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American Morning

Ramsey Murder Case; Judge Halts Wiretaps; Nuclear Bomb Test?

Aired August 18, 2006 - 09:00   ET

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

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Atika Shubert in Bangkok. And I have a few more details on the suspect John Karr and what exactly he was doing in Thailand, coming up.
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: A legal setback for the Bush administration and its warrantless wiretap program.

I'm Elaine Quijano, live at the White House. I'll have details and reaction straight ahead.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Is North Korea preparing for its first underground nuclear test?

I'm Barbara Starr. I'll have that story coming up next.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Big storms in the Plains right now, into Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, all the way up into South Dakota. Watches and warnings in effect.

I'll have the weekend forecast coming up.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. I'm Miles O'Brien.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Carol Costello, in for Soledad.

O'BRIEN: John Mark Karr, stunning televised admission of guilt, not standing the test of time and fact checkers. Karr told the world yesterday he killed 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey nearly 10 years ago, but much of the story is not adding up.

He remains under arrest in Bangkok, Thailand. And that's where we find CNN's Atika Shubert -- Atika.

SHUBERT: Miles, still a lot more questions than answers. He's made no new statements today, but we have found out a few more details about exactly what he was doing here.

Apparently, he was renting an apartment in southern Bangkok since December. He had actually been coming in and out of the country for the last two years.

We spoke to guests there and also staff, and they said he was very much a loaner. He was never seen with anyone. Kept to himself. One guest there who stayed just a few doors down said that he seemed very paranoid, as though he had something on his conscience. We were also able to talk to school officials. We found out that he had been working in at least two different international schools in Bangkok. One school official we spoke to said even though he worked at that school for just a few weeks, they decided not to hire him because he was "too strict on some of the students" -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: And can you tell me a little bit, Atika, about the circumstances of how he is being held?

SHUBERT: Well, he's now being held actually right behind me at the immigration detention center. He has a very small cell there, about 3 by 3 meters, with a small Futon to sleep on there. And as far as we know, doesn't seem to be under any interrogation. At least that's according to Thai officials.

We actually spoke to the Thai immigration chief here, and he gave us some insight on to how his first confession was. Basically, an officer was posted outside of his cell. They got into a casual conversation, and before John Karr went to sleep, the officer told him that he was going to be arrested on charges of first-degree murder.

When Karr woke up he told the officer, it wasn't first-degree murder, it was second-degree. And that apparently was his first confession to authorities -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right. And so the next time we're going to see him -- or it would probably be on his departure -- do we have any idea when that's going to occur?

SHUBERT: We really don't know at this point. According to immigration officials here, they say the earliest could be in the next one or two days. At the longest, perhaps a week. But they say it's really up to U.S. officials for them to get the deportation documents ready and to book him on a flight back to the U.S.

O'BRIEN: Atika Shubert in Bangkok.

Thank you.

In Boulder, Colorado, where the murder happened, they've learned the hard way not to jump to conclusions on this story.

CNN's Ed Lavandera joining us from outside the former Ramsey home in Boulder.

Hello, Ed.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles.

Well, John Karr's story made worldwide headlines yesterday. Now we're trying to figure out and investigators and prosecutors here in Boulder are trying to figure out just what portions of it is true.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA (voice-over): With John Karr confessing to being with JonBenet Ramsey when she died and hope building that a 10-year murder mystery might finally be solved, Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy stood before the cameras and popped the balloon of anticipation.

MARY LACY, BOULDER COUNTY, COLORADO, DISTRICT ATTY.: There's a great deal of speculation and a desire for quick answers. I am not commenting on the particular nature of this investigation.

LAVANDERA: Prosecutors revealed no details of what led them to arrest Karr. Court documents containing some of that information have been sealed.

Now the focus is intensifying on the credibility of John Karr. Is his story true or is he making it up? Karr's ex-wife has said they were both in Alabama during that Christmas season 10 years ago. And Karr's family in Georgia says they'll soon have information to suggest why the charge is wrong.

NATE KARR, SUSPECT'S BROTHER: It's ridiculous, without a doubt. And we'll go over some more specifics of why we think that is.

LAVANDERA: Perhaps that is why prosecutors and investigators have been very cautious about what they say. After 10 years of looking for JonBenet Ramsey's killer, no one here is officially saying John Karr is the man. Even the journalism professor who exchanged e- mails with Karr for several years won't say what spooked him about the 41-year-old schoolteacher and convinced him to turn his name over to investigators.

QUESTION: Did a single thing that popped and you said, "OK, I've got to go to the cops now"?

PROF. MICHAEL TRACEY, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO: There was, but I'm not going to say what it is. It was one particular thing, yes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA: This morning, the "Rocky Mountain News" newspaper publishing some of the excerpts from those e-mails. In a tribute to JonBenet Ramsey, he writes to this college law --- journalism professor, "JonBenet, my love, my life. I love you and shall forever love you. I pray that you can hear my voice calling out to you from my darkness, this darkness that now separates us."

He also writes in another e-mail, "I will tell you that I can understand people like Michael Jackson and feel sympathy when he suffers as he has. I am trapped in a world that I do not understand."

Again, more details into a story that is already very confusing for many people -- Carol.

O'BRIEN: All right. Thank you very much, Ed Lavandera. I'll take it.

Coming up in just a few moments, we will try to get some insight into John Karr. We'll talk live with a teacher who used to work with Karr in Bangkok -- Carol. COSTELLO: The Bush administration is decidedly unhappy about a court ruling striking down its secret surveillance program. A federal court said the program is unconstitutional and that the government is overstepping its bounds.

CNN White House Correspondent Elaine Quijano joins us live from the White House with more reaction to this.

Good morning.

QUIJANO: Good morning to you, Carol.

And that ruling came in Detroit, Michigan, in response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU. The Bush administration sharply disagrees with this federal judge.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales calls the NSA surveillance program legal and necessary. He says that the administration plans to continue using the warrantless wiretaps until an appellate hearing next month.

Now, in a statement, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow reiterated the administration's argument, saying, "We couldn't disagree more with this ruling." The statement goes on to say that "United States intelligence officials have confirmed that the program has helped stop terrorist attacks and saved American lives. The program is carefully administered and only targets international phone calls coming into or out of the United States where one of the parties on the call is a suspected al Qaeda or affiliated terrorist."

Now, the ruling and the debate over the surveillance program comes just 80 some days before those congressional midterm elections, and ahead of that we have seen certainly President Bush, as well as Republicans, trying to tout their national (INAUDIBLE) credentials. In fact, earlier this week we saw President Bush visit the National Counterterrorism Center.

But Democrats have pounced on yesterday's ruling. They are trying to make the argument that the Bush administration has mismanaged the war on terrorism.

And so, Carol, even as these legal maneuverings are taking place, clearly now the political maneuverings are under way as well -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Elaine Quijano reporting live from the White House this morning.

North Korea may be posing a new threat this morning. Military and intelligence officials say Pyongyang could be getting ready to test a nuclear weapon underground.

CNN Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr joins us live to tell us more about this.

Hello, Barbara.

STARR: Good morning to you, Carol.

Well, heavy emphasis on the "could be," because, of course, no one is ever really sure what the North Koreans are up to. But intelligence analysts about a week or so ago saw a new piece of imagery. We don't know if it was from a satellite or a U-2 aircraft, for example, but they did look down on what they believe is a suspected North Korean underground nuclear test site, and they saw something that caught their attention.

What did they see? It was pretty innocuous. It was bundles of wires and cables that had been dropped off that were on the ground, above ground at this test site. But what could those bundles of wires and cables be used for? It might be used to wire the site so that in the event of a nuclear test the technicians, of course, could monitor that test from some distance away.

But the officials we've spoken to say it's just one indicator, no one is sure yet what it means. But what it does mean, of course, is that U.S. intelligence will continue to be watching very carefully -- Carol.

COSTELLO: I'll bet.

Barbara Starr, live at the Pentagon this morning.

Thanks.

O'BRIEN: Time for the forecast now. Chad Myers at the weather center.

Hello, Chad.

MYERS: Good morning, Miles.

(WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: Coming up, the questions surrounding the confession in the JonBenet Ramsey case. Is John Mark Karr the kind of man who would lie about committing such a crime? We are going to ask someone who used to work with him, worked with him recently in Thailand.

O'BRIEN: Also, hog heaven for the political set. A state fair where they come to see giant vegetables and some politicians who would like to test their green thumbs in the rose garden.

COSTELLO: And later, actor Matt Dillon, he plays a writer who risks everything in his new movie, "Factotum".

How do you pronounce that, "Factotum"?

O'BRIEN: "Factotum".

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: While John Mark Karr sits in a detention facility in Bangkok, a lot of people are eager to learn more about the man who claims to have killed JonBenet Ramsey.

Bryce Smedley is a teacher in Bangkok. He formerly worked with Karr.

Thank you for joining us this morning.

BRYCE SMEDLEY, TEACHER: Thank you.

COSTELLO: You worked for Mr. Karr for just a few weeks. What were your impressions of him?

SMEDLEY: I guess my first impression of him was he just seemed to be a little awkward and a little strange. And those first impressions didn't really lead to me wanting to get to know him a lot more. There's a lot of teachers there, but he seemed to be just a little indifferent and a little aloof, almost.

COSTELLO: Well, you know, a lot of people...

SMEDLEY: And so I found him to be a little awkward.

COSTELLO: A lot of people have described him exactly that way, awkward and just a little weird, but they never really explain exactly why. Can you explain more for us why you found him so awkward and rather odd?

SMEDLEY: Well, I mean, it's his personality. I mean, to be honest with you, I'm not a doctor or anything, but I think he is someone who is a little mental unstable, to be honest with you. And I think the way he presents himself, the way he communicates with people, the way he carries himself, it's very easy just being a normal person to realize that there's something not fitting there. You know?

COSTELLO: Is it -- is it the way he talks to people?

SMEDLEY: And I think that that's something that people have to see.

COSTELLO: Is it the way he talks to people? He doesn't look them in the eye, or...

SMEDLEY: I think it's everything. No, it's just, you know, living overseas, you interact with a lot of cultures, a lot of westerners. And you get a pretty good feeling of, you know, normal behavior.

And he just struck me as someone who was a little abnormal in his behavior. His relationship with his students seemed to be a little awkward. The reason he didn't get hired was because he was too strict. And, you know, he just didn't fit.

And I know that sounds kind of rude, and I don't mean it to be, but, you know, I'm a pretty good judge of character, and so are most people. And sometimes you just run across people who are a little quirky. And that's -- I think that really calls into question his admissions and what he's really admitting to. And it will be interesting to see what comes of this.

COSTELLO: OK. Stop right there for just a second, because I want to go back to -- he was going through a probationary period that he didn't make it through at this particular school where you met him.

SMEDLEY: Sure.

COSTELLO: You said that he was let go because he was too strict. In what way was he too strict with the children?

SMEDLEY: The students were intimidated by him. And they -- you know, students are very good judges of teachers.

I mean, when you're in a classroom, if you come in unprepared the students know it. And it doesn't matter what country you work in. Students know when you're on top of your game.

They also know when you're a friendly person and you're not a friendly person. And there were complaints by students.

And our school did a really terrific job. They really monitor teachers no matter who you are and what credentials. And if they get suspicious and get alarmed, especially coming from students, they put an end to it, because the welfare of the students come first. And it's very important to keep a very positive and safe learning environment, and they did that.

He was only there for a couple weeks. And once it became more clear, he was let go.

COSTELLO: Bryce, when you saw him under arrest on television, if you did, were you surprised then?

SMEDLEY: Nothing surprises me anymore. I was here for the tsunami. I was here -- you know, this isn't the first incident that this has happened in this country.

I was shocked. And my heart really went out for the Ramsey family more so, because I hope they find the person who did this. And I hope that if this person did it, that this is the truth, because I think that all of us were shocked. We couldn't believe it.

But then, at the same time, we thought, is this person being honest and is he giving the true story? And I think right now most people that I work with really feel sorry for the Ramseys, and we're hoping that we are coming to some sort of resolution and we're getting a true picture and not a -- not a fantasy, and not...

COSTELLO: A final question for you, Bryce, because it sounds as if you don't believe Mr. Karr's claims.

Is that true?

SMEDLEY: Do I believe him? I don't know. I mean, I think that the Denver police or the Boulder police, they need to let justice take its course, and the legal system in the U.S. needs to -- needs to solve this answer.

I think, though, one important issue about this whole issue is about how we stop teachers who are running from the law from going to these countries and possibly putting children at risk. And this is the greater issue. Whether or not how this case is solved, it's touched upon a big issue, and that is, how do we prevent teachers who are eluding the law in other countries, from preventing them from coming and then being employed in schools here?

And as this person had a legal issue in our country, not being allowed to work at schools and around playgrounds, therefore he's found here working in schools. And that's a dangerous issue.

COSTELLO: It is a dangerous issue. Thank you so much for joining us.

Bryce Smedley, who formerly worked with John Karr. And, by the way, Mr. Karr was arrested for child porn in this country, although he skipped out on his court appearances -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Coming up on the program, if he didn't do it, why would he say so? John Karr's odd confession may be fiction. We'll take you inside his head. What in the world is he thinking?

And a judge in Detroit fires both legal barrels at the White House domestic spying campaign. Will waiting for warrants perhaps cost lives, though? You can bet Bill Bennett has tapped into some heated reaction. He's next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: The super-secret National Security Agency is still tapping into suspicious phone calls without consulting a judge this morning, but maybe not for long. As a federal judge in Detroit yesterday called the program illegal and unconstitutional, no doubt grist for a conversation on the Bill Bennett radio program. He calls it "Morning in America," and he's just decompressing, having been on the air this morning. He joins us routinely on Fridays.

Bill, good to have you back with us.

BILL BENNETT, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Thank you, Miles.

O'BRIEN: What are your listeners saying?

BENNETT: They are saying -- well, we had a couple of people read the headline out of the Detroit paper saying, you know, Bush program illegal, wiretap illegal, so on. This was one judge's opinion in a district court.

A lot of my audience was paying attention to how the media was playing it and not to the analysis that's being done across the country. Actually, by both liberal and conservative jurists and commentators, pointing out that this was apparently a very poorly reasoned decision. There's an entry in "The National Review" online site by a former Clinton Justice Department official, lawyer, saying this wasn't even legal reasoning at all.

Richard Posner (ph), who...

O'BRIEN: You don't -- you don't see the Bill of Rights, constitutional issues here?

BENNETT: I don't. I mean, I just think this is a very straightforward program. But it doesn't matter so much what I think as what other judges think.

Sure, it raises -- the question of privacy is raised and telephone calls, but in a time of war, you are talking about people having conversations with people who are suspected of being linked to terrorism. Should people be able to listen to those?

The British just were able to do that and foiled the plot. Shouldn't we be able to do that and foil a plot?

O'BRIEN: Well, fair enough. I think that everybody agrees you've got to be nimble to get terrorists. But the real issue is, why didn't the Bush administration ask Congress to change the law?

BENNETT: Well, because it didn't have to. Remember, the Fourth Amendment says unreasonable searches and seizures. Is this a reasonable search and seizure?

Now, that's what the debate will be about, Miles. Fair enough. This judge says it's unreasonable. But a lot of other judges, including a guy named Richard Posner (ph), who's on the 7th circuit, very Libertarian, very suspicious of the government, he thinks this is a very straightforward case.

But certainly it will go on appeal.

Go ahead.

O'BRIEN: Well, here's what's interesting about this, because under the FISA laws, which go back to the Carter administration -- and, coincidentally or not, this happened to be a Carter-appointed judge who had this ruling -- under the FISA rulings they can tap into a phone call without a warrant. They just have to get the warrant later.

So what this is really about is where you set the bar on probable cause, isn't it?

BENNETT: Well, probable cause is part of it, yes, but it's not the -- it's not the whole story. The question is whether you need to have the standard in operation for a situation like this. That is, whether the warrant is always the question.

It isn't always the question. If it's a reasonable search, you don't need warrants either before or after the search.

Part of this is, I think, the increasing legalization of the society, the notion that the executive or the legislative really can't take the kind of action it needs to take. But, fair enough, whether my analysis is right or your questions go in the right direction, this will be reviewed by lots of other judges. It will go all the way up.

O'BRIEN: Right.

BENNETT: There is a stay, and we will get an answer from -- from a full court.

O'BRIEN: All right. The tail end of our segment here, so to speak, and we're barking up a different tree now. Tell us about...

BENNETT: Barking, right.

O'BRIEN: ... your -- yes, you have a new dog, right?

BENNETT: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Tell me about the dog.

BENNETT: Yes, we have a new -- we have a new dog. We have a new dog.

O'BRIEN: Oh, now that is the cutest puppy. This was the reason we did this, just as an excuse to put the cute yellow Lab puppy on the air.

One, two, three, say, "Ah."

BENNETT: It's not about me. It's not about Bill Bennett.

O'BRIEN: So what are the best suggestions you've heard for a name?

He's asking his listeners to name the dog.

BENNETT: Right, we've -- well, we're going to do it, but we welcome the suggestions. Well, we had one this morning from a Marine that said Semper Fido. I thought that was pretty good.

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

BENNETT: We've certainly -- we've certainly gotten from my audience plenty of Reagans and Dutches.

We've gotten the suggestion of Plato. You know I used to be a philosophy professor.

We just got tons on it. But one of our listeners said, you know, "In every rock, in every boulder there's a sculpture, so show the dog and then we'll know what his name is."

So, Miles, you're looking at him. What do you say, Paws? What do you think?

O'BRIEN: Paws. He's all paws now. I think he's going to be a big one. BENNETT: Yes. Yes, he is.

O'BRIEN: He's very cute. He kind of looks like you. You know? You know how owners...

BENNETT: Well, one guy...

O'BRIEN: You're kind of a yellow Lab kind of guy, aren't you?

BENNETT: One guy said, "Call him 'Bill'. That way when your wife yells at both of you it will be efficient." You know?

O'BRIEN: All right.

BENNETT: Fair enough.

O'BRIEN: Well, good luck on all of those fronts.

And we'll be back with more in a moment.

BENNETT: Thanks, Miles. Thank you very much.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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