White House Under Fire From Allies Over NSA Taps; Another Malfunction Hits ObamaCare Site
ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN HOST: Word today that the NSA tapped the phones of not one but 35 world leaders. And new revelations -- what the White House supposedly did and did not know about it. Also this hour, Chris Brown arrested again. Accused of punching a fan and charged with assault. And yes, he is still on probation for roughing up Rihanna. And a (inaudible) through a maintenance patch above the shower made their way along the jail's plumbing and air conditioning and broke through a concrete wall, then walked out, right out of an unlocked door, armed and dangerous, still on the run this hour. Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. It's Monday, October 28th. Welcome to the LEGAL VIEW. You do not need to eavesdrop to know that America's trusted and most closest allies are pretty well off ticked at NSA snooping. Once more, the allies are sounding off this morning. In just a few moments, the British prime minister, David Cameron, is due to face parliament. You know how those sessions can get. This morning the U.S. ambassador to Spain was called if for a dressing down the Spanish foreign minister. The Spanish newspaper, "El Mundo," is reporting the NSA collect numbers, locations, durations for 60 million phone calls in Spain in just a single month. Last month, "Le Monde" said Washington intercepted 70 million calls in a month in France. But while our friends overseas are complaining, the head of the House intelligence committee says the civilized world should be thanking the NSA.</s>CANDY CROWLEY, CNN HOST, "STATE OF THE UNION": How damaging is it for the German chancellor or the French president to know that we've been keyed into their phone calls?</s>REPRESENTATIVE MIKE ROGERS (R), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Well, I think the bigger news story here would be, Candy, if the United States intelligence services weren't trying to collect information that would protect U.S. interests both home and abroad.</s>BANFIELD: And this is where I bring in CNN's foreign affairs reporter, Elise Labott, who has been working the phones on this. Let's start with the other big bombshell headline, Elise, and that was from the weekend, "The Wall Street Journal" reporting that the president only learned this summer, just this summer, that we've been tapping the phones of about 35 world leaders. That doesn't sound like it's possible. What is the White House saying?</s>ELISE LABOTT: Well, the White House is not saying anything specifically about this "Wall Street Journal" report, but as you know over the weekend, they denied that the president knew anything about --- specifically about the tapping of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone. Now it's true, Ashleigh, it doesn't seem like the president would not know if the U.S. was spying on the personal calls of world leaders. What officials are saying is that, listen, there are a lot of NSA programs, a lot of eavesdropping programs. The president wouldn't be briefed on all of them, but this does seem to rise to another level of whether the president knew. I mean, if the president didn't know, that means for last five years the U.S. has been spying, if this report from the "The Wall Street Journal" is true, about 35 world leaders and the president knew nothing about it. It does raise a lot of questions.</s>BANFIELD: So other than making very loud complaints known in the media, both domestically on their side and then also internationally for us to hear as well, are those allies doing anything else in a concrete way?</s>LABOTT: There's a lot of activity going on. You have German intelligence officials come back later this week to Washington. They want answers. They're meeting with people in Washington. They want assurances that it isn't going to happen again. Separately, a European Union delegation will be coming to have talks about privacy and surveillance issues with U.S. officials here. And then, as you said, the ambassadors -- U.S. ambassadors to Spain and France were called in. They want clarification about all of these reports that are coming out at such a furious pace. And then on a larger scale, you have Brazil, who is also been shocked by these revelations about surveillance, about the president there. And Germany, talking about a U.N. resolution on privacy issues. So it's not just in Europe. Around the world, everybody is really shocked and wants answers, Ashleigh.</s>BANFIELD: Elise Labott, working the phones for us, and obviously, those phones continue to ring. Elise, thank you for that. And keep us up to speed on exactly what you find out a little later on. I also want to bring in our chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour who is standing by in London. Look, it's very different to hear the reports overseas as opposed to hearing them here. And many people have come out to say, when Mike Rogers suggests, get over it already; everyone does this, it would be very different if the president of the United States had his cell phone tapped. So is it the embarrassment of all of this? Is it the hubris of all of this? What exactly is it that's causing the biggest problem overseas?</s>CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think there's a couple of things. When the Snowden revelations first hit many months ago now, there was immediate backlash, most especially in Germany. They're very, very sensitive, and I mean the German population, ordinary German people, particularly because of their history of -- you know, they had East Germany. They had the communist government. They had the Stasi, the spy agency, which were in their business the whole time. So it had a visceral effect on ordinary Germans. And German politicians know that, and they know that they have to maintain and sort of cater to that kind of angry public opinion. And that kind of angry public opinion has also shown itself in France, probably will do in Spain, and to an extent here in Great Britain, although the rules of the spy game are slightly different here. But so you've got very angry publics. You also have amongst leader who basically clearly know that this is part of statecraft, part of the other-way-around diplomacy, part of everyday government-to-government life. Spying happens all the time between the U.S. and its allies and its adversaries, so they know that. But what also is happening right now is there seems to be a deficit of goodwill towards the United States around the world, particularly amongst its allies. Why? Because certainly under the Obama administration, there's been a perception of the U.S. pulling back from a lot of the heavy lifting that it's done over the many, many years on behalf of Europe over the years in no matter what field of endeavor. And so they're saying, hang on a second. The U.S. is pulling back, it's not doing the kinds of things that it used to do, and by the way, it's still spying on us. So all of that together is creating this very visceral backlash on the streets Europe.</s>BANFIELD: You know, I want to ask you, Bob Baer was on the air a little earlier on CNN. He's now a CNN national security contributor and analyst. And he said, this is the kind of damage that will actually cost us lives. It was a very strident statement to make, but effectively, what he was saying is that we've crossed the line so badly that the relationship will be repaired in terms of cooperation and anti-terror efforts. Are you getting that sense as well? That maybe they won't work so hard with us next time around and something could actually slip through the cracks and cause an attack that's successful?</s>AMANPOUR: Look, it's really difficult to parse that, and Bob Baer would know a lot more than I do about that particular stuff. But spying is not just about terrorism. It's about trade. It's about all sorts of competitive endeavors as well. But certainly there is a feeling that the modalities of conducting foreign policy and conducting that kind of business are changing since these NSA revelations, particularly since Snowden's revelations. There's much less reliance on what people used to do to get information than there was before these revelations. In Europe, for instance, one of the things that one of the German parties has been suggesting as a payback to the U.S. is let's put on ice the E.U./U.S. free trade discussions and all of that for a free trade agreement. That hasn't happened, but they're slinging around things like that. Now, on the more life and death issues, such as terror, there are, for instance, in Britain, Prime Minister Cameron has been saying, listen, much of -- you know, rather than attacking our what he called "brave spies" and people who are actually, you know, gathering intelligence, we should be thanking them for keeping us safe. So there is a real sort of dilemma about the quality of what's being leaked. What are the really important things that many governments feel that they absolutely need to be able to do in a certain amount of secrecy in order to protect lives and protect against attacks.</s>BANFIELD: And since you mentioned it, Christiane, we should let our viewers know, that in about 21 minutes from now, David Cameron is expected to make some live remarks. We're going to monitor that, live. Thank you, Christiane Amanpour, live in London.</s>AMAPOUR: I'm going to be talking to Glenn Greenwald who has obviously been the main conduit for Snowden, talking to him later this afternoon about where this may lead beyond this.</s>BANFIELD: Formerly from "The Guardian." All right, thank you for that, excellent work, as always, Christiane. Thank you. I want to switch gears for a moment, and that is because if you have tried to do any online health insurance shopping today or even yesterday, here is a really good bet. You haven't gotten too far. It probably sounds like old news, but last night the ObamaCare Web site, healthcare.gov just plain crashed. The apply-online function is still down at this hour, and our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins me now with an update. Look, there have been a lot of terms used to describe what's going on with that website, and whether this is a glitch or a disaster, I'm not sure which. But it effectively shut everyone, a hundred percent of anyone who wants to get in, cannot.</s>ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, Ashleigh, I'm not sure that it's 100 percent. I actually logged in about an hour ago, and I was able to access my application. I didn't try to do anything. I just was able to log in. But then my producer logged in a little while after that, and he got that "our system is down," full screen, that we were showing, that graphic that we were showing just a while ago. So he got that, but I actually did manage to log in, so go figure. You know, it seems like we're seeing yet more spottiness on healthcare.gov where you just never know what's going to happen. Sometimes I log in easily, and sometimes I can't get anywhere. And it seems like this is exacerbating the problem. So one of the private companies that healthcare.gov works with had this network failure. It's been affecting healthcare.gov, as well as other sites.</s>BANFIELD: Well, you know, it's funny, because last night, it was like zero entry. But maybe -- I mean, they've been furiously trying to repair this, you know, right around the clock, so maybe that is sketchy this morning, spotty, at least. So here's the other issue. You know, absent being able to get online and do your shopping, you're being referred to an 800 number. Can they deal with that? Is the phone system, the good old-fashioned of phone systems, that series of tubes, is that working?</s>COHEN: I called that 800 number and within minutes, you know, two minutes or so, not even two minutes I was able to get on. So I got on very, very quickly with an operator. So that part works. But here's what I've been hearing from people who've calling the 800 number. You can only go so far. They maybe able to do an application for you, but they can't tell you about all of the policies that are available to you. So eventually you're going to either have to go online or do snail mail. And I was talking to a woman who was trying to get this policy options by snail mail, and she said, when am I going to see them? And the operator said, I don't know. And she said, why don't you know? And they said, because we're not the ones sending them out to you. So the phone seems to be working, but you can only get so far with an operator. You can't complete the entire process.</s>BANFIELD: All right, we'll continue to watch that. Elizabeth Cohen, live for us, thank you.</s>COHEN: Thanks.</s>BANFIELD: Just ahead, police searching for escaped inmates. How they got away seems like something you've seen in a Hollywood movie before. And if that's what you're thinking, you're right. You're absolutely right. Only problem is, they're not actors. They're armed and dangerous.