The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 symbolized the end of communism across Eastern Europe.

David W. Fitzpatrick
CNN Special Investigations Unit

There’s a lot to read and a lot to see today about the events 20 years ago on Nov. 9, 1989 when East Germany (technically a splendid oxymoron called the German Democratic Republic) took no action and the infamous Berlin Wall was reduced to a footnote of history.

I was there for those tumultuous and joyous events as a producer for the CBS Evening News and above all else, the one thing that sticks in my mind is not the tremendous geo-political fallout, but rather the voices and faces of the people of both East and West Berlin.

When I arrived in Berlin after an overnight flight from New York and then on the only Western airline allowed into West Berlin (remember Pan American World Airways?), enormous crowds had already started to build near the Wall and the adjacent Brandenburg Gate.

One of the first people I recognized — and he, being a seasoned politician enjoyed the recognition — was the mayor of West Berlin, Willy Brandt. His long time symbol was a red rose that he always wore in lapel of his suit. He was beaming as we approached with our camera crew and in perfect English began to give us an interview drenched in politics and logic, but mostly void of emotion.

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Yechezekel Nagauker in a Chinese hospital where he got a kidney transplant after paying $100,000.

Drew Griffin and David Fitzpatrick
CNN Special Investigations Unit

In a dank Tel Aviv hospital room, you can see at a glance just how desperate some Israelis are for a new kidney.

In one bed, Ricki Shai's mother lies practically unresponsive. Her diabetes is slowly killing her. It already has forced the amputation of both of her legs.

Sitting in a bed beside her is Shai's father, Yechezekel Nagauker, also a diabetic. But he decided, his daughter says, not to wait for a kidney donor.

"My father didn't want to be like my mother," Shai told CNN.

In April, Nagauker cut a deal with a kidney broker who promised him a new life and a new kidney for $100,000. It was available only in China, the donor said.

"The broker went to him and suggested that he become a new man. 'Come with me. Two days, $100,000, and two days you will be a new man,'" Shai said.

Today, Shai calls the broker "the killer."

Nagauker's body is rejecting the new kidney.

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Don Hewitt joined CBS News in 1948.

David Fitzpatrick
CNN Special Investigations Unit

When I heard the news that “60 MINUTES” creator and long-time Executive Producer Don Hewitt had died, I have to say I wasn’t shocked. At Walter Cronkite’s funeral, he appeared weary and infirm.

But that is clearly not the Don Hewitt I remember. I was a producer for “60 MINUTES” in the mid-90s, working with Correspondent Morley Safer. Then, as now, each correspondent had a team of four, even five producers assigned to him or her. Each producer was expected to produce and deliver at least four segments for broadcast during each television season. Do the math and you come up with 20 to 25 stories apiece for Morley, Mike Wallace, the late Ed Bradley, Lesley Stahl and so on. Enough to fill up a season.

For a producer like me, the passion and the research and the storytelling leading up to a screening of what you and your correspondent engineered on a particular story was a captivating process. But the next step—screening the a draft version of the result before Don Hewitt and the other senior staff at 60 MINUTES was both satisfying and, I have to admit, terrifying.

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These pills were sent to CNN's Drew Griffin, even though he was never seen by a doctor.

Editor's Note: Four Emmy nominees for Outstanding Investigative Reporting on a Regularly Scheduled Newscast were announced today. CNN's David Fitzpatrick and Drew Griffith were nominated for their pieces on online prescription drug abuse.

Drew Griffin and David Fitzpatrick
CNN Special Investigations Unit

Every night before he went to bed, he would open a prescription bottle of the muscle relaxant Soma and swallow the 8 or 9 pills his wife says would be the only way he could get to sleep. Only last summer the doses were increasing.

She thought the drugs, arriving at her doorstep every week were being prescribed by a treating physician. Her husband had been in a car accident, suffered from back pain, and Soma was the one drug that could relieve the aches.

She was wrong. Although she wants to protect her husband’s identity and hers so as not to embarrass her husband’s family, she is willing to tell the story of how he died.

She found him last August in bed in a pool of vomit. Keep reading

These pills were sent to CNN's Drew Griffin, even though he was never seen by a doctor.

Editor's Note: Four Emmy nominees for Outstanding Investigative Reporting on a Regularly Scheduled Newscast were announced today. CNN's David Fitzpatrick and Drew Griffith were nominated for their pieces on online prescription drug abuse.

David Fitzpatrick
Special Investigations Unit Producer

If there was any doubt at all that the sale of prescription drugs over the internet, without a doctor’s legitimate authorization, is very big business, what happened in Kansas over the last couple of days should dispel those notions in a heartbeat.

The Kansas Attorney General’s office arrested and jailed three people, a pharmacist and the co-owners of a small pharmacy in the northwestern part of the state, on multiple felony and misdemeanor counts. Hogan’s Pharmacy is in a tiny town called Lyons. And according to documents filed in court, this small storefront operation, in a town of no more than 3,000 people, handled nearly $1.9 million in wire transfers in 2007 alone.

CNN Correspondent Drew Griffin and I went to Lyons a few months ago as part of an AC 360 investigation into internet prescription abuse. We had met and interviewed a young widow only the day before. Her husband had ordered the muscle-relaxant drug Soma over the internet—time and time again. Many of the pills came from Hogan’s Pharmacy and came without any legitimate order from a physician. One day last year, she went to their bedroom and found her husband unresponsive. He had died of an overdose of Soma.

There’s a good reason why doctors limit doses of Soma. Research by the Food and Drug Administration shows that it is one of those class of drugs which can be easily abused. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, there’s now some consideration being given to classifying Soma as a “controlled substance,” putting it in the same category of dangerous drugs such as Xanax and Hydrocodone..

I was sitting in my New York City office when that widow telephoned me to express her thanks to the Kansas authorities and to CNN for the investigative work. She told me she would likely testify in any coming trials and was looking forward to doing so.

Keeping them honest, we’ll continue to investigate prescription drug sales over the Internet.

Attorney General Steve Six announced charges today against Hogan’s Pharmacy owners Jolane and Mark Poindexter for their part in an Internet pharmacy scheme. The pharmacist in charge, Rick Kloxin, was charged earlier this week.

Editor's Note: David Fitzpatrick was a producer for CBS News based in London during the Iranian revolution and hostage taking crisis.  He spent 26 years at CBS News before joining CNN in 2001

Image obtained on June 21 shows Iranian riot police blocking protesters on a street of Tehran on June 20.

David Fitzpatrick
CNN Special Investigations Unit

The events playing out on the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities offer an eerie mirror image of the revolution that brought the Ayatollah Khomeni to power in 1979.

Protestors are surging through the streets, international governments are unsure how or even if they should act and Iranian politics are as difficult as ever to decipher from abroad.

There is also another constant that is clear over the course of three decades: the ability of the authoritarian Iranian government to close down international journalists at the precise moment when objective observation of stark events on the ground is needed the most.

I know. I was in Tehran and other Iranian cities for months in 1979 and 1980. I was part of a very large contingent of international broadcast journalists allowed into the country just as the American hostages were being taken at the U.S. Embassy.

There seemed to be no limit on the amount of personnel we were allowed to bring in.  For CBS News, where I worked, I think we had close to 50 people brought in from England (where I was based), the U.S., Germany, France and nearly every other international bureau where CBS News had set up shop.

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Editor's Note: A lot of you were outraged about our story last week detailing how states are issuing unemployment benefits via debit cards, and banks are charging fees on those cards. In our attempt to find out why, we literally chased down Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of labor. But Sandi Vito decided she did not want to be interviewed and took off like a politician caught in a scandal. We thought it was rather odd behavior. Now we’re learning the rest of the story. Hours after that encounter, Vito was under arrest. Here’s the news version of what happened.

Sandi Vito, Pennsylvania's acting labor secretary, has entered a rehab program, the governor's spokesman says.

Drew Griffin and David Fitzpatrick
CNN Special Investigations Unit

Pennsylvania's Acting Secretary of Labor and Industry has entered a rehabilitation program for at least two weeks after her arrest on a public drunkenness charge, only a few hours after she ran away from a CNN Correspondent who was attempting to ask her questions about the state's use of debit cards to pay unemployment benefits.

According to Gov. Ed Rendell's chief spokesman, Chuck Ardo, Sandi Vito, who was appointed Acting Secretary of Labor and Industry in February of 2008, "has entered a treatment program for two weeks."

"The governor awaits her return before making any final decisions on her future," Ardo told CNN on Monday.

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A brochure that goes out to Pennsylvanians seeking unemployment via debit card lists a number of fees.

Drew Griffin and David Fitzpatrick
CNN Special Investigations Unit

If you’re out of work like Steve Lippe, who was laid off from his job as a salesman in January, you know you already have problems. But looking at the fine print that came with his new unemployment debit card, he became livid.

“A $1.50 (fee) here, a $1.50 there. Forty cents for a balance inquiry. Fifty cents to have your card denied. Thirty five cents to have your account accessed by telephone,” he recited.

He was quoting fees listed in a brochure that goes out to every unemployed person in Pennsylvania who chooses to receive benefits via debit card. He was given the option when he filed for jobless payments: wait ten days for a check or get the card immediately. Like most of the 925,000 state residents who received unemployment benefits in February in Pennsylvania, he chose the debit card. And only then, he says, learned about the fees.

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David Fitzpatrick
CNN Special Investigations Unit

What has cost Americans more than $10 billion in taxes, and $22 billion on utility bills?

Yucca Mountain. But it’s a fair bet that few Americans know why.

Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, Yucca Mountain is the ONLY place in the United States designated to store tons and tons of nuclear waste that nuclear power plants have been accumulating since we started using atomic energy to generate electricity.

And yet, the amount of nuclear waste stored there is zero. Other states and communities don’t want the nuclear waste passing through their areas. And no one has figured out how to make sure none of the nuclear waste leaks once it is buried there.

So why keep spending so much money on it?

It seems the new Administration has asked exactly that question – and answered it. President Obama’s new budget cuts off most of the money flowing into Yucca Mountain. If you live in an area that gets electricity from nuclear plants, you'll still get those little utility bill charges.

Since it opened in 1983, I’ve been to Yucca Mountain several times to report on this never-ending story. It’s about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas and, yes, it’s in the absolute middle of nowhere. Nearby lies the flotsam and jetsam of America’s nuclear age: rusting sheds and abandoned platforms where the first above-ground nuclear tests were conducted in the 1950s. Some of the control towers are still there, wasting away in the desert sun.

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Baron ‘Scooter” Pikes

David Fitzpatrick
Producer, CNN Special Investigations Unit

When I felt the searing 98 degree heat and the oppressive 100 percent humidity here, it wasn’t as jarring as it might have been. In fact, it seemed familiar for a very good reason.

Just a year ago I was in the same sort of weather in a town only 40 miles from here: Jena, Louisiana, ground zero for the nation’s largest civil rights demonstrations in a generation.

Then, I was helping to produce stories about what led to the demonstrations - the jailing of a teenager named Mychal Bell.

You might recall, Bell was in a school yard fight in Jena that stemmed from three nooses, hung from a tree in front of the local school. Bell was jailed on a charge of attempted murder in the wake of that fight and five of his classmates were also charged, but not imprisoned.

A year later, I was in Winnfield where one of Mychal Bell’s first cousins, Baron ‘Scooter” Pikes, was the central figure in another case where accusations of racial injustice have been flying.

Last January, the 21-year-old Pikes was struck by a taser gun nine times in less than an hour, after he was arrested on an outstanding warrant alleging possession of crack cocaine.

He was dead on arrival at a local hospital after being hit six times while handcuffed and lying on his stomach, once in the back of a Winnfield police car and twice more on the concrete outside the police department’s headquarters.

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