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Passenger Disrupts United Flight; Iran's New President; NSA Leaker Claims His Life is in Danger; Apple Reveals Involvement in Surveillance; Report: Britain Spied on Foreign Delegates; Former Hit Man Testifies Against Whitey Bulger; Is Minnesota Man a Nazi War Criminal?

Aired June 17, 2013 - 17:59   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Happening now, the feds investigate a poison scare in flight. I'll talk to a man who helped tackle a fellow passenger making disturbing claims.

Plus, the NSA leaker goes after President Obama and Vice President Dick Cheney. Stand by for his online Q&A from an undisclosed location.

And dramatic testimony in the Whitey Bulger murder trial. A confessed hit man says the accused mobster broke his heart.

Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. Wolf Blitzer is off. I'm Jake Tapper. And you -- well, you're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

We begin this hour with a disturbing new airline scare. A passenger disrupted a flight today making outrageous claims about poison. It happened on a United Airlines flight heading from Hong Kong to Newark, New Jersey. In a moment, I'll talk to a fellow passenger who helped subdue the man.

First, CNN's Rene Marsh is here with details.

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Jake.

Well, I will tell you this. We can tell you just six hours left on a flight, a United Airlines flight from Hong Kong to Newark, New Jersey, today. That's when this man that you're looking at right there on the screen, he stunned passengers in midair.

Witnesses say he stood in the aisle, made reference to NSA leaker Edward Snowden, the CIA, and claimed he had been targeted and poisoned by the U.S. government, that again the claim from this man who was on board of that flight. Of course, people who were on board, they were stunned. Several people jumped in, first asking him to calm down. But one passenger says when this man reached for something in his pocket, that is when he got tackled.

Here's one passenger who witnessed it all. He tells us more about what this man was screaming on board that flight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PETER JONES, PASSENGER: He said he worked for the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi and he was being detained by the CIA and being transferred and his life was in danger. And so he repeated that over and over and over again and was quite loud. But he didn't cause any particular problem with anyone on the plane or on the flight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARSH: All right, well, flight attendants restrained him with plastic handcuffs. The FBI says that he was taken to a hospital.

And I spoke with one former airline security director who says that they do have security kits on board for situations like this. Also, the flight crew is trained for situations like this. We did reach out to United Airlines, and they did tell us that the crew on board, they followed the procedures and the plane, of course, landed safely without incident -- Jake.

TAPPER: And of course, we know because we hear about these stories all time, this is hardly the first time something like this has happened.

MARSH: Right, not the first time. We all remember that photo of that man who was duct-taped to his chair on board of a plane. That was back in January. But just this weekend, we had two other cases, two incidents on two separate flights.

A man on board a Frontier Airlines flight going from Knoxville to Denver claimed that he had a bomb in his bag. No bomb was found and the man was taken into custody, and then a passenger on board an Egypt Air flight from Cairo to New York's JFK, they found a note inside of a bathroom saying, "I will set this plane on fire" -- again, just two of the latest incidents. But, you know, you get on these planes and you don't expect to get caught up in this midair drama.

But we're seeing it more and more.

TAPPER: No, some bizarre behavior. Thank you, Rene.

We're joined by a passenger on that United Airlines flight, Jacques Roizen.

Mr. Roizen, thank you so much for joining us. When did you first realize something had gone horribly wrong?

JACQUES ROIZEN, PASSENGER: Well, we were on the flight, and it probably had been for 10 hours already, when I heard screams.

I got up from my seat to figure out what was going on and very quickly realized that there was this gentleman screaming that he was -- that he had names of people that worked for the CIA, and he was screaming those names, not making too much sense. And so, you know, almost in the form of a reflex, I got up, along with a few other passengers and at one point, he reached out for something in his pocket, in his jacket. And that's when about three or four of us basically tackled him to the ground. He resisted and started saying things like, they're trying to kill me, they're trying to poison me. And so the United crew helped us and provided us with plastic handcuffs. And that's how we were able to calm him down, and from that, we were able to put him on a seat and sat him down for the remaining six hours of the flight.

TAPPER: We're looking right now at photographs of him from WABC being escorted out of the plane. Let's look at pictures now that you took from inside the plane after he had been handcuffed. There were still several hours left in the flight as he sat there. What did he say? How did he act?

ROIZEN: Well, at first, he was being very paranoid, talking about the fact that he was being poisoned. He was complaining about the flight attendants throwing darts at him in the back, and he even made claims about the plastic handcuffs being poisoned, not making a lot of sense.

He was screaming a lot. But within 30 minutes or so, he calmed down. And when we realized that one of his concerns was that he may have scared some of the children on the plane, both the passenger who was to his right and myself to his left started talking to him about our children and about Father's Day and things like that to calm him down. And then he went into more of a subdued state.

And it ended with him crying and being scared of landing, and we kept telling him you just need to keep calm and be quiet, and everything is going to be OK. He was refusing to take medicines that were in his bag and that a doctor on board had identified as stuff that he should be taking.

And then, when we landed, we were able to have him being picked up by the police, and then the FBI came on board and then the district attorney.

TAPPER: It sounds from what you're saying that this is somebody with a chemical disorder and emotional problems and is supposed to be taking medication, but was not taking it for whatever reason. Before he started screaming, did you notice any odd behavior from him?

ROIZEN: Not before he started screaming.

I mean, I didn't notice he was on board until I, you know, raised my head because I saw him -- because I heard screams.

TAPPER: And, lastly, he mentioned NSA leaker Edward Snowden. What was the context of that?

ROIZEN: He -- I believe that one of the first things he said was that, just like the NSA leaker, he had names and, therefore, he was in danger, and no one was going to let him live with what he knew, and that he was a dangerous man to the United States.

He begged that we divert the plane to Canada. But, at that point, we had tied him up on the chair, on the plane, so, at that point, you know, it was just a question of finishing the flight and landing. TAPPER: All right, Jacques Roizen, thank you so much. We're glad that you and everyone else on that plane landed safely.

ROIZEN: We were very lucky.

TAPPER: The NSA leaker apparently is promising that the truth about U.S. surveillance will come out even if he is jailed or killed. "The Guardian" newspaper says Edward Snowden went online today to answer questions in real time, although he is still in hiding. There were new claims about his motives, and blame heaped on President Obama.

Let's go to our Pentagon correspondent, Chris Lawrence.

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, if you believe these new revelations about why he did it, Snowden is clearly pointing the finger directly at President Obama.

He says the president campaigned on ending these kind of abuses, but once in office, he claims the president expanded these programs, and he didn't use his political capital the way Snowden would have liked him to, such as closing Guantanamo Bay.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAWRENCE (voice-over): One day after being called out by a former vice president --

CHRIS WALLACE, HOST, "FOX NEWS SUNDAY": What do you think of Edward Snowden?

DICK CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think he's a traitor.

LAWRENCE: -- the accused NSA leaker fired back, saying, "Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American."

"The Guardian" newspaper says Edward Snowden went online from an undisclosed location Monday in a live chat to rebuke accusations like this from U.S. officials.

REP. MIKE ROGERS (R), MICHIGAN: We don't want to draw a road map for the folks who are trying to kill Americans here at home.

LAWRENCE: Snowden says, "I did not reveal any U.S. operations against legitimate military targets."

ROGERS: The NSA is not listening to Americans' phone calls and it is not monitoring their e-mails.

LAWRENCE: "I pointed out where the NSA has hacked civilian infrastructure, such as universities, hospitals and private businesses, because it is dangerous."

Snowden was also asked whether he would provide classified material to the Chinese in exchange for asylum. "Ask yourself, if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I have flown directly into Beijing? I have had no contact with the Chinese government. I only work with journalists."

The government says Snowden was just bragging when he claimed he could wiretap anyone, even the president.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: False. I know of no way to do that.

BOB SCHIEFFER, HOST, "FACE THE NATION": Did he overstate his ability to do these things?

DENIS MCDONOUGH, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: It's surely my view that he did.

LAWRENCE: But when asked online if one man at the NSA has this power, Snowden said: "Yes. I stand by it."

He also dismissed the idea the surveillance program disrupted plots and helped keep America safe -- quote -- "Ask how many individual communications were ingested to achieve that and ask yourself if it was worth it."

That's a question his own father may now be asking. In an exclusive interview with FOX News, Lon Snowden made a direct plea to his son.

LON SNOWDEN, FATHER OF EDWARD SNOWDEN: I don't know what you have seen, but I just ask that you measure what you're going to do and not release any more information.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAWRENCE: We will have to see if that plea changes the calculus, because, right now, all indications from Edward Snowden show that he, one, plans to release even more of this material, and he has no plans to come back to the U.S. voluntarily, Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Chris Lawrence, thank you so much.

In just a few minutes, my interview with "The Guardian" newspaper reporter Glenn Greenwald, who moderated today's live chat with Edward Snowden, his reaction to today's revelation.

Up next, iPhone users and other Apple customers learn how the company is involved in U.S. government spying.

And the man just elected as Iran's new president makes a surprising offer to the United States.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Something of a change in tone today, an Iranian leader not criticizing the U.S., but instead newly elected President Hassan Rouhani actually offered something of an olive branch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HASSAN ROUHANI, IRANIAN PRESIDENT-ELECT (through translator): The relationship between Iran and the U.S. is complicated and difficult. It's nothing easy. This has been a very old wound, so we need to think of somehow to heal this injury.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Let's talk things over with CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour, who anchors her own newscast at 3:00 p.m. Eastern on CNN International, and Fareed Zakaria, the host of CNN's "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS" each Sunday morning at 10:00 Eastern.

Christiane, I will start with you.

You have been covering elections in Iran for decades. You wrote a piece on CNN.com saying -- quote -- "People will be tempted to shrug off Rouhani's win as mattering little in a system where the supreme leader and perhaps even more so the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps have the last word, but consider this. Back in 1997, I called Khatami the mullah with a smile, and his public countenance did make a difference."

So, you have this historical perspective, Christiane? How much of an opportunity could Rouhani's presidency present for the U.S.-Iran situation if he is taking at least initially this more open approach?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think it could present an opportunity.

It's going to be very interesting to see how the interlocutors in the U.S. and the West and elsewhere responds to him. He's already used his first public address to the world in the form of that press conference to send very, very clear messages.

First, having said that he wants to get the Iranian economy OK again for the people, he immediately then said his other priority was to pursue a moderate foreign policy, one that was not based on extremism, and, as you heard in that little snippet from his press conference, didn't want to -- you know, wanted to ease the tensions with the United States.

So, look, I think it's important in the spectrum of people who are running. The Iranian people once again showed the world that they actually favor moderation. They chose a centrist candidate. And guess what? The hard-liners allowed the result to stand.

TAPPER: And, Fareed, of course, everyone is comparing Hasan Rouhani to the outgoing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Let me play clips from each man.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD, IRANIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We have observed the regulations of the IAEA more than our commitments, yet we have never submitted to illegally imposed pressures, nor will we do so. ROUHANI (through translator): Of course, our nuclear operations and programs are fully transparent, but we are still prepared to bring and show further transparency. All the rights of Iran, including nuclear rights, need to be recognized by Americans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: So, Fareed, beyond the rhetoric, how different are these two as far as their actual beliefs and approach to the nuclear program that Iran has launched?

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN WORLD AFFAIRS ANALYST: Jake, they're quite different. They're different in tone. You could see that.

They're also different in that Ahmadinejad was a layperson, whereas Rouhani comes out of the clerical establishment. It makes him probably more capable of navigating. The problem, however, is there's a deep structural contradiction within the Iranian system.

The president doesn't have much power on these core foreign policy and national security issues. Those are held by the supreme leader. Remember the last two presidents of Iran have, by the end of their terms, fallen afoul of the supreme leader completely. Khatami, whom Christiane mentioned, did turn out -- start out as a reformist. He's now under a form of house arrest.

Ahmadinejad started out in some ways as an opponent of the clerical system. He's discredited. The supreme leader doesn't like him. So the real question is, will the supreme leader look at the results? And as Christiane says, now you have 20 years of polling where the Iranian people are basically saying, we want conciliation, we want reconciliation with the west, we want to join the modern world.

Will he look at that data and say, I'm going to give this president, who has the right credentials, some leeway to try to negotiate with the Americans, or will he do what he has done for the last 10 years, which is he lets them make these statements, he even lets them explore some things, but at the end of the day, the supreme leader and the Revolutionary Guard pull back the chain when it seems as though there is an actual concession about to be made?

TAPPER: So, Christiane, looking ahead, what are you going to be looking at for to see if there is a real policy departure here from Ahmadinejad?

AMANPOUR: Well, look, there most definitely is a departure. There's no question about it. And even today in his press conference, Rouhani gave a slap to Ahmadinejad, talking about how he's rejecting the politics of extremism, egocentrism, and self-centeredness.

He was directly referring to Ahmadinejad, whose policies and publicly belligerent countenance has brought the ire of the world on Iran. I think it's really important to note a couple of things, that Iran will not give up its nuclear program. It wants its right to a nuclear program recognized by the West. But if Rouhani is to be believed, they will try to make it more transparent, because what the mullahs want, including the supreme leader, is for the sanctions to be lifted. So, it is true that most of the power rests with the supreme leader. But it's also a consensus, and I know this for a fact. It's a consensus situation.

So it's the leader, it's the president, it's the parliament, it's even the very powerful members of the press and the opinion makers, especially on a hard-line side. So I think that it's not as simple as saying the president doesn't matter, it's just the leader. I think it's a group.

Plus, the hard-liners have sent their congratulations to Rouhani, including the Revolutionary Guard. So, I think there will be a change of public countenance and that should give an opportunity. But don't look for Iran to cry uncle or bend over and capitulate, because it won't happen. And Rouhani said, look, we want the make things better with the West, we want to ease tensions, but it has to be based on areas of mutual interest, dignity for Iran, and we're not going to just sort of submit to, as he called, the bullying that we been -- that we feel we have been put under for the last several years.

TAPPER: All right, Christiane Amanpour and Fareed Zakaria, thank you so much.

Coming up, another day, another Canadian mayor makes front-page headlines for all the wrong reasons. What is it about Canadian mayors these days?

Also, a convicted murderer gets out of prison and the victim's grandson is delighted. Wait until you hear what they plan to do together.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: This just in to CNN: Authorities have confirmed a shark attack this afternoon just off Surfside Beach, Texas.

A 15-year-old boy was in waist-deep water when the shark bit him on the legs. The boy hit back with his hands. The shark bit them too. He was airlifted to a hospital. He's in stable condition with lacerations, but they are not life-threatening injuries. You're looking at pictures from our affiliate KPRC of the beach in question from earlier today.

(NEWS BREAK)

TAPPER: Up next: the NSA leaker's fears of being jailed or killed. We will take you behind the scenes of his online chat today.

And Apple opens up about NSA's find, revealing that U.S. officials have made many requests for information about their customers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Happening now: The NSA leaker says the U.S. government can't cover up his leaks by jailing him or murdering him. Murder? Is his life in danger? I will ask the journalist who moderated Edward Snowden's new online chat.

Plus, as the United Kingdom hosts a high-powered summit, we will look at new claims that the British government has spied on world leaders.

And a 94-year-old Minnesota man accused of being a Nazi war criminal, his family is fighting back.

Wolf Blitzer is off. I am Jake Tapper, and you are in THE SITUATION ROOM.

Another brazen move by the NSA leaker. We have more now on the online chat Edward Snowden apparently conducted while in hiding today. "The Guardian" newspaper says it was Snowden who was answering questions live for 90 minutes.

For more, let's turn to Glenn Greenwald, who has been breaking the Snowden leaks for "The Guardian." He also moderated Snowden's live chat on "The Guardian" Web site today.

Glenn, thanks for joining us.

GLENN GREENWALD, "THE GUARDIAN": Thanks for having me.

TAPPER: So in Snowden's online chat today, he said, quote, "The U.S. Government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped."

To a lot of people, that murder suggestion seems like a rather outrageous charge. Is there any evidence that Snowden's life is in any danger?

GREENWALD: If you read news accounts of what U.S. officials are telling journalists, they seem to think that if he turns over to the Chinese government or some foreign government what is in his possession and what is in his head -- and there's no evidence that he intends to do so, and he flatly denied having done so -- but U.S. officials are saying that, if he were to do that, it would be one of the gravest and most cataclysmic injuries to U.S. national security ever, and so he's concerned that the only way that they might think to stop him is to physically stop him.

I don't know of any evidence that they intend to do so. They've certainly targeted U.S. citizens in the past whom they perceive as a threat to national security, but what he's really saying is "Putting me in prison or killing me won't in any way prevent this information from being disclosed." It's just a safety mechanism that I think he's using because, understandably so, he's fearful in his situation.

TAPPER: When you refer to the U.S. government having targeted people for national security reasons, you're meaning -- you're talking about Anwar al-Awlaki and that type.

GREENWALD: Right. And the general claimed that they had the ability to do that. I'm not suggesting at all that the U.S. government would do that here or is going to. I'm just saying from his perspective, one can understand why that concern is in his head.

TAPPER: Snowden seemed to be initially saying that he was releasing this classified information because he wanted the public to know specifically about the surveillance being done of Americans, but the leaks of the past few days, particularly the latest revelation that the NSA was spying on the Russians, these are the sorts of things we expect the NSA to be doing.

How is that whistleblowing? And how does aiding a non-democratic sometime adversary of the United States aid the cause of civil liberties here at home?

GREENWALD: I would say two points about that. No. 1, I don't really think that his principle or certainly his only concern was that the U.S. is spying on its own citizens. In fact, from the first time that I spoke with him, he was very worried that essentially what the NSA was doing was destroying privacy globally. That by working with other governments, that by targeting citizens around the world, that they were destroying the concept of privacy and anonymity and Internet freedom and creating this worldwide global surveillance net from which really nobody on the planet was free.

But as far as the story that you just referenced, I think it's really important to understand the process here. He went through the documents, and he found the documents that he thought were of public interest, including documents that described various government surveillance capabilities, on the grounds that the public should know what they're able to do so we could have a debate about what limits there should be on it.

He then gave those documents to the "The Guardian" through me, as well as some to "The Washington Post" with the instruction that we should all exercise very careful journalistic assessments and make the choice about what should be published and what shouldn't be.

So if there's an article that ends up in "The Guardian" or "The Washington Post" or wherever, it really isn't fair to blame Ed Snowden for that. He's not the one who made the choice to publish it. It's the newspaper that published it.

And the story that you referenced contained very little about Russia. The idea was the British government spied on its allies at an economic summit in London. You can debate whether or not that's a legitimate article to publish, but that decision was made by "The Guardian's" editors and not by Mr. Snowden.

TAPPER: And lastly, Dennis McDonough, the White House chief of staff, was on CBS over the weekend, and he took issue with the suggestion by Snowden and others that these surveillance programs are illegal and that there have been abuses. And he pointed out; he argued as the administration has that Congress has oversight and they are brought in the loop, these specific committees, but also when it comes to specific white papers, members of Congress are invited to see them in 2009 and 2011, that there is a court, a FISA court, and that there are also inspectors general. They would take issue with the idea that there are abuses and that these are illegal. Your response? GREENWALD: Yes. Totally false. Just go and look at what Ron Wyden and Mark Udall have been saying. They're Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee. They've been desperately trying to get the public to be aware of the fact that there were serious abuses going on in this program given the Obama administration's secret law, as they called it, and they were constrained from doing anything about it, even talking about it in public.

So this oversight that they keep citing is impotent. It's symbolic. They -- even the senators who get alarmed by what they're seeing are barred by law from doing anything about it.

And as far as the FISA court is concerned, this is so crucial. The NSA does not need individual warrants to listen in on the communications or read the e-mails of American citizens when they're talking internationally to people overseas.

They go once every six months to the FISA court. The FISA court rubber stamps these vague guidelines that the NSA says they're using to make sure they're complying with the law.

And once that happens, the NSA can force telecoms and Internet companies to give them whatever they demand under the guise that the FISA court has blessed their guidelines.

So this oversight that you're talking about does not involve looking over the shoulder of the NSA to see who they're spying on or making sure that they're not abusing their power. It's very symbolic and empty oversight that really ought not to give the assurances to anybody that these powers aren't being abused.

TAPPER: Glen Greenwald of "The Guardian," thank you so much for your time.

GREENWALD: Thanks, Jake.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: We got a new glimpse today at the scope of the government's phone and Internet surveillance. Apple says it received as many as 5,000 requests for customer information over a six-month period, all coming from U.S. officials. CNN's Brian Todd joins us.

Brian, what can you tell us about this?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jake, what we don't know right now, what neither Apple nor the U.S. government is saying is how much of the information Apple actually turned over to the government.

Given Apple's share of the Internet product market, we're also left to wonder just how much more of our data it may hand over in the future.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TODD: In the last quarter, it sold more than 50 million iPads and phones. It's got hundreds of millions of active users of its products. And it's now the latest high-tech company to disclose that it's been involved with the U.S. government's Internet surveillance program.

Apple says it got between 4,000 and 5,000 requests for customer data from U.S. law-enforcement agencies during the six months ending in May. That covers 9,000 to 10,000 accounts or devices. Apple says most of the requests were from police, investigating robberies, abductions and other crimes, trying to prevent suicides. But some were for national security matters, although the company did not say how many.

MARK RASCH, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Privacy cloaks the whole thing. We don't know what the government is asking for, how often they're asking it for, and what legal authority they cite for doing it.

TODD: Mark Rasch is a former Justice Department cyber-crime prosecutor.

(on camera): Apple doesn't provide very much of the world's e-mail service, so what kind of data would they be tapping into?

RASCH: Even without e-mail, Apple collects a tremendous amount of information about people. So if you use, for example, the iCloud service here, the iCloud service will take information that you put on your iPhone anywhere you are, like your calendar functions here. It will be copied here. Your contact list will be copied here. E-mail, notes, things like that, all get copied up in the cloud and are available for law enforcement or intelligence purposes almost immediately.

TODD (voice-over): Microsoft and Facebook disclosed in recent days that they also got requests from law enforcement for users' data in the second half of 2012.

(on camera): We pressed Apple to tell us how many of those 4,000 to 5,000 requests it actually complied with. We didn't hear back on that.

By comparison, Facebook says it got 9,000 to 10,000 data requests from the government in the last half of 2012. Facebook told us it complied with almost 80 percent of those requests.

(voice-over): I asked Chris Soghoian, technical advisor with the American Civil Liberties Union, what happens if a company doesn't comply.

CHRIS SOGHOIAN, ACLU: Ultimately, if the government has the right kind of court order, they're following the right steps, if the company pushes back too much, the company will get sued, and then it will get settled in court.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TODD: We contacted the major U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies to comment on this, asked them to break down how many of the requests to Apple came from each one of them. They either wouldn't comment or referred us to the Justice Department.

Justice also wouldn't break those numbers down, referring us to an earlier statement saying it used the right legal processes in these requests and that a very small number of accounts were targeted -- Jake.

TAPPER: Brian, we also know that Apple did not provide some information that was requested, but that also has some sort of qualifier.

TODD: That's right. It's kind of hard to tell one way or the other. Apple did say it didn't turn over what they called the iMessage or the face-time conversations, because it didn't record those, and those messages are also protected by what's called end-to-end encryption, meaning that no one except for the sender or the receiver can see those. So it really couldn't turn over those anyway.

TAPPER: So they didn't have it to offer. It's not like they were hugely protecting privacy.

TODD: They made a point of saying they didn't turn those over, but they didn't really have them to turn over.

TAPPER: All right. Well, I didn't turn it over, either. Thank you. Brian Todd, appreciate it.

Coming up, at the start of the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland, some delegates may be worried that Britain is spying on them.

And we're looking into allegations that a 94-year-old Minnesota man is really a Nazi war criminal. His family says the charge is false.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE SITUATION ROOM.

As the United Kingdom hosts world leaders for the G-8 summit, some delegates could be forgiven for wondering if there's anyone listening in if they make phone calls.

"The Guardian" newspaper reports British intelligence agents snooped on officials during the 2009 G-20 summit in London. It's another bombshell from the NSA leaker. Tom Foreman is here to look into all of it for us -- Tom.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Was that you lurking outside my office listening earlier today?

TAPPER: See, but I don't do it with technology. I just have a glass. Fred Flintstone style.

FOREMAN: Up to 2,500 participants came to this conference to talk about the world banking crisis, but as they met in the Excel Exhibition Center in London -- this is their Web site -- this part of the building, "The Guardian" newspaper says British surveillance teams were listening in, electronically spying on them. How? First by tapping into their BlackBerries to intercept messages and calls. The paper says that gave 45 intelligence analysts 24-hour updates on who was talking to whom. Of course, that would have given British negotiators a real edge in their discussions there.

Second, the British set up convenient Internet cafes around the venue, so participants could easily search the Internet and communicate with their home countries. Only problem, again, according to "The Guardian," those cafes were wired so that each key stroke by someone inside was recorded so the electronic spies were reading people's e- mails, even before they do -- Jake.

TAPPER: Tom, was this surveillance used against everyone who attended, regardless of what country they were, whether it was an ally or a sometime ally or a potential threat?

FOREMAN: It's not really clear who all was targeted in this whole thing. I've heard it was everybody. But we do know some that seemed to have been specific targets that received special attention, including the Turkish prime minister -- the Turkish finance minister and more than a dozen people in his group.

Also on the list, some of the people in the South African delegation.

And here's the big one. Attempts were apparently made by American forces there to crack into the code of the phone of Dmitry Medvedev, who was from the Soviet Union -- from Russia.

So quite a huge number of big targets out there, who I'm guessing are making a lot of phone calls right now, Jake, to talk this over.

TAPPER: Indeed. Tom Foreman, thank you so much.

Still ahead, the accused mob boss versus the confessed hitman. Dramatic testimony against former fugitive Whitey Bulger at his murder trial.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Now for a story with all the drama of "The Godfather" or "Goodfellas" with the added impact that, of course, it's real life.

After 16 years on the run, accused mob boss Whitey Bulger finally is on trial up in Boston. And a former hit man was on the witness stand today.

CNN national correspondent Deborah Feyerick is there.

Deborah, what did he say?

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Well, you know, very serious testimony, but at one point, you almost got the feeling he was going to say, "Leave the gun, take the cannolis."

This is the government's star witness. He testified to at least eight murders in which he links James "Whitey" Bulger. He was brutal in his detail, describing one murder that was so bloody, rather than bury the body, he actually just went home to change.

The jury listened with rapt attention.

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FEYERICK (voice-over): Describing one murder after another, confessed killer John Martorano betrayed little emotion. Yet, when he learned his best friend and partner in crime, James "Whitey" Bulger, was an FBI informant, he says, quote, "It broke my heart. It broke all loyalty," a way to explain why he was testifying.

Bulger stared straight ahead, while his former friend, less than six feet away, described how they would carry out their hits. Martorano in one car explained he was the trigger man, armed with a machine gun. Bulger in a second car, making sure the hit was successful. In one case so close, he felt the bullets flying over his head.

Quote, "We would follow that car, and when we caught up, we pulled upside and gave it what we called a broadside, both guns shooting at once."

Under his plea deal, Martorano served 12 years in exchange for fully testifying against Bulger and rogue FBI agent John Connelly. Connelly had promised Bulger's powerful brother and later Massachusetts Senate president Billy Bulger that he'd keep Whitey out of trouble.

Bulger began giving the rogue agent money and gifts, including diamonds -- a relationship that lasted for years and led to several murders.

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FEYERICK: And one reason that John Martorano was so lethal to Whitey Bulger's case, and that's because he knows exactly how many bodies there are and where those bodies are potentially buried.

He testified against that rogue FBI agent, John Connelly, putting him away for ten years in federal prison and then another four years, because he was able to link him to leaking information that led to the murder of a Florida businessman -- Jake.

TAPPER: Deb, you say this witness literally knows where the bodies are buried. What is the defense strategy for undermining him?

FEYERICK: They're going to try to make it seem like he's a liar. They're also going to try to make it seem that he was the one who was always pulling the trigger. That in fact, Whitey Bulger was just sort of along for the ride. That these are two men who was inseparable.

The jury is going to have a hard time sort of believing that, because it looks like whenever they did a hit, it was well-executed. Bulger was in on it, knew exactly how it was going to play out.

But one thing, though, that's interesting is they were looking to kill a man who they felt had betrayed them, and the interesting thing is, he says, "We shot one guy; it was the wrong guy. We shot another guy; it was the wrong guy." Just so cold and so sort of factual. It's almost as if you are talking about, you know, going food shopping. "We'll get a chicken; we'll get a steak." It was just very matter-of- fact. And I think that's what made it so riveting to listen to.

TAPPER: Deb Feyerick, thank you so much.

And now to allegations that have people in Minnesota second-guessing everything they knew about a longtime neighbor. He's 94, but the U.S. Justice Department has just been asked to investigate allegations that he's hiding an old connection with the Nazis.

Here's CNN's Miguel Marquez.

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MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Is he or isn't he? The allegation that 94-year-old Michael Karkoc hid his Nazi past for nearly 70 years has shocked this Minneapolis suburb.

GORDON GNASDONSKY, NEIGHBOR: The Nazi thing was big, you know? I would feel differently about him.

MARQUEZ: The allegation begins with Mr. Karkoc's own memoir, published in Ukraine in 1995. Karkoc admits he helped found the Ukrainian Self-Defense Legion, an off-shoot of Hitler's brutal Nazi S.S. division.

His son insists his father is innocent.

ANDRIJ KARKOC, SON OF MICHAEL KARKOC: The Associated Press intentionally and maliciously defamed our father, Michael Karkocmi.

FOREMAN: The Associated Press alleges Mr. Karkoc lied about his military service when he entered the U.S. in 1949; was in charge of the Nazi-directed division when it nearly wiped out the population of the Polish town of Kranev (ph). And the unit may have taken part in the ruthless suppression of Warsaw before the end of the war.

Even the Associated Press admits there is no evidence Mr. Karkoc was directly involved in any of it.

KARKOC: To quote AP, "Records do not show that Karkoc had a direct hand in war crimes," end quote. My father was never a Nazi.

FOREMAN: Still, the AP says it sticks by its reporting and the U.S. Department of Justice will only say it looks into all credible allegations of Nazi war crimes.

If this one is found to be credible, trying Mr. Karkoc in court could be a long process.

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MARQUEZ: A very long process. If these charges move forward, Mr. Karkoc would have to be denaturalized, deported and then tried in either Germany or Poland. Miguel Marquez, CNN, Los Angeles.

TAPPER: Next, some armor its former owner no longer needs. Jeanne Moos explains how you can get it for your own guinea pig.

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TAPPER: Finally tonight for the guinea pig who has everything, how about a nice suit of armor? One's on the market, but be warned: It does not come cheap. Here's CNN's Jeanne Moos.

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JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He's not really suited to go up against Braveheart, but the knight in shining armor in this story is a guinea pig, more likely to go against his owner's wiener dog.

The guinea pig in the suit of armor is named Lucky. His luck ran out earlier this month when he died of natural causes.

SEAN MCCOY, LUCKY'S OWNER: I took a nap; he took a nap. I woke up; he didn't.

MOOS: Lucky's owner, Sean McCoy, decided to auction off his guinea pig's armor on eBay, with the proceeds going to an organization that helps guinea pigs find homes in the Washington, D.C.-Virginia area.

It had taken Sean weeks to weaves the stainless steel scales.

MCCOY: You should have seen the blisters on my hands from these two pairs of pliers. It's horrible.

MOOS: The eBay description reads, "Is your pet guinea pig tired of wandering around the house unarmored and vulnerable? Has your guinea pig ever wanted to go with you to a Renaissance Faire but had nothing to wear?"

Turns out Sean bought the helmet at a Renaissance Faire.

MCCOY: I'm really perfect for Lucky. It's like guinea pig size.

MOOS (on camera): Some suggested Lucky should have been buried in his noble suit of armor.

(voice-over): It wasn't exactly Lucky's favorite thing.

MCCOY: He hated it. He absolutely hated the armor. It's pretty big and pretty heavy.

MOOS: Actually he'd worn it only once for about ten minutes while Sean took these photos. He kept fidgeting and squeaking and then suddenly stood still in a perfect pose.

MCCOY: The reason he was fidgeting is because he had to go to the bathroom. And the reason that he stood still is because he was going to the bathroom. That's his finest moment.

MOOS: Though Lucky wasn't much of a swordsman, a fan on the Web site Reddit, sketched him ready to do battle. Bids on his suit of armor jumped from $400 to over $800 in hours and continued to climb.

So what if Sean has to put up with jokes?

MCCOY: Did you have a guinea pig jousting tournament?

MOOS: The closest Lucky came to jousting was fighting his bars.

Jeanne Moos, CNN --

MCCOY: He was a special guy.

MOOS: -- New York.

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TAPPER: OK. We just checked the eBay page, and the guinea pig's suit of armor already is over $1,200. And the auction still has four days left to go.

Thanks for watching. "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts right now.