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Another Round Of Winter Weather Set to Slam Northeast; Fed Meeting Scheduled Today; Fate Of Bipartisan Budget Deal Hangs In Senate; Protecting Beatles Copyright; No Touchdown, No Problem

Aired December 17, 2013 - 09:30   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Another round of nasty winter weather is set to slam the northeast. Just days after some cities got hit with more than a foot of snow, another storm is moving from the Midwest to the east coast. Parts of Massachusetts and Maine could see between six to nine inches of the stuff.

Today, the Fed meets, and what it does decides could affect your bottom line. Everyone is waiting to see if Fed chair Ben Bernanke is going to announce a cutback in the stimulus. And it's that stimulus is keeping your interest rates nice and low. Of course, we'll see what that Fed meeting means for Wall Street. The opening bell just rang. On Monday, stocks posted gains with the Dow adding about 130 points.

Something else that could affect the stock market, the fate of a bipartisan budget deal hangs in the Senate today. Later this morning, the Senate gets its first opportunity to weigh in on the deal, which many Republican groups still hope will be defeated. Chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash joins us from Capitol Hill with more. Good morning.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. A lot of conservative groups are still at this hour trying to convince some undeclared Republican senators to vote against this, saying it doesn't do enough to attack the debt and the deficit, or because it actually has what they call taxes, new fees on airline travelers. Other groups like military groups that are trying to convince senators to vote against it because it would chip away at the pensions of people in the military, also federal workers.

But even despite all of that, we have had a number of Republican senators in the last 24 hours come out and say they are going to support at least the procedural vote in about half an hour, which is really the key vote that will get over the hurdle because they need 60 votes to pass it.

On the Democratic side, leadership sources say that they -- if they need all 55 Democrats, they could probably corral them to vote for this, but if there is enough cushion on the Republican side, they'll probably let some of the liberal Democrats like Elizabeth Warren, for example, if she so chooses, to vote against it in protest to some of the things she is upset about, others as well, like there aren't unemployment benefits in this package. Those are expiring for about $1.3 million people in this country.

That is the state of play. It really is kind of bizarre, Carol, when you think about it, because so many times we've had these fiscal issues where it has passed bipartisan way in the Senate and has gotten stopped up in the Republican-led House. This is the very same budget deal that passed the House last week, sailed through the House in a bipartisan way. Now it has some challenges in the Senate. In large part because you do have several senior Republicans who have challenges from the right: number one Republican, Mitch McConnell, the number two Republican, Jon Cornyn, for example. They have primary challengers. They are up for reelection this coming year and they likely will vote against this. They want to be careful. You're seeing the same dynamic from other Senate Republicans.

COSTELLO: All right, we'll check back. Dana Bash, reporting live from The Hill this morning.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a judge takes aim at the NSA and slams the agency's activities as unconstitutional, but the ruling might not stop the government from collecting your private personal data. We'll talk about that after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: A rejection of the NSA, and possible vindication for Edward Snowden. That's how some are describing the ruling by a federal judge who says the government collection of phone records is likely, unconstitutional. The judge writing, in part, quote, "I cannot imagine a more indiscriminate and arbitrary invasion than this systemic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every citizen." But keep in mind, the ruling is limited and it only applies to five plaintiffs that sued the spy agency. Still the reporter who helped NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden break the news about the government's activities says this justified Snowden's actions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GLENN GREENWALD, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: How can it not vindicate him? Let's just use common sense for a minute. Here is an American citizen working inside of the government, who discovers that the United States government is doing things without the knowledge of the American people that is so illegal, so against the core constitutional guarantees of the Constitution that a George Bush-appointed judge today said it's not even a close call. He said James Madison would be aghast if he knew that the U.S. government would be collecting extremely invasive data on every single American without any remote suspicion, let alone probable cause.

It's not only the right but the duty of an American citizen, and in Edward Snowden's situation, to come forward, at great risk to himself and inform his fellow citizens about what their government is doing in the dark that is illegal.

(END VIDEO CLIP) COSTELLO: There you have it. Danny Cevallos is a CNN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney. He joins me live from New York. Hi, Danny.

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Hi. How are you?

COSTELLO: I'm good.

So, this ruling doesn't mean that the NSA will stop collecting phone records, right?

CEVALLOS: No, it does not, for a couple of reasons. First, the judge actually has stayed his ruling pending an appeal. In essence, he understands that this involves some very serious constitutional issues, and instead of forcing the government to stop -- understanding that his decision is subject to review by no less than two levels of appellate courts - there may be some change, and this is not necessarily a precedential opinion yet by a long shot.

So, I think that was the prudent thing to do. The procedurally weird thing is that he is essentially granting their request to immediately stop this right away, which he did, except we're going to wait and see. It's an interesting procedural thing.

COSTELLO: Very interesting. I know that three other lawsuits have been filed regarding the NSA. I would expect this all to end up at the U.S. Supreme Court. Right?

CEVALLOS: The Supreme Court has to address this issue. This is a fundamental Fourth Amendment issue. The problem with the Fourth Amendment is that every day, technology outpaces what the case law says. The case that the government cited in this instance, for example, involved putting little registers up at the phone company. I mean the technology has completely evolved way past the technology in 1979, which formed the basis for the precedential opinion Smith v. Maryland. Now courts have to deal with how does this new technology, the advance that the NSA has made in surveillance, how does that apply to our fundamental ideas about the Fourth Amendment?

COSTELLO: I can understand that. Back in 1979, there were no smart phones. You look into a cell phone now, can you figure out lots of things about a person. That's really at the root of this, right?

CEVALLOS: Yeah, I mean we're talking about -- when Smith v. Maryland came out, we were watching TV shows about people who talked into a phone in their shoe, and that was considered state-of-the-art spy technology. Now everybody has a phone, and the bottom line is the more we advance in technology, the more we entrust our personal information to third parties. And that's always been a Fourth Amendment problem that the courts have struggled with. The ultimate question is, at what point where do we draw the line? When we give that information to a third party, when do we lose our privacy in that information, and when do we still have our privacy in that information?

COSTELLO: Danny Cevallos, thanks for making things clear. Appreciate it.

CEVALLOS: Thank you.

COSTELLO: You're welcome. I want to bring in CNN political analyst Gloria Borger. Good morning, Gloria.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning.

COSTELLO: How much pressure is President Obama under to change the way the NSA operates?

BORGER: I think he is under a lot of pressure, which is why he's meeting the head of these tech companies who sent him a letter, saying they weren't happy with the way the administration handled this. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook came out and said you've blown this because you didn't explain to the American public why you need the data.

And I also think he's under a lot of sort of internal pressure, if you will. Remember, this is a president who, as a senator, was against George W. Bush's warrantless wire taps, and now finds himself in a situation where he is being attacked by the base of his own party for doing too much spying on the American public. And so, he had a group that got together that has given him some recommendations, and the recommendations, the reporting has been that they're going to call for some kind of restraint while you continue to do this kind of surveillance because we need it for our protection. So the president really is looking for a kind of a balance that he can live with constitutionally.

COSTELLO: And many Americans are looking for that as well. They're really not happy with the president's decisions. Today a new "Washington Post"/ABC news poll is out, showing the president's approval rating is low -- 43 percent. You wonder how he can possibly repair the damage when the American people think there are so many things wrong.

BORGER: Well, if you look at the president over the last year, the narrative is that this is a president who continues to drop. The Affordable Care Act was kind of the low point there. But on the issues that really matter, questions about his credibility, his ability to manage the economy, his ability to manage the country, his competency, those are issues in which this White House has really seen a precipitous drop when you look at it over the last year.

So the question that you have is more globally, if you look at a president the sixth year of his presidency, has the public kind of made up its mind about President Obama, and he'll always be at that level you just saw in the poll, or will he be able to kind of get back up to a higher point? Will he stay at that set point? He has been about 42 percent, 43 percent. Will he be able to rebound?

I would argue it's very hard unless people start feeling a real rebound in the economy. We've seen some good economic numbers, but people don't feel it yet. Once they feel good about their own economic situations, I can see the competency numbers changing. The question is credibility. Because if people don't trust you, they kind of dismiss you. And we don't -- we don't know where those numbers are headed yet.

COSTELLO: We'll see. We'll keep an eye on it.

BORGER: Yep.

COSTELLO: Gloria Borger, thank you so much.

BORGER: Sure.

COSTELLO: All new in the next hour of NEWSROOM, one of the largest drug companies says it will stop paying doctors to promote its products. The practice has been criticized for years. Why is GlaxoSmithKline changing things now?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: London Police say there is absolutely no evidence that members of the British military elite special forces team killed Princess Diana. The allegation was raised in August, 16 years after Diana died in a Paris car crash along with her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed. A police statement said a thorough investigation was completed before finally rejecting that claim.

The year was 1963, the year of Martin Luther King's iconic "I Have a Dream" speech. LBJ took over the White House after President Kennedy was assassinated. And it was the year many people say the Beatles found their voice.

That is "There's a Place," one of 59 songs never released by the legendary music group. While you were sleeping a collection of lost studio recordings and performances were made available for a short time on iTunes. It's gone now.

Let's bring in CNN entertainment Nischelle Turner.

Why?

NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, I've got good news and bad news in this piece for you, Carol, here, so bear with me. You know, there were versions of different songs that were available, songs like "I Want to Hold Your Hand," "Roll Over Beethoven," "Hippie Hippie Shake." Those type of songs.

But the thing to remember here is that this was a move to extend the copyright for these versions of these songs. These are, as you said, live performances and studio tracks that were never released on an album. Now 50 years ago the BBC actually relied mainly on live music. So when people heard the Beatles there, it was from a live performance.

And I know we have a little bit of a track. I think I might have heard it, but if we can hear it again where my mouth isn't running over it, it's "Bad to Me." Let's listen.

OK. So it's "There's a Place." We're giving you what we can give you this morning. Now as far as we can tell, the copyright on these songs were set to expire at the end of December, Carol, because they were never released, which means in order to keep control over the versions of these song, they had to put them up for sale to the public.

So this release wasn't widely publicized. The songs have already been taken down from iTunes sites around the world but just after 9:00 Eastern Time this morning we were able to see it for sale for the first time on iTunes here in the U.S.

One of our co-workers found it available on iTunes about 20 minutes ago. But we just checked again about a minute ago, Carol, and it's already unavailable. But we got it, though. We got it before it became unavailable.

COSTELLO: See? There's a good side to working overnights, right? So --

TURNER: You try.

COSTELLO: So will these songs be released again? And when will we be able to get our hands on them?

TURNER: Well, you know, that's a good question. A music industry executive that has knowledge of these arrangements actually told us that the tracks will be available on the iTunes for the , quote, "foreseeable future," but there are several observers that had suggested that these bootlegs, their brief release would be a way to only extend the -- the 50-year copyrights for another 50 years.

Now the thing to remember here again is that a lot of these material is under the same copyright restrictions. So there was an album released in November called "On Air Live at the BBC Volume II." And also there was one released -- that will be released in January. It's a big collection of the Beatles album that was coming out next year. So they're trying their best to preserve these copyrights so nobody else can profit off of these -- the Beatles music.

COSTELLO: All right. Nischelle Turner, thanks so much.

TURNER: Absolutely.

COSTELLO: Their music also rocked generations. Their songs also defined rock and roll.

I just want to listen to the song, but I must move on. Kiss is among this year's group of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees. Peter Gabriel, Hall and Oates, Linda Ronstadt, Cat Stevens and Nirvana also receiving the high honors. Yes, Nirvana. Don't you feel old?

Artists are eligible for the prestigious award 25 years after the release of their first recording. Tickets for the induction ceremony which takes place in New York in April go on sale next month.

Bad news for Beyonce fans. Target will not be stocking its shelves with the singer's new album. The store says it's focused on offering music that customers -- to customers that's made available in various formats at the same time.

On Friday Beyonce surprised fans by releasing a new album exclusively on iTunes without any prior announcements. Target says the decision to sell the album digitally before a CD was released impacts the company's demand and sales projections so we will not see a Beyonce CD in Target.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, six field goals for the Ravens' Justin Tucker and the game winner kicked from another area code.

What the heck happened, Andy Scholes?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Should I say it was a tough night for my Lions? A tough night? There are so many other words I want to say but I can't because I'm on television right now.

Hi, Andy.

ANDY SCHOLES, BLEACHER REPORT: Hey, Carol. You know, this night was -- it's all about Ravens' kicker Justin Tucker.

COSTELLO: Whatever.

SCHOLES: He -- well, he not only made the game-winning field goal on this game, Carol, he scored all the points for the Ravens last night. I'm sure you're not happy. You know, the Ravens didn't even score touchdown yet they still beat the Lions.

COSTELLO: Stop it.

(LAUGHTER)

SCHOLES: All right. Tucker, he kicked six field goals. That was a franchise record. He knocked them down 29, 24, 32, 49, 53, and Carol, he saved his best for last. This next one right here a 61-yarder with under a minute to go. Check it out. It barely makes it over the cross bar, but it was good. That gave the Ravens the win, 18-16. As I said, they won the game despite not even scoring a touchdown.

COSTELLO: Schwartz is gone next year?

SCHOLES: Yes. Schwartz is probably fired after this.

COSTELLO: Yes.

SCHOLES: All right. Cowboys, they're the worst colossal franchise history against the Packers on Sunday. Star receiver Dez Bryant caught a lot of flack for heading to the locker room before the game was over. Some say he quit on his team but Dez says that's definitely not the case.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEZ BRYANT, COWBOYS WIDE RECEIVER: It was all me, the way I was feeling. No self-esteem, no, none of that. It was the way I felt, I couldn't take it, and I didn't -- I didn't want you guys to catch me on the sideline, you know, crying or anything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: See, Carol, he didn't want us to see him crying on the field.

(LAUGHTER)

All right. Carol, you know how the car dealerships always have those crazy promotions that if the impossible happens you get to keep the car for free?

COSTELLO: Yes.

SCHOLES: Well, it finally backfired on someone. A car dealership near Seattle last week says if the Seahawks shut out the Giants on Sunday. Twelve people will win $35,000 each. Sure enough it happens.

COSTELLO: Oh my god.

SCHOLES: Seahawks shut up the Giants. Now lucky for the dealership, Carol, they purchased $7,000 insurance policy for this promotion. So the big loser in this deal is actually the insurance company.

COSTELLO: Good. Good.

SCHOLES: All right. Number three in the lineup section of Bleacherreport.com, music legend Paul McCartney is at the Brooklyn Nets game. And check it out. He really wants a free T-shirt.

(LAUGHTER)

Watch it. He says, oh, that was my shirt. It's funny, Carol. Someone who's got 60 gold records, still wants a free T-shirt. And the T-shirt, I think it's all about the hunt. You just want to catch the T-shirt.

COSTELLO: Absolutely.

SCHOLES: I'm not sure many people actually end up wearing the T- shirt. Right? So I've gotten a few, I never wore them but I was just so happy that I was able to --

COSTELLO: You actually caught one?

SCHOLES: -- catch it. Yes, I've caught two or three actually.

COSTELLO: Get out.

(LAUGHTER)

SCHOLES: I was happy about catching it, but as I said, I think I gave them away. I didn't -- it wasn't really about catching.

COSTELLO: No. It's more about the challenge of winning.

SCHOLES: Yes. The hunt of getting the shirt and elbowing the people next to you to get it.

COSTELLO: Yes, get out of my way. Thanks, Andy.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

COSTELLO: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for being with me. We begin this hour with breaking news out of Afghanistan. Six U.S. soldiers have been killed in a helicopter crash.

Let's head to the Pentagon now and CNN's Barbara Starr.

Good morning, Barbara.

STARR: Good morning, Carol. The worst possible news for six U.S. military families going into this holiday season. Word is coming now that yes, six U.S. troops killed in a helicopter crash in southern Afghanistan. There was one survivor.