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CNN Live Today

Homeland Security: Law Enforcement Perspective

Aired January 30, 2003 - 10:26   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.


FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: I've got with me Mike Brooks, our own homeland security analyst and terrorism analyst. Let's talk a little bit more about what Tom Ridge is saying. He is saying that now that we've got this organization, under the umbrella of this organization, 22 agencies that are being brought together. He said this is to promote more efficiencies. Do you see that as happening? Communication has always been a problem.
MIKE BROOKS, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: It has been. And I think his quote was "organize to mobilize." And I think that needs to be the message. There's a lot of skepticism, as Jeanne Meserve was just saying before, with some of the people who are involved in these 22 different agencies. I was speaking with someone just recently from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glenco (ph), Georgia. They train 72 different law enforcement agencies, basically all law enforcements agencies, except for the FBI and DEA. We're talking about customs. We're talking about INS, Secret Service. That's where they all get their basic and advanced training.

They are not so sure basically how this is all going to work on the training side of things. And also at FLETSA (ph), you also have the seaport security and land transportation antiterrorism program, that they take out to local enforcement and give to them to teach them how to protect seaports, how to protect land transportation entities, all these kind of things.

It's going to be Just an unbelievable effort. I think may it be a rough start, but what you were saying, Fredricka, is the communications between the different groups, that is going to be key.

ZAHN: As you talk about seaports, that being one point of entry, Tom Ridge also talked about borders, tightening of borders, coming up with a better procedure where you don't have four faces at border points, but instead you have one. What does he mean by that?

BROOKS: Well, right now you've got -- when you come up to you border, you have got Immigration and Naturalization Service, and you also have the Customs Service. When you go through INS, and they check your passport, or they check your other photo ID, and then you go to Customs, and they check your car, or they check your person to see if you are bring any contraband into the United States. And we have, as we said, 95,000 miles of coastline, and over 350 points of entry. Now this is for both seaports...

ZAHN: These are legal points of entry you're talking about.

BROOKS: Exactly, legal ports. We're talking seaports and where people can enter. It's just talking about the one voice now. Hopefully, we'll be able to streamline the process, and I think make it more efficient, and that's the whole thing, is efficiency of all of these different groups working together.

ZAHN: Now, perhaps he'll touching on it, but we didn't hear him mention anything about those porous entry points that are not legal entry points. What can you do about that?

BROOKS: It's very difficult. Along the Mexican Border for instance and along the Canadian border, recently I was in El Paso, and you look up into the mountains and you see the effort border patrol is actually trying to do, and they have monitoring stations all along the border, but still, they don't have the manpower and the equipment to actually patrol every square inch of that border, and that's going to be -- that's an unbelievable effort that the border patrols had for years. They've done a fairly good job, they've done a pretty good job of doing that, but we can still see right in El Paso and other cities along the border, people crossing over just in broad daylight at times, and it's very difficult.

Hopefully with the additional budget, they'll also get additional manpower, and technology. We go back to talking about seaport, for instance, ships. I think that really scares a lot people, thinking about what comes in on all of these ships. And are all of these ships checked? No. We're talking about dangerous goods, and we're also talking about sometimes human cargo, as we have seen people being shipped in container ships.

Customs Department is looking at a program trying to get something outside of most major ports, have the ships checked there, before they actually come into the U.S. ports and could be a danger in those ports.

ZAHN: All right, Mike Brooks, thank you very much.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired January 30, 2003 - 10:26   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: I've got with me Mike Brooks, our own homeland security analyst and terrorism analyst. Let's talk a little bit more about what Tom Ridge is saying. He is saying that now that we've got this organization, under the umbrella of this organization, 22 agencies that are being brought together. He said this is to promote more efficiencies. Do you see that as happening? Communication has always been a problem.
MIKE BROOKS, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: It has been. And I think his quote was "organize to mobilize." And I think that needs to be the message. There's a lot of skepticism, as Jeanne Meserve was just saying before, with some of the people who are involved in these 22 different agencies. I was speaking with someone just recently from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glenco (ph), Georgia. They train 72 different law enforcement agencies, basically all law enforcements agencies, except for the FBI and DEA. We're talking about customs. We're talking about INS, Secret Service. That's where they all get their basic and advanced training.

They are not so sure basically how this is all going to work on the training side of things. And also at FLETSA (ph), you also have the seaport security and land transportation antiterrorism program, that they take out to local enforcement and give to them to teach them how to protect seaports, how to protect land transportation entities, all these kind of things.

It's going to be Just an unbelievable effort. I think may it be a rough start, but what you were saying, Fredricka, is the communications between the different groups, that is going to be key.

ZAHN: As you talk about seaports, that being one point of entry, Tom Ridge also talked about borders, tightening of borders, coming up with a better procedure where you don't have four faces at border points, but instead you have one. What does he mean by that?

BROOKS: Well, right now you've got -- when you come up to you border, you have got Immigration and Naturalization Service, and you also have the Customs Service. When you go through INS, and they check your passport, or they check your other photo ID, and then you go to Customs, and they check your car, or they check your person to see if you are bring any contraband into the United States. And we have, as we said, 95,000 miles of coastline, and over 350 points of entry. Now this is for both seaports...

ZAHN: These are legal points of entry you're talking about.

BROOKS: Exactly, legal ports. We're talking seaports and where people can enter. It's just talking about the one voice now. Hopefully, we'll be able to streamline the process, and I think make it more efficient, and that's the whole thing, is efficiency of all of these different groups working together.

ZAHN: Now, perhaps he'll touching on it, but we didn't hear him mention anything about those porous entry points that are not legal entry points. What can you do about that?

BROOKS: It's very difficult. Along the Mexican Border for instance and along the Canadian border, recently I was in El Paso, and you look up into the mountains and you see the effort border patrol is actually trying to do, and they have monitoring stations all along the border, but still, they don't have the manpower and the equipment to actually patrol every square inch of that border, and that's going to be -- that's an unbelievable effort that the border patrols had for years. They've done a fairly good job, they've done a pretty good job of doing that, but we can still see right in El Paso and other cities along the border, people crossing over just in broad daylight at times, and it's very difficult.

Hopefully with the additional budget, they'll also get additional manpower, and technology. We go back to talking about seaport, for instance, ships. I think that really scares a lot people, thinking about what comes in on all of these ships. And are all of these ships checked? No. We're talking about dangerous goods, and we're also talking about sometimes human cargo, as we have seen people being shipped in container ships.

Customs Department is looking at a program trying to get something outside of most major ports, have the ships checked there, before they actually come into the U.S. ports and could be a danger in those ports.

ZAHN: All right, Mike Brooks, thank you very much.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com