Return to Transcripts main page
Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
U.S. Government Mining Data from Internet Companies; Transgender Former Navy SEAL Speaks Out; 10-Year-Old Sarah Murnaghan Needs Lung Transplant; Tracking Tropical Storm Andrea; Newtown Shooting Scammer Pleads Guilty; 14th Survivor Pulled From Collapsed Building; Powerball Stranger Revealed
Aired June 06, 2013 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Government grabbing your cell phone records. They are online with you as well. New and frankly stunning reports on just how much they know about your life online.
Also tonight, a remarkable story. She was a warrior beyond compare as a Navy SEAL Commander Christopher Beck. Now she's showing no less courage in her new life, tonight, only on this program, Kristin Beck talks about her new and newly public life as a woman.
Plus, the first hurricane season's first big storm comes ashore. Tens of millions of more people still in its path.
A lot to get to tonight. We begin, though, with breaking news. It goes far beyond the government just accessing your cell phone records. That was the first shoe to drop. The second shoe fell late today. They're looking at your Internet access as well. Plugging directly into Facebook, Google, YouTube, Yahoo! and five other big names. In short, a direct line into your online life.
The FBI, National Security Agency are doing it, according to a report in the "Washington Post" and Britain's "Guardian" newspaper. They have been doing it for the last six years. Part of a highly classified, never-before-disclosed intelligence gathering program code named PRISM. According to the reporting it began during the Bush administration but has grown sharply, exponentially, during the Obama years.
The FBI and NSA vacuuming up your e-mails, online pictures, audio, video, by tapping directly into the servers of those five companies that I mentioned, plus Microsoft, Paltalk, AOL, Skype, Apple, and soon, according to the "Post," Dropbox.
The "Post" and "Guardian" reporting that PRISM use the data feed as raw material for a massive data mining operation aimed at spotting patterns that might provide early warning of a terrorist attack. As we said, it comes hard on the heels of the revelation the "Guardian" newspaper and elsewhere that must be giving any one of the tens of millions of Americans who use a Verizon cell phone a chill.
Word that the FBI and NSA asked for and got a secret court order giving them access to phone records for all Verizon cell phone calls, foreign, domestic and local. Not the conversations themselves, just everything else that's identifiable. White House officials neither confirming nor denying the story but they are defending the practice of data collection for national security purposes.
And again, both these programs have their roots in the prior administrations but have grown immensely since then, leading the "Huffington Post" today to run a composite photo under the headline, "George W. Obama." It's also turning partisan politics on ahead -- on its head with a number of Democrats slamming the president, Republicans defending his policy.
A lot to talk about with Jim Acosta at the White House and former congressman and liberation, Ron Paul.
Jim, this has been a remarkable day. First of all, what's the latest you're hearing in Washington from this?
JIM ACOSTA, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, I can tell you right now that White House officials are simply not commenting and congressional officials who have oversight over these matters, they are not commenting about these latest revelations, broken this afternoon in the "Washington Post" and "Guardian" newspapers.
But we can tell you, Anderson, you've been talking just over the last couple of minutes about these -- about these, I guess, revelations that have come out in these stories that the government has been using the servers that -- of about nine Internet companies, technology companies, out in the Silicon Valley, to look at what people have been doing online, but I have to tell you, Anderson, in the last hour or so, we have gotten a number of statements from some of those companies in question.
You mentioned Google, you mentioned Apple. Well, we have a statement from Apple saying that they have never heard of this program called PRISM. They said they do not provide any government agency with direct access to their servers.
Google put out a statement saying that from time to time, they do disclose data to the government in accordance with the law, they say, but they do not have a backdoor as they call it into their servers for the government to use.
So there is some pushback. There seems to be, I guess, a contradiction here perhaps if you listen to what these companies are saying at this point, but as you said, Anderson, a very remarkable day up on Capitol Hill. Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle questioning the Obama administration trying to get at exactly what is going on with the Patriot Act and the authority that's been given apparently to the FBI and the NSA to look at phone records from millions of Americans who subscribe to Verizon communications.
But at this point, just no answers from the White House at this point. They're not commenting directly on those stories, only saying that this type of data collection is consistent with the law and that it does protect national security.
COOPER: And if it's Verizon, probably one can assume it's probably others as well.
Congressman Paul will be joining us on the phone.
What is your reaction to this news that it's not just phone records but apparently, according to the "Washington Post" also Internet data that the government is monitoring?
RON PAUL (R), FORMER TEXAS CONGRESSMAN (via phone): Well, I guess I wish I could be shocked. I'm not surprised. I think there has been a few of us who have been warning about this, voted against the Patriot Act, voted against this FISA court so it doesn't surprise me a bit. And because it's not confirmed by these companies, this means that they are intimidated, they can get in a lot of trouble.
I mean, they can -- they can turn over these records and they're not allowed to even talk about it so it's a horrible, horrible situation. But one thing that's doing it, these events are really helping me make my case that I've been working on for a couple of years. You've got to watch the power of government. Power in government is almost always abused and this is abuse and it isn't Democrats and it isn't Republicans, it's both of them.
And then it's the toleration of the people, the people put up with it so it's very, very dangerous. I don't think there's anything left to our Fourth Amendment. This whole idea of needing probable cause to get a search warrant, that's totally gone. And this to me is very, very serious but also, it's an awakening call.
Let's hope that we can get the progressives together with the libertarians and the constitutionalists and say enough is enough. We've had enough of this. We have to stop. Our economy doesn't work, the foreign policy's in shambles.
COOPER: Congressman --
PAUL: And now we have no privacy because people say they want to be safe. Governments cannot make us safe. To pretend they can make us safe, they have to destroy personal liberty. They can make an attempt.
COOPER: Congressman --
PAUL: They can make us safe if they turn this into cattle in a cage or something. You know, but this is --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Congressman, let me --
PAUL: -- devastating so I'm not surprised at what's happening.
COOPER: Congressman Mike Rogers, who is obviously head of the House Homeland Security Committee, he said today that going through those phone records prevented a terrorist attack. Do -- A, do you buy that and how do you argue against this kind of surveillance if it is in fact preventing attacks? PAUL: Well, first thing is, I don't believe it. I've heard so many of those stories. There have been dozens and dozens of terrorist attacks over the years. The FBI has solved and they save us from all this. But no, this is -- this is not justification to turn over your liberties, turn over everything that is precious, and say the government can have total control of me because they might stop something sometime.
No, that would never be a justification. We've been warned about that. There's a lot of people that would agree with them, I got to be safe, you know, safety is the only thing that I care about. Both economically and physical safety is the driving force and it's also the destruction of liberty and that is what we're witnessing today.
COOPER: Jim, the political reaction to this is interesting. I mean, a lot of people in the president's own party are not thrilled by the national security policies. I mean, where do you see this going? What is the next step here?
ACOSTA: Well, Anderson, it's interesting. You know, Lindsey Graham, he came out very forcefully in favor of this program at a hearing earlier today, and was basically saying keep going, President Obama, keep going, Obama administration, I like this program and there are many of us like that.
But he was commenting, Anderson, about phone records, the collection of phone records, and now what we have is sort of an apparent bundling of government surveillance data, not just your phone but also perhaps your Internet. And I think that is why you're going to maybe see the dam breaking when it comes to some of the frustrations up on Capitol Hill.
You heard from Barbara Mikulski, a liberal Democrat from Maryland, who is chair of the Appropriations Committee, telling Eric Holder at a hearing hey, wait a minute, we're a little sick and tired of this idea that only the people on the Intelligence Committee are briefed on this. Perhaps other members of Congress should be briefed on this because, Anderson, they're being blindsided by all of this right now.
COOPER: Yes.
ACOSTA: Not only do they have people calling them saying hey, wait a minute, my phone records are being collected by the government. Tomorrow they're going to be hearing from Americans all over the country who are worried about when they're online, what videos they're looking at.
COOPER: Yes.
ACOSTA: What websites they're looking at. Is that being collected as well?
COOPER: Jim Acosta, appreciate it. Congressman Ron Paul, appreciate you calling in as well.
I think I said Rogers. Rogers on the House Intelligence Committee. I misspoke there before.
Again reaction from both sides of the story really defies partisan politics. Let's talk about it now. Joining us tonight two partisans who proved this fact. Democratic strategist Paul Begala and Republican strategist Ari Fleisher. Paul helped get President Obama re-elected. Ari served as press secretary in the George W. Bush administration.
Paul, this is pretty remarkable. I mean, the president is now defending a policy that he probably would have opposed when he was a senator. Does this make sense to you?
PAUL BEGALA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I have no doubt that Barack Obama would be appalled by this in the past. And I'd like to know why he's doing it in the present.
COOPER: Ari, I mean, they're saying well, we don't know the names of the people whose data we're collecting, but you could, I mean, I imagine easily, you know, piece together, link a number to a name.
ARI FLEISCHER, FORMER PRESS SECRETARY FOR PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I praise the president for taking the steps he's taken to keep this country safe from potential -- from potential terrorist threat. Across the board when you look at what he's done, he's continued so many of the Bush administration policies from drone strikes to military commissions to wiretaps to renditions to -- you name it, he's doing it.
It's like George Bush is having his fourth term. And I praise President Obama for it. Now, I think he's a hypocrite. He campaigned against President Obama and he said it was a violation of the Constitution, he campaigned against President Bush, said it was a violation of the Constitution to do these things. But I think he's learned. This is what is necessary to protect the country. And he's wise to do it.
COOPER: Ari, do you not have any concerns about the government collecting all this data, about, you know, potential abuses of it down the road?
FLEISCHER: Here's how I think this worked. It's a very broad collection that detects patterns, it's not aimed at any individuals and they haven't listened to any individual's conversations. I presume they're going to get a proper warrant to do that if necessary. But they'll look for patterns and from those patterns they're able to discern what we need to do with intelligence assets and what we need to do about obtaining other legal means. And this program is legal.
COOPER: But the data that's being collected is not just on terrorists or people who are known to be terrorists. It's on everybody.
FLEISCHER: Well, it's not on any individual. It is about patterns that are seen from a whole series of mails or phone records. And that's because we don't know who from another country is calling but if we see a pattern from another country there are calls going, that gives people at the NSA suspicions. This is how intelligence pieces are put together for them to act on.
COOPER: Paul, do -- is that acceptable to you?
BEGALA: No, is the short answer. No. I mean, I do want my government to protect us from terrorism. I do. But there has got to be a less intrusive alternative than getting the data of every single cell phone call, both domestically and internationally. I don't doubt those who defend the program who say it's been efficacious. I don't doubt that. I'm sure it has been. The question is, what are we trading in response? I mean, my goodness.
My conservative friends don't even want their government to keep records of felons who try to buy guns, and they're OK with keeping records on every single cell phone call placed in America. I mean -- and overseas. It's really -- this is not overreaching, what is?
COOPER: Paul, do you agree with Ari that the president is being a hypocrite here, that you know, he ran against this kind of stuff when it was George Bush doing it and now, I mean, Ari says it's the fourth term in the Bush administration.
BEGALA: Well, yes, I think Ari is trying to needle him just a bit. I -- there have been many places where he's put in place better legal strictures and real legal strictures. I think the drone program which he stepped up far beyond what Bush did is a terrific program but he also gave an important speech just last week where he outlined the legal framework for that. I think there was very little legal framework under Bush.
In fact the guy who wrote the Patriot Act, Jim Sensenbrenner, very conservative right-wing Republican from Wisconsin, Congress Sensenbrenner says that this is excessive and un-American.
FLEISCHER: And what's fascinating is Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat in California, has come out in favor of this. She has. So you have this very unusual changing of position depending I suppose on Democrats are supporting -- I don't know, Republicans are supporting President Obama.
BEGALA: I'm being consistent. I love President Obama. I support him. I spent two years of my life helping re-elect him through that super PAC but you got to call him as you see him. And I also give a lot of credit here to Al Gore. Vice President Gore, no stronger supporter of President Obama, he tweeted right away that he found this obscenely outrageous.
COOPER: It's interesting, Ari. You have the "New York Times" now today saying that the administration has lost all credibility.
FLEISCHER: Yes. The "New York Times" slammed President Obama for this and frankly, I was used to that. The "New York Times" used to slam George Bush for protecting the country and for the steps he took. And I don't want us to drop our guard. I don't want us to be struck again. It's each of these tools that has allowed us not to be hit by a major al Qaeda attack since September 11th. That is vital. As we saw in Boston, Anderson, people are willing to sacrifice their civil liberties, people sheltered inside which was another name for martial law, if the government authorities asked them to do so or told them to do so.
COOPER: It is interesting, Paul, though, I mean, I saw Paul recently, people are less willing to have their civil liberties curtailed now than they were in the days after 9/11.
BEGALA: Well, it has been over a decade and I think the president talked about this in his really important speech he gave on national security at the National Defense University recently. We cannot simply have a one-part test, does this work. It must also be, is this consonant with our values as a free society?
COOPER: All right. Ari, Paul, thanks very much.
BEGALA: Thanks, Anderson.
COOPER: Well, let us know what you think about this government monitoring program. What do you think? Follow me on Twitter @Andersoncooper. Let's talk about it during the break.
Up next, a 360 exclusive interview. A former U.S. Navy SEAL, part of an elite secretive team with a secret herself. Since childhood, this NAVY SEAL felt that deep inside he was really a woman. And now after 20 years as a SEAL, she's finally living the way she truly is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: So you -- there was part of you that felt if you could become a SEAL and be in the toughest of the tough, that feminine side of you would disappear?
KRISTIN BECK, FORMER U.S. NAVY SEAL: Yes. I could totally make it go away. If I could be at the top level and be -- it would maybe go away. Maybe I could cure myself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Welcome back. In just a moment, an exclusive conversation I had today with someone who's demonstrated their bravery time and time again as a U.S. Navy SEAL. They served this country with great strength and great honor for 20 years but now she's showing another kind of strength, living as the woman she's always felt she's been.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): Christopher Todd Beck enlisted with the military in 1990, with the dream of joining the U.S. Navy SEALs. The elite unit with the reputation for being one of the toughest, the fittest and most secretive forces in the U.S. military.
Beck realized that dream, serving for 20 years with the SEALs in some of the most dangerous battlegrounds around the world, including Iraq and Afghanistan. A former Navy SEAL who knew Beck says he had a stellar reputation among his comrades. By the time he retired from service in 2011, Beck had a long list of medals and commendations, including the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. But for 20 years, while Beck was fighting for his country, he was also fighting an inner battle, a battle over his gender identity.
Chris Beck wanted to live his life openly and honestly as a woman, which is what he started doing after he retired in 2011.
Chris Beck is now Kristin Beck and lives her life openly and honestly as a woman. She's currently on hormone replacement therapy and feels like she's becoming the person she was always meant to be. It's been a long journey for Kristin to get to this point. She's written a book about her experience called "Warrior Princess" hoping to help others.
The book comes nearly two years after the Department of Defense repealed its "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, but gender identity has nothing to do with sexuality. Transgender men and women are still banned from service. The 20-year decorated combat veteran would not be allowed to serve in the military as she lives her life today.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: And as you'll hear, she wants it to be a happy, even ordinary life. For years, though, life was anything but. Here's part one of my exclusive conversation with Kristin Beck.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: I don't think most people can imagine what it's like to feel like you are in disguise, to feel like you are not in the body you were meant to be in. That you're not the gender you're meant to be. Did you feel that way, I mean, always? You would feel like that all the time constantly?
BECK: It is a constant but as you suppress it and as you bottle it up, it's not like on the surface so maybe I can put it back a few different layers and so it's not like, you would never notice it because I can push it so deep. But then it does kind of like, it gnaws at you. So it's always there.
COOPER: And so -- how would you -- how would you let off steam, let off pressure? I mean, you said you would go to sometimes Victoria's Secrets?
BECK: Yes. I would go to Victoria's Secret and buy something because it's easy, because I could say yes, you know, close to Valentine's Day was the best days to buy stuff at Victoria's Secret because there's a lot of guys in there buying stuff for their girlfriends. So I'd go buy a couple of things and then bring it home and wear it, and then you have to purge because you couldn't have anything laying around or any (INAUDIBLE) clothes. So you hide a few things.
It's -- you buy a lot of stuff and you have, like, these really cool shoes or these really good stuff that makes you feel, you know, more closer to how you would like to feel, closer to that, you know, that spark, that spirit. And you feel good about yourself. But then you can't expose yourself or you can't take the chance that anybody else would ever see this or you can't let it be there too much because then you get too comfortable with it then you -- it spills out. So you have to get rid of everything.
COOPER: Someone might find it.
BECK: Yes. Or you get too comfortable with that and you fall into that --
COOPER: You let down your guard.
BECK: You let your own guard. So the purge is something that probably every cross-dresser and transgender and everybody else, you have to like -- it's like a reset point where OK, I'm not doing this ever again.
COOPER: You're also in this incredibly secretive community. I mean, you're in this incredibly masculine, you know, traditionally thought of as masculine military community, the Navy SEALs. And so that's got to add a whole other layer to it.
BECK: Huge layer. So I was like that. I was kind of like that onion, so I have this skin of the onion, and you peel that back and you keep having as many layers as the onion as you can but then deep down inside the middle of the onion is where my female persona was hidden. And it was through so many different layers and through so many purges and through so many of those little disguises that I was able to just keep it totally pretty much turned off.
COOPER: So for 20 years as a -- as a Navy SEAL, 20 years in the Navy, there was a core of who you were deep down inside but you had all these disguises layered on top of it.
BECK: Yes.
COOPER: And no one really knew the real you.
BECK: No one ever met the real me.
COOPER: All the people you served with, as close as you were --
BECK: Never. No one -- you could ask every SEAL out of the thousands and thousands and thousands that I've known, or the Special Forces, my Green Beret brothers or anyone else that I've worked with in the military, they -- no one knew anything.
COOPER: Why did you want to be a SEAL?
BECK: That's a tough question. I wanted to be a SEAL because it was like the toughest of the tough. It was -- there was no movies out at the time when I joined up. This is the late '80s and all we knew about it was what we knew from some of the books and some of the old guys from Vietnam and they were the men in green faces. And they did some, you know, amazing things.
And we read the stories about it. And so you grow up with that always around you. I want to be the toughest of the tough. And so for me, having my inside little kernel of me and my femininity, it was like I've heard people say before I escape in hyper-masculinity, and I've heard that term thrown around and it was like, and I kind of look back and I go yes, I didn't know what I was doing. I don't know the term hyper-masculinity. And I didn't know anything. But it was like it's more of those layers being put on. And that is a huge thick layer.
COOPER: So you -- there was part of you that felt if you could become a SEAL and be in the toughest of the tough, that feminine side of you would disappear?
BECK: Yes. I could totally make it go away. If I could be at the top level and be -- maybe this would go away. Maybe I could cure myself.
COOPER: You really thought that?
BECK: Yes. And I think it's probably -- and just the society pressure and family pressure and everything else.
COOPER: Did you like being a SEAL?
BECK: Yes. It's amazing. I mean, can you imagine being in a group of people where life and death is the every day, you know, we do it all the time. It's -- and your trust and your camaraderie and the tightness of that, it's nothing like anything I've ever seen.
COOPER: There's nothing else like that bond.
BECK: Nothing else like that, I don't think. And especially when we start going to war with these guys and we're bleeding in the same sand or we're going to, you know, all the jungles over there and fighting a couple of spots, in places I've been. You know, Bosnia and all over Africa and a few spots in Afghanistan and Iraq, and all the other places I fought in these wars, and these different conflicts, you can never compare that to anything else.
COOPER: And yet you couldn't tell these -- you couldn't tell your brothers, your brothers in arms, who you really were.
BECK: No. Not at all. It was so deep that I was -- I was scared for 20 years, maybe, I don't know. That's a hard thing to explain. But I had to -- I had to suppress it so far. No, I did it here at the house. I mean, when I was -- when I was off out on weekends, so on the weekends I would decompress, I was away from the stuff but then there'd be six months that we're on a deployment or whatever, and I wouldn't do anything. And stay away from it.
COOPER: Well -- even when you stayed away from one, you weren't, you know, buying the clothes or wearing the clothes at home, were you thinking about it in the back of your mind?
BECK: It would come up sometimes. But I mean just like the regular guys, we do, we look at, you know, there are magazines you pick up and start flipping through the magazines.
COOPER: So as a SEAL, when you were with other people, you could look at magazines --
BECK: I think about it totally differently.
COOPER: But you would look at different things? You would look at the pictures of the women and want to be that.
BECK: Yes. Yes.
COOPER: And no one else knew that's what you were looking at --
BECK: No. That was all the way inside that deep little piece. Way inside that onion. They wouldn't know what's inside of my head.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Imagine what that's like for 20 years to be around these people who you love, your brothers in arms, and not be able to really know who -- let them know who you really are. Since that no one ever met the real me, that's what she just said.
Well, how -- coming up next, she's going to talk about how she worried that if someone did meet the real Kristin, that they might lash out against her.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: But you -- that was a legitimate -- that was an actual fear of yours, concern of yours, that if this got out, somebody might kill you in the field?
BECK: Yes. That's a fear I have right now. I don't know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Welcome back. Continuing tonight with former Navy SEAL Commander Kristin Beck, Kristin spoke about how hard it was for 20 years as a SEAL to hide the fact that inside, Kristen felt she was a woman. Part two of our exclusive interview, she talks about the consequences that she feared of breaking her silence.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: It's got to be so sad to think that for 20 years, you have to -- that you have this incredible bond with these people you're fighting with, and you want it to be the closest bond imaginable, and yet, you can't really let yourself be yourself.
BECK: It's definitely tough. We say it is strength honor. When we shake hands, we say strength and honor. That's still what I gave true. I gave true brotherhood, I did my best, 150 percent all the time, and I gave strength and honor and my full brotherhood to every military person I ever worked with.
I feel that pretty much any transgender person that is in the military right now, and there are a lot of them right now that are doing the same thing, and you would never know that they are transgender or anything. It's just too bad because they're doing a great job, and nobody even knows it.
COOPER: What would have happened if you had said to some of the SEALS you were serving with that this is who you are?
BECK: Well, it's probably very similar to some of the support I'm getting right now, but it would have been only that, you know, a few of them that would have accepted it and said, you're my brother and I have never seen you do anything wrong and totally honorable and it's good to go and they might have accepted it and maybe half and half, maybe less. I don't know. That's a chance that if I took it, I might be dead today.
COOPER: You might be dead because what?
BECK: If it got out while I was on active duty. I don't know. I mean, it's hard to say what the reaction would be.
COOPER: But that was an actual fear of yours, concern of yours, that if this got out, somebody might kill me in the field?
BECK: Yes. That's a fear I have right now. I don't know.
COOPER: You worry about that now?
BECK: Yes. There's a lot of prejudice out there. There have been a lot of transgender people who are killed for prejudice, for hatred. When the book came out, some amazing support and some amazing praises, but also some pretty amazing bigotry and hatred and they don't want to know.
They make comments like I will never read that book. If you read could educate yourself a little bit. I don't want you to love me. I don't want you to like me, but I don't want you to beat me up and kill me. You don't have to like me. I don't care, but please don't kill me.
COOPER: Everybody knows that SEALs are incredibly strong. In my opinion, to do what you're doing now requires a whole different kind of strength.
BECK: I've seen that comment quite a bit. Some of my SEAL team brothers they said it's a whole different type of courage. I look at it and it's not something I look at myself or I say, you know, I'm courageous. I never thought about that way, but there have been a lot of people that say that.
COOPER: What's it like to go outside now as you? I imagine part of it is liberating and there's also got to be fear.
BECK: Yes. Going outside for me right now, every time I walk out my front door is -- it's a challenge. It's a mission because I want to make sure that I represent, you know, all of us women in a good way.
COOPER: How do you go from being 20 years a Navy SEAL., the way you would sit as a SEAL, to the way you're sitting right now is as a woman sits.
BECK: I would say to any of the guys out there, if you put a skirt on, you automatically kind of do this.
COOPER: Not a lot of options.
BECK: Yes. It's like whoop, I just -- but it's something I probably have to think about a lot more. Let me step back maybe a couple years after I retired. So after I retired, it was --
COOPER: You retired 2011?
BECK: In 2011, yes. So in 2011, I started -- I went out in public a couple times and started kind of going out the front door. Actually I always went out the side door, but it was a very scary thing.
COOPER: You went out the side door of your own house?
BECK: Yes. Because I didn't want too many lights or anything so I would go out and real quickly jump in my car and drive. I tried to drive from here because you're safe inside my own house. I would open the car door up and drive away and go to a safe haven.
COOPER: Where are you on this journey?
BECK: This is -- it's an amazingly long journey, and the book "The Warrior Princess" is only about the coming out. So it builds up, some of my past, my growing up, some of the SEAL team stuff, and then coming out and some of the psychological aspects of that coming out. The journey I'm on right now, I just recently came out, I'm starting to live my life as a full female. I live, this is my life.
COOPER: What do you hope happens?
BECK: I want to have my life. I want to live in peace and happiness. I fought for 20 years for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I want some happiness.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Earlier, I said that Kristin was a Navy SEAL commander. I misspoke. She was a Navy SEAL senior chief. We're going to have more of my interview with Kristin tomorrow night on this program. Let's talk about it on Twitter right now.
Up next, a new twist to a story we have been following closely about a 10-year-old girl named Sarah fighting to live. Yesterday, a judge ruled she was eligible for adult lungs, a decision that could save her life. Today, a new decision that could save another child.
Also ahead, the first tropical storm of the season makes landfall in Florida. Tens of millions of people are in its path. We'll tell you where it is and how bad it will be.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Welcome back. Tonight, new developments in the story we have been following closely, the 10-year-old Sarah Murnaghan's battle to live. Sarah has cystic fibrosis, desperately needs a lung transplant and she is running out of time. Yesterday, a judge issued a temporary restraining order that will prevent Sarah's age from keeping her off the waiting list for adult donor lungs.
It was a big victory for Sarah and for her family, but Sarah isn't the only child fighting this battle. Today an 11-year-old boy named Javier Acosta won an identical ruling from the same judge. Javier is being treated at the same Philadelphia hospital as Sarah. Sarah's dad was on the program last night and told us her condition declined in the last couple days.
A lot of different medical factors go into deciding who should receive donor organs when they become available. A complex scoring system is used. We are going to dig a little deeper on this right now. Jason Carroll joins me along with chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
So Jason, you've been in direct contact with Sarah's family. What do they told you about recent developments? How is she doing?
JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, she had a very rough night last night, Anderson, a rough day today and in fact, at one point, doctors thought they might have to have her intubated. That's basically where they take a tube and put it down your throat so you can breathe a little easier. But doctors were able to stabilize her, get her heart rate down. Her mother basically saying she's a tough little girl, she's a fighter and she'll have to keep fighting every single day because her condition is critical and every day is going to be a fight for her.
COOPER: Sanjay, so after the ruling yesterday by this judge, Sarah is now eligible for an adult lung transplant, but can her body actually accept adult lungs if she were to receive them? How does that work?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: They could. The body could accept adult lungs. There are a couple things to keep in mind. You mentioned she has cystic fibrosis. That's caused by a defective gene so it is going to affect both lungs so she needs both lungs transplanted. Sometimes people just need one lung transplanted.
Also, just size, just the mechanics is an issue here. The lungs are too big, sometimes the adult lung, the donor lungs, can be trimmed. They use staples and actually staple around it to make the lungs smaller. Sometimes they can actually use part of the lung, use only certain lobes of the lung to transplant as well. So those are a couple of options but not ideal. You would prefer the right size lungs, but to your question, it is possible.
COOPER: After she -- if she was able to get a lung, are there other problems she could encounter after receiving an adult lung? GUPTA: Yes. So when you think about the adult lungs, for example, if you do trim them, there's a concern that perhaps they might start to leak and that would cause a build up of air around the lungs as opposed to within the lungs. That could be a significant problem.
Also, it's not just the length of the lungs, but also the size from front to back. It may just be harder to sort of literally fit the lung into her body. That's just something doctors have to sort of maneuver. If you are using adult lungs, the blood vessels, for example, may be bigger in size as compared to the pediatric smaller child size blood vessels.
These things do make a difference. I will point out as well with cystic fibrosis, one of the concerns is that you develop infections, you're more likely to develop infections and could those infections also affect the new lungs. That would be true if they were adult or pediatric lungs. That's something doctors are going to have to think about.
COOPER: Jason, today I know you got court documents from the mother of an 11-year-old Bronx boy who also has cystic fibrosis. They also received a federal ruling just like the one Sarah's family received. What do we know about that boy's condition?
CARROLL: Well, Javier Acosta, he is 11 years old and again, he does have cystic fibrosis as well. He critically needs a lung just like Sarah does. They're in the same hospital. Their families know each other. They have been talking to each other about the entire situation.
What's so tragic about the Acosta family is back in 2009, Javier's brother who was 11 years old at the time, also had cystic fibrosis, and was also waiting for a lung transplant. Unfortunately, he died waiting for a transplant. So you can imagine now what the Acosta family is going through but they now feel as though at least now, Javier has a chance like Sarah.
COOPER: It's so unthinkable for these kids. Jason, appreciate the reporting. We'll continue to follow it, Dr. Sanjay Gupta as well.
Just ahead, what you need to know if you're one of the millions of people in the path of Tropical Storm Andrea, the first named storm of the hurricane season.
Also, Mindy Crandall let Gloria McKenzie cut in line to buy what turned out to be the winning Powerball ticket in last month's $590 million drawing, but she's not bitter about it at all. You'll hear from her ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Welcome back. Tropical Storm Andrea is the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season. It's been pounding Florida's west coast tonight. Andrea made landfall in Dixie County just a couple of hours ago at 5:40 Eastern. Chad Myers has been tracking the storm and joins me now. So Chad, where is this storm and what's that like? CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Pretty much Lake City, I-75, I-10, kind of the crosshairs right there. This is going to be -- a storm is going to make an awful lot of rainfall. This is not going to be a wind maker anymore. It's about done. Winds are 50 miles per hour. There may still be some small tornadoes because that's what happens with a land-falling tropical storm or hurricane, but the rain, the shield all the way from Charleston all the way now to North Carolina, as far southwest as Jacksonville.
The rain is just about done for Florida. It has moved away. Dry air wrapped into this system like this. That kind of made that old dry system right through here from Tampa to Jacksonville, then the rain moves to the northeast from here. It is going to be a big rain maker, even for the northeast. Even for Washington, D.C. although it's moving at 50 miles per hour, this wind speed right there, the forward speed is still only 15 miles per hour as it travels up toward the D.C. area.
There's the numbers, you want to put those in the computer and see where it is. This again is the story. Here's the forecast precipitation for this storm. It is going to continue to move on up toward the northeast. The rain, two to four inches from Atlanta southward, Charleston, but you get up into the mountains, and where's the worst place you could get rain, in the mountains.
Again, the mountains will start to run all that water off, three to five inches, maybe up to six inches in some spots west of Washington, D.C., two to four even for New York City. The problem is these are areas that are already saturated. There's enough rain here already. You start to get a wind of 30, 40 miles per hour, some of these trees are just going to become uprooted and then of course, you have all that wind even for New York City.
It looks like the closest approach to the city, 45 miles per hour. That happens late Friday night into Saturday morning right when people are trying to get back home from Friday night.
COOPER: Chad, how active is this hurricane season going to be? I'm always skeptical of people's predictions frankly. A lot of times they said it will be really active and it hasn't been, or they say it's not going to be active and it has been. What's the prediction at this point?
MYERS: You know, we have a storm that's 70 miles per hour almost five days into the season. The forecast is for somewhere between 13 and 20 storms. That's well above normal. Hurricane center says there's a 5 percent chance of a below normal season, 95 percent chance of normal or higher. So I'm going to go with the 95 percent. I play roulette. I don't go with the double zero, I guess.
COOPER: All right, it's pretty good odds there. All right, Chad, thanks very much.
Let's get caught up on some of the other stories we're following. Randi Kaye is here with the "360 Bulletin" -- Randi. RANDI KAYE, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, a 360 follow, a New York woman has pleaded guilty to fraud charges stemming from a fund-raising scam we reported on last December. She tried to solicit donations by posing as a relative of 6-year-old Noah Posner, one of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims.
Another 360 follow now, search and rescue efforts ended at the collapsed building site in Philadelphia that left six people dead. A 61-year-old woman pulled out alive this morning nearly 13 hours after the collapse is in critical condition. She was the 14th survivor rescued.
And Powerball winner Gloria McKenzie has mentioned the kind stranger who let her cut in line to buy the winning ticket in last month's $590 million drawing. Tonight, we know who she is. Her name is Mindy Crandall and she says she's not at all upset about giving up her spot in line. She told ABC's "Good Morning America" that things are meant to be for a reason. She also shared her 10-year-old daughter's take.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MINDY CRANDALL, LOTTERY PLAYER: She was like, yes, sometimes it's better to be patient than rich. I was like that's right. So I knew then no matter what, we were teaching our daughter the right thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAYE: Good lesson learned there.
COOPER: Nice if Miss McKenzie maybe tossed a little money her way.
KAYE: Just a little of that $590 million. She gets like $200 something million, a million here, a million there.
COOPER: A million or two, a million or two, why not.
KAYE: Absolutely, one for her, one for the 10-year-old.
COOPER: The karma wheel goes around and around. It will be good for everybody. Randi, thanks very much. We'll see what happens.
Coming up, well, find out who's on the "Ridiculist" next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Time now for the "Ridiculist." Tonight, we have a story of a brazen theft from a certain store in Washington State. It's called Lovers. It's a store that specializes in shall we say relationship enhancement. You get the picture, right? All right, so recently, a shoplifting incident was caught on surveillance video. The store's marketing director explains what happened.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He basically just ran into one of the doors, tried to grab an entire mannequin and run off with it. As he grabbed it, the bottom half fell off so he got the top half out the door with him and off he went.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: But the thief didn't stop there, no. He apparently wasn't satisfied with just that torso. He actually returned to the store later that night. It wasn't the bottom half that he seemed to be after.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He came back that night after business hours and broke in. He was wearing the wig from the mannequin he had stolen and found new clothing for his friend to wear.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: The police caught up with the suspect who was riding his bike near nearby and left a trail of stolen toys behind him. The store says it's a first.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every time we get people who come in, kind of ask questions about the mannequins, do we sell them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: It does seems like an awful lot of trouble for a mannequin. For a lot less work, the suspect could have kicked back with the 1987 film starring Andrew McCarthy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The first thing that made me feel like an artist.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You never expected to hear it talk back.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I really think I'm going crazy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: I did not remember that Kim Catrall was in that '80s epic. The real life alleged thief was arrested, held on $15,000 bail. When other customers heard about the theft, they were somewhat perplexed about the whole deal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why would you steal a mannequin? Go get the real thing. I guess, he couldn't get the real thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Pretty cogent commentary for an interview on the street. Mind your mannequins. They're there for all of us to enjoy. That does it for us. We'll see you again one hour from now, another edition of 360 at 10:00 p.m. Eastern. "PIERS MORGAN LIVE" starts now.
