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America Under Attack: Former Deputy Attorney General George Terwilliger Says Police Investigations Ask Less Public Privacy

Aired September 12, 2001 - 13:13   ET

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

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Back to Kelli Arena, in Washington; Kelli's been working the Justice Department and her sources there -- Kelli.

KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Law enforcement sources are telling us that we do have people in custody, in both Boston and in southern Florida. What in custody means is not clear at this point. These were not described as suspects. They were described as people who may provide material information in this case.

The FBI is working off of the flight manifest, the passenger list, trying to cross-reference those lists with people who may have been red flags for the INS -- also checking that against registration lists over at flight schools, because Justice has said that on each of these flights that were hijacked, there were between three and five hijackers, and at least one of them had to be trained to fly very sophisticated commercial aircraft and that the only place you can get that kind of training is either here in the United States or in Europe.

So they are checking with flight schools. We do know that they are over at Huffman Aviation School, in Venice, Florida. FBI investigators are there talking to school administers, focusing, it seems, on one student in particular. I haven't been able to obtain that person's name at this time. We also know there were investigators at another flight school in Florida, doing the same thing.

So there's a lot of cross-referencing. There are a lot of loose hairs they are trying to bring together. But I must caution you that so far this investigation -- and it's at its very early stages -- obviously -- this just happened yesterday -- while there are some good leads, and while there has been some good information that they've gathered, there really is nothing very solid at this point to go on, to really pin this on one group or one person. For example, there was a car that was impounded by the FBI yesterday in Boston. It did have what law enforcement sources describe as very useful information. That car has been linked to people who boarded one of the flights out of Boston that was indeed hijacked.

Again, nothing solid to go on, just useful, positive information, was the quote given to me. We are progressing here, but this is something that could take months, if not years, to solve. BROWN: That last point is a good one. At one level, we see this flurry of activity, and we wonder what it all means. Police are now coming out, this SWAT team, in Boston, coming from the Westin Copley Hotel. As I look at our monitor, we see a fair number of officers coming out. We can't see -- and it's possible that you can see this more clearly than I -- whether they are bringing anyone out with them. But it doesn't look like it to me. They're coming out quite slowly. They went into the building quite slowly.

They didn't evacuate the area. As you saw, there were dozens, if not hundreds of people, who were gathered around the hotel. It had not been moved back by the SWAT team. No police line had been set up. There was a fair amount of milling around in front of the hotel.

But if they found something or someone, it is not apparent to us as we look at the pictures with you.

George Terwilliger is familiar with these sort of security operations. I believe he is in our Washington bureau.

Mr. Tewilliger, can you hear me OK?

GEORGE TERWILLIGER, FORMER DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: I can hear you fine.

BROWN: Tell me what you see, what you know, and what you think right now?

TERWILLIGER: I think what these police activities and law enforcement activities show is that the investigation to determine who is responsible for these cowardly acts is progressing, and progressing nicely. The fact of the matter is, though, that the object of all this is not to arrest people and bring them to trial and charge them with crimes, even though that may happen. If there are people here who supported this operation and were involved in it -- co- conspirators -- there may be prosecutions. But the real objective here has to be to fix responsibility in the big picture sense with person overseas who sponsored, directed, and basically commissioned these crimes.

BROWN: Because those are the people who, ultimately, the government wants to get, wants to punish, wants to put out of business.

TERWILLIGER: That's exactly right. But it's more than punishment. The put-out-of-business part is critical. What we have demonstrated to us is that there's a fundamental threat to the security of the United States. It is represented by the activity that took place yesterday. The job of government -- the core function of government -- is to provide for the security of the country, and that threat has to be neutralized.

BROWN: Mr. Terwilliger -- this is slightly off point, I apologize -- I wonder, sir, if other groups -- and there probably aren't very many in the world, but there are a few -- will be emboldened by what this one group was able to pull off. TERWILLIGER: That's very possible. I think that we have to be very careful not to overreact to this and forget about the other types of threats that we know are also out there. There's been a lot of, frankly, some globiating, if you will -- well, we should have concentrated on this type of terrorism rather than the threat of bioweapons or chemical weapons. The fact is we have to worry about all of this.

What we really need to concentrate on is gathering good intelligence. The best defense against terrorism is good information, knowing that something is going to happen before it occurs.

In order to have that good intelligence, we need to loosen some of the restraints on our law enforcement and intelligence agencies -- not to the deprivation of civil liberties, but if it means some marginal surrender of privacy interests, I think some of the people that in the past have taken a very doctrinaire approach to that need to take a more reasonable approach. We can have a free society, a free country and our civil liberties, and we can have effective law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

BROWN: And Mr. Terwilliger, do you want to weigh in briefly on this discussion that has been going on, this debate that has been going on for the last 36 hours, or almost, on whether we have spent too much of our energy and money on high-tech intelligence, and not nearly enough on spies, on human intelligence?

TERWILLIGER: Well, again, I think it's not an either/or proposition. There is no substitute for human intelligence. The technological intelligence methods that we have available to us are extremely valuable, and they're well worth the money that we spend on them. But human intelligence down at the street level, particularly in the United States -- to infiltrate groups, to penetrate them with undercover operatives and other sources. To allow the intelligence community to do the same thing overseas is critical. I feel quite confident that, both domestically and in the intelligence community, we will look at new opportunities to do that and undertake that kind of activity.

BROWN: I wonder, sir, if you might just stay with us for a little bit as we sort of sort through some of this law enforcement activity, which as I look at the pictures coming from WCVB, our affiliate in Boston. It seems to be winding down. They have, certainly, moved a lot of people away from the front of the hotel. It was quite honestly an odd scene, that you had a major SWAT team operation, police officers going in with bulletproof vests. The description from reporters on the scene was of guns drawn, heavy weapons drawn. And yet the area immediately in front of the hotel had not been cleared away at all. We saw a big EMS vehicle there, and then dozens of Bostonians standing around watching it all. A few moments ago, we saw some members of the SWAT team -- perhaps all of them -- we're not sure -- exit the hotel. Whether they found what they were looking for, we don't know.

TERWILLIGER: I'm sure we will learn more, but one thing to keep in mind is there's a great deal of unknowns here. And if someone was going to be arrested or even interrogated -- in a consensual way, perhaps -- the police just don't know exactly the circumstances that they might face. And in that circumstance, it is a standard tactic -- I've been involved in these cases before -- to utilize an overwhelming show of force, both not just for the security of the officers, but also for the security of the people in the area.

BROWN: That scene -- just to help orient our viewers -- that they saw just a moment ago was about 30 minutes ago, I believe -- guys, correct me if I'm wrong here -- of the SWAT team rather calmly walking into the hotel. They did whatever business they intended to do, and then they got out.

A number of helicopters are overhead right now. That is the noise you are hearing. We're about five or six blocks away from the World Trade Center location, and it continues to be a very, very busy scene.

Mr. Terwilliger, thank you.

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