The NSA Leaker; NSA Leak Controversy; Julian Assange on the NSA Leaker; Tornado Near Eldesburg, Maryland; Apple Unveil New Mobile Operating System; Prince Harry Shows Off His Chopper Skills
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks. Good evening, everyone. We have new reporting that might, just might shed some light on how quickly authorities knew about that massive intelligence leak. They might have been on to Edward Snowden before newspapers published his revelations. Also tonight what the man behind WikiLeaks has to say about the Snowden affair. Julian Assange who's seeking safety in the embassy in Ecuador in England. He is speaking out tonight. We'll talk to him. Later a 360 exclusive, a woman describing the terror on Friday. A gunman opens fire on others and her, then jumps in her car and says drive. Her close encounter with a man in mid-rampage. What he said, what he did on his way to the next and final killing ground on Friday. We begin, though, with the very latest on Edward Snowden, the defense contractor who revealed two big government surveillance programs, one targeting your phone records, the other focused on the Internet in search of terrorist connections. Tonight, why he says he did it, what law enforcement is going to do about it, what some believe should be done to him, and what a majority of Americans think about the operations that he exposed. We're going to talk about all of it tonight, starting with another big question. Just who is this guy? Some early answers now from our Brian Todd.</s>BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Described as shy and self-effacing, the man who says he was the source of leaks detailing massive U.S. surveillance programs, tells "The Guardian" newspaper why he did it. Edward Snowden says, quote, "I'm no different from anyone else."</s>EDWARD SNOWDEN, LEAKED NSA DOCUMENTS: I'm just another guy who sits there day to day in the office, watches what's happening and goes, this is something that's not our place to decide. The public needs to decide whether these programs and policies are right or wrong.</s>TODD: Snowden said that from a hotel in Hong Kong, after having left his girlfriend in Hawaii where they reportedly shared a home. She's not the only person with whom he may have severed ties by leaking and then going public. (</s>On camera): Edward Snowden "The Guardian" that the only thing he fears is the harmful effects of all of this on his family, some of whom he said work for the U.S. government. We've confirmed that his mother, Elizabeth Snowden, works here at the U.S. District Courthouse in Baltimore, Maryland, with the title "Chief Deputy Clerk for Information Technology and Administrative Services." Officials here said she was not available to speak to us. (</s>Voice-over): Elizabeth Snowden also did not return our calls and e- mails. Outside her home near Baltimore, she was no more eager to speak to reporters.</s>ELIZABETH SNOWDEN, EDWARD SNOWDEN'S MOTHER: Please do not get in my way. Thank you.</s>TODD: The "Guardian" says Edward Snowden moved to Maryland from Elizabeth City, North Carolina, where he spent his youth. CNN has learned he went to elementary and middle school in Crafton, Maryland, went to Arundel High School nearby. But according to "The Guardian" he never got a high school degree. He enlisted in the Army in 2004, was discharged the same year. He told "The Guardian" it was because he broke his legs in a training accident. Snowden told "The Guardian" he got his first job at the NSA as a security guard. He later became an I.T. security specialist at the CIA. From there he went to a private contractor doing work for the NSA. He said his computer skills enabled him to move up quickly despite the lack of a high school degree. Before he took off for Hong Kong, he says he was making $200,000 a year. His success surprises Joyce Kinsey, a neighbor of Snowden's mother's, who saw Edward Snowden on occasion at the mother's condo.</s>JOYCE KINSEY, NEIGHBOR AT SNOWDEN'S MOTHER: When you say hi to him, and everything, he'll say hi, but he's always looking down, he's not looking at you. And it's like he doesn't make eye contact. But he was very personable and very nice, and I always saw him on the computer. I could see out my window, and I could see him on the computer.</s>TODD: Edward Snowden told "The Guardian" he had high hopes when President Obama vowed a more transparent administration, but that he became disappointed in the president. We've learned Snowden's name is on two contributions last year, totaling $500 to libertarian Ron Paul's campaign. Snowden tells "The Guardian" he hopes for asylum in Iceland, but he also said, quote, "all my options are bad." Brian Todd, CNN, Ellicott City, Maryland.</s>COOPER: Well, as soon as this story broke, we sent our Miguel Marquez to see if he could learn more about Snowden by going to the last place he was before dropping off the map and ending up in Hong Kong. Miguel has new reporting tonight that at least suggest Snowden knew he wouldn't be coming back. There's that and signs as well that the feds might have been on to him earlier than previously thought. Miguel Marquez joins us now from -- from Honolulu. So before he leaked the classified information, Snowden has said that he told his employer Booz Allen Hamilton that he needed some time off to seek medical treatment for epilepsy, but you're learning that police actually showed up at his home last Wednesday, which was the day before "The Guardian's" report on Snowden's allegedly leaked information. So just -- were they there to check on his welfare?</s>MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is part of it that's a little confusing. They did say there was a realtor at the house when they got there. She said that they were just asking, how is he doing, what's going on? But the house was completely empty. He had moved out of that house on May 6th, never told his employer he was -- he was moving. He left Hawaii on May 20th. And then when these two police officers, one uniformed, one out of uniform, the realtor wasn't sure if this was a federal official or not, but clearly officials were very concerned that he hadn't gone back to work and wanted to know where his -- where he was, where exactly his whereabouts. They -- their blood must have run cold when they realized the house that they'd thought he lived in was completely empty -- Anderson.</s>COOPER: And he lived with this girlfriend in Hawaii. Do we know any details on that? I mean, what did she tell you?</s>MARQUEZ: She -- he told her that he was going away for a two-week period according to "The Guardian." What is curious about that is that they moved everything out of their house, packed everything up, she's gone back to the mainland, her family now says that she is visiting friends on the West Coast. Won't specify where. We also don't know where the contents of their house has gone. Has it gone into a storage facility somewhere here? Has it been shipped back to the U.S.? Is it on a ship, a container ship on its way back to the U.S.? But as far as we can tell, either here in Hawaii or the mainland, not a single warrant has been issued yet by federal officials. It seems given the way the feds are acting at the moment that this really caught them completely flat footed -- Anderson.</s>COOPER: Interesting. Miguel Marquez, appreciate it. Miguel is reporting from Honolulu. New polling tonight about what Americans think of one of the two surveillance programs that Edward Snowden apparently revealed. In a survey from the Pew Research Center on the NSA call tracking operations, 56 percent find it acceptable, 41 percent disagree. As for Snowden, one leading lawmaker practically calls him a traitor.</s>REP. PETER KING (R), NEW YORK: He knows where our intelligence assets are, who our intelligence agents are around the world, and the fact that he has allowed our enemy to know what our sources and methods are is extremely, extremely dangerous. I believe he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I consider him right now to be a defector.</s>COOPER: You may remember Peter King was also very critical of Julian Assange from WikiLeaks. We're going to talk to Julian Assange shortly coming up. Senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin also weighed in today in a column for "The New Yorker" magazine online. He joins us along with former CIA officer, Bob Baer. Bob, let me start with you. You just heard Congressman Peter King label Snowden a defector. How would intelligence officials treat this investigation considering he was last seen in Hong Kong?</s>ROBERT BAER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: As a counter intelligence investigation, it would default to that immediately. The CIA and the FBI look at China as a hostile country. It has an active intelligence program against the United States. It would do anything to get a source, like this young man. Right now I'd be very surprised if they're not questioning him what he knew.</s>COOPER: The Chinese?</s>BAER: Remember the -- the Chinese, yes. Honolulu is an important relay station for the National Security Agency. All our spying on China would be filtered through there. What did he know, what didn't he know. What did he have access to, what did he bring out. I mean, the Chinese would be remiss not talking to him right now.</s>COOPER: So you're saying if they treat it like a counterintelligence case, if the U.S. treats it like a counterintelligence case, how does that inform how they investigate him?</s>BAER: They're going to be going through his Internet connections, his telephones, his connections in Hawaii, to see if he possibly -- and I'm -- this is a possibility, I'm not saying it happened -- contacted by Chinese intelligence. And once he got to Hong Kong, who he was he met by? You know, was he met at the airport? Things like this. There's all sorts of sources they could -- they could check on this. But they absolutely, Anderson, have to treat this as the worst -case possibility. And this is an aside from the right or wrong of revealing this stuff, they just have to assume that he's in hostile hands.</s>COOPER: Jeff, you wrote a pretty scathing piece for the "New Yorker" today, calling Snowden, quote, "a grandiose narcissist who deserves to be in prison." There are a lot of people out there who think he's a hero. And as I said I'm going to talk to Julian Assange in just a moment.</s>JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: And Anderson, I've heard -- I've heard from most of those people on Twitter.</s>COOPER: Right.</s>TOOBIN: Who think he's a hero.</s>COOPER: But why -- now why do you -- why do you say that?</s>TOOBIN: Well, because our system does not allow a 29-year-old who is an expert on precisely nothing to decide on his own that a project -- it's not illegal, but he doesn't like it. And so he is going to undermine the work of thousands of people and billions of dollars of taxpayer money and give away these secrets because he doesn't like this program. That is illegal because he took an oath and he signed -- and he signed a contract, not to disclose it, and it's also immoral because he shouldn't have the right to undermine the work of all these people. There are channels for whistleblowers inside agencies. Through Congress, through the courts, not through Glenn Greenwald of "The Guardian." That's not what you're supposed to do.</s>COOPER: Let me just push back, Jess. What -- I mean, there are people who say, look, he is a whistleblower, and some -- and that a public debate about this is necessary. This is something that the public has a right to know about, if it's affecting them. What do you say to that?</s>TOOBIN: Well, the public has a right to know, but there -- the way to bring it to public attention is not to commit crimes. And yes, it is possible he wouldn't get as much attention if he simply went to the senators, like Jeff Merkley, like Senator Udall who cared deeply about this issue and are doing it the right way. Instead, he just threw this stuff out to newspaper reporters at the "Washington Post" and "The Guardian" who were more responsible than he was, who actually didn't publish everything they did. He was so irresponsible that even Bart Gellman of the "Washington Post" and Glenn Greenwald said, you know what, this is too much, we're not going to release that. We can't have a system where people with classified -- access to classified information behave that way and that's why we have laws against it.</s>COOPER: Jeff, as far as extradition goes, the U.S. has a treaty with China. How does that process actually work if he's still in Hong Kong or Chinese territory?</s>TOOBIN: Well, it's a really unusual situation. Because, yes, we have a treaty with Hong Kong, but Hong Kong is legally part of China. Now we have had a very successful relationship with Hong Kong and law enforcement regarding violent crimes, regarding white-collar crimes, regarding drugs. The question here is, what does China want to do, because ultimately China is going to be calling the shots here and China is not our friend when it comes to intelligence matters. China is going to want to exploit this the best they can. Frankly, I don't know what that is. Is it letting him go, is it keeping him, is it using him in some way? But it just shows by taking these matters into his own hands, he has given a gift to our leading intelligence adversary in the world.</s>COOPER: The treaty, I understand, that the U.S. has with China includes what's called a political offense exception for cases in which the extraditing country believes someone is being pursued for political reasons.</s>TOOBIN: Right, and that was put in at the instigation of the United States, which thought that China might be pursuing political prisoners who were here. Here is a reverse situation where China may claim that we are pursuing Snowden because of political reasons. But if he's indicted in an American court for disclosure of classified information, I don't know how that could be treated as a political crime. That's something that's prosecuted in American courts all the time, but it's going to be ultimately up to China. And China is going to do what's good for China.</s>COOPER: Yes, Bob, it's interesting. I talked to Julian Assange coming up in -- after the break, and his advice is that Snowden should try to get to some countries in Latin American that don't cooperate with the U.S., that don't have extradition, that don't -- haven't been involved in rendition programs with the CIA. But Snowden was working for the government through a contractor. I don't think a lot of people realize how many outside employees make up our intelligence network, just how many people now have top secret security clearances. It's a staggering number.</s>BAER: It's amazing. The CIA is 50/50, or 50 percent are contractors. Contractors are hiring contractors. They have inflated salaries. They're just entrenched in the place. And it's very difficult to keep track of them. It's much easier to follow a civil servant, make sure they're happy, promote them and the rest of it. Contractors are taking on and fired, and it's not a surprise to me at all that a company like this would take somebody on without a high school degree and pay them $200,000. I mean I find it outrageous. And he wasn't -- he clearly wasn't vetted to keep a secret. And this is what we get.</s>COOPER: Bob Baer, Jeff Toobin, appreciate you guys being on. Let us know what you think. Follow -- let's talk about this on Twitter right now during the break. I'll be tweeting tonight @andersoncooper. Up next, someone who did what Edward Snowden did in a different kind of way is now living in limbo holed up in the London embassy, in the embassy of -- country of Ecuador. He's been there for more than a year. You're going to hear WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's take on Snowden's revelations and what he sees -- what he says as the abusive government secrecy. Also later, jury selection beginning in the George Zimmerman case. What jurors may be in for when Florida's trial at the moment almost certainly heats up.