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Judge Rules NSA Phone Surveillance Unconstitutional; Will Senate Pass Budget Deal?

Aired December 16, 2013 - 15:00   ET

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

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: One of the key arguments against Edward Snowden's disclosures has been that he never disclosed anything that was shown to be illegal.

Well, today, a federal judge said this enormous, expensive program is illegal. And if this is upheld on appeal, and that's of course, a very open question, the government will have to tear out one of its major surveillance programs and start virtually from scratch on the so-called metadata program, the program that examines the phone numbers called and the duration of calls inside the United States.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: We all know, as we have been reporting on the different NSA leaks the last couple months, you have folks on one side who call Ed Snowden a hero, call him a whistle-blower. On the other side, he's a criminal facing espionage charges back here at home.

I was in the middle of this fascinating and fiery exchange between David Sirota on the left and Ben Ferguson on the right, and here is just a piece of that exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEN FERGUSON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: If you bring Snowden back and you give him amnesty, you're basically saying to anyone that works in the government that at any point you're not happy with either your boss, the president, your chain of command, that if you're willing to steal information and go out in the world and it's big enough and good enough, we will let you give it out to the world and we will invite you back home afterwards.

You can't do that, the same way that America has a policy that we don't negotiate with terrorists for American citizens, because if you do it once, they don't stop.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: It's a great point of setting some sort of precedent.

David, how would you respond to the notion of if it's OK for one person, it's OK for others.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Go ahead. DAVID SIROTA, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: There should be a precedent that when government higher-ups are committing crimes, that whistle-blowers should be able to blow the whistle in a way that exposes the crimes that that they have committed. That's the precedent that would be set here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So, let me just back. That was in response. We were talking about the "60 Minute" reporting last night of high-up NSA officials saying perhaps Ed Snowden could get asylum. The White House saying no, no, no, no.

But, Jeff Toobin, back to specifically this ruling, where then does it go next? Does it go up, does it go to a higher court, this notion of the Fourth Amendment and this being unconstitutional?

TOOBIN: That's exactly where it goes. It goes to the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, often described as the second most important court in the country.

Interestingly, this is the court where two judges were just confirmed after much controversy, Patricia Millett and Nina Pillard, Obama appointees to this court. They may be among the judges who hear this case. So it just underlines how important this court is. This ruling could be overturned in its entirety, it could be upheld, it could even be expanded to hold that even broader parts of the law are unconstitutional.

But certainly today, it's a victory for those who support Edward Snowden, no question about it.

BALDWIN: Evan Perez, to you, you know, there have been questions about, you know, the NSA, yes, but folks all along who have been supportive of it saying it protects America from terror. It has serious, you know, justifications security-wise. Where does that play into all of this?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: You know, that's what the biggest problem for the program has been, is that it's very hard for the government to prove, you know, what exactly is the usefulness of it.

This judge stated his ruling today to allow the government some time to appeal, but he also had some very damning things to say about the government's argument so far for why this program is necessary.

BALDWIN: For example?

PEREZ: Well, right now, you know, he gives, for example, he says -- I'm sorry -- I thought we had a graphic on the ruling, Brooke.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Guys, do we have one?

PEREZ: He basically said -- he said that the government has not given a single instance --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Here we go. There you go, Evan.

PEREZ: OK.

The government does not cite a single instance in which analysis of the NSA's bulk metadata actually stopped an imminent attack or otherwise aided the government in achieving any objective that was time-sensitive in nature.

BALDWIN: Wow.

(CROSSTALK)

PEREZ: Yes, this is a gold mine for critics who say that the post- 9/11 counterterrorism programs that started under the Bush duration and have largely continued under the Obama administration have gone too far.

Just this weekend, for instance, you were talking about the NSA, there was a panel that was appointed by President Obama to review NSA programs. They suggested some modest changes, not really changing any of the big programs, but the White House has already indicated that it plans to make very few of these changes. And this ruling is -- provides ammunition that could force them to revisit some of this, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Evan Perez, thank you. Jeff Toobin, thank you for calling in.

More on that, of course, throughout the rest of the day, big, big implications and consequences with that ruling.

Now to this, a very large vote, hugely important, looms tomorrow in the Senate. The Senate will vote on whether to take up the landmark two-year budget passed by the House. Remember, that was late last week. Here's what they need. They need 60 yes votes to do that, including the votes of at least five Republicans.

Suddenly, that is looking a bit iffy.

Jake Tapper, host of "THE LEAD," our chief Washington correspondent, joining me now.

And, Jake, we talked about this before. This time, it's actually Senate Republicans, not the -- we will call them feisty, feisty House Republicans who have been playing hardball on this one. Why is that?

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, there are a lot of reasons for it. One of the main objections that some Senate Republicans have voiced has to do with the changes to retiree pay for veterans, which will be reduced through what advocates are calling reform, others are calling a reduction in pay when it comes to cost of living increases. A lot of Senate Republicans upset about that. Right now, there are six Senate Republicans who are committed to vote for cloture. That means to proceed to the final vote tomorrow morning. That's a good sign for those who are trying to pass this bill.

The question right now is, liberal Democrats, progressive Democrats in the Senate, how are they going to vote? There are five or six who haven't even responded to CNN when we have asked how they're going to vote, people from the progressive flanks, Senator Wyden of Oregon, Senator Warren of Massachusetts.

And then there are a number of liberals who are also undecided. My best guess is that this will pass, but it looks like it will be something of a squeaker.

BALDWIN: OK, so we wait for cloture. They need 60 for that, then they go on to the big --

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: Then they go on to 50. Obviously, it's a lower threshold, but still there are a lot of liberal Democrats who don't want to vote for this, so you can't count on all of them to vote for it. There are 55 Senate Republicans. Do they have enough votes?

I think there are -- probably will be enough votes, ultimately, to pass it, but this is not a popular piece of legislation. You're probably not going to see the strong bipartisan vote you saw in the House when it passed, although you know what? Who knows.

BALDWIN: Who knows. You have covered Washington a long time. You never know. There are lots of surprises at each and every corner. But let's play the if game. If this thing passes the Senate and everyone breathes this collective sigh of relief, it means no government shutdown threat for at least two years, but then we have the other potential threat, which is the debt limit. Right?

We're not finished yet, because when you take a look at what Republican Paul Ryan had to say about that on Sunday, it was this. "We don't want -- we don't want nothing out of this debt limit. We're going to decide what it is we can accomplish out of this debt limit fight." This is Paul Ryan over the weekend.

When will they fight that war again, and what do you think Republicans might demand to prevent the U.S. from defaulting on the debt?

TAPPER: Well, it's unclear when exactly the debt ceiling will come up again. That's really up to the Treasury to announce when they're going to run out of money and need to raise it again. That will be some time in the spring, but when exactly, they don't know.

Paul Ryan's office said he was not trying to saber-rattle when he said that. He was actually just talking about how he and Patty Murray, the Democratic senator with whom he negotiated this budget agreement, they were able to come up with a bipartisan plan before the deadline, and that their next plan is to avoid a debt ceiling showdown, but they do want, obviously, Paul Ryan and conservatives in the House of Representatives do want something to happen.

They're not just going to raise the debt ceiling without accomplishing anything. But Ryan's office says they weren't rattling their sabers. It was more like, this is our next thing we're going to do and we're going to try to negotiate with Patty Murray and avoid another perilous shutdown showdown there as well.

BALDWIN: OK. That's a couple months away. We will be watching for that squeaker vote, as you say, tomorrow. Jake Tapper, thank you. We will see you at the top of the hour on "THE LEAD."

I should mention Jake will -- sat down with heavyweight champ Mike Tyson. It's a fascinating interview. They talk about everything from love and hate to the Italian philosopher Machiavelli? Really, Tapper? We will be watching top of hour, Mike Tyson, Jake. Stay with us.

Coming up, though, did the Boston bomber hear voices? A new report suggests, yes, he suffered from schizophrenia, but the revelations do not end here. This fascinating "Boston Globe" five-month investigator, we will be talking to one of the reporters there.

Plus, welcome to the new space race, as China steps up its game. I have to ask, why are they suddenly becoming so ambitious? What do the Chinese know that we don't? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

This is incredible, this huge expose on the Boston bomb suspects. Was it Islamic extremism, was it inner demons that might have led these two brothers to do the unthinkable?

For the past five months, "The Boston Globe" has been digging. They have been asking questions. They have been talking to all these people, trying to figure out why these two young men allegedly planted this pair of homemade pressure cooker bombs right there on Boylston Street at the finish line of the Boston Marathon this spring.

As it turns out, the elder of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects may have been schizophrenic. Friends telling "The Globe" that Tamerlan Tsarnaev heard voices, a -- quote -- "internal rambling that told him to do things."

Tamerlan was killed in a shoot-out with police. His younger brother, Dzhokhar, is waiting to go to trial.

Joining me now, one of the three reporters with "The Boston Globe."

David Filipov is joining me.

And, David, again, incredible reporting. Thank you for coming on. As I mentioned, this is the result of a five-month investigation. You were reporting in Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Canada, the U.S. Let me just begin with where your piece begins, the elder Tsarnaev and the voices he hears. Was he jihadist or was he schizophrenic, as a doctor had warned? What's the answer to that?

DAVID FILIPOV, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": Well, get this picture.

We started with the idea, OK, Chechen Muslim extremists have blown up the marathon. What do we do now? As we try to go down the path, trying to find connections to jihadist cells or networks or people they might have met or Tamerlan might have met, we keep coming up dry.

And then you talk to these friends of his. They're talking about how voices are making me do things, this idea of majestic mind control, which is someone else controlling what I do. These are friends of his who hung out with him, went to mosque with him, telling us this stuff, and you start to get the real clear picture of somebody who is increasingly unhinged who latches on to the idea of a jihad as an excuse to make this, you know -- to lash out in this terrible and tragic way, you know, more like Timothy McVeigh than say, for example, some sort of al Qaeda terrorist network.

BALDWIN: But the mother of this family, she wanted nothing to do with it. She was ignoring these warnings.

FILIPOV: Well, Tamerlan is the golden child of the family. Tamerlan is the one -- their dream of success in the United States is based partly on the hope that he would become a successful boxer, box in the Olympics, go professional. So the idea that something might be wrong with him is something the parents, especially the mother, can't accept.

So when she starts talking to friends about him hearing voices, she doesn't actually follow it up, although the parents are seeing psychiatrists, doesn't follow it up with trying to get any care.

BALDWIN: It's a troubled family, as you write about, but, you know, I will never forget the day -- I was in Cambridge, I was in Boston for three weeks in the spring, and I talked to kids who went to school with the Tsarnaevs, especially Dzhokhar, and they said over and over, he was a good kid, he was a good kid.

It was the older brother. He was brooding, he was never really around. He was the reason, right? That sort of became the headline of this Boston bombing story, that it was the elder Tsarnaev that had brainwashed the younger. But that's the thing about your piece, that you find it's more like they were co-conspirators.

FILIPOV: Right, and the thing is this idea of, you know, devout certain radicalized Tamerlan pushing lanky, you know, stoner Dzhokhar into doing this turns on its head.

You have got unhinged Tamerlan, and Dzhokhar, drug dealer, manipulative, sense of invulnerability, risk taker, and a guy who just as easily might have been the guy who said, let's go along and do this. There isn't this idea of Dzhokhar being radicalized. There's this idea of Dzhokhar as a thrill-seeking criminal who doesn't think that anything can happen to him.

BALDWIN: And then finally, with this family, David, I mean, the real reason the Tsarnaevs came to the country, you are reporting they were really on the run. From whom?

FILIPOV: Well, a lot of Chechens got -- not a lot, but hundreds of Chechens got political asylum in the United States because of the war in Chechnya.

From friends, it sounds like the father exaggerated any idea of oppression, had a dream of making it in the United States. Possibly some of his business dealings got him in trouble with the Russian mob. One story his family has told to friends is the idea that they were severely -- that he was severely beaten up, hospitalized, somebody did something to the family dog, cut the dog's head off, and they're on the run from that.

Again, none of this is to excuse what happened, but you get this picture that is completely the opposite, different than what we thought of when we first heard it, calculated terrorist organization trying to do this, this train wreck of a family.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: It is a train wreck. It's a much bigger picture. So for anyone who has really been following that, and I will tweet the link out of course to "The Boston Globe" piece, but fascinating and all the details and the digging.

David Filipov with "The Boston Globe," thank you so much for sharing your piece. I appreciate it.

Coming up, the hit show "Homeland" stuns everyone, deciding the fate for a main character. We will show how shows fare after major plot twists like this one. Spoiler alert, by the way.

Also, do you think you would be able to tell the difference between a human telemarketer and a robot? Think it should be pretty easy, right? No, think again. You will not believe this next story.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right, if you did not see the finale of "Homeland," don't turn the channel. Hit mute. Spoiler alert. OK, going to give you a second. OK, good.

Don't get mad at me, but a stunning season ender. And this is the highest rated episode ever. The series lead character, Nicholas Brody was publicly executed and Carrie Mathison, played by Claire Danes, witnessed the whole scene.

And then there was the animated comedy series "Family Guy," and another spoiler alert for you, I'm just full of them today, I guess. Close your ears. The leading character Brian bit the dust, only to come back and live. So we have to ask the question, what's going on? What happens when these popular shows are killing off characters?

CNN entertainment correspondent Nischelle Turner is staying up with us. We appreciate you this late in the afternoon.

But, first, and we're going to get to Beyonce, by the way, in a minute. Why are they doing this?

NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: It's interesting because we're watching and we're talking about it. That's why. In television, anything can happen, Brooke. It seems that that is exactly what's happening here.

(CROSSTALK)

TURNER: I kind of like to look at things as the glass half-full instead of half-empty. When you're talking about "Homeland," I look at it like we have actually had Brody two seasons longer than we thought he would, because he actually was supposed to be killed off in season one and in season two, but Damian Lewis was just so good in this role, that the writers decided to keep him on for a while and create this whole storyline.

(CROSSTALK)

TURNER: But if you watch the show, you saw he was kind of running out of a storyline, running out of steam a little bit, and it was like, what's going to happen with him?

So they decided to go ahead and do this. It's happened before in other big shows. We saw "Two and a Half Men." When Charlie Sheen had the issue with Chuck Lorre and he left the show, he died, so they had to replace him. "American Horror Story," they kill off their main characters and they start all over again.

We're seeing it a little bit more, and we're seeing shows still survive without these, what we think are crucial characters. Except for in the fact of "Family Guy," like you said, because there was this whole public outcry about why did they kill Brian the dog? We love him, he's snarky, he's the best, has the best one-liners on the show.

Seth MacFarlane said it wasn't because of the 130,000 signatures on the Change.org petition.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Crazy. Change.org got involved with this.

TURNER: They did put a time machine together, they brought Brian back. Everybody is happy.

BALDWIN: Anyone remember "Dallas," "Dallas," anyone?

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: That's what I kept thinking about back in the '80s.

(CROSSTALK)

TURNER: Bobby Ewing, it was a dream.

BALDWIN: It was a dream, the shower scene. Anyway, Beyonce, I know you were talking to Don, who was in for me on Friday. You were talking about Beyonce. Here's her album, and it's the kind of thing where you can't buy the singles. Right? It's album only.

TURNER: Yes, on iTunes.

BALDWIN: Doing gangbusters.

TURNER: Yes.

First of all, let me get these units correct, because I want to give her all the credit she deserves, 828,773 albums sold in three days on iTunes, shattering records. It's really with no promotion, none of that. She just announced on Instagram, surprise, here you go. Here we are.

(CROSSTALK)

TURNER: So, yes, it's really become so interesting. She's about to release two singles next week, though.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: She is releasing singles?

TURNER: Yes, onto the radio, not for you to buy yet. Onto the radio. The first one, yes, is called "Blow." It's going to top 40.

BALDWIN: Why?

TURNER: Well, that's just the way she wants to do it. It's the Beyonce way. She doesn't have to release the singles to buy yet. Eventually, they will allow you to buy some singles from the album on iTunes, but just not yet. She's going to still tease you.

BALDWIN: Because she just knows people will buy, they will plunk down that, what --

(CROSSTALK)

TURNER: Well, I have to tell you -- $15.99. But I have to tell you, it's a great album. It's really good. It's really good.

BALDWIN: I will take your word for it.

TURNER: She did it again.

BALDWIN: Love Beyonce. Love Beyonce. All right, Nischelle, we love you for staying up. Thank you very much, Nischelle.

TURNER: Absolutely. Any time.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, can't believe we're discussing a war on Santa. Here we go, specifically his race. After this FOX News anchor declared both Santa and Jesus are white, a teacher getting into a little trouble for a similar move.

Don Lemon is suddenly involved in this whole dust-up, so Don Lemon will join me and we're going to go there next.

Plus, the chilling last moments of the 19 firefighters killed in Arizona caught on a helmet camera. You will hear the sound coming up. This is for you.

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