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American Morning

Interview With Senator Arlen Specter

Aired December 15, 2005 - 08:34   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the House is voting to renew parts of the Patriot Act set to expire at the end of the month. The bill faces, though, a tough battle in the Senate over privacy issues. Joining us this morning from Capitol Hill is Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter. He is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He is is the author of the Senate version of the bill. And I can see actually you're in our bureau this morning, sir. Thank you for talking with us.
SEN. ARLEN SPECTER (R), PENNSYLVANIA: Glad to be with you, Soledad. Thank you for the invitation.

O'BRIEN: You have described this bill as not a perfect bill, but a good one. Why not wait, as some people have suggested, for a more perfect version of the bill? Why rush, in their terms, for this bill?

SPECTER: Because we may not get any bill at all, Soledad, if we don't act now. The Patriot Act is scheduled to expire on December 31st. We went to conference with the House of Representatives. Chairman Sensenbrenner was very cooperative, went the extra mile. And this bill has been forged on a compromise, and it is a good bill.

I have urged my colleagues to come to the floor to debate the bill. We have had debates, and what I'm urging my colleagues in the Senate to do is to take a close look at the bill, and I think a fair reading will satisfy them.

And I could give you specific illustration. One senator objects to the absence of a provision that a judge may say you can talk about the section 215 order for records, but the judge has the discretion broadly to enter an order to protect the recipient, and that would include saying that you can talk about it. There are...

S. O'BRIEN: I guess what you're raising are some of the provisions that people take great exception to. So let's walk through them, because as you're pointing out, it's confusing, I think, for a lot of people. Some of the changes are that 16 of the 14 provisions that are expiring will be made permanent, and then they have issues over the controversial ones like this, the access to personal records -- you sort of referenced that a moment ago -- roving wire taps. That's a controversial one, the sneak-and-peak searches as well. What do you say to critics who say, as you pointed out, in that last example, these things do not protect the civil liberties of all people?

SPECTER: Well, let's take up the so-called sneak and peek delayed notice. In order to get a warrant like that, a judge has to agree that there's a danger if the warrant is disclosed it will hinder an investigation, and they are for a limited period of time. If you take up the section 215 on so-called library records, right now, an agent can go out on and on his own unilaterally and get the records. In the conference report, there has to be -- there has to be reason shown to a judge in order to obtain those records.

On the roving wiretap provisions, that has been tightened up considerably. There has to be a description of who the individual is, and there has to be a showing that the individual is likely to try to avoid the interception.

But it's not possible in the course of the short discussion here, Soledad, to give you all the points. What I'm urging my colleagues to do is come to the floor today to debate. I'll be on the floor. Let us take up their concerns one by one. And I asked my colleagues who are not decided yet, who do not know all of the intricacies to listen.

But we have a bicameral legislature. The bill which the Senate didn't pass I originally authored, has some features I would have preferred, but Chairman Sensenbrenner has gone the extra mile, and we really are facing the possibility that there will be no act at all. If this act is rejected, I'll do my job, I'll go back and do whatever it takes to get an act, but that may not be done by December 31st, and we tend to forget that we do still face a considerable problem of terrorism. 9/11 is a ways away, but this bill has very important provisions to protect subways, to protect airports, to protect sea ports.

S. O'BRIEN: And you want to see it protected itself.

Senator Arlen specter, we're out of time, sir.

Final note for you, no curly hair now, huh? Your hair grew back in, and it's very straight. How's your health, sir?

SPECTER: My health is excellent, and this bill is better than my hair.

S. O'BRIEN: Nice to see you as always.

SPECTER: Thank you, Soledad. Nice to be with you.

S. O'BRIEN: And we're glad to hear your health is great. Thank you, sir -- Miles.

SPECTER: Yes, it's fine. Thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Good to hear that as well.

You want to talk about a patriot? In every sense of the term, you're about to meet one. Carol met one recently.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, my gosh. He's the most amazing person I have ever met. His name is Ramon Guitard. He's with the 659th Maintenance Company and, gosh, how do you begin to explain Ramon? I don't really know. I mean, he's at Walter Reed Hospital after serving in Iraq. This is really a story about fighting back against all odds and the woman who inspired the method.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Private Ramon Guitard is a man possessed.

PVT. RAMON GUITARD, U.S. ARMY: It may not mean much to anybody, but it means something to me, to finish.

COSTELLO: Three races behind him, 63 miles total, and Ramon

GUITARD: It's healing for me. Everybody has their different type of healing process, and this is my healing, you know.

COSTELLO: The wounds he's trying to heal are almost unimaginable. It happened in a convoy just outside of Baghdad 14 months ago.

GUITARD: We were riding in a vehicle, and there was a tremendous flash. I happened to look down and my legs were split wide open from mid thigh to my ankle, and I lost both my knees.

COSTELLO: The roadside bomb took one of Ramon's legs completely, left the other one useless, but it did not take his determination.

GUITARD: When they took me out in the stretcher, I said I can't die here. I can't die here.

COSTELLO: Fast forward a year. Mary Bryant the trainer at the Achilles Club in New York. It attempts the unthinkable, training people with disability to compete in marathons.

(on camera): So you're talking to somebody who's lost both their legs and you say, I want to talk to you about a marathon. I mean, I would look at you get out of my room.

MARY BRYANT, TRAINER: Well, they think I'm crazy, and in some ways I am.

COSTELLO: (voice-over): Crazy perhaps, but Mary is a survivor, too. After being diagnosed with breast cancer, she underwent a mastectomy, and she used running to fight back to health. Now she helps others do the same.

BRYANT: It's not just physical rehabilitation. There's a lot of mental. There's a lot of emotional. It goes into their whole spirit of who am I now.

COSTELLO: As for Ramon.

GUITARD: My injuries, it was basically an inconvenience. You know, I didn't fall, but I had time where I was injured and...

COSTELLO (on camera): It's an inconvenience?

GUITARD: It is. COSTELLO (voice-over): He's now looking ahead to the Miami Marathon, his personal fight, but he thinks about his buddies still fighting in Iraq, and he hopes they're allowed to finish the job.

GUITARD: For the ones that lost their lives and for the ones that were injured, I don't want it to be in vain. If we started it, let's carry it on, finish it, you know, and then come home.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: He's something else, isn't he? He's got it going on. Ramon is all about finishing what you start. That includes the U.S. mission in Iraq. As for his future, he's just 22 years old, he has a wife, he has two children, ages six and one. His goal, to be a counselor at the V.A. Hospital, and somehow, Miles, I think he's going to accomplish that goal.

M. O'BRIEN: I don't think somehow. I have no doubt if he has a goal he will reach it.

COSTELLO: It's just like made all my problems go away, I mean, to see someone like that.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

COSTELLO: Overcoming so much, and considering the terrible injuries he has just an inconvenience in his life. He just has to change the way he does things.

M. O'BRIEN: We thank him for his service and sacrifice. Thank you for bringing him to our attention. Appreciate it -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Andy is "Minding Your Business." What's coming up this morning, Andy?

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Soledad, some big news in the tobacco business. A giant verdict in the state of Illinois. Plus, remember that one cigarette company that was celebrating birthdays? They're not doing that anymore. We'll tell you about that coming up on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: All right, riddle me this, What happens when you mix Sambookka (ph), Jack Daniels and Southern Comfort?

SERWER: You get in a lot of trouble.

M. O'BRIEN: There you go.

SERWER: That's what RJ Reynolds found out yesterday, Miles. Remember the story we're telling you about in the program on Wednesday, which is Camel cigarettes was sending out birthday greetings to people who had signed up in bars, and you'd get this little card from Camel, and then it would come with coasters that contained drink mixes and recipes for crazy drinks, and it was encouraging excessive drinking. And some attorneys general got mad about it, and now the company has pulled the ad, saying it was scheduled to ad -- the campaign was scheduled to end -- excuse me -- in April, but we decided it wasn't worth fighting over.

And yes, the crazy bootlegger one shot Jack Daniels, one shot Southern Comfort and one shot Sambookka, just for those of you who weren't taking notes yesterday. That's disgusting. I mean, it really is bad. So we're all done a big favor there.

Speaking of Big Tobacco, a giant verdict perhaps to be decided today in the state of Illinois. The Illinois supreme court will be deciding on a so-called Price case, named after the plaintiff, Sharon Price. This is over light cigarettes. It's hard to believe tobacco litigation is still going on in the country. But it is. And what's interesting about these light cigarette cases, is the plaintiffs are not claiming their health has been hurt. What they're saying is they want to be compensated for economic damages, because the tobacco companies said that light cigarettes weren't as bad for you as regular cigarettes. False advertising. So they want to get paid $10 billion, which is taking litigation another step, I think would be a polite way of putting it. Some people suggest that it's really taking too far.

Anyway, Altria, which is the parent company of Philip Morris, which is the defendant in the case, is waiting for this big verdict, and obviously huge implications on Wall Street.

S. O'BRIEN: Huge, yes.

M. O'BRIEN: So there's still legal issues still outstanding as it relates to tobacco.

SERWER: Absolutely. We're still paying judgments on the regular cigarettes, and this is a new form, this light stuff.

M. O'BRIEN: OK.

S. O'BRIEN: All right. We'll watch it, too, then.

Andy, thank you very much.

SERWER: You're welcome.

S. O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning, we are talking to performer Gloria Estefan. She's going to join us right here in the studio. Talk about a renaissance woman. She's a performer, a Grammy Award winner, multiple times, and now a best-selling children's book author. I believe her new children's book debuted at number two on "The New York Times" list.

SERWER: Wow.

S. O'BRIEN: Talk about doing it all, and well. We're going to talk...

M. O'BRIEN: Is she going to sing? No, probably not, right?

S. O'BRIEN: I bet if we asked her, she'll hum a line or too.

M. O'BRIEN: I like that conga thing.

S. O'BRIEN: If I threaten that I'll sing, she might step in and sing. That's ahead this morning. Stay with us, right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody.

She is a five-time Grammy award winner. And now singer/songwriter Gloria Estefan has become a best-selling author. Her first children's book is called "The Magically Mysterious Adventures of Noelle the Bull Dog."

And Gloria Estefan joins us this morning. Congratulations on the book.

GLORIA ESTEFAN, SINGER/SONGWRITER: Thank you so much.

S. O'BRIEN: Debuted at number two.

ESTEFAN: I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, that's a pretty strong debut.

ESTEFAN: It's great for me.

S. O'BRIEN: Why did you want to write -- you know, we listed just some of your accomplishments, the Grammy awards that you've one, all the performing that you've done, the restaurants that you own. You're working on a lot of things. Why a children's book, did you think?

ESTEFAN: It was a natural for me. I mean, I love children. I was going to be a psychologist with a specialty in child psychology. And I have children and when my daughter -- you know, I had her kind of late, she's going to be 11 years old now -- I kept looking for a book in Spanish, as well, because I wrote it both in English and Spanish. I consider myself a writer. That's what I love to do. You've heard a lot of my songs through the years and...

S. O'BRIEN: And sung many of them badly, by the way, I have.

ESTEFAN: I doubt that it's badly, but, you know, thank you very much.

S. O'BRIEN: Is it harder to write a song than a book, or which?

ESTEFAN: You know what, in a song you have to keep the whole story to three minutes. So this was a luxury for me. And it's written in verse, so it was right up my alley. And I enjoyed it so much.

S. O'BRIEN: It's the story of Noelle, the bull dog. ESTEFAN: My actual bull dog that I own.

S. O'BRIEN: Your bull dog, whose name is Noelle.

ESTEFAN: Yes. I have nine dogs, so for me to write a book about this one should tell you how special she is.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, I was going say, maybe the other eight are a little bit jealous of Noelle's notoriety now.

ESTEFAN: Oh, no, no.

S. O'BRIEN: And...

ESTEFAN: Yes, Noelle, we brought her to New York with us. It's been her first trip and she's been fantastic. But it reminded me of my experience coming to the U.S., you know, fitting into a whole new world she came in.

S. O'BRIEN: Because Noelle doesn't quite fit in, she comes into a home and...

ESTEFAN: With dalmations.

S. O'BRIEN: ... and doesn't quite fit with all the other animals.

ESTEFAN: Exactly.

S. O'BRIEN: So what's the message you want people to take away from the book?

ESTEFAN: It's about, you know, believing in who you are, obviously. You know, the beauty comes from inside. These age old things. But also that whatever makes you unique and special that makes you stand out that might make you feel different is really what can become your strength in life and that you should not try to blend in, rather than celebrate your differences.

S. O'BRIEN: If you're a bull dog, be a bull dog.

ESTEFAN: Exactly. And if -- you know, whoever you are, be that person. Because they tried to get us to change a lot at the beginning of our musical career and had we done that, I don't think we would have enjoyed the success we did.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, they said tone down the Latin thing.

ESTEFAN: Yes, they said you got to get rid of those horns and the percussion. That's not going to work, we go, that's who we are.

S. O'BRIEN: How is your health? Everybody knows about the terrible accident.

ESTEFAN: I'm great.

S. O'BRIEN: Was a long time ago now. You got the steel rods.

ESTEFAN: Fifteen years ago. Titanium.

S. O'BRIEN: Titanium, sorry. Titanium rods.

ESTEFAN: Titanium-reinforced. Don't beep in the airport. Everybody asks me that. I consider myself that I'm 15 years old, which is great. I kind of got a new lease on life and I'm great. I have to work out a lot. I still do a lot of rehab, very strong exercise five days a week. But I'm grade great.

S. O'BRIEN: I've read that you're working on a screenplay.

ESTEFAN: I am. We've been working...

S. O'BRIEN: Where do you find the time to do this?

ESTEFAN: Well, the good thing about writing is you can work it into my daughter's schedule, which is now worse than mine.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, she's 11, though. That's a lot of hands-on parenting.

ESTEFAN: And she does a lot of sports and Tae Kwon Do and piano and she's a drummer. But I love it. That's what I really love and that's why I said it was my last tour last time, because I want to give her the time to do it. And like I said, I love writing. I've been working with Connie Francis for four years on a screenplay. We just finished it.

S. O'BRIEN: What's it about?

ESTEFAN: It's about Connie's life. And there is something that was really amazing. She went through some tough times. You know, a lot of highs and lows. And it drew me, as -- you know, having studied psychology, she had a lot of, you know, trouble with in and out of mental institutions as well, that her father put her in. So it's been fascinating for me. And I'm really looking forward to making that my next project.

S. O'BRIEN: Restaurants. I mean, I feel like I'm going down the checklist.

ESTEFAN: Yes. You, know, Mil and I are entrepreneurs. We really -- I come from a long line of chefs. My grandmother was an amazing chef...

S. O'BRIEN: So you're a great cook?

ESTEFAN: ... my grandfather on my dad's side. You know what, I've never learned, but I can cook anything and Emilio, as well. And her dream was to have a restaurant. So when we did this, we started with the one first restaurant. We're now working on our fifth and sixth. We're expanding. It's going to open in -- we just opened in Mexican airport, Puerto Vallarta and...

S. O'BRIEN: You're all over the world.

ESTEFAN: ... and Mexico City. We're going to do Miami. They're really going to expand a lot. And it's also another way of promoting our culture, you know, through the food side which we all love.

S. O'BRIEN: Which by the way...

ESTEFAN: I didn't make this, by the way.

S. O'BRIEN: I was going to say. This looks -- yes, I did, actually. Everyone, see this basket of goodies, Miles?

ESTEFAN: There's a Cuban hat and we've got all these sweets in here.

M. O'BRIEN: You are our favorite guest ever.

S. O'BRIEN: Gloria and I were up all night baking these treats.

ESTEFAN: Exactly. Backing in the hotel, it was very difficult.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, you're nice to bring them. Thank you so much. Good luck, I mean, with the book. You don't need any luck. It's just going absolutely great.

ESTEFAN: It's great and I'm thrilled. And it's in English and Spanish. So what's happening a lot is American parents that have Spanish-speaking kids because their nanny speaks Spanish, they can read it to the child in English and nanny can read it in Spanish.

S. O'BRIEN: All about bilingualism.

ESTEFAN: Exactly.

S. O'BRIEN: Nice to see you, Gloria. Thanks for coming into to talk to us.

ESTEFAN: Thank you so much.

S. O'BRIEN: Best of luck to you.

The book, again, is called "The Magically Mysterious Adventures of Noelle the Bull Dog." And I know there's going to be a version 2.0, 3.0. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.

Miles?

M. O'BRIEN: How's Noelle enjoy the cold?

ESTEFAN: She's not. It's been traumatic finding one patch of grass in Central Park. She looks at the snow and goes, hmm, don't do this.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, thanks. Coming up, Peter Jackson's remake of "King Kong" is finally on the big screen. Does the great ape live up to his giant-sized expectations? There's good buzz on this one. We'll take a look ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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