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American Morning
Plame Sues Armitage Over CIA Leak; E. Coli Outbreak Linked to Spinach; Ford to Cut Costs, Staff Significantly
Aired September 15, 2006 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Forget what mother says. Whatever you do, don't eat your spinach. Bagged fresh spinach might be carrying a deadly disease.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY DANIEL, FORD EMPLOYEE: Well, everyone's up in arms. It's up in the air. We don't know what's really going to happen in the future.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: A lot of uncertainty. Ford taking a dramatic step to scale down. A major buyout plan just announced, aimed at about 75,000 workers.
O'BRIEN: Also, a big fracture in the grand old party. The president and some top Republicans at odds over how to treat terrorists.
COSTELLO: Firefighters in California gaining ground on a major wildfire, but Santa Ana winds could whip that fire into a frenzy.
O'BRIEN: Plus, it's one of the busiest shuttle missions ever. But the crew took some time out to chat with me. An out of this world conversation ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
Good morning to you.
I'm Miles O'Brien.
COSTELLO: And I'm Carol Costello in for Soledad.
We begin with trouble at Ford. Within the last hour, the car company announced drastic new cuts. It plans deep cuts in jobs and costs, plus plant closings.
Andy Serwer is following all of the latest developments and he has that live for us right now.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning, Carol.
Yesterday, we learned that Ford was going to be offering buyouts to 75,000 hourly employees, its entirely hourly workforce. Now we're hearing that Ford will be cutting 14,000 white collar jobs, one third of its salaried workforce. Other events this morning we are reporting, Ford will stop paying its dividend, big news for shareholders there. Also, it hopes to save $5 billion annually by 2008 and it doesn't expect to return to profitability in its North American auto unit until 2009.
COSTELLO: Wow!
SERWER: This plan is called The Way Forward, Carol, and Ford still has a way to go. Obviously, employees across the board are going to be feeling all kinds of pain. And the real question is can this company make cars that people want to buy?
COSTELLO: Well, that's what I was going to ask you.
You know, they're cutting jobs, but are they planning new products? Because isn't that really their problem?
SERWER: That is the problem. And, you know, they have the F150 pickup truck, which is the best-selling vehicle in the United States. It has been for years and years. But their other product lines are very long in the tooth. They need to come up with product throughout their development process.
Right now, we don't have word on what that is, and that really is the big issue here. You need to have vehicles, whether it's SUVs or pickup trucks or sedans that Americans want to buy. Right now, Ford doesn't have it.
COSTELLO: Andy, thanks.
In just a moment, we're going to head live to Michigan to find out more -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Bad fresh spinach, normally the very picture of good, healthy eating.
But you know what? Let's not talk spinach for just a moment.
Let's talk more about Ford.
We -- let's go right now to Dearborn, Michigan and a reporter with one of our affiliates there, WDIV, Rod Meloni -- Rod, what can you tell us about the reaction there?
ROD MELONI, WDIV CORRESPONDENT: Well, Miles, there -- the reaction here is one of, in some ways, relief, but also concern. Frankly, a lot of the workers here are going to have to get a quick financial education, because basically what the union has been able to negotiate with Ford is a menu of eight different retirement buyouts ranging from $35,000 to $140,000. And you have to sort of pick the shade of gray, where you fit in that, in terms of what you take for a buyout and then what you will get for benefits.
In other words, like, say, the $140,000 buyout, that sounds like a lot of money, except for the fact that you sever all ties with the company. If you are retirement age, you go away, but you could -- you don't get your health benefits and things like that.
So, there are a lot of things to be concerned about there and they're going to get until about September of next year to make their final decision on this. But there is going to be that window where they have to make the decision. So there's a lot of concern about that.
Of course, the other thing is Ford has not put out a plant closing list in this. And so it still leaves a lot of people in limbo. Now, the reason Ford is doing that is because they don't want to tip their hand and they don't want to have to make decisions right now, announce decisions that might change as the market does, because the market is very dynamic out there right now.
So, let's hear from some of the workers now and see what they're thinking out there this morning and as they hear about these buyouts and the possible plant closings where are they taking?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DANIEL: Everyone is up in arms. It's up in the air. We don't know what's really going to happen in the future. Ford is trying to get things back under control, which you've got to give them credit for that. I'm sure they're going to try and take care of everybody the best they can and all we can do is just hope -- hope for the best and just wait it out and see what happens.
LAURA HART, FORD EMPLOYEE: Well, I think a lot of are going to take it and it's going to give people an opportunity and an option to do other -- something other than, you know, work for Ford Motor Company, which is awesome.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELONI: OK. Now, they are going to be doing a lot of things with product, and that's the real important thing here. They're going to move the F150 up. That's a big seller. Apparently they can make it a whole lot less expensively, so there's more profit in that vehicle. If you are looking at, perhaps, buying a Freestar after the year 2007, it won't be available. It looks like they're going to replace that with something called the Ford Fairlane they showed at the auto show a couple of years ago. And that's going to be a larger, sort of crossover vehicle, basically a larger vehicle based on a car platform that you've heard so much about, those crossover cars.
So a lot of changes here at Ford. And, of course, we're still wading through the release and there's going to be a news conference coming up at 9:00, so we're going to sort of wade through that trying to get a better feel for all of what's happening here -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Rob Meloni with our affiliate WDIV in Dearborn.
Thank you very much.
Now, on to spinach. That fresh bagged spinach that you have in your refrigerator, probably you should throw it away. This morning, there is a big health threat. The government says that the spinach is tainted with the deadly E. coli bacteria, in many cases. Fifty are sick, one is dead and so far we really don't see a common thread in all of this.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta joining us from the CNN Center with more on all of this -- Sanjay, different brands, different locations.
So the word is just throw it away if you've got it in your refrigerator, right?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you know, it's interesting, it's one of the sort of largest and most comprehensive advisories I've seen in some time talking about spinach. Obviously, not everyone, I should point out, is getting the word yet. We were able to buy this just this morning.
But they're talking about all brands of spinach all across the country. Don't bother washing it. Don't bother cooking it. Just throw it away. That is the word from the FDA and any kind of fresh bagged spinach at this point.
As you mentioned, 50 people across the United States, eight different states, as well. So very disparate there across the country. Twenty of the cases have been in Milwaukee, I'll point out. But take a look at the map there. You can see these cases are in several places -- Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana. Between August 23rd and September 3rd is when most of these cases occurred.
Now, the FDA doesn't know the exact source, which is why the advisory is so comprehensive.
My guess, Miles, is that they're going to start to narrow it down over the next hours and days.
O'BRIEN: All right, so, we'll watch for that.
In the meantime, air on the side of caution, of course. That's the advice we would want to give you.
Should something bad -- you know, you have some symptoms you're worried about.
What should you be looking for?
GUPTA: Well, it can be hard because, first of all, the symptoms can be quite vague and they might not exactly follow the time that you eat the spinach. But, if you've eaten fresh bagged spinach recently and you have some of these symptoms -- diarrhea, vomiting, if you get suddenly pale or if you have kidney problems, those can be signs that you might be developing an E. coli infection.
For the most part -- and this is the good news -- most people recover just fine from an E. coli infection. But if you are starting to get any of those symptoms, you certainly need to see your doctor. Antibiotics may not always help. Sometimes they just need to give you I.V. fluids and make sure you're well cared for in the hospital. But, again, that is luckily a pretty rare situation -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: And how unusual is this, to see this, in particular, on something like spinach?
GUPTA: It, well, it's unusual on the spinach and it's unusual to be so comprehensive. But E. coli outbreaks in and of themselves are not that unusual. In fact, there have been about 350 outbreaks over a 20-year period.
But usually they're much more specific, Miles. In '93, it was the Jack-In-The-Box hamburger. In '96 it was unpasteurized Odwalla apple juice. In 2000, the Sizzler Restaurant salad bar. So real specific.
The thing that's unusual is that it is so comprehensive. It's been in lettuce and sprouts before. Spinach is a little bit more unusual, as well.
O'BRIEN: Sanjay Gupta in Atlanta.
Thank you.
GUPTA: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: Carol.
COSTELLO: Let's talk politics now, shall we?
President Bush in a face-off with some key members of his own party over military trials for those terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay. One senator is calling it an all out war.
Congressional correspondent Dana Bash covering this dispute for us -- tell us more.
DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, you know, this is not something you think you'd see seven weeks before an election, a very public, a rather messy dispute, internal dispute among Republicans over a key national security issue, and that is how to treat terror detainees -- suspects, I should say.
But what happened is a small group of senior Republicans, senior Republicans, defied the president. Yesterday, they passed a measure out of the Senate Armed Services Committee which talks about how to treat terror detainees. And it's a measure that the president says he is going to block.
Essentially, the biggest source of contention at this point is how the U.S. interprets or defines Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which, of course, is a treaty that sets the standards internationally for how prisoners are treated. The administration wants greater leeway in how they can interrogate these suspects. And they say that if they don't get what they want, they're going to have to shut down programs to interrogate what they call high level terrorism suspects. But the Senate measure gives prisoners more rights. And the rebellious Republicans, including Senator John McCain, actually got a boost from a very unexpected source. The president's own former secretary of state, Colin Powell, wrote a letter separating himself from the president on this.
He said: "The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism. To redefine Common Article 3 would add to these doubts. Furthermore, it would put our own troops at risk.
Well, there was a battle of words and of letters all day yesterday and the president's current secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, fired back with her own letter.
And in that she said: "The proposed legislation would strengthen U.S. adherence to Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions because it would add meaningful definition and clarification to vague terms in the treaty."
Well, the last thing any Republican wants right now is this kind of very public fight, political fight, over this issue of national security, Carol. But in this case, a rare case, policy is really trumping what all sides really say is smart politics, because there are serious policy differences and in this case, both sides insist that they're right.
COSTELLO: Oh, but the president isn't done. You said he's going to try to block it.
BASH: Right.
COSTELLO: So I guess the work continues, so to speak.
BASH: Absolutely. Yes.
COSTELLO: Dana Bash live from Washington this morning.
BASH: Thank you.
COSTELLO: Happening this morning, Iraqi police are finding more bodies, dozens more, found bound and tortured. There have been almost 70 victims discovered dumped around the city in just the past 24 hours.
In Yemen this morning, a pair of thwarted terror attacks aimed at oil facilities. Officials say suicide bombers tried to blow up a refinery and a storage center. The two attackers were killed when security forces blew up their cars before they reached their targets.
Later today, Congressman Bob Ney is expected to plead guilty in connection with the Jack Abramoff bribery scandal. The Ohio Republican would be the first lawmaker to do so. For months, he has been denying any wrongdoing.
B.P. would like to open up that oil field shattered because of a rusty pipeline. The company asking the Department of Transportation to allow it to reopen some oil fields so it can test the pipeline. No word on whether or when the government will approve such a move.
Japan and the world getting its first groups of Prince Hisahito just nine days after he was born. Look at him. He's third in line to the throne and, of course, could one day become emperor.
In southern California, firefighters are trying to control that wildfire north of Los Angeles before those dangerous Santa Ana winds kick up. More than 30,000 acres have now burned. Hot, dry Santa Ana winds are expected to begin on Sunday. Whoo, not good -- Chad.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: No.
There's a big storm that's going to affect the northwestern part of the country. And then on the bottom side of that storm is when the winds are really going to kick up. So they need to get a handle on it.
There are still going to be some hot spots. So if you're in Southern Cal or going to that area, you're going to have to know that this thing could really kick up on Sunday, as those winds kick up, as well.
(WEATHER REPORT)
O'BRIEN: Well, they were supposed to be the high tech answer to dangling chads. But there's growing concern electronic voting machines might be easy prey for hackers. We're going to show you how.
Plus, Muslim leaders demanding an apology from the pope. We'll tell you what he said that sparked a holy war of words ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: The president and Republican lawmakers trading political fire over how to treat captured terrorists this morning. But the people with the most at stake wear the uniform of our armed forces and are in harm's way.
How we treat our prisoners might very well come back to haunt them.
When Major General John Batiste was a commander in Iraq, he insisted his troops follow the Geneva Convention despite suggestions from Washington to the contrary.
Why did he make that choice?
Major General Batiste joins us from Rochester, New York this morning.
Good to have you back on the program, General Batiste.
MAJ. GEN. JOHN BATISTE, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Miles, thank you.
Good to be back with you. O'BRIEN: Let's begin with that question -- why were you resistant to suggestions to skirt the Geneva Convention as it is written?
BATISTE: You know, Miles, we recognized early on that the guidance that we were receiving from the Department of Defense was unclear, unlawful and it changed frequently. We chose to ground our detention operations squarely on the Geneva Conventions. This great document that was ratified all four Geneva Conventions ratified in 1947 by 192 countries.
I totally agree with General Powell. We dare not give up the moral high ground that we're on right now. We must maintain the Geneva Conventions the way they are to protect our own servicemen and women should they ever be captured.
O'BRIEN: What...
BATISTE: And if we tinker with these documents in any way, it's just flat wrong. We must set the example in this world. I feel strongly now, more strongly now than I ever have, that Donald Rumsfeld needs to go. He set the conditions for all of this to happen.
Abu Ghraib, which was a direct result of these unclear and unlawful rules for the treatment of detainees and interrogations. His incredibly poor judgment, his terrible strategic planning led us to where we are today. And I applaud our elected leaders who are finally stepping up to the plate, both Republicans and Democrats, to ask the right questions.
God bless them. They're doing what we elected them to do, to hold people accountable.
O'BRIEN: Well, what would you say to those, though, you know -- the Geneva Conventions were last modified in 1949 -- that they have somehow become outmoded in the context of this global war on terror?
BATISTE: Listen, this country abides by the laws of war period. Period. We occupy the moral high ground and we cannot, should not, never will step down from that. I read Secretary Rice's letter that was referenced earlier in your show. It's outrageous. It's all double speak.
We must do what's right for our military men and women who are in harm's way today in Iraq, in Afghanistan and any number of locations in the future.
O'BRIEN: But when the president's says...
BATISTE: This is a...
O'BRIEN: ... this is to protect...
BATISTE: This is a question of right and wrong. The moral high ground. This country abides by the rules of war. O'BRIEN: All right, but if in some -- there could be a scenario where someone might have information that could kill Americans. And if the only way to get that information were to use these methods, which you dispute and have problems with, would there be occasions when it would be appropriate?
BATISTE: With all due respect to the president, this country abides by the laws of war. We maintain the moral high ground. We can never give up that position.
O'BRIEN: But, you know, let's talk about a scenario, though, for a moment. For example, you know, when you talk about coercive interrogations, for example, if there is a female prisoner and she's being interrogated by a female military officer, just simply being in the military uniform might be considered an offense.
So, in other words, a lot of this is in how you define what is improper treatment, right?
BATISTE: I suspect, Miles, that a lot of people have not read the Geneva Conventions. I have. They're pretty clear. There's no question in my mind on how you treat people when they're in your custody. It's the same way I would want my soldiers treated if they were in the custody of an enemy, a nation state or an organization like al Qaeda.
O'BRIEN: All right, Major General John Batiste, thank you for your time this morning.
BATISTE: Thanks, Miles.
O'BRIEN: Carol.
COSTELLO: Muslim leaders are demanding an apology from the pope this morning. Coming up, the controversy over his recent comments on Islam.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Hmmm, will the pope say I'm sorry? An Islamic religious leader in Turkey is demanding an apology from the pope for remarks he made about Islam in a lecture in Germany this week.
So what exactly did the pope say to cause such an uproar and is his planned visit to Turkey in November in jeopardy?
AMERICAN MORNING'S Delia Gallagher joins us now.
So tell us, first of all, exactly what the pope said.
DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN FAITH & VALUES CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, he was giving a talk at a university in Germany. And amongst many other things, of course, in this talk, he starts out describing this book, this 14th century book, a conversation between a Christian emperor and a Persian cleric.
And one of the things that he says, quoting this book, the emperor comes to speak about the issue of Jihad, holy war. And, quoting the emperor: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new. And there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
COSTELLO: So those words evil and inhuman?
GALLAGHER: Well...
COSTELLO: Yes.
GALLAGHER: ... the whole thing sort of sets up a question of is Islam a religion of peace? Is there something in Islam's understanding of god which promotes violence?
And I think that this is what the sort of structure of what the pope was trying to get at through using this book. And he said, well, I came across this discussion in this 14th century text, you know, as Pope Benedict does.
And, of course, the critics will say well, even raising that question is offensive because it should be self-evident, according to some Muslims, that Islam does promote peace but...
COSTELLO: Well, and certainly the highest religious authority in Turkey...
GALLAGHER: Is not happy.
COSTELLO: ... is not happy. In fact, this is what he had to say. He said: "The remarks reflect the hatred in his heart. I do not think any good will come from the visit to the Muslim world of a person who has such ideas about Islam's prophet. He should, first of all, replace the grudge in his heart with moral values and respect for the other."
And, of course, he's talking about the pope's planned visit to Turkey, which you've got to think may not happen now.
GALLAGHER: It may be in jeopardy, yes. And that might not be the main problem here. I mean, sort of, you know, it's inflaming some Muslims around the world. And so there has been a little bit of backtracking at the Vatican. They've had to sort of issue an apology. And they have issued a statement.
I don't think the pope thinks that he really has to apologize as such, because he thinks of this as just a sort of intellectual exercise.
COSTELLO: But who...
GALLAGHER: He might even be a little bit flabbergasted bit it.
But anyway -- in any event, the Vatican did sort of say -- they issued a statement saying it was certainly not the intention of the Holy Father to carry out an -- excuse me. It was not the intention of the Holy Father to carry out an in-depth study of the Jihad and Muslim thinking in this field, and still less so to offend the sensitivity of the Muslim faithful. And it's clear that the Holy Father's intention is to cultivate a position of respect and dialogue toward other religions and cultures. And that clearly includes Islam.
So, they have tried at least to dampen down this.
COSTELLO: But, you know, in listening to that statement, I just don't think that's going to like calm the tensions of Muslims around the world...
GALLAGHER: It's going to be difficult...
COSTELLO: ... who are offended by this.
GALLAGHER: It's going to be difficult, but, again, I think that one has to say that this is a pope who believes very strongly in rational inquiry into the truth. And sometimes the emotional content of that might be underestimated. And I think, in fact, this talk was also a sort of challenge to Muslims to say show me -- show me what it is in your religion that doesn't agree with this text, in other words.
But, you know, it's very -- it's very complicated and sometimes, you know, he's not just a professor, he's pope. So...
COSTELLO: Yes.
Sometimes you can't talk about religion emotionless and intellectually. And...
GALLAGHER: You can't. You can't.
COSTELLO: Right.
GALLAGHER: It's very difficult.
COSTELLO: Delia Gallagher, thank you.
O'BRIEN: Coming up on the program, Reggie Bush may be a Saint now, but this morning he and his family are accused of breaking some important rules when he was a Trojan.
Plus, we'll check in with the shuttle crew, riding high and plowing through a long to do list. Oh, and those lost bolts? Ah, forget about them.
AMERICAN MORNING continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Happening this morning in America, throw out that fresh bagged spinach in your refrigerator right now. The government says it is the source of an E. coli outbreak. Fifty are sick in eight states. One person is dead in Wisconsin. Union workers at Ford Motor plants have a big decision to make this morning. The company offering buyouts to 75,000 of them. The company is offering the workers with 30 years of service or more $35,000 to walk away.
Saints running back Reggie Bush and his family may have crossed the line, accepting gifts while he was a superstar at the University of South Carolina. Yahoo! Sports reporting Bush and his family received no less than $100,000 in hotel rooms, airline tickets and the like. If proven, that could lead to sanctions against USC. It could cost Bush, also, his Heisman trophy, as the nation's best college player.
Welcome back.
I'm Miles O'Brien.
COSTELLO: And I'm Carol Costello, in for Soledad this morning.
These are the days of our lives. It has become quite the soap opera. The two men at the center of the CIA leak case are finally talking about the conversation that started it all. The trouble is, they're telling two different stories. The only thing that is clear is everybody is going to get sued.
AMERICAN MORNING's Bob Franken, live in Washington.
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's always part of it, isn't it?
COSTELLO: Yes, it is.
FRANKEN: What is the old lawyer's dictum, sue everybody in sight?
COSTELLO: Yes, why not? You got to get someone.
FRANKEN: Well, in any case, you know, we have so many things to talk about in Washington, but this is the story that never seems to die.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FRANKEN (voice-over): Robert Novak is proving one of the immutable laws of Washington: a controversy is never really over.
Now we know that former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was the first person to leak Valerie Plame's identity to Novak. We know because he says so, that he mentioned her connection to the CIA in an off-hand manner, saying he thought she worked there.
But Novak now says the contention by Armitage that it was a passing reference that propelled the writer to identify Valerie Plame in July 2003 wasn't so off-hand after all. Novak writes: "He identified to me the CIA division where Ms. Wilson worked. Armitage did not slip me this information as idle chit chat as he now suggests. He made it clear he considered it especially suited for my column."
The entire controversy began after Plame's husband Joseph Wilson had raised loud challenges to Bush administration claims Saddam Hussein was getting uranium from Africa.
VALERIE PLAME, FORMER CIA AGENT: I and my former CIA colleagues...
FRANKEN: Novak's column set off a multi-million dollar special counsels investigation into whether the law had been broken by a White House trying to get retribution. To break the law, Armitage would have had to know he was identifying a secret operative.
But when he went to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in October of 2003 to say he realized he had been Novak's source, Fitzgerald decided not to prosecute.
Ken Duberstein, President Reagan's White House chief of staff and a close friend of Richard Armitage, tells CNN, "The Armitage version of events is exactly what he told me in October of 2003."
Armitage has declined a CNN interview, but he told a friend, "If everybody had cooperated like I cooperated, this would have been over long ago."
As for Novak, he insists that Armitage obscured what he really did.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FRANKEN: So let's see now. Armitage has been added to the lawsuit by Plame and Wilson against just about everybody who might have been involved in this. Prosecutors' investigation continues, and those billable hours go higher and higher.
COSTELLO: What is Bob Novak's -- I mean, why is he coming out and saying this now? Why does it matter?
FRANKEN: Well, he has said all along that he had a bond with his source. He could not reveal his source until the source decided that he could be revealed. And once Armitage put out his version of it, Novak could say, no, wait a minute, he was my source and this is what really happened, according to Bob Novak.
COSTELLO: And people went to jail over this. It's just...
FRANKEN: Well, there's been -- don't forget there is one indictment here. Scooter Libby has been indicted, not for participation in this, but because of an alleged cover-up.
COSTELLO: Interesting. So the days of our lives continues.
FRANKEN: Yes.
COSTELLO: Bob Franken, thanks. O'BRIEN: Let's get back to space now. Two and a half hours into the third and final spacewalk of this Space Shuttle Atlantis mission. Live pictures now from helmet cam. That's what Joe Tanner is seeing at this moment, the veteran space walker, in the midst of changing out an antenna on the space station.
They've already done most of the work related to deploying those radiators, essentially taking the shipping constraints off of it.Oh, there you see his pistol grip tool there. About a $15,000 Makita there. And similarly priced custom gloves, as he continues that job there.
A little while ago, they were showing some pictures, which gave you a sense of how they have to tether everything. You remember they lost a couple of bolts in the course of this mission as they tried to do their job. There you see some earlier shots. There's Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper, his space working -- space walking and working cohort today. Nice picture of the Earth as it passes beneath. Gives you a sense of the speed and altitude that they're dealing with there.
Always double tether when you're in space. There's always two connections. So you can see, she's working with that right now there. In any case, they're a little behind in the timeline. They had some difficulties getting out of the hatch with the short circuit. But so far, this space walk, like the others, is going off pretty smoothly.
Yesterday, I had a chance to talk to a few members of the crew, including the commander, Brent Jett and ask them about those missing bolts, as well as what a spectacular sight it was when those solar arrays were deployed yesterday.
Our conversation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: The flight deck of the Space Shuttle Atlantis. We are joined by the commander of the mission, Brent Jett, and space station crew members Pavel Vinogradov and Thomas Reiter of the Russian and European space agencies, respectively. Gentleman, good to have you all with us.
I want to begin with Commander Jett. What a difference nearly six years can make. I remember watching that mission in December of 2000 when you tried to unfurl the solar arrays that time, and they got pretty well stuck. This time it worked out pretty well. What was the big difference?
BRENT JETT, ATLANTIS MISSION COMMANDER: Well, as you said, six years does make a difference. We learned a lot on the last mission (INAUDIBLE). We had a problem with the first array, but surprisingly the second array that we deployed on that mission was very much -- the technique was very similar to what we used today.
There was a little bit of thermal conditioning that was added and it went very, very smoothly. So it was really a tribute that to the team on the ground that has been working on it for the past six years. They put together a great plan. All we did was -- we followed the procedure and did what they told us. And the credit really goes to them.
O'BRIEN: You know, looking at it, though, it still looked like it shook around quite a bit, like there was a fair amount of motion. Almost looked like you were trying to pull up some blinds. What did it look like from where you sat?
JETT: About the same. That's a pretty good description. There were about ten or eleven panels that were stuck together on each blanket of the array. We knew that going in, that they would most likely be stuck. Having the sun condition them for a while and getting them to warm up a bit helped to release a few of them. But the last three or four were stuck in pretty good. And just like in the second array in '97, it took a little bit of force to get them to release. So when they did release, we did see the waves in the blanket. The bottom part of the blanket box, the rigid structure at the bottom, would move around a little. But it was very similar to what we saw back in 2000.
O'BRIEN: Pavel, I wanted to ask you -- I wanted to shift gears just a little bit. You're going to have a visitor coming up soon, or so it is scheduled. A -- the first female space tourist. How do you feel about that visit, and do you encourage anybody who can pay the way to come visit you?
PAVEL VINOGRADOV, ASTRONAUT (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): I believe it is really good that people started flying to space, not only as professionals, but as tourists also. I believe very soon many people would want to visit space, and we welcome that. The visitor will not interfere with our work. We are professionals. We'll keep our work. And I'm sure her visit is going to be fine.
O'BRIEN: So finishing up with Commander Jett, Brent, we don't have either of the space walkers, any of the space walkers here from this mission with us on this interview, but I wanted to ask you about those bolts that seemed to get away from them, Joe Tanner and Steve MacLean. Kind of looks -- it seems as if that -- those bolts probably need to be redesigned. What are your thoughts on that?
JETT: The bolts -- those bolts don't really concern us too much now. I know that the crews of 13A and future missions that have similar hardware will be looking at them real hard to determine whether they need to do something to help the retaining (INAUDIBLE) washers on the back of those.
The bolt that really concerned us was the launcher string bolt that we had a real hard time getting off on (INAUDIBLE) number two. That was the one that really caused all the drama. If that bolt hadn't have come off, that would have been a show-stopper. So somehow we needed to get that off and (INAUDIBLE). And the ground team, of course, mission control directed them well and put together a good plan and they were able to get it done successfully.
So, you know, the two little ones were just kind of little, minor things, as long as they didn't go into the hardware that's in -- or come back and hit the space station. That was -- we don't really worry about them. But the big launcher string pull, if we hadn't been able to get that out, that would have been trouble.
O'BRIEN: All that technology, a little elbow grease solved that one. A little bit of oomph. All right, gentlemen. Thank you very much. Brent Jett, Pavel Vinogradov and Thomas Reiter from the flight deck of the Space Shuttle Atlantis. Appreciate your time.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: This news just in to CNN. President Bush will hold a news conference at 11:50 a.m. Eastern time in the Rose Garden. The topic has been announced, but perhaps he'll talk about enemy combatants and why he feels the need to redefine parts of the Geneva Convention. It is the hot topic on the Hill this morning.
COSTELLO: ... Eastern Time in the Rose Garden. The topic isn't announced, but perhaps he'll talk about enemy combatants. It is the topic on the Hill this morning, and certainly the White House press corps will toss a few questions his way. We'll carry that live for you at 11:15 a.m. Eastern.
(WEATHER REPORT)
COSTELLO: Coming up, is it too late to prevent global warming? We'll tell you why one leading scientist thinks we only have 10 years to stop it.
Plus, electronic voting and hackers. The weak spots that could affect your vote. That's just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
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O'BRIEN: They were supposed to be the silver bullet solution to the dangling chad and butterfly ballot mess that was the presidential election 2000. But now there's concern the electronic-voting machines might be easily rigged, and an election could be stolen by clever hackers. That's the conclusion of some computer scientists at Princeton, who looked at one machine, the Diebold Acuvote TS.
Princeton researcher Edward Felten joining us now to demonstrate all of this.
Good to have you with us, Professor Felten. This is the machine that you looked at. You didn't look at any others, just to be clear, right?
EDWARD FELTEN, PRINCETON RESEARCHER: Right, this is the one we looked at.
O'BRIEN: So we can't speak for all voting machines. But this is the most popular of them all.
FELTEN: It's one of the most popular, yes.
O'BRIEN: One of the most popular.
OK, so let's try to go through it as quickly as we can...
FELTEN: Sure.
O'BRIEN: ... giving people a sense of how easy it would be to hack this.
FELTEN: OK, well, let's have an election.
O'BRIEN: OK, why don't we?
FELTEN: You can vote first.
O'BRIEN: OK, so everybody gets a card. You put a card in. OK, and I vote. You stick the card in.
OK, we've got the card. And pretty soon it's going to show us a couple of choices for -- we hit start. I can do that.
And it's either George Washington or Benedict Arnold. I'm going to go with George Washington.
FELTEN: Good choice.
O'BRIEN: You know what, he's not a traitor. And there we go. We go next, and then I'm going to cast my ballot. OK, so that's fairly straightforward.
FELTEN: Now your first vote is recorded on the electric memory inside the machine.
O'BRIEN: OK.
I get to vote again. We'll pretend this is like Chicago. You get to vote again and again. No, just kidding.
FELTEN: Only three.
O'BRIEN: So we start. We do that, and we'll do -- I'm going to vote for George Washington again. Pretend I'm a different person. We go to the ballot, we cast the ballot.
FELTEN: OK.
O'BRIEN: All right, and we'll do one more. Should I vote for Benedict Arnold once?
FELTEN: You can vote for George Washington again.
O'BRIEN: I'll do George Washington one more time. And people are given these cards as they come into the polls, right?
FELTEN: That's right. You check in at the front desk and get a card.
O'BRIEN: OK. And those cards get reused, is that how it works, or...
FELTEN: They can get reprogrammed later.
O'BRIEN: OK, got you. OK, so I've voted now three times.
FELTEN: You voted three times. And now let's say this is the end of the election.
O'BRIEN: OK.
FELTEN: And the poll worker will come up with a special other kind of card which belongs to a poll worker and stick it in, and now I'm going to tell the machine to end the election.
O'BRIEN: OK.
FELTEN: I put in the secret pin, which is 1111.
O'BRIEN: Not a secret anymore.
FELTEN: Not a secret -- well, it really wasn't one before.
O'BRIEN: Yes.
FELTEN: And In a minute, I'll be able to print out a result tape, which I tell it to end the election.
O'BRIEN: OK.
FELTEN: And I'm going to print out a result tape which shows the results.
O'BRIEN: OK, while we're waiting for that to come out -- print the report there.
FELTEN: I can start it now.
And I can talk about what happened here.
O'BRIEN: OK.
FELTEN: Every time you cast a vote, the vote was recorded on the internal memory of the voting machine, in two places.
O'BRIEN: OK.
FELTEN: But after you voted, the computer virus came along and changed those memories, so that your votes were moved from one candidate to the other. And when we look at this result tape, you can see, it's Benedict Arnold, two, George Washington, one. O'BRIEN: OK, so the virus has done its job. You saw me clearly vote for George Washington three times. Benedict Arnold just won this election. Let's get into the guts of this thing and show me what a hacker would have to do to make that happen. How hard would that be? First of all, where is this memory card that is so crucial?
FELTEN: The memory card behind this little door on the side of the machine. It's behind a -- it uses a key that's a standard file cabinet key. And we get this open, and then we can pull out a memory card that's in there.
O'BRIEN: Anybody's who's used a PC card in their computers, the same thing.
FELTEN: In fact, this is something that you can use in a digital camera.
O'BRIEN: OK. And that card -- so in other words, if you could get access to that with a typical file cabinet key, easily pickable kind of lock, and you had a card that was tainted, you could...
FELTEN: Stick the card in, and as soon as you stuck the card in and rebooted the voting machine, it would be infected with the virus.
O'BRIEN: But you would have to do this, because these are -- are they networked?
FELTEN: They are not networked.
O'BRIEN: You would have to do this to an awful lot of machines.
FELTEN: You could do this to an awful lot of machines, or you could infect one machine, and then before the election, when the poll workers are setting things up for the vote, they actually move memory cards from one machine to another, and they may propagate the virus.
O'BRIEN: So there's kind of a sneaker net to all of this. It's not a network.
FELTEN: Kind of a sneaker net, and unfortunately it's the poll workers themselves trying to get the election set up who are the biggest risk for propagating this issue.
O'BRIEN: Diebold has had some response to this issues, you might suspect, to your study. A couple of things they say. This is from Dave Byrd, the president of Diebold Election Systems. He says this, "Normal security procedures were ignored in your study. Numbered security tape, 18 enclosure screws and numbered security tags were destroyed or missing so that the researcher could get inside this unit.
In other words, if it's got a seal on it, and all the screws that you have to get out -- of course, you just said picking the lock would be the way to do it. Nevertheless, are you ignoring some key facts about the security in all of this? FELTEN: Not at all. We issued a lengthy and detailed technical report that talks about these issues. It's not that difficult to loosen 18 phillips screws to get access to the screen.
O'BRIEN: But you'd be kind of suspicious if you were there...
FELTEN: If you did it at the polling place.
O'BRIEN: Right.
FELTEN: But if you had accessed to machine beforehand at any time for three or four minutes, you could loosing the screws, one minute if you could pick the lock.
O'BRIEN: All right. Also what they say -- this is the same from Dave Berg (ph). A virus is introduced to a machine that is never attached to a network by any standard academic or common sense. The study is unrealistic, inaccurate. You sort of addressed this, but say it one more time. Even though it's not networked, because these cards kind of circulated around, this...
FELTEN: Right.
O'BRIEN: The virus can...
FELTEN: The virus trouble's on the cards. And if this card gets put into another voting machine, that machine will be infected.
O'BRIEN: So what's the upshot? Can this be easily fixed?
FELTEN: It's not so easy to fix this. There are some precautions that can be taken. The most important one is to have a paper trail that the voter can verify themselves. So you know how you voted. It's there on paper, and the computer can't unprint the paper.
O'BRIEN: And as it stands now, there is no paper backup, is there?
FELTEN: On this machine, there's really no viable paper back-up, that's right.
O'BRIEN: All right. Thank you very much. Edward Felten with Princeton University, appreciate your time.
And if you want to see that full report, it's online at itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting. Did I get that right?
FELTEN: That's right.
O'BRIEN: All right. Itpolicy.princeton...
FELTEN: Dot "edu" slash "voting."
O'BRIEN: OK, great. Thanks very much for your time.
FELTEN: Thank you. O'BRIEN: Carol.
COSTELLO: Still to come, we're "Minding Your Business." Do you want to make your own commercial to air during the Super Bowl? Andy will tell you how, next on AMERICAN MORNING.
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