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American Morning

Patriot Act Modifications; Getting The Message?; Minding Your Business; SAT Failure

Aired March 09, 2006 - 07:30   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: You're watching AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Miles O'Brien.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome, everybody. It's 7:30 here in New York. Look how beautiful it looks looking out on . . .

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It does.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Right there in front of our window.

MILES O'BRIEN: In front of our window.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Isn't that nice?

MILES O'BRIEN: It's kind of a beautiful kind of day.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Kind of a nice day.

MILES O'BRIEN: No. You know what's great about it?

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: What's great about it?

MILES O'BRIEN: It's light out. It's light out. And I hate to be a spoil sport . . .

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: I thought you were going to say something about how finally you've moved to New York City and how happy you are to be here. Instead (ph) you're just like, no, it's light out.

MILES O'BRIEN: We're working on. I'm working on that.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Yes, yes, yes.

Let's talk about this snafu. Did you hear about this, the S.A.T.? A big mess up apparently.

MILES O'BRIEN: I would be livid. I would be livid.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: And some students think that it actually affected their chances of getting into the college of their dreams. So we're going to talk -- Kelly Wallace actually sits down with some of these students. We're going to talk about that coming up this morning.

MILES O'BRIEN: Could be some litigation. I wouldn't be surprised. You never know in these kinds of situations.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Think of angry parents, oh, yes.

MILES O'BRIEN: Let's talk about the Patriot Act, speaking of litigious issues. The Patriot Act is about to be renewed again today. The whole issue coming to the president's desk after Congress took a look at the Patriot Act, made some modifications, and put it back in play. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales joins us this morning from the Justice Department to talk about it.

Mr. Gonzales, good to have you with us.

What are the key changes that have been made and by inference what were the deficiencies in the old Patriot Act that had to be fixed?

ALBERTO GONZALES, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, the Congress has decided to make 14 of the 16 provisions permanent. Two of the provisions will be scheduled to sunset in four years that the Congress obviously wants the opportunity to see how these tools work during the next four years, how the department exercises its responsibilities of the Patriot Act for the next four years, as with respect to these particular provisions.

Importantly, though, the act also creates a new national security division within the Department of Justice. Fighting terrorism is the number one priority for the department and we will now have a new assistant attorney general in charge of that national security division and I think that's an important change in the Patriot Act.

It provides for additional port security, that provide additional enforcement tools for law enforcement in dealing with our ports. It provides for additional tools for the law enforcement community to deal with the severe meth problem that we have in this country. So there are many things that are important for the law enforcement community in order to make our community safe, not only against terrorists, but other kinds of problems like methamphetamine.

MILES O'BRIEN: Well, let's talk about methamphetamine for just a moment here. A lot of people would say that the Patriot Act was passed initially right after 9/11 as an opportunity for law enforcement to get a lot of their pet rock projects in at a time when people were very concerned. Is methamphetamine sort of proof that there's, you know, the Patriot Act is creeping and getting bigger and going into areas which have less to do with terror and more to do with other things, police officers and tools they'd like to have?

GONZALES: Well, I think the Patriot Act is limited in providing tools that are absolutely necessary to fight threats like terrorism. If you look at the record of the department and keep exercising these authorities during the past four years, it's been an outstanding record.

MILES O'BRIEN: But what does crystal meth have to do with it? GONZALES: Well, meth -- well, the Patriot Act doesn't focus solely on terrorism. It provide -- this particular bill provided a vehicle to allow certain issues that needed to be dealt with, a vehicle to have those issues dealt with through legislation. Methamphetamine is one of them. There are many members of Congress who are very, very concerned about the problem of meth and believe that it's very, very important to pass legislation to provide additional law enforcement tools to the law enforcement community.

MILES O'BRIEN: Let's talk about the success of the Patriot Act. How has it helped us? Can you give me some examples of how the Patriot Act is making me safer?

GONZALES: Well, one thing that I can say without question, it allows the law enforcement community to share information with the intelligence community. We've seen from the reports, the WMD Commission, the 9/11 Commission, everyone seems to understand and have concluded that we simply were not in a position to share information between the federal government, between the federal government and state and local officials, between our government, and governments of other countries and state and local officials, between our government and governments of other countries, and now the Patriot Act has put us in a better position to share information.

MILES O'BRIEN: But can you -- is there any way you can be more specific for me and give me a sense of something that has changed or a plot that has been thwarted without giving away secrets that the Patriot Act has been useful in?

GONZALES: Well, there are a number of plots that have been thwarted in Buffalo, New York, in California, and in Washington. Based upon the fact that we are able to now share information at the law enforcement level with the intelligence community. And so I can't get into much more detail without getting into classified information. But both Porter Goss, who is the director of the CIA, and Bob Mueller, the director of the FBI, have both said, you know, this is a very, very valuable tool that is absolutely essential in fighting the war on terror.

MILES O'BRIEN: One of the inspector generals here in Washington took a look at the Patriot Act recently, focusing on the FBI in particular, said there's more than 100 possible violations in the way they were conducting wire taps. For example, they had permission to look at say billing records, actually listen to calls or listen to calls longer than they were supposed to, that kind of thing. In other words, a fair amount of abuse of the power that they are invested in with the Patriot Act. What can you tell us to assure us that federal law enforcement personnel aren't overstepping their bounds?

GONZALES: Well, I haven't had a chance to completely study that report, but my understanding is, is that there has not been a conclusion by the I.G. that any of the abuses that he found related to the Patriot Act, the department has other authority that it uses in order to gather up information.

MILES O'BRIEN: Well, no, but -- all right, but that's -- you know what I'm saying, though, because the Patriot Act delves into the issue, the whole notion that law enforcement might be ignoring some of the rules, whether it's Patriot Act or not, does give some cause and pause for concern.

GONZALES: Well, quite the contrary. We have institutions like the inspector general to go back and see how we're exercising our authorities. Those are reported to Congress. Those are reported to superiors within the Department of Justice. And to the extent that there are problems or mistakes that occur, we address those mistakes. And to the extent that people are not meeting the standards that are expected of them, they're held accountable.

MILES O'BRIEN: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, thanks for being with us this morning.

GONZALES: Thank you.

MILES O'BRIEN: Let's get to Carol Costello in the newsroom.

Good morning, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles.

And good morning to all of you.

We have an update on the missing four-year-old from Georgia we told you about earlier. Word is he has been found safe and sound. Michael Simmons was taken Wednesday night when his dad ran inside of a restaurant to pick up an order. The boy was in the car with the engine running. The dad was in the store. Well a teacher has apparently discovered the little boy at his school standing alone. We don't know many more details other than that, but he was found at this school and apparently he's just fine.

Is it all a hoax? New Jersey police say they're questioning a number of people after a 13-year-old girl went missing. Authorities are looking into Natasha Brown's home computer for possible leads to see if anyone had online contact with her. Strange part in this case is the mother got text messages from Natasha's cell phone asking for help. The last frightening message came on Monday night.

Police are waiting for a DNA test in the gruesome slaying of a New York graduate student. The mutilated body of Imette St. Guillen was found gagged in Brooklyn last month. Police have been questioning the bouncer who worked at the New York bar where the young woman was last seen. He's being held on an unrelated charge right now. Police are calling him a person of interest.

Violence across Iraq today. At least 10 people are dead after a string of attacks. Six civilians were killed after a roadside bomb went off in western Baghdad. It's believed the attackers were targeting an Iraqi army parole.

Some Republicans are trying to scuttle the U.S. ports deal. A house panel voted overwhelmingly to block a Dubai-based company from gaining control of some operations at the ports. Some members of the Senate also want the deal stopped and are pushing for a vote. But the Senate Armed Services Chairman John Warner is pushing a compromise. Of course, we'll keep you updated.

And do they teach this in arts school? A man in India holds his paint brushes in his mouth to create his masterpieces. He claims he painted this picture while holding the brush in his mouth for 151 hours. Yes, that would be more than six days. He apparently is hoping to win a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. And, Soledad, I think he deserves it.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Wow. Does he not have arms? I mean, because you know that, obviously, we've seen that before.

COSTELLO: No, he does. See. He's holding -- yes, he just wants to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records.

MILES O'BRIEN: Wow. That's some kind of a brush with fame, you could say.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Oh. Thank you. Whoever that was that groaned back there, thank you.

MILES O'BRIEN: I know, it's all I got.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Thank you.

All right, Carol, thanks a lot.

A pretty rare joint appearance by top cabinet members today to talk about. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will go before the Senate Appropriations Committee. We're going to bring you live coverage of that at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time. Also Secretary Rumsfeld, speaking of coverage, he's been complaining about the way that the war in Iraq is being covered by the media. Barbara Starr is live for us at the Pentagon on both fronts.

Hey, Barbara, good morning to you.

What exactly was Secretary Rumsfeld saying specifically?

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Soledad, he's being very plain, very blunt. He simply thinks that we, in the news media, are not doing a very good job.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Much of the reporting in the U.S. and abroad has exaggerated the situation.

STARR, (voice over): It is one of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's favorite topics, criticizing a press corps he believes to be highly deficient.

RUMSFELD: A steady stream of errors.

STARR: Rumsfeld's latest fury, what he says is inaccurate reporting about recent sectarian violence and not enough attention to the good news in Iraq.

RUMSFELD: The number of Iraqi deaths have been exaggerated. The behavior of the Iraqi security forces have been miss characterized in some instances.

STARR: The military says, for example, "The Washington Post" was flat wrong when it said more than 1,300 Iraqi civilians were killed in the days following the bombing of the Shiite Muslim shrine. The Pentagon says it could only confirm 400 or so deaths. "The Post" stands by its story.

KEN BACON, FORMER PENTAGON SPOKESMAN: Blaming the press for problems in Iraq is a terrible waste of energy.

STARR: Ken Bacon was Pentagon spokesman in the Clinton administration. He thinks Rumsfeld is off track.

BACON: I can understand the frustration of the Pentagon in believing that the press is not doing a good enough job of reporting on schools or hospitals being opened, but that's a hollow story if people are afraid to go to the schools once they're open.

STARR: Bacon says the press must continue to cover Iraq's political landscape and the reconstruction.

BACON: That if the military wants these stories told, they will help to get the press there.

STARR: But covering Iraq is always going to be tough because of the security situation. Sixty-four journalists have died there in the last three years, according to the committee to protect journalists.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STARR: You know, Soledad, the press has its own frustrations much of the time. One indicator here in this building, it was nine days after that mosque bombing that sparked all this sectarian violence before the Pentagon brought out somebody that the Pentagon press corps could speak to directly and question about the violence in Iraq. So plenty of frustrations on both sides.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Yes, there's been plenty of complaints on both sides I guess it's fair to say. I'm curious to know, Barbara, if I can ask you, how did you and the other journalists respond to the assessment of your work, I guess, by the secretary?

STARR: Always tough to talk about yourself. I think there's a couple of things. I think that we all certainly, in the news media, believe that every responsible news organization, when it makes a mistake, moves very quickly to correct those mistakes. The Pentagon press corps, most of us really have a good understanding of the war on terror. We've been to Iraq. We've been to Afghanistan. Many of us have had the very unpleasant experience of being shot at and we know our colleagues in Iraq are risking their lives every day.

And finally, one of the things I think you hear a lot around here in the Pentagon press corps, and even within some elements of the military, about that question, are we covering too much bad news? Well, there's a lot of violence in Iraq and it would really be a shame the first time a U.S. soldier dies in combat and the news media doesn't think it's worth covering. We think every -- all of it's worth covering, Soledad.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Yes, you're absolutely right. All right, Barbara Starr for us at the Pentagon this morning. Barbara, thanks.

STARR: Sure.

MILES O'BRIEN: Lets's check the weather. Chad has been watching some violent weather all throughout the nation's mid section.

Chad, what's going on?

(WEATHER REPORT)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Andy's "Minding Your Business" just ahead.

What are you looking at?

ANDY SERWER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Soledad, Americans, by some measures, are getting more and more healthy and that's good news except for a few companies. Can you guess which ones they are? We'll tell you coming up on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MILES O'BRIEN: Tobacco. I guess you could say the profit's going up in smoke, Andy Serwer.

SERWER: Oh, yes, Miles, you could say that indeed. I'd call it the end of indulgences. We're going to talk about two of them. Maybe this has to do with Sanjay Gupta making us all healthy. Cigarette sales, these numbers just coming in, at a 55-year low. We are not smoking as much as we used to, down 21 percent over the past eight years. Still, 378 billion cigarettes sold in the United States last year.

But going back to this 55-year . . .

MILES O'BRIEN: And just in the U.S., not globally.

SERWER: Yes, right.

MILES O'BRIEN: Wow. OK.

SERWER: But going back to this 55-year low, that would takes us back to 1951. And we smoked the same amount of cigarettes as then, but the population has more than doubled. So per capita consumption of cigarettes less than half of what it used to be. And that's bad news for the cigarette companies.

Now, soda sales also down. And this is interesting because this is the first time in 20 years that soda sales have dipped. Not really that much of a surprise when you think about it because what's hot? Well, tea, power drinks, sports drinks and bottled water.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Coffee.

SERWER: Coffee. All of those things.

MILES O'BRIEN: So soda is narrowly defined as the bubbly, sugary stuff.

SERWER: Yes.

MILES O'BRIEN: OK.

SERWER: Yes, it is. And, in fact, I think we have a chart here which shows Coke and Pepsi. Here you go. You can see that Pepsi and Coke, you know, those two flagship brands are down.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Well, look who's doing well.

SERWER: Right, Arizona. And now those are coming off really low bases, Soledad. In other words, their sales are much lower, of course. But still, you know, and bottled water is picking up and, you know, that's what people like Sanjay will tell you. All you really need is water. I mean this other stuff is kind of extraneous.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Only you don't necessarily want to drink all the time, though, is water.

SERWER: That's all Sanjay drinks, water.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

MILES O'BRIEN: Yes, he's a big water guy.

SERWER: He just drinks water.

MILES O'BRIEN: Yes, he's so darn healthy that Sanjay.

SERWER: How this tea, coffee?

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: That's mine. That's good.

MILES O'BRIEN: It's just water. That's all I got is water.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Actually it tastes all right.

Thank you, Andy.

SERWER: You're welcome.

MILES O'BRIEN: Do you have any questions about that? Do you have any questions folks out there?

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: For Andy?

MILES O'BRIEN: For Andy?

SERWER: Yes, sure.

MILES O'BRIEN: I will get him on the line if need be. We're going to have a pipeline e-mail-a-thon after the program today, 10:30 Eastern, live from my office. My little . . .

SERWER: Really?

MILES O'BRIEN: Yes.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Wait a minute, you're . . .

SERWER: Wow. A Miles Cam?

MILES O'BRIEN: Yes, Miles Cam.

SERWER: It's Miles Cam?

MILES O'BRIEN: It's Miles Cam in the office.

SERWER: (INAUDIBLE).

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: So you're just going to take questions on anything?

MILES O'BRIEN: Anything you want.

SERWER: Save us.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Live on Pipeline?

MILES O'BRIEN: Anything you want. And, as a matter of fact, it's wireless in my Apple G-Force Wireless. So if they have a question for you, I'm going to walk right into your office, put the Miles Cam down.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: And I'll say, I'm done working, please go away.

MILES O'BRIEN: You are so not on board, are you?

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: I'm on board. I'm on board.

MILES O'BRIEN: Anyway, cnn.com/pipeline, 10:30 Eastern.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: That's fascinating. I'm going to take part.

MILES O'BRIEN: Dial it up. Pipeline's a great place to be anyway and this is just more value added, as you might say.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: That's pretty cool. Yes, I like that.

SERWER: It's more work.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: You can see what Miles' office looks like.

MILES O'BRIEN: I get paid by the word, so it's OK.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: If it's messy or not.

MILES O'BRIEN: It is kind of a mess, but that's another issue.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: That's funny. Good. When's that 10:30 Eastern?

MILES O'BRIEN: 10:30 Eastern.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Right after the show.

Andy, thank you.

SERWER: Yep.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Our health series for folks in their 30s, 40s, 50s is straight ahead. This morning, we've got tips on your knees. If you're a skier or runner, this is a big concern, how to keep your knees in good shape as you get older.

And also coming up this morning, Kelly Wallace is going to meet a kid who says he did not get into his top college all because of a mistake that was made by the folks who administered the S.A.T.

Those stories are ahead. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Every student knows what happens when you make a mistake on the S.A.T., but what happens when you the S.A.T. makes a mistake about you? About 4,000 students are learning that their scores are really higher than what went into their college applications. Kelly Wallace has our story this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): Eighteen-year- old Robert Smith of Brentwood, New York, an honors and ROTC high school senior, says he was shocked to learn his S.A.T. scores were incorrect.

ROBERT SMITH, S.A.T. SCORE INCORRECT: This was in October and I'm finding out in March. That's like five months later. It's almost half a year. I've already done college and stuff like that.

WALLACE: Robert learned his overall score was actually 80 points higher on the 2400-point exam. While writing was unchanged, there was a 30-point jump in reading and a 50-point jump in math. Scores that might make him more competitive for Boston University, his top college pick which rejected him.

So let's see Boston University.

ROBERT SMITH: Like right here, I'm at the bottom of the Boston. Now my math went up to the top.

WALLACE: As a mom, how outraged are you about this? KAREN SMITH, SON'S S.A.T. SCORE INCORRECT: I'm furious.

WALLACE: Robert is one of about 4,000 students who received a letter from The College Board which administers the S.A.T. telling them, due to a "technical processing matter," they did not receive credit some for correct answers. Ninety-five percent of the students' scores went up by 100 points or less.

KAREN SMITH: I want to know why this happened, how did this happen and why did it take so long to notify us?

WALLACE: The college board first learned of the problem back in December after some students requested a review of their scores.

JAMES MONTOYA, THE COLLEGE BOARD: Acting in a responsible way often takes more time than anyone would like, but we needed to understand the scope of the problem and understand which students were, in fact, impacted.

WALLACE: The College Board has notified colleges and universities about the snafu, which comes at the height of the college admission season, with S.A.T. scores often playing a critical role. Jacquelyn Nealon, dean of at admissions at the New York Institute of Technology, says she's seen anywhere from 25 to 50 applicants who have been impacted and has been reviewing those applications since she learned of the problem on Tuesday.

JACQUELYN NEALON, N.Y. INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: It's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. I would have loved this information a couple of months ago, but we dealt with it when we received it.

WALLACE: As for Robert, he plans to reapply to Boston University and to a few other schools he thought he had no chance of getting into. While he's happy about his higher scores, he's still very disappointed.

ROBERT SMITH: And it really is stressful and this was unneeded stress.

WALLACE: Kelly Wallace, CNN, Brentwood, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: The company says only 1 percent of the 500,000 students who took the test are affected. There were some cases where the scores should have been lower. The S.A.T. is not reporting the new number to the students or the schools in that case.

MILES O'BRIEN: Is that fair? I don't know.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: I don't know.

MILES O'BRIEN: I don't know. All right. Whatever.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: I can't answer the big questions.

MILES O'BRIEN: Well, that's a tough one.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: The big moral questions of the day.

MILES O'BRIEN: It's a tough one because probably, in true fairness to everyone, the true score should be associated with the student.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: One would imagine, yes.

MILES O'BRIEN: That's just a thought. Because presumably somebody has been displaced for that person with the . . .

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: But if a mistake's been made and it's not your fault . . .

MILES O'BRIEN: Fair enough. Fair enough.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: I don't know.

MILES O'BRIEN: All right, top stories are ahead.

The House passes an amendment to kill the Dubai ports deal.

Three college students arrested in those Alabama church fires.

A housing problem could slow the Katrina body search.

Defense attorneys grill Andrew Fastow in the Enron trial.

And in our health series for folks in their 30s, 40s and 50s, everybody else can listen in too, we've got tips on taking care of your knees, creeky as they may be.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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