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Two Million Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo Passwords Stolen in Hack; Fast Food Workers Stage Protests in 100 Cities, Looking for Higher Pay; Stocks Drop Amid Strong GDP Growth; Life Sentence for Murder He Didn't Commit

Aired December 05, 2013 - 14:30   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Now, to stunning new details about the reach of the NSA's spying program, according to the "Washington Post," the agency gathers nearly 5 billion, that is billion with a "b" records every day that show the locations of cell phones all around the world. This is according to documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Translation, the NSA can track movements of individuals, keep track of anyone they then call. U.S. officials say the programs that collect and analyze location data are lawful. They're intended to develop intelligence about foreign targets according to that report.

If you're not too thrilled when you hear this latest news about the NSA allegedly tracking your every move, we have another story to make you feel uneasy as well, hackers. Hackers have apparently stolen user names, passwords for nearly 2 million Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, and Yahoo accounts.

I have three of the four so I'm paying extra close attention, Laurie Segall joining me here in New York, and you never want to hear that your password has been stolen, so explain the hack to me. How is this pulled off?

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN MONEY TECH CORRESPONDENT: You know, pretty big hack, too, Brooke. You know, it was a malware hack, so people received a link that many thought was legit. When they clicked on it, they basically put malware on their computer so the hackers could see their browsing history. They could gain access to many of the passwords from their accounts.

And I'll tell you, you know, a lot accounts were affected. Let me break it down for you, 318,000 Facebook accounts, passwords stolen, Gmail, Google, YouTube 70,000 accounts, Yahoo 60,000, and Twitter 22,000. So you know, we really see the scope of this hack was huge -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: The scope of the hack was huge. You also have the top six passwords collected. Let me guess, one of them, 123456.

SEGALL: You bet. You guessed it. You know, one of the most unbelievable things about this is that we saw the common passwords people are using. You see 123456, very common. Also, iterations of these numbers and also people are still putting password as password. I cannot say enough, if you're doing that, do not do this.

If any of these passwords look like your password, change them immediately because hackers, they probably already knew that these were common, but now they've really know. Now this information is out there, and for a strong password, you know, use many characters, have upper and lower case letters, symbols, that kind of stuff is important. I say the more creative you are the easier it is to escape the hacker.

BALDWIN: I feel like most people are smart, they know that by now, but give me something else. What else can we do to protect ourselves from being hacked?

SEGALL: You think so, but 15,000 people are using those, so the numbers are unreal. Install antivirus software on your computer that's really important. Also, if you get a suspicious link, even if it's a friend, don't click on it because this is exactly how this happened in the first place. Also, use separate passwords for different accounts, for your Facebook and Twitter, always important. So if God forbid, one of our passwords is compromised, you don't have to change all of them - Brooke.

BALDWIN: Laurie Segall, thank you very much. We always need to repeat and pass that along every single time we talk about hacking.

Coming up next, a protest that included thousands of people in 100 cities, fast food workers walking off the job, onto the picket lines, look at these crowds. They say they deserve more money and they want corporations to listen up. So did it work? Are they listening? We're live, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: McDonald's, Wendy's, Crystal, KFC, we have all eaten there, right? Millions of Americans work there, and today, workers and union organizers gathered outside fast food joints in 100 cities to protest low pay at fast food joints. This is the third organized protest in a year, and it's the most widespread yet. The protesters want fast food workers to be paid $15 an hour. That's more than double the federal minimum wage at $7.25.

Alison Kosik is in the thick of the scene for us in New York. Fewer people right now, but tell me what the people have been telling you who have been protesting and what are you hearing also from those corporations?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You know, it's interesting, the protests here in Brooklyn, this particular protest that wrapped up earlier this afternoon, it was kind of small, only about 60 people, but they carried with them a very bold message. They carried signs, and they walked right up to the Wendy's doorstep and were chanting, can't survive on $7.25.

Meaning that's the wage on average they get now, but they're asking for federal minimum wage to go up to $15 an hour because they say they want a livable wage. They can't survive on the money they're making now. A lot of people want to know, why are we hearing more and more about this these days?

It's because of the recession. During the recession, we lost 8 million jobs. A lot of those jobs haven't come back. You're seeing people getting the minimum wage jobs now just to survive, just to pay bills, and a lot of people working in these fields are 25 and older, 80 percent of the people in minimum wage jobs for 25 or older.

And this push is likely to continue because six out of the 10 fastest growing positions in the next decade are low-paying jobs. We'll see more and more of this if the wages do stay that low -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK, Alison Kosik in Brooklyn. Let's stay on the economy here because we learned today that it grew more than everyone thought in the third quarter. The value of all the goods and services produced right here in the United States grew add an annual rate of 3.6 percent. That's great news.

But when you look at the stock market right, let's take a quick peek and see how the numbers are looking on Wall Streets. It's down just about 50 points. Zain Asher at the New York Stock Exchange for us. So Zain, if we're talking GDP and that is up, why isn't the stock market mirroring that?

ZAIN ASHER, CNN PERSONAL FINANCE/BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Brooke. Well, what might seem like good news to you and I is certainly not good news to traders on the floor. Yes, GDP coming in pretty strong, 3.6 percent. Certainly the best reading we had since the first quarter of 2012 when it came in at 3.7 percent.

The problem is when you have good, strong economic numbers like that, people sort of start to begin to have a meaningful conversation about tapering, about the possibility of tapering happening sooner than expected, especially when the strong data is in line with other pieces of strong data we have gotten this week.

For example, jobless claims coming in down by 23,000 and also new home sales as well, good car sales, good strong numbers from the auto industry as well. But also, even though December is traditionally a good month in terms of rallying and stocks, we had a very good rally this year and now it's time for profit taking when you talk to traders downstairs -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Zain Asher, thank you.

Coming up, it's a story we have been talking about all week long. This man went to prison 25 years for a crime he did not commit. He's a free man. Now we talk to the man who helped free him and dozens and dozens of others. We'll ask him why he agreed to take on the case in the first place. The innocence project, we'll talk about that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: The city of Detroit may not have to sell a Monet for money after all. A possible sale of Detroit's city owned art collection, which includes Renoir, Van Go, Diego Rivera, could help close the city's massive financial gap. Well, a preliminary estimate values the art in the area of $452 million to $866 million.

Christy's will release a full report in the coming weeks and it will list several ways the art could be used to help the city pay its bills without actually selling it.

On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled the city of Detroit is eligible for the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. This is a decision that could affect the pensions of thousands of former public servants including a retired firefighter, Brendan Milewski. Chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta has his story in today's "Human Factor."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED CALLER: We need multiple EMS, multiple firemen down.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You're listening to the actual 911 call from August 13th, 2010.

UNIDENTIFIED CALLER: Everybody here now.

GUPTA: It's a day that began like any other, but one that would change firefighter Brendan Milewski's life forever.

BRENDAN MILEWSKI, RETIRED DETROIT FIREFIGHTER: I remember we were working on the facade of the building, and somebody had yelled some sort of caution. And the bricks were kind of raining down in front of my face. And you're taught in a collapse situation to run towards the collapse, but your human instincts take over. I thought I had it beat has what caught to me and hit me on the back.

GUPTA: Brendan knew right away his career as one of Detroit's bravest was over.

MILEWSKI: You see these war movies like "Saving Private Ryan" when these guys are in combat, and you lose sound. You can't hear anything and it was exactly like that. I tried to place my hands on the ground in front of me and do a push-up, and when I did that push-up, I couldn't slide my knees to my chest. I couldn't, and I knew I was paralyzed and had a spinal cord injury.

GUPTA: Brendan now spends three hours a day, three days a week at the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan working to make the most of what muscles he still has control over.

MILEWSKI: It's perfect. There are days when I question whether or not I'm OK mentally, but to me it's simple. I learned early on that I have a voice through this, and I have something to say, and I have a message.

GUPTA: Doogie, as he's known to his firefighting family, because he joined the department when he was just 20 years old, was even featured in the award-winning documentary "Burn" from Denis Leary.

DENIS LEARY, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, "BURN": What happened to Doogie in the movie is something that I think a lot of people would consider tragic. His response to what happens to him is heroic.

MILEWSKI: As much as I hate it's me and my story, I think it's something we need to open up people's eyes to.

GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Sanjay, thank you very much.

Coming up at the top of the hour, new details emerging about the American teacher who is out exercising, ultimately killed in Benghazi, why would someone want to kill him? We have more on the search for answers on that today. Stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Falsely accused of his wife's murder in 1986, ripped from his precious 3-year-old son, districted and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in a Texas prison, but after a 25-year battle, Michael Morton was exonerated. The real killer discovered from DNA evidence.

This is a story told in the CNN film entitled "An Unreal Dream" and Michael Morton talks in vivid detail about the harsh reality of life, 25 years he spent behind bars.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL MORTON: When I first got to the Texas Penitentiary, the first thing they do is strip you naked and search you. You're given a pair of state boxers. I realized the full gravity of the place because as I was standing in line to get my boots, I noticed a guy in front of me. I counted 13 stab wounds in his back. He had scars.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bend over, spread your cheeks.

MORTON: It really drove home for me how very serious the place was, that they weren't playing. No time to joke around. There was nothing funny about this and everybody was deadly serious. And you better get your heart right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Joining me now, live, Barry Sheck, cofounder and co-director of the "Innocence Project," this tremendous organization responsible for the exoneration of more than 300 wrongfully convicted people and Barry, Michael's case was one of them. Congratulations belatedly to you and your team. I can't imagine the phone calls, the e-mails, the pleas from so many people to try to get individuals behind bars exonerated. Why take his case?

BARRY SCHECK, CO-FOUNDER AND CO-DIRECTOR OF THE INNOCENCE PROJECT: Well, Michael's was one of the first cases that we got. And actually, his trial lawyer, great guy named Bill Allison, who was a professor at the University of Texas law school, tried his case. In 1989, he came to me and said, Barry, there have been very few instances, in fact to him, it was the only one where he had taken a case to trial and verdict where he was completely convinced that his client was innocent.

You know, didn't know what to do. He said, here, you guys take this. It was a very, very long struggle. We were stopped from even getting DNA testing for six years by a prosecutor in Williamson County. Frankly, it was that refusal to get us the DNA testing that led to his defeat and re-election. The judge, the person who prosecuted Michael's case, a guy named Ken Anderson, became a judge in that county.

He pled guilty to criminal contempt for hiding exculpatory evidence in Michael's case. He did ten days in jail, he was disbarred. Now we're having an audit in Williamson County conducted by the criminal defense lawyers and the Innocence Project in Texas to see if he had done this in other instances.

So Michael's case really is of enormous importance, and he himself is such an extraordinary individual, that I think there is no one in America, you know, white, black, or brown, that couldn't identify with the story of leaving for work first thing in the morning and then all of a sudden by the afternoon, you know, your wife's been beaten to death in front of your 3-1/2-year-old child. And you're convicted of that murder. It's just unreal dream, as the documentary so well puts it.

BALDWIN: Which airs tomorrow night and before I get word on Michael, you brought up Ken Anderson. I have to read the statement from his attorney. Mr. Anderson has not been and will never be prosecuted for any alleged crime in connection to the Michael Morton trial or any subsequent proceeding. He goes on to believe that Mr. Morton's conviction resulted directly from the medical examiner's assessment of Christine Morton's time of death, a time where he was home with his wife.

Regardless of the cause of the result reached in the Morton trial, in line of the DNA results obtained in 2011, Mr. Anderson has consistently express and continues to express to Mr. Morton and his family his regret for the prosecution and incorrect incarceration. Need to get that in there.

SCHECK: Brooke, there's a serious problem. I don't know when he issued the statement, but he entered a no contest plea to criminal contempt, right? He was disbarred, removed. He had to resign his judgeship, and he went to jail.

BALDWIN: Ten days in jail, right?

SCHECK: Yes, so how could he say that he wasn't convicted of a crime? And frankly, this is the first time in the United States that we can remember that a prosecutor actually went to jail and was convicted of a crime, criminal contempt in Texas is a crime, and he went to jail. So if that's not a crime, I don't know what he's talking about.

BALDWIN: I hear you loud and clear. This is Ken Anderson. I want to end with Michael Morton. We will all be watching this film tomorrow night. I was talking to one of the pro bono attorneys. He was telling me, the moment when he told, he and another delivered the news of this exoneration --

SCHECK: Neal Morrison, yes.

BALDWIN: Can you take me inside the moment when you saw Michael for the first time? What did he say to you?

SCHECK: Well, you know, Michael, by the way, has a book coming out that's -- that I have read that is absolutely terrific. He was stunned, of course, by all of this. But you know, when you are innocent and you didn't commit the crime, the only issue is whether or not the truth going to ever come out. And I think Michael realizes how lucky he is, and that there are other people in prison that did not commit the crime, and the key thing to do is to try to learn the lessons from his case.

And one of the key lessons from his case, which it's clear to me that Ken Anderson hasn't learned, is that you don't hide exculpatory evidence. There's a lot that can be done to make sure that prosecutors don't do that. Let me be the first to say it's not an epidemic, but it is not episodic either. When it happens and there are prosecutors who deliberately and wilfully are hiding exculpatory evidence, they have to be held accountable.

That's what happened with Ken Anderson. There are things we can do all across the United States, judges tomorrow, every state and federal court can issue brady orders that going to bring about the same result we had in Ken Anderson's case. If they just do that, and we're trying every way to get it done and Michael's helping us.

BALDWIN: I met Michael this week, shook his hand, and just can't imagine, cannot imagine being put away for a crime I didn't commit. Barry Scheck, co-founder and co-director of the Innocence Project, truly heroic efforts in everything you all do. Thank you so much for joining me today. I truly appreciate it.

Just again, let me remind you, watch this amazing CNN film, "An Unreal Dream," it is tonight, 9:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific only here on CNN.