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U.S. Diplomacy: Exposed; Turning Back the Clock; Anonymous vs. Gay Marriage; Wikileaks Leaked U.S. Papers; Troops Killed; How to Avoid Cyber Scammers; White House Two-Year Wage Freeze; Supreme Court to Review; Pew Poll: Most Approve of Gays in Military

Aired November 29, 2010 - 14:00   ET

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

ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: So we're going to begin this hour, though, on our very, very big story that we've been talking about quite a lot. We begin this hour with a public scolding over formerly private communications.

If you were with us last hour, you heard a livid, very upset secretary of state attack the posting by the Web site WikiLeaks of a couple hundred so far confidential documents from U.S. diplomats over a period of 44 years. Secretary Clinton wouldn't confirm the documents' authenticity or comment on their details, but she called their publication an attack on the international community.

Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, SECRETARY OF STATE: The United States strongly condemns the illegal disclosure of classified information. It puts people's lives in danger, threatens our national security, and undermines our efforts to work with other countries to solve shared problems.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CO-HOST: All together, we're talking about 250,000 cables, or confidential communications, sent between December, 1966 and February, 2010. As I mentioned, WikiLeaks has published only a very small fraction of that so far, but says it will parcel out the rest over time, in coming weeks, and maybe even months.

It says the majority, 53 percent, aren't even classified. Forty- one percent are confidential, six percent secret.

And what do they say? Well, a cable from April, 2008, reflects the Arab world's fears of a nuclear Iran. The Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington quotes the Saudi King as urging the U.S. -- and I quote -- to "cut the head off the snake."

Similar advice comes from Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Bahrain. There's a number of cables from the State Department ordering U.S. diplomats to gather biographic and biometric information on other diplomats. That could include credit card numbers, computer passwords, fingerprints, even DNA samples in some cases. And from January of this year, reports of a meeting between the president of Yemen and U.S. General David Petraeus. Yemen wouldn't let U.S. troops go after al Qaeda on Yemeni soil, but the president did agree to basically cover up U.S. military strikes on al Qaeda strongholds there. Quoting the cable here, "We'll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours."

Very interesting stuff from this material.

CNN Foreign Affairs Correspondent Jill Dougherty, she's following the fallout from all of this and joining me for "The Two at the Top."

Jill, you were there when Secretary Clinton was making her remarks. What do you make of it? What do you make of not only the leak, the documents, but now what Secretary Clinton has to say about it?

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: You know, it was very delicate for her because in that, right at the top, practically, she had to issue an apology, a mea culpa. And the timing is bad because right now she is on her way on an international trip, and presumably will have to meet with some of the leaders who may be in those cables and who have been criticized. So you did hear her saying that they're apologizing -- or regret private conversations, personal assessments that might have found their way into those cables.

That said, she was really categorical in coming down hard on this. She said, for example, there's nothing laudable, nothing brave about what they did, even though some people might applaud.

And she also made a very interesting point which has really now become the mantra over here, that one cable does not make a foreign policy. That, in other words, what's in some of those cables coming from the field may go into the sausage grinder of making foreign policy, but it's not the policy. And you're going to hear that from a lot of people over here at the State Department.

BOLDUAN: And real quick, Jill, you know, the question is always, does this go beyond embarrassing? Is this just kind of a bad moment for U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy? But I guess when it comes down to diplomacy, having this kind of information come out, that is exactly that. It's more than embarrassing, because this is what diplomacy is about.

DOUGHERTY: Well, it is. And it's very hard to predict at this stage, because don't forget, not all of the leaks are out there. More to come, the ripple effect. You know, not only the United States, but countries that deal with third countries are in there.

Remember the leader of Saudi Arabia, the king of Saudi Arabia, talking about another country; namely, Iran. So the ripple effects could be great.

One thing I have to point out, though, is in the midst of all of this, which is pretty serious, the secretary quoted one of her compatriots. She talked to a lot of people this past weekend, leaders of other countries and foreign ministers, et cetera, and she said one of them said to her, "Well, don't worry about this. You should see what we say about you."

But, Kate, I think that was the only bright spot here, moment of levity in all of this.

BOLDUAN: Yes, the one time we saw her smile. But you know what? That is probably true. We probably don't know what they say about us over here.

CNN Foreign Affairs Correspondent Jill Dougherty.

Thanks so much, Jill.

VELSHI: All right. Our "Sound Effect" today is from a country that is technically at war and preparing for more.

South Korea is holding maritime maneuvers with a U.S. aircraft carrier strike group in the Yellow Sea, not far from that disputed island that North Korea bombarded last week. These drills were planned before that attack which killed two South Korean marines and two civilians who lived on this fishing island. But now the world is watching and the North is fuming.

South Korea's president addressed his nation today and said the time for patience has passed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRES. LEE MYUNG-BAK, SOUTH KOREA (through translator): At long last we came to a realization that it no longer makes sense for us to anticipate that the North would abandon its nuclear program or its policy of brinkmanship on its own. The South Korean people now unequivocally understand that prolonged endurance and tolerance will spawn nothing but more serious provocations. Those who have so far supported the North Korean regime might now see its true colors.

Only courage that defies retreat under any threat or provocation will bring about genuine peace. If the North commits any additional provocations against the South, we will make sure it pays a dear price without fail.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: The North and the South, which used to be one country, have never officially concluded their three-year war in the 1950s. Apart from the latest war games, the South is beefing up its firepower on the bombed-out island, but reportedly has postponed a new round of live-fire military exercises.

(NEWSBREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: We're getting some questions as to why you're here. You're here because it's fun, because --

BOLDUAN: Why are you here?

VELSHI: -- we've worked together a few times over the past few years, and we've always enjoyed it.

BOLDUAN: Never in the same city.

VELSHI: We've never actually been in the same -- but we hardly ever do TV together, so it's great you're here. It's also an example of what happens if you reverse the aging process on me, which has been tried successfully in mice.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

VELSHI: So this isn't actually a real reversal of the aging process. This is just hour --

BOLDUAN: Representation.

VELSHI: -- representation of it.

BOLDUAN: Right.

VELSHI: But there has actually been some -- and that's why Elizabeth is here.

BOLDUAN: This is why Elizabeth is here.

VELSHI: Our Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is here with some really very serious developments. Just been published, but they've actually had some success in reversing aging in mice.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It's really amazing.

They made old mice young. I mean, it's really incredible. Ad I'm going to give you a little tiny science lesson to tell you how you did it.

All right. On all of our chromosomes, on the tips of our chromosomes, there are these little things called telomeres. OK? They're in red right there.

Those are great telomeres. You want telomeres like those. They're red, they're big, they're bouncing. It's great.

OK. Here's what happens when we age. Very sad. Where did they go?

Yes, they're barely there. When they dwindle away like that, it signals our bodies to age. So our brains kind of shrink and our organs atrophy and we're not fertile anymore, and everything just kind of goes south.

So, what they did is genetic engineering to basically make those telomeres young again.

BOLDUAN: And so what -- they clearly did some kind of reversal, some kind of age reversal. But what did the test actually show? What happened to the mice then?

COHEN: Well, I'm going to show you the mice before and after, basically.

BOLDUAN: OK.

COHEN: All right. Here's a photo of them from the Dana-Farber folks in Boston.

The one on the right, you can see he's kind of graying, he's got that bald patch in the back. He did not receive this genetic engineering. The one on the left did, and so he is dark, doesn't have the balding. And if you could look inside his little body, you would see that his brain isn't shrinking, his organs are not atrophying.

So, they actually went in and made them atrophy and get older, and then they went in and they reversed it. And I think we think of aging as, like, a point of no return. At a certain point you just can't go back again.

VELSHI: But they actually went back.

COHEN: But with these mice, they went back again.

VELSHI: It's incredible.

COHEN: And we spoke earlier with Dr. Ronald DePinho, who's the doctor who did all this. So let's hear how he puts it.

VELSHI: Yes.

BOLDUAN: Oh, yes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. RONALD DEPINHO, PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL: What we've learned is that there is a point of return for even aged tissues, that tissues retain the remarkable capacity to rejuvenate if you remove the underlying cause of the aging, which in this case was excessive DNA damage in the mice. And DNA damage is a major cause of aging.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: I wouldn't have thought that. It's sort of like rehydration. You can put the water back in and you're good.

COHEN: Right, exactly. And so they did it in mice. If I were a mouse, I'd be so thrilled right now.

BOLDUAN: Can they --

VELSHI: But you're not a mouse.

COHEN: But I'm not a mouse.

BOLDUAN: Can they make the jump to humans? What do they say?

COHEN: You will notice that I'm not on a plane to Boston. You will notice that I'm still here in Atlanta.

VELSHI: Right. This is not available for humans yet.

COHEN: No, this is not available for humans. And you know what? It may never be that they can sort of flip a switch like they did with the mice. And the reason why is they go in and they actually monkey around with their DNA.

VELSHI: Right.

BOLDUAN: So there are going to be a side-effect?

COHEN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: Could be.

COHEN: It could be.

VELSHI: This isn't a serum.

COHEN: Right. Exactly, this is not an elixir, to use a fancy word.

VELSHI: Right. OK. But could help in terms of specific things that we associate with aging like Alzheimer's?

COHEN: Well, what they could do is they could learn. They could learn from these mice maybe how to make a drug that could get this effect without actually going in and monkeying around with the DNA. And that would be a pretty incredible thing.

VELSHI: This is quite a development. All right. We'll keep an eye on it. Thank you so much.

BOLDUAN: Thanks, Elizabeth.

VELSHI: Good to see you.

All right. This is a fascinating story. We covered this some weeks back.

A gay couple that got married over Skype, they were in Texas, the officiant was in D.C. And we -- they came on here and we talked about their triumph and we talked about whether this is legal. Now there's been a terrible setback.

I'll tell you about it on the other side.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE GRADUATE")

DUSTIN HOFFMAN, ACTOR: Oh, Jesus, God.

No!

(END VIDEO CLIP, "THE GRADUATE")

VELSHI: All right. Many of you may remember that scene from "The Graduate." Dustin Hoffman crashes a wedding, fights for his love, and the two live happily ever after.

Weddings don't always give us these Hollywood endings. The story I'm about to tell you is a little stranger than fiction.

Mark Reed and Dante Walkup are a gay couple who you may have seen on our air a few weeks ago. They were recently married over Skype, where, in Texas -- they were in Texas, where gay marriage is not legal. The officiant was in Washington, D.C., where gay marriage is legal.

Now, Skype weddings have been legally performed before with soldiers overseas, for example. But this was the first of its kind between two men.

The two thought their marriage was legal until they opened a letter from D.C.'s Supreme Court on Thanksgiving and it had the following in it: "The return is invalid because it has come to the attention of the court that the subject contracting parties to the marriage and you, the officiant, did not all personally participate in a marriage ceremony performed within the jurisdictional and territorial limits of the District of Columbia. To correct this deficiency, you are required to perform the marriage ceremony within the District of Columbia, with all parties in physical attendance at the ceremony."

We were unable to get a response from D.C.'s Supreme Court, but I want to bring back Mark and Dante to talk about what happened, the response to the letter, and what they're doing next.

Guys, good to see you again. I was glad to be sort of part of history when we first talked about it. Now I guess I'm part of more history.

First of all, it said --

MARK REED, TRIED TO MARRY VIA SKYPE: Yes, you are.

VELSHI: -- "It's been brought to our attention." Who brought it to their attention?

REED: We have no idea who brought it to the attention of the D.C. court. Obviously, somebody that didn't want to see two men in a committed relationship legally married. We're assuming that it was motivated by homophobia, politics, or both, but we don't know who filed it. VELSHI: Dante, tell me what happened. You got this letter really on Thanksgiving or just before Thanksgiving. What was your response?

DANTE WALKUP, TRIED TO MARRY VIA SKYPE: Well, I got it on Friday. We have an LED lighting business. I got home in the afternoon, and I opened up the mailbox, and there was a letter from the District of Columbia.

I had no idea what it was going to be, so I opened it up and I started reading it. And basically, they annulled our wedding without informing us or the officiant.

I called Mark immediately, thinking that this was a hoax or something like that. It felt like you got kicked in the stomach. And really -- I mean, it wasn't the best Thanksgiving after that moment there. So -- and now what we're trying to do is we're trying to get the informing that we need to look at some legal actions and so forth.

VELSHI: Mark, you've talked to lawyers, or you're talking to lawyers about this, or a lawyer?

REED: Yes, we're in the process of getting legal advice. And if we determine that we have a strong case to pursue a lawsuit, we will do that. But one thing is for sure, we will eventually get officially married, legally married, in Washington, D.C.

VELSHI: Right. And you guys have been together for a while.

The fact is whether or not that marriage was legal, Dante, Texas wasn't recognizing it. What's different now?

WALKUP: What's different is that we met with our family and friends and had them participate in our commitments to each other. And it feels different. It feels different -- it feels like you're married now.

Now that the certificate is no longer there, we're going to go get that certificate this week or next week and have that again. But most important is we made our commitments and our announcements in front of our family and friends, and they gave us their feelings and blessings too.

VELSHI: Mark, does anything on the ground change for you? In other words, having had that certificate and believing that you were married in Texas, was anything different for you post-marriage, and now is anything different technically speaking? Is there anything you're entitled to that will be taken away as a result?

REED: No, there was nothing that we really gained legally in Texas. We had an extra piece of paper, should either of us be in an automobile accident and we're trying to make proof that we are a committed married couple, that piece of document would have helped significantly.

But, basically, we had a situation where we had some clerks at the marriage bureau apply a very liberal reading to the statute, and the court applied a very restrictive reading to the statute. And they could have applied a liberal one, but they chose not to. So they annulled our marriage.

VELSHI: All right. Mark and Dante, we'll continue to follow this closely with you. Keep us in touch with what goes on, and we'll follow up with you.

Good luck on your continued efforts. Good to see you guys again.

WALKUP: Thank you. Thank you very much.

REED: Thank you very much.

WALKUP: Bye-bye.

(NEWSBREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: We haven't seen Chad yet this show, but, you know, whenever something is going on in the world, have you ever seen him in action?

BOLDUAN: Yes. I actually used him and needed him last week. He came in. He made it all seem like we knew what we were talking about.

(LAUGHTER)

VELSHI: Well, Chad has a new toy to play with, and he's here with it.

Chad, what have you got?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: I have Google Earth 6, an amazing new tool for us and for you at home if you want to go ahead and download it. But here's what Google Earth looks like. And you're all familiar with this.

We can fly to the bridge. But look at the trees now. Look how amazing the trees are.

They're even the right shape. They are the right size, and they are the right type of tree, whether they're a deciduous tree, or whether it would be a carnivorous tree. I guess they're not carnivorous, because they don't really eat anything, but you know what I meant.

Peter Birch, the product developer for Google Earth, with us today to kind of explain the new Google Earth, because something I noticed right away is how seamless this little guy is. We grab this little guy over here and we bring him over onto the street. And when we do that, we have a seamless view to this right on down to the road.

There goes our guy. We're going to drop him on there.

Peter, tell me what we're seeing. How is this so amazing? How can you do this?

PETER BIRCH, PRODUCT MANAGER, GOOGLE EARTH: Hey, Chad. How you doing?

MYERS: Great.

BIRCH: So a lot of great things going on today. As you mentioned, we have this new integrated street view in Google Earth 6 which really allows you to go from all the way into outer space, all the way down to the ground, and drop you right on the sidewalk, where you can walk around.

MYERS: Peter, people think this is real time, and they think that you're going to be able to solve crimes because you're going to be able to see the truck that was in their driveway when a crime was committed. Not true, right?

BIRCH: Yes. We have many things available on Google Earth, but it's not real time.

MYERS: Exactly.

BIRCH: We're updating things as often as we can.

MYERS: Something I want to take us to, too, not a new invention, but certainly much more detailed, we're going to go back to Haiti. We're going to go all the way to Haiti now, because something obviously occurred in Haiti over the past few months.

Port-au-Prince had an entirely huge earthquake. But you can also go back and see those old pictures that you had now, not in real time so much, but you can slide a timeline.

Tell me about this.

BIRCH: Yes. This is actually something that we introduced in Google Earth 5, but in Google Earth 6, we've made it much easier to use, which is historical imagery.

So, in Google Earth, there's kind of one snapshot of the world. But now you can kind of peel back the layers and go back in time so you can look at, for example, Haiti before and after the earthquake. You can look at deforestation of the Amazon before and after. You can look at even my hometown where I grew up in 1948.

MYERS: This is a picture of a tent city in Port-au-Prince. This is what it looks like now -- the blue tarps, people living in here.

Shawn (ph), slide back.

Before the earthquake, it was a park. We can see, literally, the park service and amphitheater here.

And so you can use this for literally -- I mean, city managers can figure out where they should put new things, right? I mean, this is not just for people to look at, this is a tool. Did I lose him?

Peter?

BIRCH: Yes, I'm still here. Yes, absolutely.

Yes, it's a fantastic way to go back and go look at your house from ten years ago, for example. For the whole U.S. we have imagery back to -- for everyone in the U.S. in the '80s and '90s.

MYERS: I like looking to see all the cars that I once had and then sold that were still in my driveway. Hey, there was that car. Hey, there was my red pickup. As you fly over and drive by my place and take all your pictures.

It is an amazing new piece, and you will see it on CNN for sure. It is Google Earth 6. Peter, thank you for your time today. I know there was that satellite delay that I don't usually have to worry about here because we're talking back and forth to you.

Like I'm talking to you, Ali. There's no satellite delay to you.

VELSHI: Chad, when do the rest of you get to use this?

MYERS: I'm sorry? What?

(LAUGHTER)

VELSHI: Chad is in the same room with me. There's no satellite delay.

MYERS: We will use it starting tomorrow as we fly around and show you the street view, to show you as we come right on down to -- we can bring you to almost the location of breaking news before helicopters can get there.

VELSHI: Wow.

MYERS: And that's something that this will allow us to do when we're trying to talk about something going on, a bomb scare here, an unidentified package here. We can show you exactly where that is.

VELSHI: It won't be in real time, so we won't see the package or the bomb scare. But we'll see --

MYERS: But we'll show you the location before helicopters can even arrive.

VELSHI: Excellent. That was an excellent impression of a satellite delay in the same room. Good to see you my friend.

MYERS: Sorry, dude.

VELSHI: All right. South Korea and North Korea. You've heard of what's been going on in the last week. There was an attack by North Korea. South Korea has now warned North Korea if you attack the South again, you will pay a dear price.

BOLDUAN: The latest on the crisis next, coming up in "Globe Trekking."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: It's half past the hour and here is the latest information coming in to CNN right now.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just came out to condemn the latest WikiLeaks release of sensitive diplomatic documents, calling it "an attack on the international community." Among the allegations in leaked State Department documents, word that Saudi King Abdullah urged the U.S. to attack Iran to halt its nuclear program.

And in Portland, Oregon, Somali-American Mohamed Osman Mohamud is due in court later today, accused of plotting to set off a van full of explosives at the Portland tree lighting ceremony. Police say a mosque was set on fire Sunday in a possible act of retaliation.

And American scientists say a new gene therapy method can reverse memory loss in mice. They hope the research will eventually lead to new treatments for Alzheimer's and other effects of aging, hopefully maybe in humans. Their findings were published in the journal "Nature" today.

VELSHI: OK. Time for "Globe Trekking."

First stop, South Korea. Tensions are still very high with North Korea in the aftermath of last week's shelling by North Korea of a South Korean island. The United States has joined South Korea, which is a key ally, in condemning the attack which killed four people, two marines, two civilians. Washington backs up that alliance, by the way, by basing 28,000 American troops in South Korea. Those U.S. troops would be in the front lines if the North ever invaded the South.

Now, in a nationally televised address just a few hours ago, South Korea's president warned that if attacked again, the north would pay, quote, "a dear price without fail," end quote. Also China, North Korea's main ally, is calling for emergency talks to end the crisis.

CNN's Stan Grant is in the South Korean capital, Seoul, with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STAN GRANT, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: These were the words that South Koreans have waited to hear from their president, and Lee Myung-bak telling North Korea that any further aggression, any further provocation, and they will pay a big price. He says that North Korea's attack on Yongpyong Island last week was an inhumane act, and targeting civilians unprecedented since the end of the Korean War. He says he's angry and frustrated, and that South Korea has run out of patience and tolerance with North Korea. Now, these strong words coming as the military exercises continue in the Yellow Sea. South Korean and U.S. forces there -- the USS George Washington carrier group and South Korean forces. These exercises taking place about a hundred kilometers, roughly 60 miles south of that disputed northern and southern maritime border region.

Now, Lee Myung-bak saying he'll continue to build South Korea's military to defend itself, telling South Koreans now is the time for action, not words.

Stan Grant, CNN, Seoul.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: OK, I want to trek over to Haiti now. Chad was just talking about it. Thousands have taken to the streets protesting yesterday's national elections. Demonstrators in the capital Port-au- Prince are demanding that the results be dismissed. Twelve of the presidential candidates are calling for the vote to be canceled. At least one person was killed in clashes between protesters and police. Opposition candidates, including one of the front runners allege that there was widespread vote rigging.

Now in response government officials have declared the election a success and vow that the result will stand. The elections were held as the country is still struggling to recover from January's deadly and devastating earthquake. Haiti remains gripped by a growing and deadly cholera epidemic.

Our last stop on "Globe trekking" today, Rio de Janeiro. The Brazilian government has launched a major operation against drug gangs in a bid to make Rio safe for the World Cup and the Summer Olympics in 2014 and 2016. Police and troops stormed one of Rio's largest slum areas yesterday. Officials say they seized four tons of marijuana, confiscated heavy weapons and arrested at least four people. Some 2,600 police and soliders now occupy the area. Rio is set to host the world cup in 2014 and the Summer Olympics in 2016.

All right. Did you ever see Wolf Blitzer dance? Actually, you've seen him dance before. If you have watched him on Ellen, he danced. But for some people it's still one of the odder things in "Odds & Ends." And we'll bring it to you, right ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: All right. It's time now for some "Odds & Ends." This is a football thing by the way, so I might have a little trouble getting through it.

BOLDUAN: Right, you can do it.

VELSHI: The Texans' Andre Johnson and Titans' Cortland Finnegan got into a fight. Check this action out! Helmets ripped off. It didn't -- there's nothing about this, and I don't understand football enough to know what got this started. BOLDUAN: I mean, I don't know either. I admittedly -- oh, my gosh! I did not watch this game but look at that. That's far beyond what we ever, ever see, hence why we're showing it to you on CNN.

VELSHI: Both were ejected from the game. After the game, Johnson apologized. No comment yet from Finnegan.

Now, here's another one. Again, I admit, I don't know a whole lot about football. I know this was a fascinating play. We'll show you up close. Oklahoma State's Roderick Brown intercepted a pass going out of bounds by tipping it to his teammate. They still lost 47-41. But now we're going to give this to you up close. Look at that. Look at that!

BOLDUAN: Look at that.

VELSHI: And then -- look at that!

BOLDUAN: Did they actually speak to him afterwards to say did he actually mean to tip it to his teammate?

VELSHI: That was out of control. Yes, I don't know why you're asking me, but it looked good.

BOLDUAN: It looks good. That's all that matters.

All right. Here's another one for you. From football to Wolf Blitzer, right? CNN's own Wolf Blitzer. He danced the Dougie on the Soul Train Awards on BET last night. You can see him. Wolf is known to have some serious moves. He'll tell you that, too. So you see wolf doing the Dougie. That -- accolades upon accolades.

VELSHI: He's good.

BOLDUAN: But there's also another CNN'er who has done a little dancing on television in his day.

VELSHI: I could never do that. When was I doing that?

BOLDUAN: I have no idea.

VELSHI: Oh, that was a robot dancing thing. I was sure I thought that was taped.

BOLDUAN: Oh, really?

VELSHI: Yes, I don't think I would have done that on live - could I really be doing it on live TV?

BOLDUAN: That's not me. That's -- I don't know. America, what do you think? Wolf or Ali? Who will win CNN's Soul Train Awards?

(LAUGHTER)

VELSHI: Ouch! OK, we don't need to keep showing that on TV.

BOLDUAN: They have their own styles.

VELSHI: Thank you. Yes, thanks very much.

BOLDUAN: No, you know, you've never caught me on air doing it.

VELSHI: You know, that's true.

Online retailers. It's Cyber Monday. Anybody tell you that?

BOLDUAN: Yes.

VELSHI: Have you gone and done any shopping?

BOLDUAN: If I did, you wouldn't even talk to me.

VELSHI: That's right, because I think this is a little bit of a scam. By the way, I don't think it's a scam other than I think it's convincing people to shop when they necessarily shouldn't. But there are actually some real scams associated with Cyber Monday.

BOLDUAN: Correct.

VELSHI: This part is the news. We'll show you how to shop securely when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: Let's get a check of the big stories developing right now. Just a short time ago Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton strongly condemned the unauthorized disclosure of classified information, hundreds of thousands of papers provided to numerous news organizations by the online whistle-blower Wikileaks.

We've been talking about this quite a bit. Secretary Clinton denounced the latest leaks as an attack on the U.S. foreign policy interest and international community. The Justice Department says it's investigating the incident.

In Chicago a man fell to his death during an NFL game between the Chicago Bears and the Philadelphia Eagles yesterday. Police say it appears to be just an unfortunate horrible accident. The 23-year-old was pronounced dead at the hospital.

And in Afghanistan, NATO says a gunman wearing an Afghan border police uniform killed six NATO troops today. The suspect was also killed. It happened during a training mission in the eastern part of the country. The shooting is now being investigated by NATO and Afghan authorities.

VELSHI: Kate, thank you. Today is -- I don't even want to say it.

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He doesn't want to say the words, but they're over here.

VELSHI: The Monday after the Black Friday when you're supposed to do all this online shopping. According to one estimate merchant web sites drew more than 1.3 million page visits, today, no? This morning, no? Per hour, per minute. Per minute during the noon hour Eastern time.

LEVS: I believe it.

VELSHI: Some people at least were giving up their lunch to do it. It's a busy day on the internet and like busy days on the internet it's a busy day for internet scammers. Josh Levs is here to join me to be a cyber Monday Grinch.

LEVS: Here's the thing. We talked about this before. Maybe cyber Monday isn't the biggest online shopping day of the entire year. Either way, you got the basic idea. A lot of people are buying things online between now and Christmas and this is a field day for scammers.

They look forward to this period all year. The fishers and the scammers, they want to take advantage of you and they're out in full force and they're all over the world and have all these plots.

And that's not imaginary, that's real. So let's talk about what you need to do if you're going to be doing the shopping start with the basics. This is obvious. Make sure you have updated spam filters and anti-spyware when you're starting to do the shopping because you're putting information -- do it before you do all this shopping.

Put in your credit card number or doing automatic withdrawals from your bank account. Be really careful there. Now some things you probably wouldn't think of. You can check - you know, when you're looking for deals you have major retailers, but then you have other companies out there with web sites that are offering even better deals. That can be OK.

But if you don't know the web site do some searching, look at the Better Business Bureau and look for a phone number. Call and research them but definitely check them out. It's worth paying a little more for someplace you know than paying less someplace you never heard of.

Phishing scams are the ones that are out here right now. This is way too many people fall for this. Basically, you get an e-mail saying something is wrong with your order.

VELSHI: Click on this dot.

LEVS: Follow your online activity and know you bought something. Give us your credit card number again. Don't respond. Call the actual place you bought from. A couple more things here. Confirm the purchase is secure. When doing a purchase you'll find it's more security if it begins with https.

VELSHI: This "s" is key because otherwise, it's just http:/. The "s" means it's a secure Web site.

LEVS: The "s" means is a secure web site, which means that you should have a lot more protections when you're putting information out there. Watch out for that "s." Do this. Check your credit card statements often because using your credit card it should show up later that day or the next day.

You can call them if you don't know how to check it online. You can say I want to know everything that's shown up. It's your credit card company. They're getting your money. You should be able to go over all your charges with them. Make sure you're following everything because it's awful how many people get taken advantage of this time of year and a lot of real grinches out there that would do it. So follow all these tips. We have more tips at CNN.com. Want you to stay safe. Whether or not it's really --

VELSHI: That's now it's showing more.

BOLDUAN: Gentlemen, if I may interrupt your fun, I think we came up with a new theme song for --

VELSHI: For Cyber Monday?

BOLDUAN: Yes, for Cyber Monday and actually for Mr. Ali Velshi. Do we have that?

LEVS: We have a theme song for Ali? Maybe do the robot to that?

VELSHI: No, no. Is this time for a break?

BOLDUAN: It is time for a break.

VELSHI: Just stay with us. We'll keep you safe.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: It's time now for my favorite time of the hour, of any hour. CNN Political Ticker update.

VELSHI: John King, our chief national correspondent, host of "John King, USA" at the political desk in Washington. As we know in politics, John, some things that happen are more symbolic than effective but where does this one fall in? President Obama announcing his desire to have a wage freeze for federal employees.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Ali and Kate, good afternoon. We'll get to that in a second. I just want you to know my lawyers will be in touch. I have a copyright on that theme song. You're in trouble for trying to steal my theme song before the break.

So the president, where the president's freeze on federal pay stand in the context of things? Well, number one, it is proof the president is getting a message from the midterm elections. He knows the house will be in Republican hands come January and as House Republicans have already said this will be part of the budget.

So the president trying to get ahead of the curve politically here, he's proposed a two-year freeze on federal pay for most federal workers. It would save about $2 billion this year, $28 billion over five years, $60 billion over ten years, $9 trillion in projected deficits over the next decade. So it's a very small slice, but the president says it's a down payment on a little more fiscal responsibility here in Washington.

The Supreme Court giving us another headline today agreeing to accept an interesting campaign finance state out of the state of Arizona. Arizona had a law, state law that says if one candidate has a whole lot more money, raising it themselves and getting help from political parties, maybe help from outside interest groups that the underfunded candidate can go to the state and say help me out. I'm being crushed and get matching funds essentially if you're the underdog candidate. The Supreme Court will now look at whether that's a good idea or unconstitutional.

Tomorrow, the Pentagon releases its study from service members and their families about what they think about repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the policy about homosexuals serving openly in the military. This will be part of a big congressional debate between now and the end of the year. What do Americans think about this?

The Pew Research Center out today with a new poll. We have it up on the ticker. A majority support gays serving openly in the military, 58 percent of Americans say they approve or support gays serving openly in the military, 27 percent are opposed and 16 percent say they have no opinion. That will be a big debate over the next several days.

Many conservatives want to push it through, not deal with it this year. They know come next year Republicans will have more influence and more power here in Washington.

VELSHI: John, I'm curious on your take about these Wikileaks. I mean, on one side, the attorney general, Secretary Of State Clinton, they've all come out and said this is damaging, quite possibly illegal, calling it stealing, saying there is an investigation.

On the other, the journalist in me and probably just the person in me finds some of these cables fascinating and interesting and maybe of some value to people. What's your thought?

KING: I think any time you can have transparency in our business and for democracy and for just public discourse it is a good thing. It is how it came about that is a bad thing. It is a crime. There are rules in place. It is classified information. I thought Secretary Clinton made an important point today.

Some of this stuff that we have known about. Do we know the Saudis don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon? Of course, we know that. Do we know that U.S. troops operate inside Yemen and the Yemeni government says, no they're not here? Of course, we know that.

But to have it publicly laid out in these cables could be damaging diplomatically. Another interesting point Secretary Clinton made -- we're focusing on the world leaders headlines. The little jokes or the mocking references, she made a very important point.

What about a social worker in the Congo, say, who comes to the U.S. embassy or U.S. consulate and says there are rapes or violence going on by some of those U.N. peacekeepers or some gang of thugs that keeps coming in.

That person's name is in some of the documents. It could undermine wonderfully need necessary whistle-blower efforts around the world. There's an upside in transparency and down side in having a massive release of 250,000 documents that could harm some lives.

BOLDUAN: John, that's a good point because when people hear diplomacy, they think it's this larger fancy word.

VELSHI: Ambassadors.

BOLDUAN: But there's real trickle down and could be ripple effect from what's going on right now.

VELSHI: John, good to see you my friend. We'll see you tonight on TV and your next political update just an hour away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: So we've been talking a lot, we all have, about this Monday after Thanksgiving, as some have called it --

VELSHI: I've created the impression that I'm a Grinch.

BOLDUAN: Cyber Monday. Right, you have created an aura of grinchiness around you and Cyber Monday, which may be surprising because you love capitalism.

VELSHI: I have nothing against capitalism. I hope people help bring the economy back. I guess, my point is creating an environment where people think it's something more than it is. It's a bit of a creation of the retail industry.

That's cool though. You know what? There are some good sales out there.