addicts to help them in recovery. Now those images we showed you tonight, the children caught up in the cycle of this drug, probably left you asking what is being done about this?

Well just last week, Republican and Democratic senators introduced the Combat Meth Act which would help put children first in the first against this drug. It would also put cold medicines used to make meth behind the counter, limit the number of packages consumers can buy, and anyone buying that medicine would have to show identification and sign for it.

So there are steps being taken. But with the incidence involving this drug doubling in every state every year, it is very hard to get a handle on it -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Randi, I was just wondering about the children because you know, it just breaks your heart. Do many children die because of their mothers' addictions?

KAYE: I wouldn't say many. But we do know of some cases, in fact, one case, right here in Georgia, not too far from where Tiffany lives, a little boy Shelton Hicks (ph), just 11 months old, was living with his parents. They were running a meth lab in the house. The house did explode and little Shelton was burned all over his body. He died four months later and his parents are now serving life in prison for his murder.

Randi Kaye, live in Atlanta tonight, thank you. Our "Chasing the High" series continues tomorrow, with kids using inhalants. It's a disturbing trend and many are getting their highs from things found in their own homes.

"360" next, security cameras, they're watching your every move. See what happens to a thief thought who tried to steal a fortune from an ATM.

Also tonight, saluting freedom, how a new finger of choice is emerging.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Well, maybe George Orwell was right when he said Big Brother is watching you. Take this would-be bank robber in Kansas City, for example, take a look. His every move captured by a surveillance camera. He used a torch to burn the hinges off of an ATM and then a crowbar to peel back the metal door, and finally, made the machine erupt into a ball of fire. All that work for nothing because he's in jail now.

But more and more, it seems we are all being watched by surveillance cameras, raising the question, where's the line between privacy and security?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO (voice-over): Security cams capturing life and death moments, like this grainy video from Ceres, California, showing Andres Raya, a Marine, opening fire on unsuspecting policemen, leaving a trail of bodies before cops could kill him.

And outside a Wal-Mart in Tyler, Texas, surveillance cameras catch a man following a pretty cashier, 19-year-old Megan Holden would end up dead, and Johnny Williams was arrested. For police, cameras are priceless.

JOHN FIRMAN, INTL. ASSOC. OF CHIEF OF POLICE: Videotape from the 7-11, from the Bank of America, from an in-car camera in a police car and from a fixed camera, a stationary camera that's there by the police, that officer and that department now have a whole cadre of evidence.

COSTELLO: There are an estimated 3 million security cameras across the country. You're being watched at the ATM, at the office, at the mall, Winona Ryder, surprise! Her Saks shop lifting spree caught on tape by hidden security cameras. Cameras just the one trained on these 911 operators in Massachusetts providing all the evidence needed, their bosses say, to fire them for dancing, drinking and doing drugs on the job.

At this moment, there is a good chance you're being watched. The American Civil Liberties Union says Americans are spied on dozens of times an hour, a statistic it finds alarming.

JAY STANLEY, ACLU: We're rapidly getting to a place where you have no privacy left. And we need to put in place good rules and regulation to make sure that this vast new power isn't abused.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: We're being watched in so many ways that many of us can not possibly imagine. Joining us from Washington to talk about other ways that our lives are not our own is Washington Post reporter Robert O'Harrow who's book title says it all, "No Place to Hide." Welcome, Robert.

ROBERT O'HARROW, WASHINGTON POST: Thanks for having me.

COSTELLO: All right. We know we're begin watched. But you say, in the future, cameras will capture more than our actions, what do you mean by that?

O'HARROW: Well, cameras are amazing things, right? They're pretty much everywhere these days. And they are spreading really fast. And as they watch us, they're not just recording, but, they're making computer files that can be searched with video datamines now -- datamining operations. So, it's not looking at us now, but, they'll be able to find out where we are at a particular time in some date, not too far back.

COSTELLO: So, this is being used to predict what we might do in the future?

O'HARROW: Well, the cameras are the most obvious form of post- 9/11 surveillance. The real way they are watching us, I mean the private companies in particular is through lots and lots of information that we leave behind in the routine course of our lives.

COSTELLO: What kind of routine information? There's this company, a private company called Choice Point, it's a company they collects data, it has almost 20 billion records. Where does the information come from that go to that private company?

O'HARROW: Well, if you think about the regular routine. And you think about the cell phone calls you make, the the ATMs, and the toll booths you go through, every time you interact with an electronic device these days, you're leaving some sort of trail about when you were there, what you were doing. And when you take money out of the bank, there's artificial intelligence that's watching what you do there and reporting it back, to see if there's a risk.

COSTELLO: So, if you wanted to find out what information that company had on me or my neighbor, could I do that?

O'HARROW: Well, in some cases you can buy that. You can buy dossiers about people. And the companies that sell it to you also sell that information to the government and to the intelligence services. What's really amazing, the characters behind the companies. There's a former drug smuggler who became a data genius and a wealthy millionaire. There's a boy genius who made face recognition software. And there's a guy who dropped out of high school who is so smart with data that he works very intimately with some of the most important intelligence agencies in the U.S.

COSTELLO: I was just going to ask you, what do these characters do with the information then?

O'HARROW: Well, what they're trying to do is to protect us. What we don't know, most of us anyway, is just how much information is out there. Literally, billions and billions of records. And how, after 9/11, the government has embraced these private companies to try to watch all of us with the idea of making us safe. But of course, it doesn't take much to remember both the good uses this can be put to, but also the Hoover era, and the FBI abuses and the Army abuses, when they were doing domestic surveillance. And the fact is, we're heading, we're hurdling really toward a very watched society where there are no rules in place to make sure the information that the is used properly.

COSTELLO: Interesting and just a little frightening. Robert O'Harrow, Washington Post reporter and a man who has written a book called "No Place to Hide." Thank you for joining us tonight.

O'HARROW: Thank you. Appreciate it.

COSTELLO: We do too.

360 next finger pointing as a sign for respect.

Plus, tomorrow, addiction and "Chasing the High." How children are getting hooked to things found at home. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Finally tonight, saluting solidarity. It's coming in a couple of colors and turning into this season's hottest accessory. CNN's Jeanne Moos reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Are they hailing a cab? Testing the wind? Are they testing their peripheral vision? You can sum up the latest patriotic trend in two words: Got ink?

(on camera): Move over middle finger, the index finger is the new finger of choice.

(voice-over): It's a gesture of homage to Iraqis who were brave enough to vote, purple ink used to prevent people from voting more than once, became a badge of honor. For Iraqis who voted in U.S., a finger was worth a thousand words.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have the purple finger to prove it.

MOOS: Now Congressman are flaunting it on TV.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I marked my finger.

MOOS: Folks made a point of pointing their fingers at the State of the Union. Web sites are posting photos people send in of their upraised index fingers in shades ranging from blue to purple to turquoise, poised on a trigger by the soldier in Iraq.

Some display a single digit, some prefer the victory or peace sign. This Iraqi woman at the State of the Union combined the two.

This GOP blogger's Web site credits a 10-year-old Montana girl for inspiring others to dye their fingers. For her efforts, Shelby Dangerfield got to meet the president he visited Montana Thursday.

Comedy shows may joke about it.

JON STEWART, DAILY SHOW: Is that ink?

ROB CORDORY, DAILY SHOW: Yeah. Funny story, that's from Hassan, my translator, he voted before earlier before we...

MOOS: One political Web site offered a recipe for a cocktail drink called the purple finger made from grenedine, cassis made from black currants and vodka.

But from us, the purple finger got the -- thumbs down.

Another Web site set up by this University Michigan law student calls itself, give terror the finger.

OK, not everybody is using their index finger to make a political point. But not since ET cast this shadow across movie screens... ET, EXTRATERRESTRIAL: E.T.

MOOS: ...has a finger been so poignant. Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: That's 360 for tonight. Thank you for watching. I'm Carol Costello. CNN's primetime continues with PAULA ZAHN NOW.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired February 3, 2005 - 19:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, HOST: Good evening from New York. I'm Carol Costello.
His car hit by a careening plane, and he lives to tell the tale.

360 starts right now.

A fiery plane crash after a failed takeoff attempt in New Jersey. The jet smashes into this man's car, bursting into flames. Tonight, the survivor speaks of his brush with death.

An honor student, an ex-Eagle Scout, stands trial for a brutal slaying, proclaiming a gay panic led him to murder after sex. Tonight, was it cold-blooded murder, or did temporary insanity drive him to kill?

Everywhere you go, everywhere you turn, a camera lens peering down at you, capturing every move. Naughty or nice? Tonight, a 360 look at surveillance USA. Is it invasion of privacy, or a price you pay for security?

And a 360 special, Chasing the High. Crystal meth destroying the bonds of mother and child, all for a fix to get high. Tonight, meet a mother who chose drugs over her children and is now paying a heavy price for her addiction to meth.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I felt so ashamed and so guilty. I almost wanted to die because of what I had done to my kids.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Live from the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is ANDERSON COOPER 360.

COSTELLO: And good evening to you. Anderson is off tonight.

Incredible stories of survival from two horrific crashes that have made headlines coast to coast. In a moment, we'll share you with the biggest mystery of the deadly train crash in Los Angeles, that of a message left in blood.

But we begin with yesterday's plane crash in New Jersey. The more we hear about it, the more we are more amazed that no one died, from the passengers, to the pilots, to the people whose cars were cut in half by the burning jet. Tonight, their stories.

CNN's Adaora Udoji reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ADAORA UDOJI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Rohan Foster can hardly believe the horror he lived through. The 35-year-old father of three almost at a loss for words, describing how his car was hit by a runaway jet as he was driving to work with his friend James DeNal (ph).

ROHAN FOSTER, SURVIVOR: He said to me, he said, Look, you know, watch yourself. And (UNINTELLIGIBLE), I think I duck all the time, but I didn't go fully down. And I saw the plane was coming over the car.

UDOJI: It went over them, taking the roof of the car with it. The corporate jet leaving New Jersey's busiest private airport was headed to Chicago with investment bankers aboard. Instead, barreled across a major thoroughfare into a clothing warehouse and burst into flames.

FOSTER: I think that's a miracle. When I look at the car, and see the state of the car on the TV, I know definitely I'm lucky.

UDOJI: Foster got away with a broken nose. His friend James, 66 years old, fared much worse, now in critical condition with multiple injuries.

(on camera): All told, 20 people were injured. That's 11 on the plane, who authorities have not identified, and nine on the ground. But as witness after witness has said, it was miraculous no one was killed.

(voice-over): Some passengers walked out of the burning plane. Others crawled. Still others were pulled by witnesses like Claudio Gomez.

CLAUDIO GOMEZ, EYEWITNESS: I said, This thing going to (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I'm going to run out of here. When the girl called me, Help me, I couldn't run. I went back to help her.

UDOJI: As the survivors recuperate, National Transportation Safety Board investigators are trying to figure out went wrong. This is the second accident on takeoff in two months involving a similar jet. The last one, in Colorado, killed three people.

Armed with this plane's cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, investigators know pilots aborted the takeoff, and they know the plane was not deiced before takeoff. But they can't say for sure if that played any role in the accident.

Rohan Foster knows the answers will come. For now, looking at pictures of his Camri...

FOSTER: You don't -- I don't know the back different from the front.

UDOJI: ... he sees the crash as a sign.

FOSTER: I know, definitely, maybe God wanted to do something (UNINTELLIGIBLE) walk away from it, because it wasn't a car running into my car or a truck running into my truck. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) plane run me over, and I'm still alive. So maybe (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I have something to do. That's why I'm still alive.

UDOJI: And he's praying his friend will make it too.

Adaora Udoji, CNN, Teterboro, New Jersey.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Wow.

Now to the train crash last week in Los Angeles and the story of a man who was so certain he was going to die, he scrawled his farewell in blood.

Here's CNN's Ted Rowlands.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): While looking for signs of life in the twisted wreckage of a commuter train crash, Los Angeles firefighters came across John Phipps trapped in the twisted rubble.

CAPT. BOB ROSARIO, LOS ANGELES FIRE DEPARTMENT: To see a live person trapped inside all this rubble and debris was pretty amazing.

ROWLANDS: After pulling him out, firefighters noticed something, a message written in blood on the back of what was left of a passenger seat. "I love my kids," it said, using the heart sign. Below that, also in blood, it read, "I love Leslie."

Eleven people died in the train wreck, but John Phipps survived. And in an emotional meeting this afternoon with his wife, Leslie, and children, Shara (ph), Jeremy, and Josh, John thanked the firefighters that pulled him out.

John, who still has 24 staples in his head, says blood was all over his hand when he wrote the note.

JOHN PHIPPS, SURVIVOR: "I heart Leslie." Then there was a little bar above that, and I thought, Well, there's plenty of blood. So, I wrote, "I heart my kids."

LESLIE PHIPPS, WIFE: It's moving and it's thoughtful and it's chilling, all at the same time, to think that you would think, I'm going to die here. I could die here. And to think of somebody else is amazing. It really is. And he thought of all of us. And that's just terrific. JOHN PHIPPS: I got to tell my wife and my kids what I thought were going to be my last words. And God blessed me and made sure that they weren't my last words.

ROWLANDS: Words written by a man, who, when faced with death, truly appreciated the importance of life.

Ted Rowlands, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And after all of that, this just in to CNN. Firefighters now on the scene of a freight train derailment in northeast Kansas. At least one car of a Burlington Northern Santa Fe train caught fire. We're told there was one injury, not life threatening. And there is apparently no hazardous material involved in this accident. When we get more of an update, of course, we'll pass it along to you.

It has been a difficult week for the Catholic Church. The pope's illness, and now a new spotlight on what's perhaps the most notorious of all the Catholic Church sex abuse cases, the case against Paul Shanley, a defrocked priest from the Boston area.

It's a case that has come to symbolize the most agrarious (ph) efforts by church officials to cover up the sex abuse scandal.

Tonight, the Shanley case has gone to the jury, and, in the end, what happens hinges on the testimony of just one man, a man who claims he was Shanley's victim as a child, but only remembered the abuse a few years ago.

CNN's Jason Bellini reports on today's closing arguments.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This case is, after all, about two things, old memories and really, really old memories.

JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From the beginning, the defense zeroed in on the big question for the jury. Is it possible to repress memories of sexual abuse for some 20 years, memories the accuser found it difficult to talk about?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please don't make me. Every time I come back, I have to start over. I can't (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

BELLINI: The prosecutor says it all came rushing back during a phone call three years ago.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He is crying. He is sobbing. He hangs up the phone. He will tell you he started to remember being touched by the defendant. He remembered things in the bathroom, in the church.

BELLINI: Defrocked priest Paul Shanley, who turned 74 on the first day of the trial, sat quietly listening with the help of a hearing aid. The alleged rape victim, whose photo could not be shown, tearfully testified about what happened to him in church when he was taken out of religious class as a 6-year-old.

The defense presented only one witness, a University of California psychologist who questioned the validity of repressed memories.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And so most people think these are false memories. But the individuals who hold these beliefs hold them with a great deal of detail and emotion.

BELLINI: Prosecutor Lynn Rooney (ph) says the pain felt by the accuser, now a 27-year-old firefighter in a Boston suburb, was evident and real.

LYNN ROONEY, PROSECUTOR: He came in here, and he told you what happened because that man, that defendant, that priest raped him and molested him when he was a little boy, over and over again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just a lie.

BELLINI: Defense attorney Frank Mendano (ph) says the evidence doesn't add up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This isn't a case of reasonable doubt, this is a case of massive doubt on the evidence in this case.

BELLINI: The jury must decide on two counts of rape of a child and two counts of indecent assault. If convicted on all counts, the defendant faces up to life in prison.

Jason Bellini, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Startling revelations tonight about what went on behind the scenes between Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush, during one of the lowest points for the U.S. in the war in Iraq. Rumsfeld made an offer he hasn't revealed until tonight.

CNN senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre has details for you.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: It was in May of last year, at the height of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, when the halls of Congress were ringing with calls for Donald Rumsfeld's head.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what do you say to those people who are calling for your resignation?

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Needless to say, if I felt I could not be effective, I'd resign in a minute. MCINTYRE: But what Rumsfeld didn't say then, and reveals now for the first time in an interview with CNN's Larry King, is that he did offer to resign, not just one, but twice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "LARRY KING LIVE")

RUMSFELD: I submitted my resignation to President Bush twice during that period. And I told him that I felt that he ought to make the decision as to whether or not I stayed on. And he made that decision, and said he did want me to stay on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Mr. Secretary, thank you for your hospitality.

MCINTYRE: After a few days of speculation about Rumsfeld's fate,, President Bush gave him a public vote of confidence after a Pentagon meeting.

BUSH: You're doing a superb job. You are a strong secretary of defense. And our nation owes you a debt of gratitude.

MCINTYRE: Rumsfeld's critics accuse him of setting a tone that allowed the abuse to take place, and of authorizing interrogation techniques that are tantamount to torture, a charge he flatly rejects.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: Rumsfeld told Larry King that while he was startled by the abuse that took place at Abu Ghraib, he had no regrets, arguing that what happened on what he called "the midnight shift" at the prison could hardly have been managed, he said, by somebody here in Washington, Carol.

COSTELLO: Jamie, why now is he admitting to this?

MCINTYRE: Well, the simple question is, he was asked. Now, he's been asked this before, and he's never made any on-the-record comments about it. But (UNINTELLIGIBLE) asked about the situation, you know, he basically has added to the historical record of what happened during that chapter of U.S. history last year.

COSTELLO: Jamie McIntyre reporting, thank you.

From an attempted resignation to a confirmation, a quick news note tonight. Alberto Gonzales was confirmed today by the Senate as the nation's new attorney general. The vote was 60 to 36, with all the no votes coming from Democrats and one independent. Gonzales becomes the first Hispanic attorney general.

Hard-selling Social Security, that story tops our look at news cross-country tonight.

Fargo, North Dakota, President Bush is taking his plan for Social security overhaul on the road. He laid it out in detail last night in his State of the Union address, and he'll lobby for it in five states today and tomorrow.

Charleston, South Carolina, in the Zoloft double murder trial, the prosecution rested its case today against 15-year-old Christopher Pitman (ph). His lawyers say he was hallucinating on the antidepressant Zoloft when he shot his grandparents in the head.

Lake Jackson, Texas, a woman is indicted for allegedly killing her husband in a most unusual way, with a sherry enema. Michael Warner was an alcoholic who could not swallow alcohol because of ulcers and heartburn, so he apparently convinced his wife to give him the sherry. It sent his blood alcohol level way up. He died, and she is now being charged with negligent homicide.

Jacksonville, Florida, a Super Bowl casualty even before kickoff. Here's an ad you will not be seeing after all.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, FORD TV COMMERCIAL)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: See you next week. Thank you very much.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): Is it a sin, is it a crime, loving you, dear, like I do?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: As you can see, the ad shows a priest tempted by a Lincoln truck after a little girl put the key in the collection basket. Ford withdrew the commercial after complaints that it exploits the sex scandals involving the Catholic Church.

And that's a look at stories cross-country tonight.

360 next, straight-A student, Eagle Scout, killer? He says he did the crime, but the question is, why?

Plus, security cameras catch a fiery robbery. But what else are they watching? You may be surprised.

And when reporting a crime could end your life. We'll visit one place where witness intimidation is violent and rampant.

But first, your picks, the most popular stories on CNN.com right now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: In Wisconsin, a 19-year-old Eagle Scout is being tried this week for murder. There's no doubt the defendant shot and stabbed the victim to death, he's pleaded guilty to that. But what the jury must decide is if he killed for the thrill of it, or because he didn't know it was wrong.

CNN's Keith Oppenheim has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Gary Hirte was caught on tape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where do you, where did you, like, shoot him?

GARY HIRTE: I shot him in the back of the head.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In the back of the head?

GARY HIRTE: Yes, I did.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where did you stab him?

GARY HIRTE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE), I stabbed him in the back twice and in the heart once.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OPPENHEIM: That conversation, played in court this week, was between Hirte and an ex-girlfriend who'd gone to police. Hirte, now 19, admits in August of 2003 he went to this house and murdered 37- year-old substitute teacher Glen Kapitski (ph). Afterward, friends testified, Hirte began to brag.

LAURA POKRZYWINSKI, FRIEND OF GARY HIRTE: And Gary said, he had the shotgun, and he thought about the consequences, and he went, he, like, shrugged his shoulders, and he shot the guy in the back of the head.

OPPENHEIM: Friends said, at first, it was hard to believe. After all, in Wyowega (ph), Wisconsin, Gary Hirte was a star, the town's first Eagle Scout in 20 years.

DEANA HIRTE, DEFENDANT'S MOTHER: I want a specific diagnosis for my son, and I want him to be helped.

OPPENHEIM: Defense lawyers say help is what Hirte needs. They say he has a borderline personality disorder. They also contend he had sexual contact with Glen Kapitski, which ultimately sent him into a rage.

DR. GEORGE PALERMO, FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIST: And I believe that he killed this man because he wanted unconsciously, probably, to kill his own homosexuality.

OPPENHEIM: Prosecutors say there was no sexual encounter, and that Hirte explains the real motive on tape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE), why would you do something like that?

GARY HIRTE: I just wanted to do it to see if I could get away with it, OK? (END VIDEO CLIP)

OPPENHEIM: Hirte didn't get away with it, and it will be up to a jury to decide if he should be held in a hospital, or behind bars.

Keith Oppenheim, CNN, Chicago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Security forces edge closer to Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi. That tops our look at global stories in the uplink.

Iraq's interior minister says the most-wanted terrorist in Iraq is near capture. He said U.S. and Iraqi forces had almost caught Zarqawi two or three times in the past month. Once, he said, they may have missed him by just an hour. The U.S. government has a $25 million bounty for Zarqawi's head.

London, England, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived there just a couple of hours ago. She's on her first trip abroad since she was sworn in. She'll tour Europe and then stop in the Middle East for separate talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Tehran, Iran, Western diplomats say Iran is testing parts that could be used to develop nuclear weapons, even though the Islamic republic had promised to stop such activities. In the meantime, a senior Iranian supreme leader is responding to President Bush's remarks against Iran last night. He says President Bush, like his four predecessors, would fail to topple Tehran's clerical leadership.

And that is tonight's uplink.

Coming up on 360, a splash of color at the capital. Why some lawmakers are suddenly doing a little finger painting.

Also tonight, caught on tape. Few things like this brawl escape a camera's lens. So who's watching you?

Plus our special series, Chasing the High. Meth cases on the rise, and children are the victims. We're covering all the angles.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "STOP SNITCHIN'")

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To all you rats and snitches lucky enough to cop one of these DVD, I hope you catch AIDS in your mouth, and your lip's thing to die.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Ooh, crazy threats. That's just the tip of the iceberg as police try to protect the people who help them most. Authorities estimate there are 21,000 gangs nationwide, and they say juvenile gang murders are up 25 percent since the year 2000.

More crime means more concern and more danger for the people who witness them.

CNN's Kelli Arena looks at the growing problem of witness intimidation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right, come on. Get something to eat.

KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Carol Grim lovingly tends to the parakeets her youngest daughter gave her shortly after her eldest girl was killed.

CAROL GRIM, MOTHER OF MURDER VICTIM: There's nothing like losing a child. You never get over it. Doesn't matter how old they are or how young they are. Your child is your child.

ARENA: Carol's daughter Angela, the brunette on the right, witnessed a murder six years ago and told police about it. For that, she was fatally shot.

GRIM: Angela was trying to run up the steps, and then she was shot once in the back and twice in the back of the head and was killed instantly.

ARENA: The killing took place in suburban Maryland, not far from the streets of Baltimore, where prosecutors say witness intimidation touches nearly every homicide case.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "STOP SNITCHIN'")

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To all you rats and snitches lucky enough to cop one of these DVD, I hope you catch AIDS in your mouth, and your lip's the first thing to die.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARENA: The problem is so pervasive that when local filmmaker and business owner Rodney Bethea told locals to rap on camera about what was on their minds, it is all they talked about.

RODNEY BETHEA, PRODUCER, "STOP SNITCHIN'": As we started to gather that footage, and we were looking back at it, we, everyone was pretty much talking about the snitching topic. So that's how "Stop Snitchin'" was born.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "STOP SNITCHIN'")

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I do talk tough, and I do (UNINTELLIGIBLE) your face.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARENA: The DVD is extremely controversial, because the message seems to be, Keep your mouth shut, or else.

BETHEA: There are greater issues that cause these things to happen. Only thing I'm doing is showing you the reality of what happened. I'm not glorifying it, I'm not saying I agree with it. I'm just showing you the reality.

ARENA: Copies of the DVD are in nearly every office at Maryland's state capital, courtesy of veteran prosecutor Patricia Jessamy, who says witness intimidation is growing more violent.

PATRICIA JESSAMY, BALTIMORE CITY STATE'S ATTORNEY: I've been in Baltimore city state's attorney's office now for 18 years. I've prosecuted arson cases and all kinds of other violent crime cases. But this is the first time I have seen criminals who are so emboldened.

ARENA: Jessamy is lobbying in support of a state bill to increase the maximum penalty for witness intimidation from five to 20 years in prison, and to allow witness statements to be used in court even if the witnesses themselves do not or cannot appear.

JESSAMY: We lose 25 percent of our nonfatal shootings because witnesses either go underground, they cannot be found, or, when they come t court, if we can find them, they recant their testimony.

ARENA: Baltimore's police department even created a special squad for the sole purpose of tracking down witnesses to homicides who don't show.

DET. LIEUT. BRIAN MATULONIS, BALTIMORE POLICE HOMICIDE: Right now, we're going to go to the south part of Baltimore City. And we're looking for two witnesses that have failed to appear for a trial that's going on right now.

ARENA (on camera): Part of the problem is fear. The other is money. States cannot afford to provide protection for all witnesses, and those who do get protection usually only get it for as long as the trial lasts.

(voice-over): Carol Grim says that should not stop anyone from coming forward and doing the right thing, just like her daughter did.

GRIM: I'm very proud of her for standing up for her rights, for not being afraid, for telling the police what he did, and, at least, getting him and a couple other ones off the street.

ARENA: Kelli Arena, CNN, Baltimore.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Everywhere you go, everywhere you turn, a camera lens peering down at you, capturing every move. Naughty or nice? Tonight, a 360 look at surveillance USA. Is it invasion of privacy, or a price you pay for security?

And a 360 special, Chasing the High, crystal meth destroying the bonds of mother and child, all for a fix to get high. Tonight, meet a mother who chose drugs over her children and is now paying a heavy price for her addiction to meth.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I felt so ashamed and so guilty, I almost just wanted to die because of what I done to my kids.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: 360 continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: In the next half hour on 360, the meth epidemic. Mother's get high, children suffer, our special series continues.

Plus, when something happens, there's often a camera recording it all. Is it security or an invasion of privacy. But, first, tonight's "Reset."

In Los Angeles, California no criminal charges. The police officer who was caught in this videotape last June apparently beating an African-American car theft suspect with a metal flashlight will not face any charges. After a 5 month review, the district attorney's office concluded there was not sufficient evidence of wrongdoing.

In Iraq, insurgents attacked an Iraqi police convoy near the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. An Iraqi policeman was killed, 3 others injured.

And more problems for the United Nations. An initial investigative report released today says the man in charge of the U.N.' oil for food program repeatedly solicited several million of barrels of oil worth about 1 million bucks. He denies the allegations.

And that is tonight's "Reset."

Also tonight, we continue our series, "Chasing the High." We look at the meth epidemic. Methamphetamine has become the most dangerous drug problem in small town America. And many of its victims are children.

The DEA says 12 to 14-year-olds living in smaller towns are more than twice as likely to try meth than those who live in big cities. As Randi Kaye reports, some of those kids get hooked before they are even born.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Thorton, Colorado 10 miles outside Denver, a drug raid underway. But this bust will reveal more than just drugs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sit there. KAYE: A victim. One you wouldn't expect. His name is Brandon. Just 18 months, exposed to a world no child should even see. Brandon and his mother are in this home where the drug methamphetamine is being made. It's a meth lab.

Right next to Brandon's toys, deadly chemicals. His mother reaches out to him to assure him, but it's too late. His mother is arrested, later convicted for drug procession and child abuse.

This little boy now faces a tough journey. He's not the only one.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We see it over and over and over again. I'm sick of it. I'm angry. I'm tired of it.

KAYE: Meth use is the spiking across the country and children are suffering.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who's going to raise these children? Who's going to care for these children?

KAYE: Juvenile court judge Peggy Walker sees it in her Douglasville, Georgia courtroom every day.

JUDGE PEGGY WALKER, JUVENILE COURT: It's the most addictive drug I have ever seen.

KAYE: Meth is made using everyday house hold items like hydrochloric acid, found in toilet bowl cleaner. That chemicals are used to convert common cold medicines containing psuedoephedrine into meth. That process creates toxic fumes that are especially harmful to children.

(on camera): According to the national alliance for drug endangered children, kids are found in more than 30 percent of meth labs raided nationwide. It also says most women who are meth cooks are of child bearing age. And when a pregnant woman gets high on meth, so does her baby.

Dr. Rizwan Shah is a pediatrician who studies the effects of meth on children.

DR. RIZWAN SHAH, PEDIATRICIAN: Methamphetamine crossing placenta can cause a sudden rise in the blood pressure of the brain. And that can cause a stroke in an unborn child, resulting in convulsions, muscle tone problems, tremors, and sometimes even paralysis.

KAYE: This is what a meth baby looks like: premature, hooked on meth, and suffering the pangs of withdrawal. They don't want to eat or sleep and the simplest things cause great pain.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And she would cry when she would have her diaper changed, because it was so tender and sore.

KAYE: This baby's bottom is burned. When her mother inhaled meth, so did she. Now, every time the baby goes to the bathroom, the acids from the meth in her system burn her own skin.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The buttocks actually is bleeding.

KAYE: Ron Mullins is a cop turned coordinator with the National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children. During his years on the street, he shut down hundreds of meth labs. Today, he helps states care for children of meth.

RON MULLINS, NATIONAL ALLIANCE FOR DRUG ENDANGERED CHILDREN: These children are being raising in homes that are absolutely filthy, there's rotting food everywhere. There's animal and human feces everywhere. It's deplorable conditions.

WALKER: Parents are walking away from their children, they walk away from their spouses, they walk away from their home, they walk away from their jobs, they walk away from their life as they knew it.

KAYE: No one knows that more than this woman. Her name is Tiffany. She's a meth addict and a mom. Her life offers a glimpse at the power of meth. It's so powerful, it can pull a mother away from her child.

"TIFFANY," METH ADDICT: I felt so ashamed and so guilty. I almost just wanted to die, because of what I had done to my kids.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: 360 next, more on the meth epidemic. We'll hear Tiffany's wrenching story. How the power of meth made her do things she says no mother should ever do.

Also tonight, caught on tape cameras everywhere. Are you being watched?

And later, a colorful new symbol of solidarity around the world.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Before the break, we briefly introduced you to a woman named Tiffany. She's a meth addict and a mother who says she wanted to die because of what she'd done to her kids. CNN's Randi Kaye has more of her story now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE (voice-over): Look into the eyes of this woman. You'll see a life full of drugs, abuse, neglect and violence. Her name is Tiffany. She asked that we not use her last name. She says she's been around meth since she was young child. A meth addict since her early teens. She's also a mom who chose drugs over her own children.

TIFFANY: I would never make that more important than getting another dose.

KAYE: At 25, Tiffany says she is clean. She was hooked on methamphetamine for a decade. It's like speed, but far more addictive. On the street, they call it ice, glass or crank. Some women take it to lose weight, others to help them get chores done and some, like Tiffany, because she didn't know any better.

TIFFANY: Your heart just, you know, starts racing, 200 beats a minute, and then your legs go weak, and you try to get up and walk around, but you're not going to walk straight for a few minutes. And then after about 30 minutes the rush is gone, and you're just up, and you're just wide open, 90 miles an hour.

KAYE (on camera): How long had you gone at some point without sleep?

TIFFANY: I think the most I'd ever stayed up was right at three weeks.

KAYE (voice-over): Tiffany tried meth for the first time when she was 12. She snorted it.

(on camera): And do you remember the first time, what it felt like?

TIFFANY: I remember it burned. It hurt.

KAYE (voice-over): Still, Tiffany kept doing it. Meth is so powerful, it takes a hold of you and doesn't let go.

That taste led to a lifestyle Tiffany never imagined for herself.

TIFFANY: It had become a daily thing, pretty much. And if I wasn't using meth, I was smoking marijuana or drinking or taking pills, whatever.

KAYE: At 15, Tiffany had her first child, Terrell (ph). But meth was still her baby. She'd hit the street, searching for the next party, the next high. Gone weeks at a time, family members looked after her son.

TIFFANY: It's really sad to say this, but my son had gotten so used to it, he'd quit worrying about me.

KAYE: And she quit worrying about herself, then she got pregnant again. Even that didn't stop her from taking the drug.

TIFFANY: I think I was almost three months pregnant when I found out, and I was pregnant and I'd been using pretty heavily.

KAYE: Her daughter, Audrey (ph), is now almost 3.

TIFFANY: I wouldn't shoot up in front of them. I wouldn't smoke it in front of them. I would hide in the bathroom. But my son always new something was going on. I left my son at school a few times. I would be so caught up in what I was doing, I just wouldn't remember him. KAYE: Typical behavior for a mom on meth, too high to know where her children are, too high to even care. A meth high can last 12 hours, plenty of time for a child to get into trouble.

And when Tiffany came down...

TIFFANY: I felt so ashamed and so guilty. And I almost just wanted to die.

KAYE: And she almost did. She downed a bottle of pills, cut her wrists.

TIFFANY: I could be dead right now. By all rights, I should be.

KAYE: Then, the car accident. These photos, and ugly reminder.

TIFFANY: That made me think how close I came to death.

KAYE (on camera): So what would drive a mother to take such risk? Remember, before Tiffany was a mom who used meth, she was a child who used meth. Where she learned to do this drug is at the heart of her story.

TIFFANY: I think how a child turns out has got to do a lot with her parents. And what I was shown was how I turned out to be.

KAYE (voice-over): Tiffany's mom was arested and charged in 2003 with running a meth lab. She has not yet entered a plea.

TIFFANY: For a long time I wanted to blame her for everything.

KAYE: But now Tiffany blames herself, at least for what she did to her kids. This photo was taken on the night she was arrested for possession of meth, the night her life started to turn around.

TIFFANY: It's real hard to look back at what I did to my kids.

KAYE: Her family refused to bail her out of jail. Tiffany's time away from home hit her son Terrell hardest.

TIFFANY: He stayed with my step-sister and she would tell me he would cry himself to sleep at night (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

KAYE: Jail sobered Tiffany, gave her time reflect. It forced her into recovery, something she still struggles with 2 1/2 rears later.

(on camera): Do you feel you're broken the cycle in your family?

KAYE: I hope so.

I'm watching you, baby.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE: Tiffany and her children leave in northern Georgia where these days she holds down a job and goes to school. In her free time she counsels other meth addicts to help them in recovery. Now those images we showed you tonight, the children caught up in the cycle of this drug, probably left you asking what is being done about this?

Well just last week, Republican and Democratic senators introduced the Combat Meth Act which would help put children first in the first against this drug. It would also put cold medicines used to make meth behind the counter, limit the number of packages consumers can buy, and anyone buying that medicine would have to show identification and sign for it.

So there are steps being taken. But with the incidence involving this drug doubling in every state every year, it is very hard to get a handle on it -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Randi, I was just wondering about the children because you know, it just breaks your heart. Do many children die because of their mothers' addictions?

KAYE: I wouldn't say many. But we do know of some cases, in fact, one case, right here in Georgia, not too far from where Tiffany lives, a little boy Shelton Hicks (ph), just 11 months old, was living with his parents. They were running a meth lab in the house. The house did explode and little Shelton was burned all over his body. He died four months later and his parents are now serving life in prison for his murder.

Randi Kaye, live in Atlanta tonight, thank you. Our "Chasing the High" series continues tomorrow, with kids using inhalants. It's a disturbing trend and many are getting their highs from things found in their own homes.

"360" next, security cameras, they're watching your every move. See what happens to a thief thought who tried to steal a fortune from an ATM.

Also tonight, saluting freedom, how a new finger of choice is emerging.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Well, maybe George Orwell was right when he said Big Brother is watching you. Take this would-be bank robber in Kansas City, for example, take a look. His every move captured by a surveillance camera. He used a torch to burn the hinges off of an ATM and then a crowbar to peel back the metal door, and finally, made the machine erupt into a ball of fire. All that work for nothing because he's in jail now.

But more and more, it seems we are all being watched by surveillance cameras, raising the question, where's the line between privacy and security?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO (voice-over): Security cams capturing life and death moments, like this grainy video from Ceres, California, showing Andres Raya, a Marine, opening fire on unsuspecting policemen, leaving a trail of bodies before cops could kill him.

And outside a Wal-Mart in Tyler, Texas, surveillance cameras catch a man following a pretty cashier, 19-year-old Megan Holden would end up dead, and Johnny Williams was arrested. For police, cameras are priceless.

JOHN FIRMAN, INTL. ASSOC. OF CHIEF OF POLICE: Videotape from the 7-11, from the Bank of America, from an in-car camera in a police car and from a fixed camera, a stationary camera that's there by the police, that officer and that department now have a whole cadre of evidence.

COSTELLO: There are an estimated 3 million security cameras across the country. You're being watched at the ATM, at the office, at the mall, Winona Ryder, surprise! Her Saks shop lifting spree caught on tape by hidden security cameras. Cameras just the one trained on these 911 operators in Massachusetts providing all the evidence needed, their bosses say, to fire them for dancing, drinking and doing drugs on the job.

At this moment, there is a good chance you're being watched. The American Civil Liberties Union says Americans are spied on dozens of times an hour, a statistic it finds alarming.

JAY STANLEY, ACLU: We're rapidly getting to a place where you have no privacy left. And we need to put in place good rules and regulation to make sure that this vast new power isn't abused.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: We're being watched in so many ways that many of us can not possibly imagine. Joining us from Washington to talk about other ways that our lives are not our own is Washington Post reporter Robert O'Harrow who's book title says it all, "No Place to Hide." Welcome, Robert.

ROBERT O'HARROW, WASHINGTON POST: Thanks for having me.

COSTELLO: All right. We know we're begin watched. But you say, in the future, cameras will capture more than our actions, what do you mean by that?

O'HARROW: Well, cameras are amazing things, right? They're pretty much everywhere these days. And they are spreading really fast. And as they watch us, they're not just recording, but, they're making computer files that can be searched with video datamines now -- datamining operations. So, it's not looking at us now, but, they'll be able to find out where we are at a particular time in some date, not too far back.

COSTELLO: So, this is being used to predict what we might do in the future?

O'HARROW: Well, the cameras are the most obvious form of post- 9/11 surveillance. The real way they are watching us, I mean the private companies in particular is through lots and lots of information that we leave behind in the routine course of our lives.

COSTELLO: What kind of routine information? There's this company, a private company called Choice Point, it's a company they collects data, it has almost 20 billion records. Where does the information come from that go to that private company?

O'HARROW: Well, if you think about the regular routine. And you think about the cell phone calls you make, the the ATMs, and the toll booths you go through, every time you interact with an electronic device these days, you're leaving some sort of trail about when you were there, what you were doing. And when you take money out of the bank, there's artificial intelligence that's watching what you do there and reporting it back, to see if there's a risk.

COSTELLO: So, if you wanted to find out what information that company had on me or my neighbor, could I do that?

O'HARROW: Well, in some cases you can buy that. You can buy dossiers about people. And the companies that sell it to you also sell that information to the government and to the intelligence services. What's really amazing, the characters behind the companies. There's a former drug smuggler who became a data genius and a wealthy millionaire. There's a boy genius who made face recognition software. And there's a guy who dropped out of high school who is so smart with data that he works very intimately with some of the most important intelligence agencies in the U.S.

COSTELLO: I was just going to ask you, what do these characters do with the information then?

O'HARROW: Well, what they're trying to do is to protect us. What we don't know, most of us anyway, is just how much information is out there. Literally, billions and billions of records. And how, after 9/11, the government has embraced these private companies to try to watch all of us with the idea of making us safe. But of course, it doesn't take much to remember both the good uses this can be put to, but also the Hoover era, and the FBI abuses and the Army abuses, when they were doing domestic surveillance. And the fact is, we're heading, we're hurdling really toward a very watched society where there are no rules in place to make sure the information that the is used properly.

COSTELLO: Interesting and just a little frightening. Robert O'Harrow, Washington Post reporter and a man who has written a book called "No Place to Hide." Thank you for joining us tonight.

O'HARROW: Thank you. Appreciate it.

COSTELLO: We do too.

360 next finger pointing as a sign for respect.

Plus, tomorrow, addiction and "Chasing the High." How children are getting hooked to things found at home. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Finally tonight, saluting solidarity. It's coming in a couple of colors and turning into this season's hottest accessory. CNN's Jeanne Moos reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Are they hailing a cab? Testing the wind? Are they testing their peripheral vision? You can sum up the latest patriotic trend in two words: Got ink?

(on camera): Move over middle finger, the index finger is the new finger of choice.

(voice-over): It's a gesture of homage to Iraqis who were brave enough to vote, purple ink used to prevent people from voting more than once, became a badge of honor. For Iraqis who voted in U.S., a finger was worth a thousand words.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have the purple finger to prove it.

MOOS: Now Congressman are flaunting it on TV.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I marked my finger.

MOOS: Folks made a point of pointing their fingers at the State of the Union. Web sites are posting photos people send in of their upraised index fingers in shades ranging from blue to purple to turquoise, poised on a trigger by the soldier in Iraq.

Some display a single digit, some prefer the victory or peace sign. This Iraqi woman at the State of the Union combined the two.

This GOP blogger's Web site credits a 10-year-old Montana girl for inspiring others to dye their fingers. For her efforts, Shelby Dangerfield got to meet the president he visited Montana Thursday.

Comedy shows may joke about it.

JON STEWART, DAILY SHOW: Is that ink?

ROB CORDORY, DAILY SHOW: Yeah. Funny story, that's from Hassan, my translator, he voted before earlier before we...

MOOS: One political Web site offered a recipe for a cocktail drink called the purple finger made from grenedine, cassis made from black currants and vodka.

But from us, the purple finger got the -- thumbs down.

Another Web site set up by this University Michigan law student calls itself, give terror the finger.

OK, not everybody is using their index finger to make a political point. But not since ET cast this shadow across movie screens... ET, EXTRATERRESTRIAL: E.T.

MOOS: ...has a finger been so poignant. Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: That's 360 for tonight. Thank you for watching. I'm Carol Costello. CNN's primetime continues with PAULA ZAHN NOW.

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