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More Cases Of Misconduct At TSA; Manning Sentencing Phase Begins; FBI Planned To Fly Snowden's Dad To Moscow; Americans Fed Up With Congress; Obama On Capitol Hill Today; Facebook Trades At IPO Price; Rain Returns To Southeast; Weiner: Quit Isn't The Way We Roll In NYC; High On Mushrooms, Teen Wrestles Cops; Court Strikes Down NYC Soda Ban

Aired July 31, 2013 - 10:00   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Stealing, sleeping, leaving work without permission. A new government report is out and they say that's what TSA workers are increasingly doing. Now Congress will address the issue.

Also, salad sickness, that mysterious disease striking millions now leading to pre-packaged lettuce, but what brand and why aren't they telling us?

And The Boss, a new rockumentary shows the rock star through the eyes of his diehard fans. NEWSROOM starts now.

Good morning. Thank you so much for being with me. I'm Carol Costello. Right now, the TSA is in the hot seat, already the focus of scrutiny by anybody that must undergo a security scan before they fly. Now a new government report finds more misconduct by TSA agents. More than 9,000 cases reported over the past three years. That's up 26 percent. Everything from stealing people's luggage, letting family and friends skip through security lines to sleeping on the job. In fact, close to 2,000 of those cases could have been security threats. Now the agency, set up following the 9/11 attacks, has to answer to a security committee.

Rene Marsh is in Washington following it all. Good morning, Rene.

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. You know, in any organization with 56,000 employees, you may expect some rotten eggs in the bunch, and the TSA really is no different. Lateness, excessive absence, that's a problem within the agency, but it's other TSA misconduct that's sparking outrage. Outrage because some TSA officers' actions could have an impact on security.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARSH (voice-over): The list includes everything from forgery, sexual misconduct to physical fighting and using abusive language.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MICA (R), FLORIDA: There's not even a way to properly report some of the offenses. So this may just be the tip of the iceberg of some of the offenses.

MARSH: It's the agency some flyers love to hate, posting their pat downs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you touch my junk, I'm going to have you arrested.

MARSH: But now criticism for the government not for pat down procedures, but for incidents like this, TSA Screener Supervisor Michael Arano admitted accepting bribes and kickbacks from a co-worker who stole money from passengers at checkpoints at New Jersey's Newark Airport and at New York's JFK, TSA employee, Persad Kumar, pleaded guilty to stealing $40,000 from a checked bag.

The report also notes in a three-year span more than 9,000 cases of TSA misconduct were documented. Fifty six screeners were involved in thefts and more than 1,900 incidents that could hurt security like sleeping on the job and allowing family and friends to bypass security. The union representing screeners says the numbers suggest the majority of screeners are doing a great job.

DAVID A. BORER, GENERAL COUNSEL, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES, AFL-CIO: If you look at the population of a small city, 56,000 people, in the workforce and the numbers on an annual basis are really very, very small.

MARSH: Congressman John Mica, a long-time critic of the TSA called for the audit.

MICA: Why are there so many cases and what is TSA doing about it? The report says they really can't get a handle on it. That raises a lot of issues.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARSH: All right, you're looking at some live pictures there of the hearing that's getting under way. Right on the dot at 10:00 is when it was set to start. At this hearing will be the deputy director of the TSA and the representative from the Government Accountability Office. The Government Accountability Office, they are the authors of this audit -- Carol.

COSTELLO: I know you'll keep an eye on that hearing. Rene Marsh reporting live in Washington this morning.

Happening right now, too, Army Private Bradley Manning in court as his sentencing phase begins. Manning faces up to 136 years in prison convicted in the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history, but manning was found not guilty of the most serious charge, which would be aiding the enemy, and that spares him from a life sentence.

He was found guilty, though, on 20 other counts, including stealing classified information and wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the internet. While Wikileaks and others may call Manning a hero, lawmakers like Congressman Peter King says that Manning cost lives.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REPRESENTATIVE PETER KING (R), NEW YORK: This was leaked at a time of the surge in Afghanistan, and when it became known that the U.S. cannot protect those who are cooperating with us, from my understanding, that caused us to lose people who would have worked with us in Afghanistan who were willing to stand with the United States, but were afraid that their names would be made public in the future, and that's why they backed away, and that right there cost American lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Joining us now is Alan Dershowitz, defense attorney and part of the Wikileaks legal team. Welcome, Alan.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL (via telephone): Thank you so much.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being with me. You're on the phone there. I'm glad to have you this morning. What's your prediction? What do you think will happen?

DERSHOWITZ: I hope it will be a single-digit sentence. This man did not intend to hurt the United States, nor did he intend to help our enemies. He intended to be a whistle blower. The vast amount of material that he exposed should have been exposed, like the two videotapes we've seen. And the statute is too broad. We don't do enough to protect our real secrets. Somebody like Manning should never be allowed to know our deepest, darkest secrets, likewise with Snowden.

The best way to keep a secret is not to know it. As to the other material, it shouldn't be secret. Our laws have it all backwards. We do far too little to protect what really needs to be protected and far too much to protect that which should be am the public domain. And I hope the sentence reflects that imbalance that we have in our current laws.

COSTELLO: I suspect that most Americans don't know about Bradley Manning's background and just how troubled he was before he went into the Army, but you have to ask yourself, why would the army admit such a troubled person?

DERSHOWITZ: That's the key question. Why would they give him access to all this material? Generally, in intelligence, you get information on a need-to-know basis. This guy had access to everything. The same thing with Snowden, he wasn't even an employee of the United States or in the Army, he was just working for some contractor and they gave him security clearance and access to all this information.

So the big problem is we don't have secure enough protection of the names of spies, the location of spy houses, the weapon systems that we have, and we have far too much protection for videotapes that should be in the public domain. You know, the public has a right to know if we overuse drones. That's their right to have and they should see those videotapes, but they shouldn't have access to the names of our spies and other deep, dark secrets. We really have to rethink our old approach to national security and these two cases give us an opportunity to have a real debate on how to change our laws to protect our real secrets while also protecting the public's right to know.

COSTELLO: In your mind, should there be others punished as well as Bradley Manning?

DERSHOWITZ: Well, no. I think those who publish the material have a first amendment right to publish the material, and we've never, in our history, gone after the "New York Times," the "Washington Post," we shouldn't go after Julian Assange who turned material over to the "New York Times" and was performing a journalist function.

It would be a terrible precedent and selective prosecution to go after Assange while we allow our major newspapers to publish classified material all the time. I think the only people that's it's appropriate to go after the people who had the obligation not to disclose the material, like Snowden and Manning, and give them sentences that are proportionate to their intentions, not to some overblown sense of they are traitors to America.

They're not. They're trying to do their best. They're trying to be whistle blowers. They do deserve some degree of sanction, but let's put the blame where it really belongs, on the current laws, which don't protect us enough and overprotect information which should be in the public domain.

COSTELLO: All right, we'll see what the judge does. As I said, Manning faces a possible 136 years behind bars. We'll see what the judge rules. Thank you so much, Alan Dershowitz.

DERSHOWITZ: Thank you.

COSTELLO: The FBI apparently offered to fly Edward Snowden's father to Moscow in an attempt to persuade the NSA leaker to come home and face criminal charges. But Snowden told the "Washington Post" he backed out of the plan when the FBI couldn't assure him he would actually be able to speak with his son. Plus he didn't want to be used as a pawn.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LON SNOWDEN, EDWARD SNOWDEN'S FATHER: I was asked if I would consider flying to Moscow, and I said yes. I said, however, I want to know what the objective is, and I want to be able to speak to my son to see if there is value, because I'm not going to fly to Moscow to sit on the tarmac to be an emotional tool for you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Edward Snowden has been in the Moscow airport as you know since June and he has applied for temporary asylum in Russia. Snowden is accused of espionage for leaking information on the U.S. government's surveillance program that tracks the phone calls of millions of Americans. President Obama is right now on Capitol Hill, but do not expect any grand bargaining or anything grand at all, really. The president is holding separate meetings with House and Senate Democrats before Congress leaves for its August vacation. But constituents won't be welcoming their elected officials' home with a ticker tape parade.

A new CNN poll of polls finds only 17 percent of Americans actually approve of how Congress is doing its job. President Obama is faring far better in a similar poll, but still he doesn't have stellar remarks. Just 46 percent approve of the president's job performance.

CNN's Dana Bash is on Capitol Hill with more. Good morning, Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Actually we are expecting President Obama to walk through here pretty much any minute to walk into this meeting he's having, the first of two meetings. This will be with House Democrats. Just moments ago on the Senate floor, the Republican leader was talking about the fact there is a sign hanging over the oval office saying, gone campaigning.

Because he is meeting with his brethren up here, he's not meeting with people on the other side of the aisle. But I can tell you talking to many Democrats who have attended meetings like this with the president in the past, he might prefer to be with Republicans in some ways because they ask him some pretty tough questions about concerns that they have about the way his agenda is going, about the way the party is going.

And now as they embark on a five-week recess back home, a lot of House Democrats fully admit that they are concerned about the -- the way health care is going to be implemented and the questions that they are going to get from their constituents about how it's going to be implemented, how it's going to work for them, what difference it's going to make in their lives. So that is no question going to be something that he will be asked about.

The White House and Democrats here on Capitol Hill say that he also wants to just kind of reassure them about the number one issue in this country and that is the economy. That it is getting better and talk about some of the things that he is discussing with Republicans for when they return from August break to try to keep the government running and have perhaps, perhaps some semblance of a deal on those thorny, thorny trending issues.

COSTELLO: So we're hearing things like there are threats to shut the government down again because there's this deadline looming that the government will run out of money by September 30th. Will that really happen?

BASH: Likely not and the reason is because you have leaders in the Republican Party in the House and Senate who were here back in the 90s, who saw that happened and they don't want it to happen again because it's political jump ball. They don't know who will be hurt. You know, back then it actually ended up politically hurting Republicans. But you definitely do have a number of conservatives in the Senate, very loud conservatives, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, who are going to spend their August recess trying to convince Republicans that the number one that they should be focusing on is vowing not to fund the government unless the Congress defunds Obamacare.

So that is a big internal fight inside the Republican Party, but it looks like at the end of the day, I mean, you know, it's still early. We still have 61 days or so until then that that they've probably will not prevail, but it will certainly be an interesting tug of war in the Republican Party.

COSTELLO: Always, Dana Bash, thanks so much. Let's take a look at your money now. It's an event 14 months in the making. Facebook is back where it started finally trading at its IPO price of 38 bucks a share. CNN business anchor, Christine Romans is in New York. So all of those people who bought shares of Facebook hoping to make big, big money. Are they --

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, look a lot of people got the IPO above the $38 IPO mark, right. I mean, so some people still have not recoup their initial investment and some people bailed out a long time ago. But look, if you bought -- if you bought this stock recently, you've had a really good run. It's up 43 percent, 43 percent, just since the company reported earnings last week. It's up 75 percent this year. Why?

Because Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO, the founder of Facebook told investors, told Wall Street, told shareholders in their recent earnings report that they were growing their mobile ad revenue and 819 million people are using Facebook either on a tablet or on a mobile phone. So the part of the market that's really hot is the part of the market that Facebook seems to be able to get into and making some money, some revenue at least and that's what investors are so happy about.

So here we are right back where Facebook started finally, finally back at the $38 a share mark. You remember that IPO, it was really, I will say, a disaster because the company and the investment banks really pushed -- wanted to make sure retail investors, regular people could get in on this IPO. They got in and the stock promptly tanked. So that burned a lot of people, a lot of people over the past year, but now back to where it started -- Carol.

COSTELLO: OK, that's good news. Thank you very much, Christine Romans. We have breaking news to tell you about so let's head live to Capitol Hill right now. You heard Dana Bash talking about this, President Obama meeting with congressional Democrats. There you see him.

Just about to meet with congressional Democrats for kind of a pep rally before, of course, lawmakers go on their summer break. Yes, they have five weeks off, so we'll keep tabs on this. Dana Bash, as you know, is there, and when the president pops back out from his meetings, we'll maybe be able to tell you what he said to them. All right, before we head to break, I want to show you this rare sight because it's fantastic. This is a water spout forming over Tampa Bay. Indra Petersons, are you there? A viewer sent this to us. How does this form?

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. I mean, this is the thing. We have all this warm, moist air right around Florida so the conditions are just so ripe. It doesn't really take a huge trigger like it would anywhere in tornado alley to start to see a water form like this. This was about 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. yesterday in the area. All it was one cell that kicked through, and bam, that's what they saw.

So definitely a typical thing in Florida, pretty hard to believe, but if you live there, you're probably used to it. Now speaking of severe weather, we want to point out that we now have Gill. So Flossie died, but right behind it, and we didn't even get a break, we have Gill out there. In 48 hours, it's expected to be a hurricane. What's so interesting as we mentioned how rare it is to really have systems go out towards Hawaii.

But once again, I overlaid the two paths here. It looks like it's on pretty much the exact same path that Flossie was. That's something we'll be monitoring here, especially as we move forward and it gets closer to that region. And you'll love this, Carol, more warm, moist air heading your way into the southeast, which means more rain.

There has been an abundant amount of rain the last several months, very atypical. One to two inches of rain expected again anywhere in those Gulf States. It's just soggy at this point. Today starting in the Midwest, Ohio Valley early on Thursday, and then later into Thursday, it looks like New York will start seeing those showers so pretty much everyone going from dry conditions to more rain in the forecast.

COSTELLO: But I'm going to a Braves game tonight, Indra. I'm going to a baseball game tonight.

PETERSONS: Sorry, umbrella, coat, right?

COSTELLO: Hopefully it won't be a rainout. Thank you, Indra. I appreciate it.

Cups are flowing in New York City, at least for those large sugary softdrinks, a court strikes down the city's plan to ban big sugary drinks. But the fight's not over yet.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: It's 20 minutes past the hour. Welcome back. I'm Carol Costello. Anthony Weiner still defiant in the face of his latest sexting regulations and a video message posted on his campaign web site, Weiner says dropping out of the mayor's race in New York City is not in the city's DNA.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANTHONY WEINER (D), NEW YORK MAYORAL CANDIDATE: I know that there are newspaper editors and other politicians that say, boy, I wish that guy Weiner would quit. They don't know New York, so they don't know me. Quit isn't the way we roll in New York City.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: In the meantime, a top Weiner campaign aide is apologizing for an expletive-filled rant about a former intern who wrote an unflattering article about her experience in the Weiner campaign in the "New York Daily News."

A bizarre story out of Oregon where a teenager high on mushrooms wrestles with four police officers, of course, it's all caught on camera. Police say the teenager was hallucinating and at one point actually grabbed an officer's gun, fired a shot into the wall.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you don't feel pain and you're experiencing almost superhuman strength because of whatever it is that you're on, he somehow broke him. During this struggle, he was tased seven times and it didn't have an effect on him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: After breaking through handcuffs, the teenager was eventually subdued and now faces charges of assaulting a police officer and possession of a controlled substance.

Another woman has come forward accusing San Diego Mayor Bob Filner of sexual harassment. Lisa Curtain seen here in a KBPS interview is a director at a San Diego City College. She says that in 2011, Filner grabbed her hand and tried to kiss her as she pulled away. That brings the total to eight, the number of women who have accused the embattled mayor of inappropriate conduct.

In sports, watch that fist pump, Marlins reliever in a strikeout against the Mets. He winds up on the ground. No injury from the tumble, though, his pride might have been hurt and his teammates mess with him back in the dugout. I would do it, too.

New York City soda ban is falling flat. A state appeals court struck down the ban on supersize sugary drinks on Tuesday saying the Health Department overstepped its bounds. But Lawrence Gostin, the director of the World Health Organization center on public health, disagrees.

In a CNN op-ed, Gostin wrote that the board of health, quote, "has the power, indeed the responsibility to regulate sugary drinks for the sake of city residents, particularly the poor." Lawrence Gostin joins me now from Washington where he's also a professor at Georgetown University. Good morning, Lawrence.

LAWRENCE GOSTIN, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR: Good morning. How are you?

COSTELLO: I'm good. Thank you for joining us.

GOSTIN: A pleasure.

COSTELLO: So tell me what went through your mind when you heard about the court's ruling?

GOSTIN: Well, I've been involved in the case, and I wasn't surprised at the court's ruling, because I think there is this cultural narrative going on now that no matter what the food industry wants to do, and no matter how we want to regulate it, that it's called paternalism or Bloomberg paternalism. And to me this is just a way of just sitting back and doing nothing while mostly poor people are getting diabetes, heart disease, becoming obese and suffering in their lives and their families' lives, and I just don't think that's a way society ought to behave.

COSTELLO: Well, let me read you something from the American Beverage Association, because it responded to the ruling like this, and that's the lobbying group for the soda industry. So here's what they had to say, "We are pleased that the lower court's decision was upheld. With this ruling behind us, we look forward to collaborating with city leaders on solutions that will have a meaningful and lasting impact on the people of New York City." So basically what the beverage association is saying is that soda manufacturers are willing to work with Mayor Bloomberg to stop people from consuming so much sugary soda. What's wrong with that?

GOSTIN: Well, you know, I've read that and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry because it really -- I mean, it was just so typical. Please don't regulate us, please don't regulate us, we haven't done anything, but we'll now work with you. Well, the chance of working with the city in a meaningful way and trying to get meaningful reductions is just not happening.

COSTELLO: Let me put it to you this way. Soda sales are actually down, and I mean way down. Another study found that childhood obesity is levelling off. Another study shows that younger people really are making better choices when it comes to food and drink. So it seems like the problem is already righting itself.

GOSTIN: You know, what that data hides is the fact that it's really -- if you go into a professional business meeting and you look around, nobody is drinking very sugary sodas. I bet when you go to the Braves game, you won't be having it tonight.

COSTELLO: No.

GOSTIN: But in poor neighborhoods, and if you go to poor neighborhoods, you go to a McDonald's or Burger King or anything like that, you'll see people guzzling and you'll see kids fat, and you'll see them getting childhood diabetes and living really, really hard lives, and the inequalities -- it's the same thing with tobacco and other things, we're showing gains, but we're not showing it among the poor who have much fewer options than the rich do.

COSTELLO: Well, the fight goes on. Mayor Bloomberg of New York City says they'll fight on, so we'll see what happens. Lawrence Gostin, Georgetown professor and director of the World Health Organization Center on Public Health, thank you so much.

GOSTIN: My pleasure.

Four hundred people in 15 states, that is how many people are recovering from a not so nice stomach bug and the culprit, bagged lettuce. But what brands and why aren't they telling us?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: It's quick and convenient, but there is new concern over mixed salad in a bag. Lettuce, cabbage and carrots now linked to that stomach bug that's already sickened hundreds of Americans in more than a dozen states. CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins me now. And the most disturbing part of this is federal officials are saying this salad in a bag is to blame, but they're not telling us what brand.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and part of it may be that they still don't know for sure. They sort of feel like they've tracked down about 80 percent of the cases, but it could be that there may be more than one brand involved. But regardless as you know, Carol, we've been talking about this for some time this morning. Hundreds of people across the country are still waking up with these symptoms of food --