Transcripts For KPIX 60 Minutes 20130826

Yes. Mr. Kroft. Stahl over the last ten years, the ability of computers to identify faces has gotten 100 times better, a million times faster, and exponentially cheaper. To use face recognition, use the colorcoded button on your remote. Stahl facial recognition is already in some of our Home Appliances like tvs. Hi, tv. Stahl and big business is free to do this kind of surveillance, while government has all kind of restrictions. Joseph atick whats unique about face recognition is the fact that you can do it surreptitiously, from a distance, and continually. Stahl it can happen, we dont even know. Atick thats the point. Cooper the nile crocodile can grow up to 20 feet long and weighs as much as a car. They are patient and stealthy killers that drag their prey into the water, where they drown and dismember them. Hundreds of people are killed every year. Why would we go diving with them . To learn more about africas largest and most feared predator face to face. Im steve kroft. Im lesley stahl. Im morley safer. Im lara logan. Im anderson cooper. Im scott pelley. Those stories tonight on 60 minutes. Hey love. [off screen] there you are. [speaking german] hi, grandpa [off screen] give me a kiss [speaking mandarin] what do you think . Do you like it . [off screen] happy birthday can you see that . [speaking polish] [off screen] did he apologize . [off screen] thanks, micah [off screen] bye, guys. Bye. See ya. Oh my god every day, more people connect face to face on the iphone than any other phone. I miss you. [ bell dings ] [ bell dings ] [ buzzer ] [ buzzer ] [ female announcer ] check it out. [ bell dings ] subway is the first restaurant with meals to earn the american heart associations heart check mark. Subway. Eat fresh. Thats awesome staurant. Ciations heart check mark. I know, voice activated and great gas mileage. So much better than choosing voice activated or great gas mileage. Thatd be like eating sweet or sour chicken. Oh grrrlg what is this . sour chicken. Its good, right . Thatd be awful. I think i like and better. And is better. The 2014 focus. Only ford gives you ecoboost fuel economy aa whole lot more. Go further. [ female announcer ] only aveeno daily moisturizing lotion has an active naturals oat formula that creates a moisture reserve so skin can replenish itself. Aveeno® naturally beautiful results. It can only be called black silk. From folgers. A taste you can enjoy fresh brewed one cup at a time or on the go. Black silk from folgers. Its thats 50 off lenses. Annual sale. Including bifocals, no lines even sunglasses made with your prescription. So hurry in, sale ends september 9th. Kroft whether we like it or not, we live in an age where much of what goes on in our daily lives is monitored, collected, and sold to interested parties our driving records, our medical history, our internet traffic and, most importantly, our credit information. A mistake on your Credit Report can cost you money it can increase the interest you pay on loans, prevent you from getting a mortgage or buying a car, landing a job, or getting a security clearance. Its not uncommon. And as we first reported in february, a government study indicated that as many as 40 million americans have a mistake on their Credit Report; 20 million have significant mistakes. And our own investigation of the Credit Reporting industry shows that those mistakes can be nearly impossible to get removed from your record. Consumer Credit Reporting is a 4billionayear industry, dominated by three Large Companies experian, transunion and equifax. They keep files on 200 million americans and traffic in our financial reputations. They make their money gathering information from people we do business with, and selling it to banks, merchants, insurance companies, and employers, and they use it to make judgements about our creditworthiness and reliability. But now, the reliability of the industry is being questioned in an eightyear federal trade commission study. Jon leibowitz is the chairman. Jon leibowitz heres what we found. Some pretty troubling information. One out of five americans has an error on their Credit Report, and one out of ten has an error on their Credit Report that might lower their credit score. Kroft im trying to think of another industry where a 20 error rate would be acceptable. Thats a pretty high error rate. Leibowitz its a pretty high error rate. Mike dewine i think the more we look at this and the more the American People know about this, the madder theyre going to get. Kroft Ohio Attorney general mike dewine has opened his own investigation into the Credit Reporting industry, which, for years, has blamed mistakes on banks and merchants that provide them with bad information. But dewine argues that the fault lies with the industry for what he says are clear violations of the fair Credit Reporting act. Do these companies have a legal responsibility to make sure that the information is accurate . Dewine the federal law says that if you believe that there is a mistake, you can go to them and they have an obligation to do a reasonable investigation. Theyre not doing a reasonable investigation. Theyre not doing an investigation at all. Kroft every day, dewines Office Fields calls from desperate constituents who cant get the Credit Reporting agencies to answer their questions or correct mistakes on their report, like paid bills listed as delinquent, closed accounts listed as open, and bad debts that belong to other people with similar names or Social Security numbers. Dewine the problem is not that they make mistakes; its they wont fix the mistakes. It literally is like this you know, guy behind the curtain in the wizard of oz. You really dont know what hes doing. It really is a secret operation that is so hard to crack. Kroft eight Million People a year file disputes about their Credit Report, which usually requires a visit to the experian, transunion or equifax web sites. They are primarily designed to sell you premium products, not resolve a dispute, which is what i was trying to do. Theres a tollfree number you can call, which is likely to connect you to someone on a faraway continent. Kevin thank you for calling. My name is kevin. How may i help you . Kroft where are you located . Kevin india. Kroft india . But regardless of where they are or who you talk to, they wont be much help. Kroft so, really, you cant do anything for me. Ive just been talking to you for 15 minutes. I mean, the only thing you can do is to tell me to fill it out online. Yes, mr. Kroft. Kroft okay, thank you. Besides the tollfree number, they also give you a post Office Box Address where you can send a letter and documents supporting your claim. In each case, its extremely unlikely that anyone with the authority to resolve your dispute will ever actually see it. Ask sandra cortez, a california accountant whose Credit Report confused her with an International Drug trafficker. It took her five years to get it fixed. Or david smith, a retired army officer, whose Credit Report listed a bankruptcy that wasnt his and triggered a foreclosure proceeding against his house in south carolina. He is still dealing with the fallout. Or judy thomas, a trauma nurse with a horror story worthy of hitchcock or kafka. Judy thomas theres nobody to go to. Theres nobody. You just keep making phone calls and you just keep writing disputes and you keep sending them your Social Security number, and they dont care. Kroft thomas, who manages two medical centers near cleveland, says it all began in 1999 when she went shopping for a new dress and applied for a store credit card to get a 15 discount. She was denied. Was that the first time youd ever been denied credit . Thomas yes, very first time. Kroft ever . Thomas ever, ever. Kroft but certainly not the last. It became a regular occurrence. The personal Credit Reports she got from experian, transunion and equifax were all clean and without blemish. Yet she kept getting rejected and couldnt find out why. Thomas i would get a Consumer Report and it would look fine. I would go to the bank, and they would tell me, oh, no, you have all this debt. But no one would tell me what was on there. Kroft they wouldnt tell you what the debt was, and they wouldnt give you a copy of the report that they had . Thomas no. No. Kroft it took judy thomas several years to discover what almost no one knows that the Credit Reports the agencies send to you are different than the ones they sell to banks, merchants, and mortgage brokers. And she only found that out when a loan officer left her file on his desk and walked out of the room. And what did you see . Thomas i saw debt from utah medical center. I saw debt from a veterinarian clinic in utah. I saw collections for a Judith Kendall. Kroft Judith Kendall, not judy thomas . Thomas correct. Kroft whats going through your mind . Thomas what the hells she doing on my Credit Report . What the hell is her debt doing on my Credit Report . Kroft youd think this would be a fairly simple thing to get straightened out . Thomas you would think. Yeah, you would think. This is my judy thomas versus Judith Kendall file. Kroft instead, it became a sixyear battle with credit agencies, requiring boxloads of correspondence to try and prove that she was judy thomas, not Judith Kendall, all to no avail. You got a lot of time invested in this. How important are these documents . Thomas its my life. Kroft there are logs of daily phone calls to dispute centers, hundreds of letters to experian, equifax and transunion, even correspondence from Judith Kendalls creditors in utah, acknowledging that the debts on her Credit Report arent hers. Thomas i would get letters back from these companies, saying, this, in fact, is not you. Kroft you still couldnt get it off your Credit Report . Thomas no, i sent copies to the credit bureaus. And they. And they would come back as mine, verified, verified. I also hired an. A local attorney to try and straighten it out. We had everything certified, that this is judy thomas. This is where i live. Ive never gone by the name of kendall. Ive never even been to utah, let alone owing a Cable Company in utah. Kroft and what happened . Thomas nothing. Kroft nothing . Thomas nothing. Kroft what kind of problems did this cause for you . Thomas i couldnt. I couldnt refinance. I couldnt take advantage of the interest rates. I couldnt get a new. I couldnt get a car. I couldnt. I couldnt cosign for my childrens student loans. And id worked hard for my credit, i was. And these people were taking it away from me. Kroft finally, judy thomas took the only recourse available to her. She sued equifax and transunion in federal court. And after a yearlong battle, the Credit Reporting agencies settled for an undisclosed sum and promised to clean up her file. Did you think it was going to take a federal lawsuit . Thomas heck, no. It just takes it just takes a human being going, wow, this isnt Judith Kendall. Let me fix this. Thats all they had to do. Kroft but as we discovered, that almost never happens. If you challenge a Credit Report and mail your information to a post office box in the united states, the dispute will likely be investigated in india, or the philippines, or south america. We traveled 5,000 miles to the chilean capital of santiago, where we tracked down three former experian employees. Carolina hererra, Rodolfo Carrasco and Enzo Valdivia were all dispute agents at experians National Consumer assistance center, although they say they werent able to offer consumers much assistance. So, if somebody had a problem with their Credit Report, they would send the complaint, and it would end up with you . Yeah. Oh, yeah. Kroft so how many of these did you have to do a day . Rodolfo carrasco 90. Kroft 90 . Carolina hererra 90, yeah. Kroft did you consider yourself investigators . No. Kroft did you have any way to investigate these claims . Hererra no, we didnt. You cant call the person. Kroft you cant pick up the phone and call them . No. Kroft did you have phones . No. No. Kroft could you email them . No. Kroft did you have the authority to say, wait a minute, after looking at somebodys file, and say that, you know, this is a. Somebody made a mistake. This person doesnt owe this money . Carrasco we didnt have that power. Kroft all they did was read the disputes and reduce them to a two digit code, like never late or not mine. It was then sent with a two or threeline summary and no documentation back to the bank or Department Store that furnished the original information. If there was a difference of opinion between the creditor and the person who was filing the complaint, how. Was it usually resolved in the. In favor of the creditor . Enzo valdivia yeah. The creditor was always right. Carrasco mostly, we took for granted the word of the bank. If the bank said, hey, this guy owes 100, so it is. Silvia goldsmith none of us have ever interviewed anybody in chile from experian. Weve got a federal court ordering them to bring these people forward, and were still waiting. Kroft much of whats known about the inner workings of the Consumer Credit agencies comes out of lawsuits filed by len bennett and sylvia goldsmith, who have subpoenaed Company Records and deposed employees and executives. They say, under the current system, there is no way for people like judy thomas to get their problems solved. So all these people who take the time to meticulously document a case that the bill isnt theirs or the bill has been paid that is never seen by anybody . Len bennett its not seen by anyone who considers it in determining whether or not information will be removed from a Credit Report. Kroft its not forwarded on to the person who has the complaint with you . Bennett no. It is never forwarded on, never forwarded on to the creditor. Goldsmith we can get a jury verdict for 1 million. Thats chump change to some of these bureaus. They would rather pay a verdict in 1 million than to actually go in and change the policies and procedures that they have, because thats much more expensive to them. Bennett i can say this. Without qualification, the dispute procedures used by the Credit Reporting agencies uniformly used completely fail to comply with the fair Credit Reporting act. Courts have found that. The federal trade commission has found that. Its not even a close call. Kroft Ohio Attorney general mike dewine agreed. Dewine i think the industrys a mess. And i think the impact it has on real people is just unconscionable. Kroft you think theyre breaking the law . Dewine i think theyre breaking the law. There is no doubt in my mind they are breaking the law. Kroft we wanted to talk to equifax, transunion and experian. But like most consumers, we were unsuccessful. The agencies referred us to the spokesman for their lobbying group in washington. He too declined our request for an oncamera interview, but he did provide a written statement citing an industrysponsored survey that showed 95 of its customers were satisfied with the dispute process. The industry maintains its in compliance with federal law. And one final update in february, Jon Leibowitz stepped down as chairman of the federal trade commission. Cbs money watch update sponsored by good evening. Wall street is looking towards thursdays u. S. Gross domestic product reading, expected to show the economy grewed a a mottest 2. 2 last quarterment delinquent Student Loan Debt now exceeds delinquent credit card balances. Gas prices steadied this week, down a dime in a month. Jim axelrod. Cbs news. I like it i just. You cant change color like we do. Valspar has the love your color guarantee. If i dont love it, i get another color free. Im thinking more this. Yowza valspar signature, look for it only at lowes. Olive gardens never ending pasta bowl is back. Unlimited breadsticks and salad, plus never ending combinations of pasta and sauce just 9. 99. And even unlimited meatballs, sausage or chicken for 2. 99. Its all unlimited when you go olive garden. Over 20 million drivers are insured with geico. So get a free rate quote today. I love it how much do you love it . Animation is hot. And i think it makes geicos 20 million drivers message very compelling, very compelling. This is some really strong stuff so you turned me into a cartoon. Lovely. Geico. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. Stahl over the last ten years, the ability of computers to identify faces has gotten 100 times better, a million times faster, and exponentially cheaper, yet facial Recognition Technology is still a work in progress. While investigators in the Boston Marathon bombing in april had multiple images of both suspects, the technology did not come up with a match. They were not identified by their faces but by their fingerprints. Authorities wont say what went wrong. But one possibility is that government databanks, through which the photos wouldve been searched, are not big enough. But as we first reported in may, the f. B. I. Is working on expanding its database, businesses are tapping facial recognition to sell us stuff, and computer scientists are upgrading the technology. So, here it comes oh, my. This may look like a High School Science project, but this is Carnegie Mellons cylab, a worldclass research center. Look at that Marios Savvides and his students outfitted this ordinary toy drone with their new advanced facial Recognition Software that locks in on a face from a distance and then identifies it. Drone hello, lesley. Nice to see you again. Stahl it got it. The students are taking Surveillance Technology to the next level. They can now turn a blurry face into a clear one, a flat image into a 3d model. Oh, my goodness. Their technology can take a masked face and, by focusing only on the eyebrows, search a catalogue of faces, come up with several people with very similar eyebrows, and eventually find the identity of the person. Marios so, utzav is going to take a normal photograph of you. Stahl the software maps a face using dots like electronic measles and creates something as unique as a fingerprint a faceprint. This is your facial Recognition Technology working right now to find me . Utzav yes. Stahl for this demonstration, they had added my picture ahead of time to the universitys database. Marios thats the top match. To use face recognition, use the colorcoded button on your remote. Stahl facial recognition is already in some of our Home Appliances, like tvs. Hi, tv. Stahl in our mobile devices, pins and passwords are giving way to faceprints. And the technology can single us out in real time as we go about our daily business, often without us ever knowing. Joseph atick whats unique about face recognition is the fact that you can do it surreptitiously, from a distance, and continually. Stahl it can happen, we dont even know. Atick thats the point. Stahl joseph atick was one of the first scientists to develop facial Recognition Software. 20 years ago, he was just about to give up on it when. Atick i opened up the door to my lab, and what i heard in a metallic voice i see joseph. That was the moment. Stahl the computer said i see joseph because it took your picture. Attick it detected my presence in the room, it found my face, and then it recognized that this was joseph. And so, i started screaming and invited other people in the lab to come in and see, and the computer started alternating from i see joseph to i see paul to. Stahl but atick fears he helped create a monster, and its headed to the mall. John anderson. Stahl in minority report, tom cruise is bombarded by ads recognizing him and telling him what to buy. Thats still science fiction, but companies are racing to develop digital billboards for shopping malls that, without your being aware of it, scan your face to tell your gender and age. We found this promotional video by intel online showing how this would work. Is the viewer a teenage girl . Then change the content to highlight a backtoschool shoe promotion a few stores down. Is it a senior male . Then why not tell him about the golf club sale at the Sporting Goods store . Stahl and now, mannequins a few National Chains are installing them with facial recognition as a way to covertly profile their customers. As for identifying us as individuals, well, several companies are working on it, like hitachi of japan, as seen in this online sales video. The system can automatically detect a face from either Surveillance Footage or a regular photo and search for it. Atick big brother is no longer big government; big brother is big business. Stahl and big business is free to do this kind of surveillance, while government has all kinds of restrictions. So, there are rules for law enforcement, government, military, but no rules for commerce . Atick commerce. No rules for commercial companies. Stahl there are in europe, where laws require companies to get your consent before they collect your faceprint. But not in the u. S. , where regulation is lagging far behind the technology. Meanwhile, some of the Biggest Companies online are busily building banks of faceprints. If youve been tagged on facebook, chances are they have your faceprint on file. Google and apple also make faceprints. Atick my identity, my faceprint should be recognized as my property. My face is as important as my financial records, as my health records. Its very private to me. Stahl what do you mean, our faces are private . Were out in the street. Atick absolutely. Stahl were walking around. Closedcircuit cameras all over the place. Are they really private . Atick our faces are private in the sense that my face does not walk around with a tag saying im joseph atick in the street. Stahl but marketers are working not just on linking our faces on the street to our names, but to our online profiles with our personal data and shopping history. We used to worry about privacy on the web; now we have to worry about privacy just walking around. Atick the link is between the online and offline persona is becoming possible, and thats. Stahl because of our faces. Atick yes, because of our faces. Exactly. Stahl with security cameras ever present, some people are already thinking up countermeasures. Atick artists, very clever artists have now begun to create new forms of anonymity by creating patterns that would interfere with face recognition algorithms. So, they can go down the street and this system cannot recognize them. Stahl well all wear masks. The veil will come here. Atick the veil might come here. Stahl short of wearing a burka, we may all one day become tom cruise at the mall because marketers who track us as we shop online and send us ads want to do that as we shop in the real world. We found a company thats figured out how to do that. David mcmullen a customer would just walk into an establishment like this, just like normal. Stahl David Mcmullen is the c. E. O. Of redpepper, a nashville Marketing Firm developing an app called facedeals. As we walk into a bar, this camera identifies me using facial recognition. Mcmullen and this will actually be the moment when. I got a deal. How did you. Stahl i got. I dont know. Something just came up on my phone here. beep oh, my. Look at that. Welcome, lesley. Get a free diet coke with a purchase of a caesar salad. My, my. My cell phone knew i liked diet coke because in the three seconds it took to walk in, the camera at the door matched my faceprint to my facebook profile, where redpepper mined my shopping history and facebook likes to send me the perfect deal. They did that only after i opted in or explicitly gave them permission. But if youre queasy about trading your privacy for a diet coke, mcmullen says weve already given up our privacy cameras in stores, our phones with g. P. S. Locators, and our credit cards all know where we are when we shop. Mcmullen all these things are tracking us. What benefit do we get from it . What control do we have over it . Not much. Stahl so, they know were in the store anyway. Mcmullen thats right. Stahl and theyre not offering us anything. Mcmullen thats correct. Stahl companies tracking us by our faces may seem a little like spying. Well, since so many of us have one of these, we may soon be able to spy on each other. Alessandro acquisti the ability of remaining anonymous is shrinking, and the places where we can be anonymous are getting fewer and fewer. Stahl Alessandro Acquisti is a professor at Carnegie Mellon who does research on how Technology Impacts privacy. He says that smartphones may make facial searches as common as google searches, and he did an experiment to show how easy it could be. He took photos of random students on his campus. He then ran the pictures through a facial Recognition Program he downloaded for free that sifted through facebook profiles and other web sites, and he was able not only to identify many of them instantly, he also got their personal data, including, in some cases, their Social Security numbers. In order for this to work, does the person youre trying to identify have to be on one of these social networks . Acquisti you must have, somewhere on the internet, a face with your name on it. Stahl well, lets say someone doesnt have a facebook account, but his or her daughter or son does and theyve got your picture. So, are they now automatically in the mix . Acquisti its funny because one of the participants before doing the experiment told us, youre not going to find me because im very careful about my photos online, and we found him because someone else had uploaded a photo of him. Stahl but if an academic can easily mine our data with facial recognition, what about the government . Well, the government has a problem because, to be effective, facial recognition requires a good database. Facebook, for instance, has one with billions and billions of photos; the government, not nearly that many. And so, the fbi is now assembling on these rows of servers the largest biometric database on earth, costing over 1 billion. Showing the system for the first time publicly, fbi assistant director David Cuthbertson demonstrated how Police Detectives might use it when its fully up and running next year. David cuthbertson this would be the person, the photograph of the person they are trying to identify. Stahl he used a picture of a deceased criminal. Cuthbertson and so, were submitting the photograph into the system, and its looking through 12. 8 million mug shots in the current system. The fbi has been collecting photographs along with arrest fingerprints for a number of years. This is the first time that anyones been able to search against those using facial Recognition Technology. Stahl youve seen this on cop shows, but actually, it hasnt been possible to do on a National Scale in real time until now. Will you have a picture of every single american . Cuthbertson no. Absolutely not. Just people whove been arrested. Stahl but why doesnt the fbi just download pictures from facebook or linkedin, since theres no law saying they cant. Cuthbertson theres maybe no legal barrier, but no legal authorization. Stahl you couldnt just do it because you wanted to . Cuthbertson no, maam. I would have lawyers lining up outside my door. Stahl so, why are so many privacy experts up in arms over what youre doing if youre so restricted by rules and regulations and codes . Cuthbertson i think we get lumped into other factors, other uses of facial recognition, whether they be commercial, social media. Were all kind of in this thing together. Stahl you cant forget that it begins with all the information we feed so freely and perpetually onto the internet likes, purchases, searches, not to mention our faces. Aquisti often, we are not even aware of how much data we are actually revealing or is being gathered about us or, in fact, how it would be used. The idea that you can start from a face and predict Social Security numbers from that face seemed quite alien and surprising, but now we know that it can be done. Stahl so, theres no place to hide, absolutely no place to hide. Aquisti its. Those places are shrinking. Welcome to the cbs sports update presented by pacific life. At the barclays, first leg of the fedex cup playoff, adam scott with a final round 66 wins it by one over tiger woods, justin rose. And in nfl news, matt leinart signs with the Buffalo Bills while the raiders announce Terrelle Pryor will start thursdays preseason finale as the team restst injured quarterback matt flynn. For more news, go to cbssports. Com. 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As we reported last march, two wildlife filmmakers in botswana in Southern Africa have found a way to get up close to crocs in the murky water of the Okavango Delta. The images theyve captured are some of the most remarkable wildlife scenes weve ever seen. The Okavango Delta has been called one of the last edens on earth. The hundreds of miles of winding waterways and untouched islands are home to some of africas most exotic and enchanting wildlife. Its also home to tens of thousands of nile crocodiles. For the last five years, Brad Bestelink and his wife Andy Crawford have been risking their lives filming these maneaters in the most daring way imaginable following the crocodiles into their underwater lairs. It is a dark and foreboding world down there. Visibility is sometimes only a few feet, and you cant even see the crocodiles until you catch a glimpse of their long rows of razor sharp white teeth. How did you know you could do this . Brad bestelink we were next to a ledge, and this crocodile swam out and actually swam between us and then settled on the ground next to us. laughs cooper what first went through your mind . Andy crawford well, just lots of bubbles and just panic. Cooper the panic was understandable. Nile crocodiles are africas largest and most feared predator, but surprisingly, this one didnt attack. Brad and andy have been getting closer and closer to these creatures ever since. Crawford you do get a different sense of them. They look very beautiful underwater. Theyre dappled and gold and black, and you see them as more timid, i think. Beyond the teeth and the terror, theres this incredible creature that is actually an amazing animal in its own right. Cooper you actually think theyre beautiful. Crawford i do think theyre beautiful. I never used to think they were beautiful, but this is a whole different view of them. Cooper this is the view most people have of nile crocodiles. Patient and stealthy killers, they grab their prey, drag them into the water, then drown and dismember them. And its not just animals they eat hundreds of people in africa are killed each year while bathing, laundering clothes, or fishing along the waters edge. Nile crocodiles are now protected in botswana, but brad and andy believe more needs to be known about their behavior so that humans can better avoid them. Theyve invited dr. Adam britton, an australian zoologist, to dive with them. When you first heard about what they were doing here, what did you think . Britton look, ill be honest. When i. When i first heard about this, my instant, Immediate Reaction was that sounds crazy. Cooper dr. Britton has been studying crocodiles for more than 18 years. Britton i describe crocodiles like ferraris; theyre just extremely finely honed creatures. They are. Theyre. Theyre just perfectly adapted to do what they do. Theyre, you know, the smartest of. Of all the reptiles. Cooper britton is building a genetic database on nile crocodiles in the delta to better understand how to protect them. For years, the only way to study them up close was to capture them. Bestelink croc on. So, once ive got him by the mouth. Cooper it is difficult, dangerous work. Britton sit on him. Get his legs back. Pin his legs between his knees, as well. Hes got no leverage. Cooper so, what are you doing now . Britton i am just going to cover his eyes so that he cant see what were doing. Cooper so, hes not injured at all . Britton no, no, hes not injured at all, apart from his pride, perhaps. Cooper this crocodile is not sedated; its simply trying to conserve its energy. Why are you doing this . Britton if we can get a sample of all the dna from every single crocodile across the delta, then we can start to build up a picture then of exactly not only where these crocodiles came from, but how theyre moving within the delta. Cooper because right now, you dont really know that . Britton no one really knows anything about that at all. Cooper when you actually see the crocodiles up close, there is a beauty to them. Often, in pictures, theyre covered in mud. They look very drab. But up close, you see the variety of color not just on the top, but also on the bottom. And the tou. To the touch, its really. Theres a softness to them, particularly on the. The feet like this. The claws are about an inch, an inch and a half, but the pads of the feet are actually incredibly soft. Capturing crocodiles is stressful for the animal and for us; putting them back in the water is just as hard. Britton just keep pressing down, anderson, on the top of the skull. Thats good. Okay, noose ready to go. Okay. Three, two, one, go. Cooper diving with brad and andy has given dr. Adam britton a whole new understanding of crocodiles and their underwater world. Britton youre in the water. Youve got the current washing over you. You can feel the changes in temperature. And you suddenly think, this is what its like to be a crocodile. This crocodile is. Is experiencing these same things. Cooper britton has actually begun to take d. N. A. Samples from crocodiles underwater, cutting off pieces of their tails. And, incredibly, they dont seem to mind. Diving with nile crocodiles is only possible in the winter months when the water is chilly and the animals are sluggish. These coldblooded reptiles are far too dangerous to dive with in the summer. Bestelink the crocs are much more active. Theyre much more inclined to want to predate. You know, i dont. I dont. Cooper predate . Attack . Bestelink attack, yeah. They. They. They want to go and eat something. Cooper so, two months from now, three months from now, you would not dive in these waters. Bestelink no. No. No, and i dont. I dont want to die. Make no mistake, i do this because i get an understanding as to how these predators work. Cooper brad and andy offer to take me diving with them, explaining its crucial to get off the surface of the water as quickly as possible because that is where crocs attack. Crawford thats the most important thing, because as soon as youre underwater, we believe the crocodiles dont know what we are. They dont recognize us as prey. Cooper you say we believe. Do. Do you know . Crawford we dont. We dont know it for sure. We can never know how theyre perceiving us. Were trying to establish how they perceive us. Cooper again, youre not really building my confidence here by saying youre not sure. What. What do i need to know before. Before going in . Crawford well, we believe youre safe. laughs with all that uncertainty, we believe youre safe. Cooper safe . Take a look at a recent encounter they had with a crocodile. Bestelink you see how close he comes to me . Cooper and look at the eye. Bestelink yeah. Cooper and look at those teeth. Those are huge bestelink they are. Cooper this croc was twelve feet long and weighed about 1,400 pounds. Bestelink and theres a diver, and watch what he does. Cooper oh, my gosh but because the crocs moving, it doesnt even really sense that diver there. Bestelink it. It didnt even know that he was there. And youll. Youll see how it just goes. It hits his light and. Squashes his light. Cooper so, it just thinks that some debris or tree or something . Bestelink yeah. Cooper thats amazing. We set off early the next day. Its an hour upriver to a spot that has a lot of underwater caves. Three divers will go in with me brad, cameraman richard uren, and andy. She will be the safety diver watching our backs. Ill let you know that theres a croc if i see it first. Crawford the sign of crocodile is that. Thats the sign. Cooper its the International Sign for crocodile . Crawford thats the sign for. Well, its our sign for crocodile. Cooper okay, okay, good. Crawford brad does this. Cooper i didnt learn that in scuba school. They didnt teach that. Crawford were going to give you one of these to dive with. It makes you feel better. It also gives you some barrier. Cooper makes you feel better . Thats really all its for, is just to make me feel better . Crawford well, main. Mainly that, and, actually. To actually anchor yourself in the current. Cooper because no matter what, you do not want to drift onto. Crawford you dont want to drift onto the crocodile. Cooper as soon as the crocs see our boat, they disappear. We hope theyve gone to the bottom to hide in their underwater caves, but they might still be floating near the surface waiting to attack. Its a very strange feeling before you go diving because you know there are crocodiles in this area but you dont see any on the surface. The problem is, as the boat comes in, any motion on the surface does tend to attract crocodiles, so you want to try to get here and in the water and to the bottom as quickly as possible. We suit up, do our final checks and then take the plunge. Bestelink anderson, good . Okay. Cooper we get to the river bottom as quickly as we can. Its only about 15 feet deep. Thankfully, the visibility is good and we find ourselves in a stunning underwater garden with overhanging ledges, walls of papyrus, submerged trees and lilies. We know theres at least one crocodile in this area because we saw the ripples on the water. We believe its gone into a nearby cave system, and we are going to go into the caves right now to try to see if we can find it. Its eerie and intimidating down here. The only light comes from our cameras, and its easy to lose your way. Brad signals that he sees a crocodile. At first, i cant see anything. But then, out of the darkness, on the floor of the cave just as brad warned, i see that gleaming row of white teeth. To finally see one, its amazing. Theres a beauty to it, but its also incredibly intimidating. You really have the sense when youre so close to it of just how strong it is. And it looks right at you, and you know and it knows that it could attack you at any moment, and there is nothing you can do about it. The crocodile disappears into the darkness. We push further into the cave. It gets narrower and more claustrophobic as we move deeper into the gloom. Then, lurking on a nearby ledge, theres another crocodile. This crocodile is about nine feet long. Its tail, though, makes up about half its length. Crocs have the amazing ability to actually slow their heart rate down. They can close off one of the valves in their heart, which stops the flow of blood to some of its organs and allows them to stay underwater for hours at a time. It. Its amazing how close the crocodile is. You cant tell if its watching you or not. Suddenly, the crocodile backs away. Its not taking its eyes off me. I have no idea what its going to do. My heart is pounding. Neither of us moves. Then, with a flick of his tail, hes off. We move further through the undergrowth and find yet another crocodile. This time, its facing me head on. On the stick im holding, i have a small camera, and i move it closer to try and get a better shot. I know i should be terrified, but the truth is, its actually thrilling. Its extraordinary that i can get so close. Im literally looking at it right in the face, staring at it face to face. The crocodiles front vision is not very good, so this is actually a relatively safe place to be. The crocodile is also laying low, which is a good sign. If it felt threatened, it would rise up on its feet. That would be an indication it might be ready to strike. When it finally takes off, we start following it. The crocodile is kicking up so much sand and sediment, we cant see where were going. We are trying to pursue the crocodile right now, but i cant tell how large it is. Its tail is so powerful, i am almost right on top of it. I can reach out right now and just touch the tail, but i am worried if i do that, it will somehow turn around. It just doesnt seem like a good idea, but i got to say its so tempting. The croc is moving so fast, we cant keep up for long. Its time to surface and find the boat. That was amazing. I was right. Right on top of it. Bestelink eh . Cooper i was right on top of its tail. I mean, i could have touched it. Bestelink yeah, i know. And then he turns around. Cooper and then he turns around laughter i swear, there was a moment where i thought, jesus, he could just attack, and theres nothing i could do about it. Bestelink absolutely. But did you ever feel like he was going to attack . Cooper no. Well, may. laughs . Maybe a little bit, actually. Ive dived with great white sharks before, but, in terms of numbers of People Killed each year, nile crocodiles are far more deadly. Once ruthlessly hunted, still vilified as mindless killing machines, we can finally observe them as they really are perfectly evolved denizens of the dark, ancient creatures now, for the first time, fully visible in the light. Go to 60minutesovertime. Com for the dangerous croc dives you didnt see. R business. So, if youre sleeping in your contact lenses, ask about the air optix® contacts so breathable theyre approved for up to 30 nights of continuous wear. Serious eye problems may occur. Ask your doctor and visit airoptix. Com for Safety Information and a free onemonth trial. Before William Hughes fought in vietnam. And john hughes jumped into normandy. And John Anderson hughes served in world war i. And before Robert Hughes joined the spanishamerican war, there were families connected to the belief that freedom was worth fighting for. Join us in thanking them at bankofamerica. Com troopthanks. [ male announcer ] from the last day of school, back to the first. 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