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American Morning

Bush Meeting With Israeli Prime Minister; Millions of Names, Social Security Numbers of Veterans Stolen

Aired May 23, 2006 - 07:00   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome back, everybody. I'm Soledad O'Brien.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Miles O'Brien. Thank for being with us.

The political landscape has changed dramatically since the last time President Bush met with an Israeli prime minister. That'll be the backdrop for today's meeting between George Bush and Ehud Olmert.

CNN's Ed Henry live now from the White House with more.

Good morning, Ed.

ED HENRY, CNN POL. CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles.

This is really President Bush's first chance to take a measure of Prime Minister Olmert, who only took over about a month ago for the ailing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. And Olmert won after campaigning on a plan to withdraw from most of the Jewish settlements along the West Bank. President Bush urging a go-slow approach, fearful this can only complicate the Mideast peace talks overall, but Prime Minister Olmert is trying to make the case that ever since Hamas won the elections taking over the Palestinian government, Israel no really longer has a partner in peace and has to act alone.

Take a listen to the prime minister:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EHUD OLMERT, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Since he was elected, there was a new government elected, and this government is a terrorist government, and Mahmoud Abbas was deprived of all of his powers. He is powerless. He is helpless. He is unable to even stop the minimal terror activities amongst the Palestinians. How can he seriously negotiate with Israel and take -- assume responsibility for the most major of fundamental issues that are in controversy between us and them?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: Now the Bush administration is tore on the positive side, ending some of these settlement activities could pave the way for a Palestinian state that could, obviously, be a positive development. But Israel's also planning to keep other significant developments. Bush administration leery of looking like they're endorsing a land grab at a time when they're trying to build an international coalition to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions. We already know Iran has called for wiping Israel of the map. A lot of thorny questions when the president and prime minister meet the press tonight together -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, and to add to the complication, Ed, we've been reporting all morning of the escalating violence in Gaza between two Palestinian factions. How's that going to factor into any discussions about what will happen in the Middle East and how Israel will come to term with the Palestinians?

HENRY: It only adds more urgency for President Bus's call for Prime Minister Olmert to deal directly with President Abbas, his counterpart in Palestine. But you heard Prime Minister Olmert there. He does not trust that he can really work with the Palestinian government.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives today taking a look at a vote on a resolution to stop all talks, U.S. talks with Hamas. That's something that the president thinks it goes too far, only complicates the situation for the U.S. president, as well -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Complicated indeed. Ed Henry at the White House.

And with that violence in mind, let's get right to John Vause, who's following the situation in Gaza as Clashes between Palestinian factions continue -- John.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Miles.

Well, the Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haneya, has told reporters today that he will not allow this internal fighting to escalate into a full-blown civil war. He will meet with the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday.

And really, it is only these two men, the Palestinians themselves, who can avoid a civil war. They are the ones who must find a solution to this crisis, which is very close to a civil war here in Gaza.

If you talk to the people, especially those who were caught in the cross fire yesterday outside the Palestinian parliament building, what this is all about is power. It's about control of the security services, control of jobs, control of money, and who is ultimately in charge. This new Hamas government has openly challenged the authority of the president by putting their own army on the streets less than a week ago. This is a battle for Mahmoud Abbas which some have suggested he cannot afford to lose. If he does, his ability, his image, his authority to govern the Palestinian territories will be severely damaged. Some have suggested it could be a knockout blow to the presidency -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, John, give us a sense of why now. I mean, this has been a kind of simmering thing. Why is this coming a head at this moment?

VAUSE: Well, what happened shortly after the Hamas government was sworn into power, the president, Mahmoud Abbas, took a number of measures to curtail the power of the new government. He put his own man in charge of the security services. Hamas was frustrated. So they went out and formed their own army. What we have on the streets of Gaza, they're members of the Hamas militia on intersections facing off against members of the National Guard loyal to Abbas, against the police, who are also loyal to Abbas. So there has been escalating tension. It doesn't take much for the tension to erupt into gunfire -- Miles.

John Vause in Gaza, thank you very much.

(BUSINESS HEADLINES)

M. O'BRIEN: Well, if you're a veteran who left the military in the last 30 years, you need to keep a close watch on your bank and credit card accounts the next few days. Millions of names and Social Security numbers of veterans were stolen from the home of a government worker. That government worker had brought a disk home with all that data on it.

CNN chief national correspondent John King is live in Washington with more.

John, everything I've read about this was this was just sort of a standard break-in, and it really wasn't focused on that disk, was it?

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATL. CORRESPONDENT: That's what they hope, Miles. They believe it was a random break-in. We have confirmed this morning that that break-in occurred nearly three weeks ago on May 3rd in suburban Washington, which is adding more anger as Congress asks questions, it wants to not only know how did this happen, it wants to now know why the government waited nearly three weeks to warn millions of military veterans they are at serious risk of identity theft.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): The stolen Department of Veterans Affairs records represent the largest data breach in history, personal information on 25 million living veterans, and some of their spouses.

MARK RASCH, FMR. CYBERCRIME PROSECUTOR: Whether you're a terrorist and you want to fly on an airplane, or you want to get somebody's credit card information or get credit, all you need is their name, their date of birth and their Social Security number, exactly the information that was stolen here.

KING: The government says the thieves may not know the value of what they have.

ALBERTO GONZALES, U.S. ATTY. GENERAL: We have no reason to believe at this time that there has been -- that the identities of these veterans have been compromised.

KING: The V.A. says a longtime employee took the data home earlier this month, a violation of government policy, and then reported it stolen during a burglary at his home. The government says the computer files had personal data on 26.5 million people in all, all 25 million living military veterans, a modest number of their spouses, and more than a million deceased veterans.

The FBI is investigating, as well as the department's inspector general. The government has alerted the major credit agencies and set up a hotline in case people like Korean war veteran Robert Armstrong see any suspicious activity.

ROBERT ARMSTRONG, KOREAN WAR ARMY VETERAN: With Social Security numbers, they can eventually get into bank accounts and that sort of thing, and I'm not real happy about that.

KING: Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Larry Craig says Congress needs to look quickly at data security across the government.

SEN. LARRY CRAIG (R), VETERANS AFFAIRS CHAIRMAN: It was lax at this agency. But if it was lax there, my guess is it's everywhere else. It's just that we have not focused on it with the intensity that we should have.

KING: Cybercrime experts says the government collects too much information to begin with, and has long ignored obvious security risks.

RASCH We can encrypt it. We can scramble it. We can make it more difficult to access. We just don't want to, because it's makes it more difficult to do our jobs.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Now again, sources telling us this morning that burglary took place on May 3rd in the Maryland suburbs of Washington D.C. And, Miles, more and more questions being asked not only in Congress, but by veterans groups as well. While the investigation unfolds, we do know that the employee who took that data home, he was not supposed to do that, that employee has been placed on leave pending the investigation.

M. O'BRIEN: And no explanation on that delay. I guess the good news is if it's been three weeks and there haven't been widespread reports of people being victims, that might be good news.

KING: It might be good news. The explanation for the delay we're getting so far is that they don't want to announce publicly, because they did not want to tip off the thieves to what they had. They believed this was a random burglary. They say there have been other burglaries in this gentlemen's neighborhood. And they believe the laptop was stolen, the computer files were stolen, and they might have no idea what they have, so they did not want to make a public announcement to tip them off, because then they could sell this date, they could use this data. But, Miles, cybercrime experts say if they do know and if they know now, they could sit on this date for days, weeks, months and years, because they have just what you need, Social Security number, birthdate.

M. O'BRIEN: Wow. We can only hope they didn't know what they had and they bulk-erased it or something. All right, John King in Washington, thank you -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: In New Orleans today, a mock evacuation drill. If a major hurricane, in fact, bears down on the city this year, officials say they want to have a viable plan to move everybody out.

Joining us this morning from New Orleans, Jill Hezeau. She's with our affiliate WWL.

Hey, Jill, good morning.

JILL HEZEAU, WWL REPORTER: Good morning, Soledad.

The mock hurricane drill will use actors as local residents, and the convention center as a staging area for evacuees. The union passenger terminal will using that to get the elderly and those with special needs out of the city, and officials say that those are some of the resources they'll have this time around if a category-three storm threatens the Gulf Coast.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HEZEAU: The message out to everyone to listen to evacuation orders. He's hoping Katrina will serve as a lesson learned...

(END VIDEOTAPE)

S. O'BRIEN: Hey, Jill, I hear a little bit behind you, but let me jump in and ask you a couple of quick questions.

HEZEAU: Sure.

S. O'BRIEN: First of all, we've been talking about how we're just a week away from hurricane season. Kind of close to having your big evacuation drill, right? I mean, I assume there are going to be lessons learned. You only have a week before the season starts.

HEZEAU: Right. Well, I know a couple of weeks ago, I was at another hurricane seminar, this in the downtown area, where they gathered state officials, EOC, Coast Guard and the different federal officials there to discus what they would do at 96 hours prior to landfall, 72 and then up to about a couple weeks after the storm, so they have been some doing various hurricane drills up to this point.

They also discussed, though -- one (INAUDIBLE) official discussed that he did not want to get anyone too nervous in case a hurricane threatens the Gulf Coast and that area, so they have been doing some other hurricane drills. But yes, this is a week away between the state and the New Orleans area.

S. O'BRIEN: Hurricane season, I think it bears repeating, one week away. Jill Hezeau for us this morning. She's with our affiliate WWL. Jill, thanks.

There's a move in Congress to make sure that pets are protected in hurricane planing. The House voted overwhelmingly last night to require that evacuation plans include provisions to save pets. Countless animals died during Hurricane Katrina. Many owners risked their lives because they would not abandon their pets.

M. O'BRIEN: So what would you do if a bear stormed into your house and went on the attack? It's hard to imagine the horror, isn't it? An Ohio family has lived through just that ordeal.

Carol Costello in the newsroom with more -- Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: It's just an incredible story. I mean, you hear about wild animals roaming through residential neighborhoods. Well, this is something else. A 500-pound bear muscles his into a home in Hartsgrove Township, Ohio, terrorizing a mother, daughter and their little dog, too.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO (voice-over): Fifteen year-old Daphne Supplee was taking her dog for a walk on Monday when she was suddenly face to face with a 500-pound bear, right on her doorstep.

DAPHNE SUPPLEE, MOTHER MAULED BY BEAR: And I saw the bear, so I ran back into the house, closed the door. And after the door was closed, it knocked through the door. Ran past me and grabbed my mom at the doorway and drug her over here into the walkway, and then I tried to pull it off of her. But it just wouldn't -- it just jumped right back on me.

COSTELLO: Daphne and her dog tried desperately to save her mother, 36-year-old Rachel Supplee, as she was being mauled by the bear.

SUPPLEE: I was hitting it, and pulling it and doing everything, and it kept right on her. it didn't touch me. My dog was, like, biting the bear, like, it was barking and it starting biting the bear. It just jumped right back on her.

So I grabbed lunch meat and got it to go into the kitchen so she could go outside. And after she was outside, I went in the bedroom and climbed out the bedroom.

COSTELLO: Turns out the bear had escaped from a commercial breeding farm nearby. The owner was attempting to clean the cage when the bear got away. He was able to lure the bear out of Supplee's house before shooting and killing it. State wildlife officials say a bear attack inside a home is extremely rare. But this wasn't your typical bear.

RENO REDA, STATE WILDLIFE OFFICER: A bear that's raised with humans is not going to have a fear of humans, and that's one of the big factors we count on with wild bears. They would much rather be away from humans. This bear is acclimated with people, so it's going to interact much more readily.

COSTELLO: Rachel suffered numerous bite wounds. She was air lifted to a trauma center in Youngstown. At last check, she was in satisfactory condition.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A year and a half ago, his bobcat got loose for two weeks, and they were hunting for it, and my cat mysteriously came up eaten. You know, Half of the cat laying underneath the vehicle because his bobcat ate it.

DAISY WELDY, VICTIM'S SISTER: It just really makes me mad that when the bear got away, because people didn't, you know, go get it. The game warden should have been notified to get it. You know, whatever the story was, that's someone's bear, that owns that bear. They could have prevented this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: But the investigation continues. The owner of the game farm, called the Grand River Fur Exchange, called police himself after the bear escaped his property. He is licensed to breed the animals, and that he sells the offspring. But it is possible he could be charged with escape of a dangerous animal, but that's just a misdemeanor. And according to the local papers, he has other bears on the property as well. And as you heard, he also has, bobcats, some coyotes and even raccoons. So we'll keep you posted.

S. O'BRIEN: All right. Carol, thanks.

M. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, Carol.

(WEATHER REPORT)

S. O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning, a bribery investigation on Capitol Hill. The FBI says it found thousands, no, tens of thousands of dollars, $90,000 in a Democratic congressman's freezer. Republicans, are they ready to pounce? We'll take a look.

M. O'BRIEN: Also, the D.C. Sniper, John Allen Muhammad, on trial once again and representing himself. Today he will cross-examine his accomplice, the star witness for the prosecution.

S. O'BRIEN: Then later, U.S. forces go on a major assault to take out the Taliban in Afghanistan. Are too many civilians getting caught in the crossfire? We've got a live report ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson says he has no intention of resigning. He calls an FBI raid on his Capitol Hill office over the weekend an outrage. Jefferson is the subject of a bribery investigation. John Bresnahan is the lead reporter on this story for the Capitol Hill paper called "Roll Call." He's with us this morning from Capitol Hill.

John, nice to see you. Thanks for talking with us this morning.

JOHN BRESNAHAN, "ROLL CALL": Thanks for having me.

S. O'BRIEN: The details of this affidavit, which is a huge, I mean, like 90-page long affidavit, is stunning, is sort of the word that comes to mind. Walk me through some of the things that are alleged in this affidavit.

BRESNAHAN: Well, it's pretty clear that the Justice Department, the FBI is building a very wide-ranging bribery and corruption case against Mr. Jefferson, including the possibility that he bribed foreign officials in Africa -- Nigeria and Ghana, and possibly other countries. Like you said, the affidavit was just breathtaking, the detail that they had on Mr. Jefferson allegedly. You know, the crimes he's alleged to have committed.

He has not been charged with anything right now, but, you know, they had him under surveillance for months. They had, you know, secret tape recordings of him, secret videotapes. I mean, Mr. Jefferson's got some serious problems right now.

S. O'BRIEN: I mean, passing some notes, and of course yesterday we were talking about that $90,000 that the FBI claims they found in his freezer. Here's what, as you point out, he hasn't been charged with anything, and he has claimed he's done absolutely nothing wrong. Let's listen to a little bit of his news conference that he held yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. WILLIAM JEFFERSON (D), LOUISIANA: There are two sides to every story. There are certainly two sides to this story. There'll be an appropriate time and forum where they can be explained and explicated. But this is not the time, this is not the forum, and operating on advice of counsel, I will not get into the facts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: Two sides to every story, he says. I'm dying to hear his side of the story that ending up somehow with $90,000 wrapped in $10,000 little chunks in his freezer. But that was kind of strange, wasn't it, a news conference where you basically say, no comment.

BRESNAHAN: Yes, it was interesting. He had a similar one about a week ago where he said he wasn't going to resign from office, that he wasn't guilty of anything. He was less forceful yesterday. I think what the idea was that he wanted to -- he knew he was going to get a lot of questions coming back into town from the press, and I think he kind of wanted to preempt some of that. But as you said, the affidavit is devastating. Again, these are only allegations, but, I mean, $90,000 in his freezer wrapped up in aluminum foil, and which they'd actually photocopied before -- the FBI -- before they even handed him the money, had one of their cooperating witnesses hand him the money. So I think Mr. Jefferson has some very, very serious charges he is looking at, and again, he has not been charged, but it's probably not going to be too long now.

S. O'BRIEN: You know, it's very rare when you see the minority leader and the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Dennis Hastert sort of on the same mind on an issue. But because the search over the weekend of his office was unprecedented, you really saw them kind of saying a very similar thing. Let's read a little bit of what Dennis Hastert had to say.

He wrote this, "Insofar as I'm aware, since the founding of our republic 219 years ago, the Justice Department has never found it necessary to do what it did on Saturday night, crossing this separation of powers line, in order to successfully prosecute corruption by members of Congress."

In other words, this is unusual, precedent setting, to break into a Congressman's office.

BRESNAHAN: Yes, it's never happened before. There's a lot of folks up here on the Hill who feel that the FBI and the Justice Department stepped way out of bound by executing this search on Mr. Jefferson's office. Now if you talk to the Justice Department, their position is, look, this is a criminal investigation. Search warrants are executed every day against Americans all over the country, and that, you know, Mr. Jefferson is no different.

Now, in terms of Congress, they feel there's a congressional privilege here, a constitutional privilege that the Justice Department stepped over here, that Congress' offices are kind of sacrosanct from searches, the actual physical building and the offices of -- where lawmakers, members and senators work and meet.

So there's an institutional -- there's an interesting constitutional question here. It's a very serious issue, and you saw a lot of members on both sides of the aisle, in both chambers, concerned about this. They're not defending Jefferson, but they're saying, look, the Justice Department doesn't -- didn't need to do this, not based upon what we have seen. So we haven't heard the end of this.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, I bet you're exactly right. John Bresnahan is the senior writer for "Roll Call"

Nice to talk to you, John. Thanks.

BRESNAHAN: Thanks for being me.

S. O'BRIEN: My pleasure -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Coming up in the program, after Katrina, gas prices went crazy. Was it gouging? Andy Serwer has word on the government investigation into that one. That's next on AMERICAN MORNING.

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