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O.J. Simpson Gets Parole, Not Freedom; NSA Releases 3 Top- Secret Documents; NSA has Secret Online Tools; Anti-Gay Laws in Russia Stir Anger; Gay Rights Activists Dump Russian Vodka; Jetman Wows Crowd at Oshkosh

Aired July 31, 2013 - 14:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: The government says its snooping helped stop dozens of terrorist attacks. One Senator, who's seen the classified information, says that's not the case.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. The news is now.

A Russian lawmaker reportedly insists gay athletes are banned from next year's Olympics. Now gay bay bars across America are protesting by pouring out vodka.

A radio host live-tweets his mom's dying moments. You'll hear what he wishes he would have done in life. Plus, Richard Nixon unplugged.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD NIXON, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: The point that I make is that (EXPLETIVE DELETED) I do not think that you glorify on public television, homosexuality.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: His former adviser tells me about his boss' demons.

And 190 miles an hour, thousands of feet in the air, a rocket man flies alongside a bomber.

Here we go. Good to see you. I'm Brooke Baldwin. And thank you so much for being with me.

Got some news just into us here at CNN regarding O.J. Simpson. A step closer to freedom. Here's the deal. This is from the Nevada Parole Board just a little while ago. They have granted Simpson parole on some, not all, let me be clear, some of his convictions. All of this stemming from that 2008 kidnapping and hold up of two sports memorabilia dealers in that Vegas hotel room. And here he was. We're going to show you, pleading his case for freedom. This was just last week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

O.J. SIMPSON: Make no mistake, I would give it all back to these guys. They can have it all to get these last five years back. They've been somewhat illuminating at times and faithful (ph) a lot of times. I missed my two younger kids go far (ph), get through high school. I missed their college graduations. I missed my daughter's -- my sister's, I should say, funeral. I missed all of those things. And various things.

When I went to that place that night, I had already discussed it with my kids. I spoke about it with my sister and brother-in-law, older sister and brother-in-law, who were originally going to go with me up until the last hour. I even talked to two lawyers about it. One the night before that I knew. I had a conversation with a lawyer that day who I didn't know. I had no intention - my intent was not to rob anybody. I knew both of these guys had my stuff. I was a little upset with them. And I think that wasn't as civil as I should have been.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: O.J. Simpson in his own words. We know that it seems his plea for parole worked. But it's important to note here, even though he's been granted parole, he will still be locked up for a while yet, possibly another four years, as he serves out his time for other convictions. CNN's Ted Rowlands joins me live to explain.

Ted, really, here's what I want to know. The bigger picture. I mean what does this mean for him? Because if he gets a new trial, he could be out pretty soon, right?

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And there's two separate things going on, Brooke. There was the parole hearing that you just watched where he was looking for parole on this one charge. This one sentence that he's serving. And he got it. And that was expected because he's been a model prisoner.

What is also pending is a motion for a new trial, which we should get word in the next couple weeks. If he gets that, he'll be out of prison, because initially he'll be out on bail and then it's very unlikely that Clark County, Nevada, will charge him again because he served five years in prison. And when he was first arrested and first charged, they were only looking for three to five years. And at one point there was a deal for two years on the table for him.

So that's where all the concentration is for O.J. Simpson and his attorneys. They are keeping their fingers crossed that that decision comes back the same way this one did, in his favor.

BALDWIN: So we heard the plea. You mentioned at the top that, you know, he's been this model prisoner. What else did this parole board base this on?

ROWLANDS: Well, mainly because he was a model prisoner and he's engaged with other prisoners. In fact, if you kept playing that, it was very interesting. He talked about how other prisoners come to him with all their trouble. He's kind of the mayor of the prison there in Nevada, apparently, according to him. And --

BALDWIN: The mayor of the prison, O.J. Simpson. ROWLANDS: Yes. And the parole board bought it. In fact, it would have been a bigger story if he wasn't granted parole because of his behavior in prison.

BALDWIN: Ted Rowlands in Chicago. Ted, thank you very much.

You want to hear this next one. Your government is revealing top secret details and problems with how it collects data on your phone calls, your e-mails, all in the name of protecting you from potential terrorism plots. The director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, he released these three declassified documents today. Keep in mind the timing here. This was hours before lawmakers began grilling the NSA on its controversial surveillance programs.

We have gone through these documents. We have read them. And then the biggest takeaway is this. The NSA's two bulk collection programs have had a number of technical and human compliance issues. But according to these documents, the problems are being addressed. Many details about these technical and human problems, though, they have been redacted. They've been blacked out.

Let me bring in crime and justice correspondent Joe Johns in Washington because the NSA, they're not getting specific as far as how compliant snags were resolved. We don't really know, you know, how -- if how they plug the hole that allowed Ed Snowden all this access.

JOE JOHNS, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right.

BALDWIN: How did lawmakers respond today?

JOHNS: Some of this and some of that. The chairman of the committee very skeptical. Senator Dianne Feinstein of California a little bit more supportive of these programs. But we really don't know what they did on Snowden and how they resolved that. They say they're working on it. Nobody's been fired, Brooke. There is an ongoing investigation into it. It's complicated by the fact the Justice Department's still trying to get Edward Snowden back to face charges in this country.

Just the same, a top government officials from the Department of Justice, as well as the National Security Agency, went to Capitol Gill today, and they were met with very high skepticism from some, as I said, including the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATRICK LEAHY (D), VERMONT: Who double-checked Mr. Snowden?

JOHN INGLIS, NSA DEPUTY DIRECTOR: Well, there are checks at multiple levels. There are checks in terms of what an individual might be doing at any moment in time. There are --

LEAHY: It obviously failed.

INGLIS: In this case, I think we can say that they failed, but we don't yet know where. LEAHY: You think you can say they failed? I mean he's sitting over at the airport in Russia with millions of items.

INGLIS: I would say that with the benefit of what we now know, they did fail.

LEAHY: OK.

INGLIS: But we don't yet know where precisely they failed. And we may find that they failed at multiple points in the system.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: John Inglis of NSA there getting a little bit of heat from Senator Leahy. The 30,000 foot question here really is whether the snooping programs will survive without changes and, of course, Brooke, that question hasn't been answered.

BALDWIN: Yes. We have a number of questions, Joe Johns. Thank you very much.

Let me pose those questions to our next guest because today, you know, we also have this bombshell from "The Guardian" newspaper, from the U.K., Glenn Greenwald. He's penned this article again saying that the NSA analysts can target your e-mail, can target your browsing history, your online chats without a warrant.

So, if you read this article, it describes this program. It's called XKeyscore. Says it's based upon information provided by, you guessed it, Ed Snowden. Let me be clear. CNN has not independently confirmed this information. But "The Guardian" article says this in part. Quote, "XKeyscore provides the technological capability, if not the legal authority, to target even U.S. persons for extensive electronic surveillance without warrant provided that some identifying information, such as their e-mail or IP address, is known to the analyst."

So, then you're hearing and you're reading these quotes from Snowden himself saying he could, you know, sitting at his desk, do this very easily. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EDWARD SNOWDEN, NSA LEAKER: I, sitting at my desk, certainly have the authorities to wiretap anyone from you or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the president if I had a personal e-mail.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The NSA is denying "The Guardian's" claims about XKeyscore.

Let me bring in two voices here, CNN political commentator Ben Ferguson in Dallas and CNN intelligence and security analyst Bob Baer in Irvine, California.

So, gentleman, welcome. First, Bob, to you. When you hear what Snowden says he was capable doing just from his desk, then you hear someone like the, you know, the House intel chair Mike Rogers saying, no way, who do you believe?

ROBERT BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: I believe Snowden. You know, you look at these documents, they don't look fake to me. It appears that an analyst can put in your cell phone number, your credit card number and come up with these -- what's called a skip trace and run through all the databases, whether it's Verizon or AT&T, and pretty well get a clear picture of you.

You know, I always go with the documents. The government has, at this point, has been trying to downplay this invasion of privacy. I think so far they're failing. So right now I'd go with Snowden's version.

BALDWIN: So, so far you bring up the government. You know, we've heard, Ben Ferguson, you know, part of the reason, the justification behind this kind of surveillance program, is because this is stopping dozens of terror attacks. We saw Senator Leahy there, you know, grilling this NSA official. And he also said today that he has seen the classified information and he actually believes that not to be the case. What do you make of that?

BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You know, well, I look at this and one of the things that we just heard from Snowden where he said, I had the authority to do this. He, in fact, didn't have the authority to steal information and to do what he was doing. If he had a directive to do it, then, yes, he probably had the capabilities to do it.

But to imply that somehow he could sit there at any moment of any day with his own authority and look at anybody, that part is what I think is brought into question is, you're supposed to have a directive from someone who's saying, we have reason to believe x, y and z.

I also think something else that's got to be brought up here is, if he did, in fact, have the ability to do this, where is the oversight? Where is a judge? Where is a court order that says, we are now allowing for a Snowden who does have the capability to do this to then access it and not be breaking the law. And I think that's something that Washington has to look at because there seems to be a lot of truth from Snowden as in what he's capable of doing. Doesn't mean he had the authority to do it. Obviously he broke the law when he did what he did.

But it also needs to be a check and balance because I don't think any person sitting in front of a computer should be able to do these things without having some sort of oversight, which we don't seem to have in these programs.

BALDWIN: Yes, I think to underscore your point again, XKeyscore allows analysts to search e-mails, online chats, Internet history with no prior authorization.

Bob, do these new revelations not only in "The Guardian" backup these now declassified documents that Clapper revealed today, no oversight about who gathered the information and what they did with it?

BAER: There is no oversight. I've worked with the National Security Agency. I've seen them tap. And this is a long time ago. Tapped the phones of journalists, run across their names. All I needed to do was to find out the name of that journalist was to call up the NSA and they get a search warrant. And I did that informally.

BALDWIN: Did anyone have an issue with that at the time? Anyone have an issue with that at the time?

BAER: No. No. We just said we had an interest in it. We wanted to know why this journalist was in touch with a potential terrorist group. Could you tell us who it is and the nature of the conversation. And they just coughed it up. They never asked who I was and what I wanted it for. And, you know, I assume that I can project that it works that way now.

BALDWIN: So then what's wrong? What needs to change?

FERGUSON: Well, I think first you have to have Washington --

BAER: We need to get FISA (ph) -

BALDWIN: Go ahead, Ben and then Bob.

FERGUSON: Yes. No, I think Washington actually has to -- instead of just yell and complain and rant and rave, they need to look at this and say, OK, if we know that we can do this, and I think most Americans now agree that they can do about 99 percent of what has been said. Where is the oversight and who is the stop person who can say, we are not going to allow you to look at this because you don't have enough information. You are way outside the lines of a terrorist threat and you're just speculating. And this could be abuse of power.

And to have a guy like Snowden, who can do these types of things without a court being involved, is where most Americans, I think, think that this goes too far. And that's where they should step in. Because without a checks and balances, how can we trust that there aren't a lot of young, brilliant punks behind computers doing this exact same thing?

BALDWIN: Bob, do you agree? And let me just add an addendum to that. Do you agree, and do you think - and this is complicated and there, obviously, is an investigation underway -- do you think someone should be fired over this? Should someone's head roll?

BAER: Oh, absolutely somebody should be fired. Somebody should be fired that they allowed Snowden access to the hard drives of the National Security Agency without any checks. I mean all you have to do is lock up the hard drive or run traps on these things. The CIA's done it for years. I don't understand why the NSA didn't. They should have spotted what he was doing early on.

And, number two is, we need to come to terms with, has this really saved American lives? Prism and these other programs. Senator Leahy says no. I have yet to see in the case be made by this administration that it did save lives. And we right away have to get to the facts of it and not do this all off speculation.

BALDWIN: Bob Baer and Ben Ferguson, thank you both very much.

FERGUSON: Thanks for having us.

BALDWIN: Now to some of the hottest stories in a flash. "Rapid Fire." Roll it.

President Obama spent the morning on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue trying to energize the troops before they head off for their August recess. He met with House Democrats before addressing the Senate. And before heading in, the president summed up his message to reporters in four words, jobs, middle class, growth. The president.

The man who now has admitted to kidnapping, raping and holding three women captive at his Cleveland home for more than a decade already knows he'll be spending the rest of his life behind bars. But that man there in the orange, Ariel Castro, he will be formally sentenced tomorrow morning and his lawyers say he will address the court. Castro agreed to a plea deal just last week that will spare him the death penalty. He will be sentenced to life in prison with an additional 1,000 years.

And for all of you out there who bought into FaceBook thinking it was going to be a sure bet, it may be about to pay off. Earlier today, the company's shares passed the $38 IPO price for the first time since FaceBook's rocky debut 14 months ago. And one of the big reasons, a stronger than expected earnings report last week and its success in mobile advertising. So there you have it.

Coming up next, bars around the world have stopped serving Russian vodka. Have you heard about this? Part of the reason here, protesting anti-gay laws recently enacted in Russia by the government there. This comes as one Russian politician says gay Olympic athletes will be arrested if they even think about competing in the 2014 winter Olympics. I'm about to talk live to the owner of a New York City gay bar who is pouring out his vodka. Don't miss this. It's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Have you heard what the Russians are up to? In addition to beating up gay rights supporters, they have passed legislation allowing Russian cops to arrest gay tourists. And they're essentially banning open discussion of homosexuality. Open discussion, they say. Keep in mind, they've got the Winter Olympics coming up next year and a lot of folks going to Russia. We're going to talk about this here in just a moment. But first, to set this whole story up, here is CNN's Phil Black from Moscow.

Phil.

PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, Russia's so- called anti-gay propaganda law came into effect earlier this month targeting the promotion among children of what it calls non- traditional sexual relationships. Basically it bans the public discussion of gay relationships, gay rights anywhere there's a risk a child could overhear or witness it. Activists around the world have condemned it for promoting intolerance and discrimination.

There's also a lot of concern here, though, because this country is getting ready to host the 2014 winter Olympics in Sochi. And the IOC, the International Olympic Committee, has said there will be no discrimination against athletes or visitors during that time. But a local politician in the Russian city of St. Petersburg is fueling international concern by contradicting that position. Vitaly Milonov played a big role in implementing an earlier, local version of this anti-gay propaganda law in his city. And he says because there is now a national version on the books, it must be enforced regardless of who's breaking it or whether or not there is an international sporting event taking place at the time.

Ultimately, though, it's not his call. He's just a local politician. Russian President Vladimir Putin is personally overseeing preparations for these games. He is desperate for them to be seen as an international success. And it's unlikely the Russian government will risk that by allowing this law to be enforced in Sochi during that time.

That, however, is unlikely to appease all the international concern about the law's very existence. And that's why activists around the world are calling for boycott of the games or other Russian products, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Phil Black, thank you.

That Olympics boycott proposal has sparked a certain amount of debate. Some gay right supporters say, hey, what if Jesse Owens hadn't gone to Berlin? Better go to Russia and make a stand.

In terms of products, though, we have seen this. Have you seen this? The #dumpstoli, boycott Stoli, hit the Russians where it hurts, in their bank accounts. This logo is popping up even as some folks Twitter avatars, if you've seen that.

Joining me now from New York is gay bar owner Bob Fluet.

And, Bob, welcome to you. Let's begin with the vodka. I mean do you still have bottles of Stoli on your bar shelves?

BOB FLUET, GAY BAR OWNER: Well, we removed the Stoli vodka on Thursday night and made a decision internally to do so. The reality is, is that we need to make a stand, we need to make people aware of what's going on. And, obviously, this has worked so far because I'm sitting here talking to you and it's becoming very public. And I think we, as a community, have certain things that we can do here. We can't go there. We can't protest in Russia. We can protest here and make our voices heard in support of the LGBT community in Russia. And that's what we're trying to do.

BALDWIN: What's the reaction been within the community where you are in New York? We're looking at pictures of your bar, minus these bottles. I mean do your patrons, do they get it? Are they frustrated?

FLUET: No, I think they get it. And most of them are very supportive of what we're doing. Some people are, I guess, trying to understand, is it a Russian product, not Russian product. But the reality is, is we're asking them to help us make people aware of what's going on. And through this we can get our voices heard, and get their voices heard, really.

BALDWIN: OK. This is what Stoli says. Stoli, which is owned by the beverage company SPI Group, insists the company stands with the LGBT community in Russia and all around the world. Let me just and show if we have it. Here's the website. So if you go to the Stoli website, it's got, you know, a little bit of a rainbow effect here in the coloring. And part of this statement, "Stoli stands strong and proud with the global LGBT community against the attitude and actions of the Russian government."

Here's my next question, Bob. I mean it's one thing to pour out vodka. But I'm sure some people are asking, what really is that going to accomplish when it comes to all of this happening over in Russia?

FLUET: Well, again, we do not expect the Russian government to collapse and change the laws. We know. We're not naive about that. What we're trying to do is we're asking people like Stoli to move the conversation forward. The conversation with Stoli and SPI has been their denial of being a Russian company. We need to move forward from that because we want to partner with them. We need their help. They can pick up the phone. They can call Putin a lot faster than I can. And we're asking - so what we're asking them to do is to join us and help us, not fight us. Take the money you're spending here. And they're great supporters of us. They're great supporters of the gay community here. Let's use that money. Let's figure out how to funnel it into Russia to help the gay community there. That's what we're asking them to do is to partner with us, not continue to deny it.

BALDWIN: Bob Fluet, keep us posted on any conversations and we'll see what Stoli does. Bob Fluet, thank you so much for joining me in New York on that.

FLUET: Thank you. Appreciate it.

BALDWIN: You got it.

Coming up next, 180 miles an hour in midair with nothing but a jet pack. You have to see this video. Chad Myers is going to walk us through this. Fly us through this, perhaps, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Bored with flying a plane? Sky dive no longer give you that rush? This guy has the solution. Professional airline pilot Yves Rossy, better known as the "jetman," has been perfecting self- contained flight for four years. This week he wowed the crowd at the Air Venture Show, this is Oshkosh, Wisconsin, cruising alongside a vintage B-17. That's what you see in the distance there. It's a flying fortress bomber.

Chad Myers, cue the Elton John "Rocket Man" song for me. This is nuts. CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It is fantastic. He has four 45 PSI jet packs on his body, forcing him down here, 119 to 180 miles per hour depending on if he's going up or going down with this thing. It looks like a box that is strapped to his back.

BALDWIN: Dude.

MYERS: He goes up 6,500 feet in a helicopter. He jumps out of a (INAUDIBLE) helicopter.

BALDWIN: Look at him.

MYERS: Soars down to the ground. Turns on the jet. There you see the fuel going.

BALDWIN: They're telling me to tell you to come closer to me. You can speak through my microphone because yours is low. I'll lean in.

MYERS: Oh, OK. OK.

BALDWIN: There we go.

MYERS: So there he is. He's got this thing strapped to his back. 180 pounds. He only weighs 150. He's six feet tall.

BALDWIN: What does he jump out of?

MYERS: He jumps out of the helicopter.

BALDWIN: OK.

MYERS: And all of a sudden he goes -- he's flying. He needs to be up 6,500 feet because he wants enough momentum to go.

BALDWIN: Aye, yie, yie, yie, yie.

MYERS: He is literally skiing this thing. You know like swish back and forth. He doesn't have a (INAUDIBLE). He doesn't have a rudder. Nothing. All he has is his body to (INAUDIBLE).

BALDWIN: And how, pray tell, does he land?

MYERS: Pulls the chute.

BALDWIN: Pulls the chute and down he goes.

MYERS: Yes. And there he goes.

BALDWIN: No bigs.

MYERS: Nope.

BALDWIN: Would you do this?

MYERS: I - you know what, because there's a parachute, I would. I don't do many crazy things, but I would do this because of the parachute.

BALDWIN: Come closer. Oh, there we go.

MYERS: Oh, we checked this mike earlier. I don't --

BALDWIN: Boom, there we go. New working microphones.

MYERS: OK.

BALDWIN: Anyway, so you would do this?

MYERS: Yes, I would.

BALDWIN: This is incredible. We've heard about this guy in the past in perfecting this.

MYERS: Yes. And you know what, he's -- it's about $100,000 to do this. So he doesn't think a lot of people are going to do this. But he's going to make one --

BALDWIN: What, per trip?

MYERS: To build -

BALDWIN: Or just to make this thing?

MYERS: To build this thing. To get one. And it looks bad that he's - that's good. That's what's supposed to happen. He's supposed to land like that, the parachute and standing up.

But, yes, he thinks he's going to -- the next thing he's going to do, make it much more affordable for everyone to do it is do a glider version that won't have jet packs. You'll still go up in a helicopter. You'll still jump out of a helicopter or off a base jump and you'll be able to fly down for a while. Eight to 10 minutes with the fuel. He has gone all the way over the English Channel with this thing. So (INAUDIBLE).

BALDWIN: Make you a deal. You do it, I'll be waiting on the ground with wine.

MYERS: All right. And I'll bring the cheese.

BALDWIN: Deal. Chad Myers, good luck with that. Thank you very much.

MYERS: All right. Fair enough. All right. You got it.

BALDWIN: And coming up next, we are talking about this at CNN. We're so excited. We're premiering this new film this week, "Our Nixon." It's an intimate look at the Nixon presidency like you have never seen before. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's it called? I've never seen it.

RICHARD NIXON, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Archie is the guy's name.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now that (INAUDIBLE) family entertainment, isn't it?

NIXON: The point that I make is that (EXPLETIVE DELETED) I do not think that you glorify on public television, homosexuality.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: More video from the former president. Footage locked away by the FBI for 40 years, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)