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.

But the huge crowds around him began almost immediately to cheer. They didn’t hear what he said, of course, but the presence of a Western camera crew and soon thereafter three or four other camera crews meant something big was about to happen.

All throughout the day and into the early evening, there was tremendous anticipation both in the crowd and, of course, in the growing cordon of Western journalists. We could see the East Germans had placed powerful water hoses on top of the extended ladders of fire trucks and wondered whether those hoses would be trained on Germans who were by then taking to the Wall with sledge hammers, picks, whatever they could muster.

As night fell and the reality emerged that no violence would take place and that in fact the Wall would in fact be torn down, the crowd began to sing and dance and cry.

In the darkness, West German authorities along with East German bureaucrats had decided that the subway that had linked Berlin for decades but had been blocked by the Wall, would be open. There would be no checkpoints. Each East Berliner who could make his or her way to the West would be given 50 German marks — not an inconsiderable sum in those days.

East Berliners streamed through the dark streets, many of them holding lighted candles. As far as I could see, there were candles in the distance. And they sang. Sang loudly as I recall. They were singing, many of them, the anthem of the American civil rights struggle of the 1960s — “We Shall Overcome.”

Picture it in your mind. Candles. Huge crowds coursing through the streets. And an American song on their lips. It was as moving a moment as I had experienced covering the disasters and wars of the world.

The next morning all was more or less peaceful. There had been only a handful of arrests among the tens of thousands who had surged across the old dividing line between East and West. And with their 50 marks, what had most East Germans purchased? Not alcohol, although there certainly was a lot of that around. As dawn broke, you could not find a piece of chocolate or any fresh fruit throughout the whole city of West Berlin.

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.

Keep Reading...

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.

Don was the first one to admit he wasn’t a great reporter. He knew that. He hired world class correspondents and top-flight producers and let THEM do the legwork. But Don was world class on many fronts—and the most important was as an editor. I remember trooping into to a screening room built to be a small scale movie theater. There were a dozen or so reclining movie-theater type seats, a big screen and when the appointed hour arrived for Don and his senior staff to look at the story you had poured all your professional life into for the past weeks or months, it was for me mostly agonizing. What if I had done something wrong? What if HE (Don) didn’t like it?

The verdict was usually swift and sure. The story would finish — each 60 MINUTES segment was anywhere from 10 to 13 minutes — and Don would take the floor as the lights went up in the screening room. He would either say the story was “terrific” (often laced with a mild, supportive profanity) or fire off a series of questions. What about this? Why isn’t this portion up higher? That particular paragraph doesn’t make any (profanity here again) sense to me!

Those latter moments were, in retrospect, a true test of character for the producer. If you answered quickly and with sure-footedness and said Don was right and the next screening would be wonderful, then you survived. If you hemmed and hawed and disagreed, the result was not so good.

Don, I think, was right on just about every single suggestion, correction, subtraction and addition he made to the stories I produced during my run on 60 MINUTES. I think most producers who served on the broadcast would probably agree when it came to their stories as well. Don had an abiding intellectual curiosity about practically everything. During a normal day at the office, he’d often spot me wandering by, call out my name and say something like: “Come here, kid. This is amazing. Can we do anything with this?” And you’d be off and running trying to track down a potential story. The track record on those ideas was often in the one in ten category — only one of about ten Don ideas would even make it to the point of investing 60 MINUTES time and money into researching. But that ONE story that did make it was mostly likely a winner.

Don Hewitt was a television news legend. He was full of himself, energized, passionate and eager with new ideas at every stage of his professional life. 60 MINUTES continues to be an overwhelming success. I think one of the many reasons is that Don Hewitt left a legacy and blueprint that will not be matched again.

Editor's Note: David Fitzpatrick was a producer for 60 MINUTES for two seasons in the mid-1990s. He has been nominated for a 2009 News Emmy for a segment on rogue internet pharmacies he produced for AC360°.

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. The cause of death, accidental overdose.

The widow says there is no doubt her husband was an addict. She also says the internet sites that sold him the drugs were his pushers.

"Absolutely” she told CNN. “That's exactly what they are."

"These pharmacy people that are doing this and these doctors that are doing this. They don't give a dag gum about people; it’s just the almighty dollar that’s all it is."

Any drug in the world by clocking a mouse

A CNN investigation into just how easy it is to purchase prescription drugs, online, without a prescription reveals a growing and largely ignored new battle in the war on drug abuse.

Carmen Catizone, the executive director of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy says prescription drugs are the new crack and heroin, and internet sites that sell them are the new drug dealers.

"You can order virtually any drug in the world by simply clicking a mouse and going to various websites that exist out there," Catizone told CNN.

To prove it, a CNN investigative reporter logged on to the internet site linepaharmacy.com, a site that advertises a long list of prescription drugs for sale. The site sent us an email saying "all orders made are still subjected to Doctor's evaluation."

The CNN reporter placed two orders with the site: one for Prozac, the other for the anti-depressant Elavil. A health survey on the site was already filled in. The reporter submitted a credit card and a shipping address.

Within 24 hours the Prozac had arrived at the reporter’s front door. The Elevil arrived two days later. Both prescription bottles had a doctor’s name and pharmacy on the label. The reporter had neither seen a doctor, talked to a doctor on the phone, nor had ever heard of the doctor.

Lawmakers: “Show us the dead bodies”

Catizone insists the purchases made to CNN were illegal. But he says pharmacy laws are subject to individual state control, and though illegal in every state, individual pharmacy boards in the fifty states have virtually no investigative power, budget or resources to shut down the growing number of sites selling drugs over the internet.

The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy has tried to lobby congress, asking form some federal oversight or federal prosecution to stem the tide of the growing, illegal internet pharmacies. But Catizone says legislators gave the board a chilly response.

"Show us the dead bodies, and if that was me or my family that's a pretty sad statement for our legislators to give," Catizone says.

Network of pharmacies and doctors

The internet sites work with a network of small pharmacies inside and outside the U.S. According the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, unscrupulous doctors are paid to have their names used on the prescriptions, even though the doctors never see the patients or even review the orders.

Nancy Fitzpatrick, a Washington State woman who tried to commit suicide with internet purchased drugs showed CNN her prescription of Soma which was delivered by a pharmacy in American Forks, Utah and prescribed by a doctor in Long island, New York. Fitzpatrick, the sister of a CNN investigative producer, says she had no contact with the doctor or the pharmacy.

The doctor, Dr. Kareem Tannous, lives in a $4 million dollar estate on Long Island and runs three health clinics. When confronted about the prescription’s in front of his Valley Stream, NY clinic, Tannous hustled to his car and drove off without answering a single question.

Workers inside Roots Pharmacy in American Forks, Utah also refused to answer questions. The second story office in the small foothill town has a bolted security door, closed circuit security cameras. The workers inside refused to even open the door or provide the name of the owner.

In the reception area on the first floor, dozens of boxes of empty FedEx envelopes were waiting to be filled. And with CNN cameras rolling, one of the workers emptied a large clear plastic trash bag filled with empty wholesale prescription drug bottles. Most of the containers were labeled Carisoprodol, the generic name of the muscle relaxant Soma.

"They need to be stopped,” Fitzpatrick says. “It just boggles my mind that it's so simple."

Editor's note: Read a report on this investigation at CNN.com/health, and check out CNN producer David Fitzpatrick's blog on how online drugs affected his family.

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.

We were not unusual in the least.  Both ABC News and NBC News flew in truckloads of people. All the major U.S. networks had producers like me, correspondents, cameramen, editors, technicians and even administrators. At its peak, it’s a reasonable to suppose that nearly 200 men and women were working for the then Big Three broadcast networks inside Iran.

All of us then—as are international journalists today—were inside the country at the whim of the Ministry of Guidance—that wonderful, inapt name given to the bureaucracy in charge of us all.

From the moment you stepped onto Iranian soil, in theory, you were under the control of the Ministry. Most often, that meant a young man—or usually a young woman—assigned to you as a “minder”, making sure you didn’t violate the dozens of written and unwritten rules  that surrounded your presence.

Why would revolutionary Iran even allow U.S. and other international journalists inside the country in the first place?

For one clear cut reason:to portray as much as possible events on the ground in a manner that would benefit the government. Hundreds of thousands of protestors shouting “Death to America” outside the U.S. Embassy? While it certainly angered most U.S. viewers, the Iranians were reaching for a far more subtle audience—Islamic leaders around the world who would see the birth of something new, aggressive and potent: crowds on the street that eventually could make policy.

When the government of revolutionary Iran in 1979 and 1980 found it could not control the message to its liking, the response was equally clearcut: refuse to extend the visas of international journalists and eventually expel them all from the country.

It happened to me in the late winter of 1980 just as it happened last week to the dozens of international journalists who traveled to Iran to cover the elections in mid June. When their presence was deemed detrimental to the State, they were forced to leave.

I am certain the correspondents, producers and technicians inside Iran for the elections all worked as hard as we did three decades ago to get the story right.  And I am sure they did all they could to extend their visas.

When I was inside Iran, there was nothing more important aside from the news of the day then securing even an additional few days permission to work legally in Iran.  That often meant long suffering hours at the Ministry of Guidance offices, listening with at least surface politeness to lecture after lecture on the virtues of the revolution, the demonic nature of the United States and Britain (two themes repeated still today of course)  and how the world had to hear the “truth” about the brave men and women who toppled the Shah.

In 1980, as the hostage crisis consumed month after month, the Iranian authorities began to allow international journalists back into the country—only when the authorities felt they had the upper hand.   This time, instead of four dozen representatives from each network, they insisted on a limit of only five per broadcast news organization and only one each from a newspaper or news magazine.

It’s likely that some sort of similar model will follow in the next month or two—but only if and when the theocracy in charge of Iran decides that such presence will be in their benefit.

In late April of 1980, those of us still working inside Tehran had begun to establish an uneasy, but workable relationship with the authorities. It all went up in smoke on April 24, 1980 when word came of the aborted rescue mission launched by President Carter in the Iranian desert.  Almost instantly, enormous crowds of anti-American demonstrators filled the streets.

Ultimately, we were all expelled from the country again.

In 2009, it’s impossible to predict the next steps. Thirty years ago, the cycle of funerals, a 40 day mourning period for the dead killed on the streets and the always fiery Friday prayers made the country seem unsteady and dangerous.

Today, as Iran continues to bar most international journalists from covering this remarkable story, that pattern may well repeat.

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.

CNN had been invited to a public appearance Ms. Vito was making in Allentown, Pa., to ask her about the fees banks impose when the unemployed receive debit cards in Pennsylvania. Those fees range from forty cents to check a balance by telephone to $1.75 if the debit card is used outside the two free withdrawal periods banks allow. Approximately 925,000 Pennsylvanians were unemployed in February of 2009 and most used debit cards to receive payments, Pennsylvania officials said.

"Arrangements have been made for you to interview Department of Labor & Industry Acting Secretary Sandi Vito in Allentown tomorrow at approximately 1 p.m., to discuss our unemployment compensation debit card program," David Smith, a spokesman for the department emailed CNN prior to the encounter.

Yet when CNN Correspondent Drew Griffin, accompanied by a camera crew, attempted to interview Ms. Vito, she said she did not have the time and ducked out the back door of an elementary school where the public appearance was being staged.

Later that same night, Ms. Vito was arrested on a charge of public drunkenness at the Hilton Hotel in Harrisburg, Pa., according to Harrisburg Police Chief Charles Keller. News of her arrest did not become public until late Friday.

"I deeply regret that my actions earlier this week caused embarrassment to the administration and the commonwealth," she said in a statement issued to CNN by her office. "I take full responsibility for those actions."

"This incident has had a profound personal effect on me," her statement continued. "Today, I am entering an alcohol treatment program because it is the right thing for me to do."

According to public records, Ms. Vito earns a salary of $136,120 annually. Her appointment as permanent Secretary of Labor and Industry was to have been brought before the Pennsylvania legislature in a few weeks.

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.

“I was outraged by it," he told CNN. I was very noisy about it. I just couldn’t believe it. An outrage is just too weak a word. It’s obscene.”

According to the Department of Labor, 30 states offer direct deposit cards to the unemployed. Many of the nation’s biggest banks have contracts with the individual states. JP Morgan Chase, for instance, has contracts with seven states and has pending deals with two others, according to Chase spokesman John T. Murray. About ten states, the Labor Department says, pay by check only.

An Associated Press survey of the debit card fee structure shows fees range from the modest - that forty cent fee Steve Lippe mentioned - to a high of $3 per transaction, if the debit card is used at an out-of-network ATM. Most banks give jobless debit card users one free withdrawal per deposit period, which averages every other week in most states. But consumer advocates, including the National Consumer Law Center, say the unemployed “should be able to obtain cash and perform basic functions with no fees.”

A key Democratic member of the House Financial Services Committee, which oversees bank regulation and the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) , told CNN she agrees wholeheartedly.

“Fees should not be attached to unemployment benefits that the taxpayers are paying to help Americans,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, told CNN. “Particularly, these fees should not be attached by banks that are getting TARP money and are being supported by taxpayer dollars.”

CNN asked some of the major banks involved in the debit card program for a response. Spokesmen for JP Morgan Chase, Wachovia, Bank of America and Wells Fargo all directed us to the individual state governments for comment.

The Acting Secretary of Labor and Industry for Pennsylvania, where Steve Lippe lives, is Sandi Vito. Via email, her staff invited us to Allentown, Pa., where she was taking part at a public meeting at an elementary school. Afterwards, we were promised, she would answer questions about the debit card fees.

But when the meeting ended, her staff said she was too busy to talk.

“Do you have a second ,” asked CNN Correspondent Drew Griffin.

“No, I don’t, I’m sorry,” she said.

“You can’t just answer one question?”, Griffin asked.

She didn’t say another word and left the school auditorium by a back door. Her spokesman, Troy A. Thompson, spoke with CNN after Ms. Vito left: “The distribution system for people getting their benefits has been improved by the use of debit cards, way above and beyond the distribution by check.”

The Department of Labor provided what it called “talking points” to CNN when asked for comment on the fee structure.

“States can do a better job negotiating fees with banks,” the Department said. “Many states have obtained terms far more favorable to claimants than those described in media reports.”

In addition, the Department had a few more bullet points to share:

• The Department is concerned about the fees related to the use of debit cards as reported by the media.

• We are aware that states are offering the use of debit cards to pay UI for some good reasons:

• It is less expensive for claimants without bank accounts because they don’t need to pay check cashing fees.

• Claimants can use the card free at merchants and therefore don’t need to carry excess cash.

• Generally, these cards are safer and more secure than checks.

In its final sentence, the Labor Department added: “We will be working with states as they gain experience with debit cards to resolve these problems related to fees.”

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.

My most memorable trip to Yucca Mountain was as a producer for “60 Minutes.” Morley Safer and I spent a long day wearing hard hats and exploring the facility, which THEN was expected to cost a mere $5 billion.

Department of Energy engineers showed us their gigantic, specially built drilling machine especially built to bore a huge U-shaped tunnel into the mountain. It looked like something out of a science fiction movie, weighing 860 tons and featuring a 25-foot-wide drill bit.

Engineers laid railroad tracks in tunnel to carry nuclear waste more than a mile from the opening. The plan was to store the waste safely – forever – inside the mountain walls. Thousands of engineers and contractors worked there.

But how would nuclear waste get to Yucca Mountain in the first place? The government planned to use highly protected trucks or trains. But in classic not-in-my-backyard “NIMBY” politics, governors and mayors said no way.

Believe me, no politician wanted his or her name on a press release announcing nuclear waste material would be taken through his or her town.

And Nevada politicians didn’t want the waste in THEIR backyard. The state was so adamant, in fact, that it paid state employees to oppose Yucca Mountain. That agency is still alive and kicking: it’s called The Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency, a bland name that belies the enormous amounts of money spent to kill the project.

National politics comes into play, too. In the 2008 presidential race, President Obama had vowed to stop throwing money at Yucca Mountain. And he defeated Sen. John McCain in Nevada.

And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has been adamant in his opposition to Yucca Mountain: “I am pleased that President Obama and Secretary Chu are holding firm on their commitment to kill the dump.”

Energy Secretary Steven Chu told Senators last week that he would “devise a new strategy toward nuclear waste disposal” and proposed yet another study on how to solve the problem.

President Obama has already made public his desire to see more nuclear facilities operating in the United States. The nuclear industry has also expressed desire to build new plants—none has been built in the U.S. since the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979.

Until the problem of what to do with the nuclear waste is solved, however, it remains unclear whether the goal of Mr. Obama and the nuclear industry will be realized.

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.

It took the local coroner nearly six months to classify the death as a homicide and, as of this writing, no formal charges have been filed by the Winn Parish District Attorney.

There’s an ongoing investigation by the Louisiana State Police and both attorneys for officer involved, Scott Nugent, and the local coroner say they expect a grand jury will be convened sometime in future.

Winnfield is a town with a colorful and notorious past. On the big water tower that rises over the town are colored drawings of two of the area’s most famous, or infamous sons: former governors Earl and Huey Long. Both were larger than life and Huey Long, of course, was the subject of Robert Penn Warren’s book, “All The King’s Men,” which has been turned into two films. There’s a plaque smack in the middle of Winnfield’s downtown that helps you find the law offices both men inhabited when they were here.

This is also a town where everyone pretty much knows everyone else. While taping interviews and shooting incidental footage for our story, we were stopped several times by people who knew one or another figure in this case.

One woman, who didn’t want to be interviewed on camera, had a decal painted on the rear window of her car in honor of Baron Pikes. An elected city official also told us off-camera that he was worried that the demonstrations that took place in Jena could well be duplicated in Winnfield.

The story of what happened to Baron Pikes has been news off and on here since the beginning of the year. But until now, there hasn’t been a great deal of notice in the national press or on television.

That’s changing of course. A reporter for The Chicago Tribune was in town the day before we arrived. And there are a lot of people here who say that they welcome the attention, even if it might augur more turbulence ahead.

Editor's Note: David Fitzpatrick was part of a CNN investigation into just how easy it is to purchase prescription drugs online without a prescription. Read a report on this investigation at CNN.com/health. He share's his personal experience here:

Editor's note:

Nancy Fitzpatrick

David Fitzpatrick
CNN Special Investigations Unit

For more than 16 years, I had been out of touch with my sister, Nancy. One day in 1992, she simply disappeared from her California home. She left her two children, her husband, who then was in the early stages of Multiple Sclerosis, and all of her friends and family. There was no note, no phone call, nothing.

The last physical record I had of her movements was a rental car credit bill, charged to one of my cards from Las Vegas, Nevada. She vanished without a trace. Working for CBS News at the time, I tried to track her down through police, county sheriff’s offices, state authorities in California and Nevada but without success. As the months and then years went by, I kept in touch with her children, then in their early 20s. As far as I could tell, she made no effort to contact them.

I became convinced that Nancy, two years younger than I, was dead. She was either the victim of a random criminal act or had died of natural causes.

In early March of this year, the phone rang at our home outside of New York City. I wasn’t there. I was in Washington, D.C. on assignment. But it was a phone call that would change my life.

The call was from former high school classmate of Nancy’s, who it turned out had found her through the internet and rescued her from a wretched one room apartment in southern Arizona. The classmate took Nancy to her home in Gig Harbor, Washington; gave Nancy reduced rent in the duplex apartment adjacent to her own and set up housekeeping in late 2005. Her only income? Social Security disability payments amounting to a little more than $600 a month.

I was still unaware of any of this because Nancy begged her former classmate not to get in touch with me. But the phone call was to tell me that after more than two years, Nancy was being evicted for chronic non-payment of rent. Almost before I had a chance to process that information and before I was able to speak to Nancy, another phone call: this one to tell me that Nancy had attempted suicide and had been rushed to a hospital in nearby Tacoma.

I flew to Tacoma the next day and found Nancy intubated, unable to breathe on her own and, according to physicians at Allenmore Hospital, very close to death. She had ingested dozens of pills, mostly the muscle relaxant Soma and the anti-depressant drug Elavil. Where had she gotten those drugs?

I went to my sister’s duplex and found five empty or partially empty prescription bottles from pharmacies in Kansas, Utah, Mississippi, California and Michigan. Each had a different doctor’s name listed as the prescribing physician. But how could my sister be in contact with those doctors in different states? And why were the physicians listed on the bottles nowhere near the pharmacies from which the drugs had been shipped?

Thanks to the nurses and doctors at Allenmore Hospital, my sister slowly began to recover. And I discovered that Nancy had been routinely ordering drugs over the internet. So many drugs, in fact, that she had become addicted to Soma and couldn’t afford any money to pay rent or any other routine bills.

When I knew my sister was out of danger, I began to research internet prescriptions. One of the pharmacies listed on my sister’s prescription bottles was Hogan’s Pharmacy in Lyons, Kansas. It turned out that Kansas authorities had just closed Hogans, in the tiny town of Lyons, Kansas, for shipping out nearly 1,000 prescriptions a day across the nation. A man living outside Wichita, Kansas had died of an accidental overdose of the drug Soma, sent to him from Hogan’s Pharmacy, and authorities were beginning a criminal investigation.

As my research went on, it led me to the National Association of the State Boards of Pharmacy, headquartered in suburban Chicago. Its executive director confirmed that his organization has been trying for years to clamp down on internet prescriptions with little or no success. He said most state pharmacy boards are understaffed and have few resources to prevent online drug purchases.

As for the doctors listed on those prescription labels? The executive director of the Mississippi State Board of Pharmacy told CNN that many doctors are paid a flat yearly fee by internet companies and their approval of drugs sent to millions of Americans is little more than a rubber stamp.

My sister now seems out of danger. She has found a new place to live, has no access to the internet for the time being and is being treated by mental health professionals. But the easy movement of prescription drugs nationwide is a subject that I will continue to investigate and report. I owe that much to my sister.