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CNN Live Today
Public Numbers; Drugs Caches Found in Massachusetts Home Depots
Aired June 14, 2006 - 11:34 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's update you on this five-alarm fire just outside of Chicago in Bellwood, Illinois. We're hearing now up to four injured people have been taken to a local hospital, to Loyola University Medical Center. This is at a supplier of steel concrete construction products, called Universal Form Clamp Company. The cause of the fire at this time is not known. We'll continue to watch it out of Bellwood Illinois.
On to the computer now. What if with a few clicks of your computer mouse, you could find a Social Security number, signature and home address of a politician or even a talk show host? Well, a woman can do it. She says that she can probably find the same thing out about you.
Our Drew Griffin went on assignment for "PAULA ZAHN NOW."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GRIFFIN (voice-over): What this woman knows about you or more accurately could know about you is frightening.
B.J. OSTERGREN, "THE VIRGINIA WATCHDOG": Yes it is so easy, so quick. And let me show you.
GRIFFIN: B.J. Ostergren, also known as The Virginia Watchdog, is infuriated about how easy it is for her to find your name, Social Security number, date of birth and even your signature.
OSTERGREN: Look. Here is a Bank of America loan number.
GRIFFIN: Anything anyone would need to steal your identity right online, and put there by the government.
OSTERGREN: This is another divorce I printed out this morning. The father was in the Air Force and there is his Social Security number.
LAWRENCE (on camera): He would die if he knew this.
OSTERGREN: They have no clue.
LAWRENCE (voice-over): How did it happen? Ostergren says there was a big push in the last decade to push the access of government records into the 21st century. A paperless society, everything accessible at your finger tips via the Internet, including government records, historically kept inside courthouses, inside clerks' offices, behind government counters. Now many of those government records across the country can all be accessed by B.J. Ostergren, right here in the crowded office of her rural Virginia home.
OSTERGREN: But are they public records? Yes, they're public. But there is a huge difference from driving to the courthouse and looking at it right here. Would I drive there to look at this and go through the records? No. Would I have driven to Miami-Dade to get Jeb Bush's? No.
GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: This meeting was a very productive one.
GRIFFIN: Did she say Jeb Bush? Yes, the president's brother. To prove her point she has gone on celebrity style identity hunts. The governor of Florida's Social Security number posted along with other Floridians.
OSTERGREN: I sat right at this very computer and got that record off the Florida Web site.
GRIFFIN: Jeb bush has since had his Social blacked out, but plenty of records in Florida are still there for the taking.
OSTERGREN: Let's see. Here is Brevard County.
GRIFFIN: With information like your Social Security number your signature, even your date of birth, a thief can pretend he's you. And it could cost you dearly.
OSTERGREN: You can get bank loans, you could get fake paper, you could come into this country using this man's information. You could have -- look, document fraud is a big thing. Mortgage fraud is a huge thing.
GRIFFIN (on camera): She can access almost any record on anyone, anywhere, even perfect strangers here in New York City, many who would be shocked to learn that retired woman in rural Virginia can learn so much about them from Web sites provided by the government that she could easily steal their identity.
(voice-over): Upon searching further, we also found talk show host Kelly Ripa and her husband.
OSTERGREN: Yes, and with their home addresses. They own, apparently, two places.
GRIFFIN: Ostergren made exposing this electronic privacy gap her mission four years ago when a concerned stranger warned her that her personal information was about to go online. Now she wants everyone to be warned.
She has set up a Web site to lobby governments and financial institutions to stop posting this information and she now takes the time to call strangers herself and let them know the risks.
OSTERGREN: It infuriates me no end but what can I do? I think people should see what I'm showing you and people should see, you know, what -- you want to see Colin Powell's.
GRIFFIN: On a Virginia Web site, she found the former secretary of state's social security number, his wife's, their Virginia address and even signatures.
OSTERGREN: You can get that record and on the first page of that document, here it is right here, you see page one, with his home address here.
GRIFFIN: We decided to check for ourselves. Ostergren suggested we look at Phoenix, Arizona. Maricopa County. Per capita, it has the highest rate of identity theft fraud in the country. Sitting at a computer, in Atlanta, we were a bit taken back when we went to the Maricopa County Recorders Office Web site and found just about every document you could imagine and personal information that you would never want others to get.
(on camera): Social Security number right there.
(voice-over): So we physically went to the Maricopa County Recorders Office and ran into a local resident, Phyllis Montgomery, who was shocked when we showed her all of her personal information.
(voice-over): Little surprising?
PHYLLIS MONTGOMERY, MARICOPA COUNTY RESIDENT: Very surprising, very scary. Very scary because this is private information. Everybody should not have information dealing with exactly where to come and murder me or pick me up or --
LAWRENCE (voice-over): The recorder's office here posts a sign warning people their information will be made available on the Internet. But available where? And who is the warning for? Using the Internet we randomly looked up Michael Russo who lives in Phoenix. He has never used a computer. And doesn't remember ever being in the recorders office.
MICHAEL RUSSO, MARICOPA COUNTY RESIDENT: Your privacy is your privacy. Up until they come out with these computers.
GRIFFIN: Michael Russo ripped up our copies of his personal documents right in front of us. But we can easily print out another copy right on the county Web site.
Recorder Helen Purcell says she is working with the state of Arizona to figure out how to cleanse the records, like blackening out Social Security numbers. But she admits that in their rush to post the information online, they did not realize how easy they were making it for criminals intent on committing fraud.
HELEN PURCELL, MARICOPA COUNTY RECORDER: Maybe at the outset of that all of these things weren't thought about.
GRIFFIN: BJ Ostergren, the Virginia watchdog --
OSTERGREN: There it is. GRIFFIN: -- couldn't agree now. The question now she says what, if anything, is anyone going to do about it?
OSTERGREN: We're very stupid in this country. Very stupid. This is spoon feeding criminals.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: Well, you can see more of Drew Griffin's investigations on "PAULA ZAHN NOW." Watch her show weeknights at 8:00 Eastern, 5:00 Pacific.
Mystery in Massachusetts. Unexpected things turning up in some bathroom vanity kits.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We opened it up and found what we determined were three kilos of cocaine and approximately 40 pounds of marijuana in the box.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAGAN: Now federal drug enforcement officials hope to crack the case. That story's ahead on CNN, the most trusted name in news.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: Let's bring you the latest on this five-alarm fire we're following from just outside of Chicago. It's in Bellwood, Illinois. It's a fire that erupted at an industrial plant early this morning. Officials in the village of Bellwood, just west of Chicago, have evacuated a number of businesses. This is according to the Associated Press. They had to call on more than a dozen fire departments to help them battle the blaze. The Loyola Medical Center, University Medical Center, said they have received about four patients that could have been injured in this blaze. No cause to the fire reported at this time.
(NEWSBREAK)
KAGAN: Well, let's see what's coming up in world news. Jim Clancy has that. He'll be joining us at the top of the hour -- Jim.
JIM CLANCY, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, Daryn.
"YOUR WORLD TODAY" is going to take you many places this day. But we want to stress the positive. You talk about that report. Let's take you to Afghanistan. Correspondent Brent Sadler travelled to some of the southern provinces, where the U.S. military isn't just fighting the Taliban. They, with coalition and Afghan forces, are trying to rebuild a nation, and really build it up in many places for the first time.
Also we'll take to you Indonesia where Abu Bakar Bashir, who served a two-year sentence for his part in the Bali bombings that killed 200 is now out of jail. He's getting a jubilant welcome from his Islamic supporters, even as he blasts the U.S. as a terrorist state.
Plus, President Bush's trip to Iraq. We're going to get a three- tiered view of that visit, what it accomplished. John King and political analyst Bill Schneider will be with us, and joined by "New York Times" chief military correspondent Michael Gordon. So a full array of programs on the political, what's going on on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. Quit a bit coming up "YOUR WORLD TODAY" at noon Eastern.
KAGAN: All right, Jim looking forward to that. Thank you.
It was a surprise visit, and Bob Woodruff's coworkers at ABC were delighted. The former "World News Tonight" co-anchor strolled through the New York newsroom yesterday. This was his first visit since he was severely injured in a bomb blast in Iraq last January.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOB WOODRUFF, ABC ANCHOR: I woke up in this hospital, and I looked up and I just thought about you guys. And I thought about everything that I wanted badly to come back to.
LEE WOODRUFF, BOB WOODRUFF'S WIFE: Bob is the luckiest guy in the world, as his surgeons have said. But I also think a large part of healing is about being surrounded by people who care about you and love you, and he has had that from everybody here.
B. WOODRUFF: Man, it's good to be here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAGAN: Good to hear those words, too. No word on when Woodruff will go back to work. Veteran newsman Charlie Gibson now anchors the nightly news program.
(BUSINESS HEADLINES)
KAGAN: Some surprising discoveries, and now a federal investigation. It centers on unexpected items turning up in some bathroom vanity kits purchased in Massachusetts at Home Depot, of all places.
Dan Elias of our affiliate WWLP in Springfield, Massachusetts has that story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAN ELIAS, WWLP REPORTER (voice-over): It was in a box containing a bathroom vanity the Southwick plumber made the discovery.
CHIEF MARK KRYNICKI, SOUTHWICK, MASS. POLICE: He opened it up and the -- what we determined were three kilos of cocaine and approximately 40 pounds of marijuana in the box.
ELIAS: The vanity was purchased here, at the Home Depot store in Chicopee.
(on camera): The Southwick police reported the find to the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration and then learned it's not the only such incident in Massachusetts the DEA is looking into.
(voice-over): In Tewksbury, a Billerica couple received a vanity purchased at a Home Depot store. Inside, this 50-pound container filled with marijuana. As in the Southwick case, the heavy marble top of the vanity was missing from the box.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe the marijuana is in place of the marble top for weight so it doesn't look like it's, you know, too light or too heavy.
ELIAS: But how a vanity full of drugs got into the store is part of the investigation. 22 News spoke with Home Depot headquarters in Atlanta and we were told that this distribution center in Westfield serves both the Chicopee and Tewksbury stores, though it's not clear whether the investigation now includes this facility.
Some who work in other Southwick building supply stores were surprised by the story.
BOB EAK, MANAGER, BUILDING SUPPLY STORE: Very strange. Yes, I would be curious to find out exactly what's going on and where it came from.
ELIAS: In any case, it's a large drug seizure for the town of Southwick.
KRYNICKI: Substantial drug seizure. There have been larger ones, but this is a good-sized one.
ELIAS: And an unusual one, too; though at the moment, not a unique case in Massachusetts.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: And then this story from the West. She has outlived most of her friends, but her life-long dream to graduate from high school never died. Don't miss this sprightly woman, whose dream comes true later today. CNN is the most trusted name in news.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: A 98-year-old woman in San Francisco sees a life-long dream come true. Josephine Belasco is graduating from the very same high school that she went to as a child. She went to Galileo High from 1921 to '24, but never graduated. And that is something she has wanted to change her whole life. Family and school officials are more than happy to support her efforts.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She educated all of her children, and now it's her turn. And that really touched everybody who was around. (END VIDEO CLIP)
KAGAN: Belasco officially graduates this afternoon with students 80 years younger than she is. She said she finally feels that she has done everything she wanted to do. Congratulations to her.
Well, if you have World Cup fever, chill out. Like these penguins. They are dressed up in flags of four of the nations playing in the World Cup. They even took a couple of beakers at the ball. That's the penguin form of headers. But there was no cry of "goal!" You know all those low-scoring soccer games? Well, the football fans and penguin partisans at South Korea's Sea World Aquarium did not seem to mind.
I'm Daryn Kagan. International news is up next. Stay tuned for YOUR WORLD TODAY. I'm coming back in about 20 minutes with your headlines from here in the U.S. We'll see you then.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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