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Judge Says NSA Phone Collections Unconstitutional; Mega Millions Jackpot Could Reach $1 Billion; Lost Beatles Recordings Released on iTunes; Tech Giants Meets President at the White House

Aired December 17, 2013 - 10:30   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Let's talk about Edward Snowden because he's reaching out to yet another country. This time he wants to leave Russia for Brazil. And if Brazil grants him asylum, Edward Snowden will help its government investigate U.S. spying on Brazilian soil. Maybe Brazil will bite. After all, Snowden is on a roll.

A federal court in this country ruled the NSA's practice of collecting Americans' phone data, it's probably unconstitutional. The journalist who broke the Snowden story, Glenn Greenwald, says this extraordinary ruling is a vindication of both the constitutional rights of American citizens as well as for Snowden.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GLENN GREENWALD, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: How could 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 that 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. And I think it's not only the right but the duty of an American citizen in an Edward Snowden situation to come forward at great risk to himself and inform his fellow citizens about what it is their government is doing in the dark that is illegal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So has Edward Snowden been vindicated?

Let's talk about that. Will Cain is a CNN political commentator and columnist for the Blaze and John Avalon is a CNN political analyst and executive editor of "The Daily Beast."

Welcome, gentlemen.

WILL CAIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning.

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Hey, Carol.

COSTELLO: So short question to you, John. Is Greenwald right?

AVLON: No. I don't think Greenwald's right. Look. I think the judge's decision is a vindication for the Constitution for American privacy rights potentially if it's upheld because the arguments using to uphold the constitutionality of metadata are deeply outdated but that is not necessarily a vindication for Edward Snowden who, I think, incredibly should be called a traitor who violated his oath to release this information.

So one does not necessarily flow from the other. You know, the fact he seeks asylum now in Brazil from Russia is its own story which speaks to his complicated cohorts in this, but I do think it's a good decision for the American people in the long run.

COSTELLO: OK. So, Will, in a statement circulated by Greenwald, Snowden said this. "I acted on my belief that the NSA's mass surveillance programs would not withstand the constitutional challenge and that the American public deserved a chance to see these issues determined by open courts. Today," which was yesterday, "a secret program authorized by a secret court was, when exposed to the light of day, found to violate Americans' rights. It is the first of many."

And, of course, he may be right because all of this may end up in the U.S. Supreme Court. So what exactly does that make Snowden, Will?

CAIN: Well, I think John's hitting on important points. Snowden, as we should judge him as a complicated character, but first of all, this decision, this decision by a federal district court, does not vindicate Snowden for this reason. Should an appeals court then invalidate this decision? Should it overturn it? Or for that matter the Supreme Court, it doesn't -- or doesn't make -- it doesn't un- vindicate Snowden.

In other words, his vindication doesn't lie in the hands of a particular judge or a particular court. His vindication lies in the hands of the American public and their opinion. That is both a legal and a practical matter.

The legal analysis on this metadata and whether or not it's constitutional, the usage of it is constitutional, is dependent upon a reasonable expectation of privacy. That's the phrase. So does the American people feel like they should have an expectation of privacy in their phone records? That is the ultimate vindication of Edward Snowden. That as a legal and practical matter.

And by the way, his relationship with foreign governments undercuts that potential vindication.

COSTELLO: Well, the interesting part is there's much more to come because, what, he stole 1.7 million bits of data that he's leaking very slowly. In fact, the guy that heads up the NSA's task force wants -- you know, amnesty put on the table. He thinks that we should maybe give Snowden amnesty so he'll come back and not spill any more secrets. Should that be so, John Avlon?

AVLON: No. Look, that's an extortion position as much as anything else. We have Snowden's word that he's got documents that the other shoe will drop if any legal proceeding occurs.

Look, I mean, this is a massive violation of secrecy, an abuse of Snowden's position and a major failing of the U.S. intelligence. It is -- it has helped illuminate the fact that the metadata searches by the NSA have been far more thorough and comprehensive than anybody knew and the larger issue is one of technology outpacing our laws.

The fact that the metadata -- he's using a 1975 law ruling is an excuse for this level of collection is a scandal. We need to update our laws to account for technology. And we do need to, including the president of the United States and his government, take a real look at the growth of the security state in unprecedented ways. But that does not mean lionizing Edward Snowden. And that's something --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: But he's -- he's the guy that brought this to light? Who's to say we would have ever known any of these things had it been not for Edward Snowden?

AVLON: It's not all on Snowden being a martyr of civil liberties here. You can -- you know, that's the best -- that's the best positive spin. There's also the argument that he's effectively a spy. And, you know, we will debate that out as a free society unlike the one he's currently seeking asylum in within Russia. Not a free society.

He has gotten a lot of comfort from governments that are far less free in both information and civil liberties than the United States. That is worth scrutiny itself.

COSTELLO: So -- go ahead, Will.

CAIN: You know, in the end -- I wanted to say, in the end, is -- is Edward Snowden a hero or a traitor? Has he been vindicated or not? That, again, is up to the American people and their answer to this question. Do they give a damn that their government is spying on their phone records? The answer to the question defines Edward Snowden.

By the way, and we're only talking about the domestic side of these surveillance programs. If we had analyzed all the other things Edward Snowden has revealed, like the fact that we spy on Germans or Angela Merkel. My suspicion is Americans not only do not care that we're doing that. They expect that the NSA is spying on foreign governments. So in that respect, I think Edward Snowden is going to have some trouble with the American people.

COSTELLO: All right. John Avlon, Will Cain, thanks as usual. I appreciate it.

CAIN: You bet.

AVLON: Thank you, Carol.

COSTELLO: $586 million, that's how much is up for grabs in tonight's Mega Millions jackpot.

CNN's Alison Kosik is in Manhattan at a 7-Eleven.

Have you bought your ticket?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Not yet. I will buy one, though, before I am through. I will tell you that. How can you not? Half a billion dollars? More than a half billion?

Yes, but here's the thing. As the day goes on, ticket sales are expected to rev up. Just to give you an idea of how good ticket sales are going. Just here in New York, 840,000 tickets are being sold per hour here in New York, which is just an incredible amount of money. But guess what? Your odds of winning, they just got worse and here's why because the game rules for the Mega Millions, they changed back in October.

Because what's happening is when you choose those five numbers, the five balls, you used to be able to choose between the numbers 1 and 56. Now you choose between 1 and 75. So the more combinations there are the lesser chance you have of winning.

What are your odds? One in 259. Those odds have gone down from one in 176 million. Once again, your odds in winning, one -- one in 259 million, Carol. But, hey, I'm willing to try.

COSTELLO: I know. Because, you know, as the Texas lottery guy told me this morning, no one will win if they don't buy a ticket, so you might as well try, right?

KOSIK: Exactly.

COSTELLO: Exactly. No one's won in the past --

KOSIK: Exactly.

COSTELLO: What, 21 drawings and it's because of what you said, right? So this jackpot could reach a billion dollars. That's mind-boggling.

KOSIK: I'm sorry. I'm having a hard time understanding you. Go ahead and ask me again, Carol.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: It was -- it's OK, Alison. You go buy your ticket and buy me one, too, OK?

KOSIK: OK. I've got my dollar. Here I go.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: Thanks, Alison. Go, go.

Fifty-nine new songs. That's how many rare Beatles tracks were released overnight. Next, how you can get your lands on these never- before-heard tracks.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Christmas came early for Beatles fans. Overnight 59 just released songs by the legendary music group were made available online.

That song is called "There's a Place," just one of the songs released on iTunes. Now these recordings include performances and studio tracks from 1963 but they're no longer available on iTunes, and it's kind of confusing, Nischelle Turner.

NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: They are, they aren't, they are, they aren't, Carol. That's what we've been dealing with all morning. Now there are versions of songs like I want to "Hold Your Hand," "Twist and Shout," "I Saw Her Standing There," all of those available on iTunes.

But the thing to remember here, that this is a move basically to extend the copyright for the versions of these songs. These are, like you said, live performances and the studio tracks that were never released on an album. There are parts of those as well.

Now we have a little bit of one track that I want you guys to listen to. Give you a little taste. It's called "Bad to Me." So listen.

That's some good music. Now here's far -- here's as far as we can tell, what we've found out about this. The copyright on these songs was set to expire at the end of December because they were never released. This means in order to keep control over the versions of the songs that Apple Records had to put them up for sale to the public. So this wasn't widely publicized.

The songs are online, they're offline, on the iTunes sites around the world, in New Zealand and in the UK, they were available, and then they were unavailable, but literally in the last hour they are back up on the site in the those countries. Although it appears that the cost has tripled in the UK. They were available briefly after midnight for around eight pounds, right now they're selling for almost 35 pounds.

And here in the U.S. we actually were able to get the songs right after 9:00. They disappeared right before 10:00. But now they're back up. And here in the U.S. it's going to cost you about $39.99 for all 59 songs.

COSTELLO: OK. So I'll ask a silly question. Why aren't they just available for sale? Why not just sell the songs? Like, what's the big deal? Just sell them.

TURNER: Well, I mean, it's a good question but basically what they're trying to do, Carol, is protect this copyright. So what they can do is release it briefly. I mean, if you put them out for sale, then they're all -- they're out there forever. But if you just release it briefly you can put them up technically for sale, take them off and still protect the copyright, extend it for another 50 years, 70 years in some other cases.

So that's pretty much what they're trying to do here. They're not really trying to sell these albums, they're not really trying to put it out there for the public. They're trying to protect the copyright and this is how they do it.

COSTELLO: OK. Thanks, Nischelle Turner.

(LAUGHTER)

TURNER: Absolutely. I know. It's crazy, but you're going to get some new Beatles music out of it. So --

COSTELLO: Cool. Thanks, Nischelle.

TURNER: It's all good all year round. OK.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the NSA scandal, Obamacare, some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley meeting right now at the White House. Find out how some of these corporate giants could help President Obama.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Happening right now at the White House, some of the titans of technology meeting with the president, Apple, Google, Microsoft to name a few. Cyber security, the NSA scandal, even how to improve the Obamacare Web site all on the table this morning.

Our senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta is covering this along with CNN money tech correspondent Laurie Segall. Both are joining me live now.

Welcome to both of you.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol.

COSTELLO: So, Jim, who called this meeting?

(LAUGHTER)

ACOSTA: Well, the tech executives called this meeting. They asked for a meeting with the president. And then the White House announced yesterday that it was happening today. One thing that we should mention is that those executives from the companies that you mentioned, Carol, they are here at the White House. They did arrive. We're not sure exactly when. But that meeting apparently is getting under way now. They sort of arrived out of the view of the cameras which is no surprise. That does happen here at the White House from time to time.

But this is going to be potentially -- and I don't want to -- I don't want to overstate this, but potentially a contentious meeting when you consider the fact that many of these companies sent a letter to the White House, sent a letter to the president and congressional leaders just last week saying that they believe some of the programs that are going on over at the NSA just go too far.

And this is before that federal judge's ruling yesterday on the collection of phone records over at the NSA. So, you know, it will be interesting to see exactly what is said after this meeting, if any of these executives come up to the cameras. And, of course, we're watching.

COSTELLO: Interesting. Laurie, I know you've spoken to some of these technology executives. What did they tell you?

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN MONEY TECH CORRESPONDENT: Yes. You know, I was actually -- I spoke to a bunch of tech executives just last night about Obamacare. And they were just shaking their heads, and we've heard this before, that $600 million couldn't have been -- spent to make this Web site. And you know, one of them said to me -- I said, what is it -- what are they going to tell Obama how to fix this kind of thing?

And he said, you know, get a room full of developers, a pizza, and a deadline, and maybe a million dollars, and you could have done it a lot better. But I think the discussion that they're going to be having along the lines of healthcare.gov. It's really the idea of the Federal Procurement System and there's a lot of problems with government, with innovation and the way they go about it.

Contracting out to other developers, not bringing the best people in- house. You know, Obama is going to be sitting there with some of the best and brightest in the tech room. I can only imagine that they will have a larger conversation because Silicon Valley needs Washington and Washington needs Silicon Valley.

COSTELLO: Well, that's very true, Jim. So it can't be that contention. But going back to the NSA and --

ACOSTA: Yes.

COSTELLO: These companies not wanting the NSA to snoop into the customers of Google and Facebook, and the like, like what do you think will come out of this meeting?

ACOSTA: Well, I think that remains to be seen and we may not know for some time. And keep in mind that the president appointed an advisory group to basically give him some recommendations on what to do about what is happening over at the NSA and some -- and some pretty big names were involved in that group.

Former White House official Richard Clark among others. That report was delivered to the president last Friday. He's reviewing it. That report will not be released, Carol, until January, potentially late January, and that is when the president is expected to issue some recommendations.

It's unclear whether or not there will be more self-restraint on the part of the NSA or whether the president will order some kind of change over there, but keep in mind, I mean, there's a lot of people calling for changes, not just the executives of these tech companies, not just a federal judge who says that these collections of phone records may be unconstitutional. You have lawmakers up on Capitol Hill.

The entire spectrum from Bernie Sanders all the way over to Rand Paul saying that something has to be done. This is -- you know, we were just talking about healthcare.gov a few moments ago. This has sort of been quietly simmering in the background, this issue with Edward Snowden and these disclosures and what is going to happen with all of these activities happening at the NSA.

I think that is going to be a very big developing story come this new year when we start to see some of these recommendations from that review group and also when that court ruling that came up yesterday, when that moves up to the next level because the Justice Department says that these activities are constitutional.

The White House says these activities are preventing -- preventing the killings of Americans and so forth, and saving lives. But potentially a very big developing story in the new year -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Jim Acosta, Laurie Segall, thanks so much for being with me this morning.

NEWSROOM will come right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: A Raleigh, North Carolina, television news anchor and his family are all the talk this morning. It's over their Christmas video. And it's like no other.

Jeanne Moos checks out the festive fun.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PENN HOLDERNESS, STAR OF CHRISTMAS JAMMIES: Oh yes.

JEANNE MOOS, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If you send out one of those old-fashioned year end review Christmas newsletters, now you've got to compete with this.

P. HOLDERNESS: Dancing in the front yard night and day, and the neighbors walk by and this is what they say.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are these Christmas jammies?

P. HOLDERNESS: They are Christmas jammies.

MOOS: The family's year summed up to the beat of Will Smith's song "Miami" while dressed --

LOLA HOLDERNESS, STAR OF CHRISTMAS JAMMIES: In my Christmas jammies. MOOS: And the dad doing most of the jammy is none other Raleigh, North Carolina, anchorman Penn Holderness, rapping his daughter's achievements.

P. HOLDERNESS: She can count to 100 in Chinese and she can now read books about as thick as these.

MOOS: Not to be outdone, Penn's almost 4-year-old son.

P. HOLDERNESS: And in case you didn't see it, well, you should, it's pretty viral that he dressed up like a sheep and shook his hips in a recital.

MOOS: And there's mom Kim who got a bit part as a reporter this year in "Iron Man 3."

KIM DEAN HOLDERNESS, STAR OF CHRISTMAS JAMMIES: That's me.

MOOS: Towards the end of the video we find out that the WNCN anchorman will soon be weighing anchor --

K. HOLDERNESS: Next month he's stepping off the anchor desk. It's the biggest decision of his life. He's going to quit his job and come work with his wife.

MOOS: Doing what? Making videos of course at their own video production and marketing company.

You know news people, they're always broadcasting secrets.

P. HOLDERNESS: There's room for child number three but I can't I just had a vasectomy.

K. HOLDERNESS: And it's hard to find things that rhyme with vasectomy, really.

MOOS (on camera): Penn even did the vasectomy with flare. He and three friends went together to do the deed. They call themselves the Vas Pack.

(Voice-over): Those are soothing packs of frozen peas on their laps. Dad wasn't doing press about his Christmas jammies since he's still an anchorman for the CNN affiliate and even his son tried to shut down our interview.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mommy, close it.

K. HOLDERNESS: You can close it now.

MOOS: But before signing off, mom expressed regret about their jammies.

K. HOLDERNESS: I'm really wishing at this point I had chosen something without horizontal stripes across my back side.

MOOS: There are always vertical stripes for next year. (On camera): The thing is they bought the jammies last year online and since then most of the family has expanded.

L. HOLDERNESS: My jammies fit me just right, but my daddy's are a little tight.

MOOS (voice-over): Tight? We think your dad's pretty loose.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: I'm still getting over the peas on their laps.

Thank you for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello. "LEGAL VIEW" with Ashleigh Banfield, starts now.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: President Obama just may not be the most powerful person at the White House right now. The gurus of Google, Apple, and at least a dozen other titans of the tech world are all there right now, and they're ready to take on the NSA less than 24 hours after a federal judge put the spy agency on notice.

Also this hour an innocent hug or sexual harassment? You decide. See the student versus teacher moment that got this high school senior a yearlong suspension.

And dad may not have been paying attention but it's a good thing the airport security guard was watching.