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American Morning
New Jersey Dad Wins Custody in Brazil; Teaching the Art of War
Aired December 17, 2009 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: And inside the teenager brain. How everyday violence can have a devastating impact on developing minds.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: You all witness some kind of violence or shooting?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have. It happened every day and they'd be mostly over petty stuff.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You've got children who are all gasoline, no brakes. It's for parents and societies, schools, communities, to provide the breaks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: (AUDIO BREAK) Holmes. It's one of our A.M. original series, "Walk in My Shoes."
But first, at the top of the hour, new developments in a bitter international custody battle. Right now, a New Jersey who spent the past five years fighting to get his son back is in Brazil. David Goldman arriving just after a court there ruled his 9-year-old son Sean should be returned to him. Earlier, John and I had a chance to speak to David just as his flight landed about what he hopes will happen next.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID GOLDMAN, GRANTED CUSTODY OF SON (via telephone): I do hope that we will finally be able to bring him home, to me, his only parent, his only father, and his family that has been waiting for him for over five years, agonizing for his return.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: All right. Well, let's bring in Jason Carroll right now. He's been following this story for us all morning.
And so, you heard from him. There are still a lot of ifs. I mean, even though this court perhaps ruled in his favor this time around, the family, the stepfather of the little boy, they've filed some 40 motions in court trying to keep this boy. JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Very well-connected legal family down there. And Goldman has been down this road before. You know, this has been a very long haul for David Goldman. He's flown down to Rio at least a dozen times when the Brazilian court has ruled in his favor. This time, he is hoping it will be the last time.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CARROLL (voice-over): The decision by a Brazilian appeals court was unanimous, but there was no celebrating. Not even a hint of a smile on the face of David Goldman.
GOLDMAN: I've been down this road for 5 1/2 years. Until I'm on the plane with Sean and the wheels are up, I can only be hopeful.
CARROLL: The ruling upheld a decision this summer that ordered for his 9-year-old son Sean to be returned home with him to New Jersey, but the homecoming could face one more road block. The family of Sean's now deceased mother is expected to file an appeal with Brazil's Supreme Court today. But Goldman supporters are cautiously optimistic the ruling will stand.
REP. CHRIS SMITH (R), NEW JERSEY: Remember, this is an abducting family. They're kidnappers. And yet they've -- but they come from a very high-powered legal family in Rio de Janeiro so they've had a great deal of sway with the court.
CARROLL: The custody battle has now spanned five years, starting back in 2004, when Sean's mother Bruna Bianchi took Sean to Brazil for what was supposed to be a two-week vacation. They never came back. She eventually remarried and then died last year during childbirth. Her family has taken up the fight to keep Sean in Rio, arguing it would be traumatizing to remove the boy from the home where he's been raised.
Here in the United States, Goldman's fight has been taken up by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And it's that international pressure that some say could make this ruling stick.
ROBERT ARENSTEIN, FAMILY LAW ATTORNEY: I think the justices are on their toes trying to do the right thing because everybody -- the world is watching this case. This case is being watched by the entire world.
CARROLL: A case that won't be over until this father watches his son board a plane home.
GOLDMAN: My emotions are in check. I'm focused on just doing what I can to comfort my son.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CARROLL: And he's hoping he's going to be able to comfort him very soon.
Secretary Clinton releasing a statement saying she appreciated the assistance and cooperation from Brazil and that she hopes the long legal process is finally over. Of course, Representative Smith from New Jersey, who you saw there in the piece, and has been working with the family, says an appeal would be filed today and the court could grant a stay once again delaying Sean's return.
No one really knows what will happen just yet, not even Goldman himself. Goldman is saying that we're just going to have and wait how things unfold later today.
CHETRY: And they could very well just not bring him to the embassy like they're supposed to mean. I mean, they have grown very attached to Sean.
CARROLL: Yes.
CHETRY: And have tried everything in their power to keep him.
CARROLL: And still want to keep him, which is why they filed yet another appeal, or at least that's what we're hearing. So, we're just going to have to wait and see how things unfold later today.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Jason Carroll for us this morning -- Jason, thanks.
We're also following breaking news this morning. American drones, perhaps the most effective weapon in hunting down al Qaeda, reportedly had been hack into the by insurgents. "The Wall Street Journal" says all it took was a $26 computer program. Senior defense officials tell the paper Shiite fighters in Iraq with the help of Iranian militants were able to capture video feeds by tapping into an unprotected communications link. Nowhere in all of this that they get control of the drones, but they were able to watch what the drone was watching.
And coming up at the bottom of the hour, we'll talk to one of the reporters who broke this story, "Wall Street Journal" intelligence correspondent Siobhan Gorman.
The U.S. troop surge is under way in Afghanistan. The first marines from a battalion of 1,500 from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, are now on the ground there, with the rest expected to arrive by Christmas. Thirty thousand reinforcements ordered by the president should be in placed by the summer.
In just a moment, a story that you'll see only on CNN. Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr with U.S. soldiers trying to teach the Afghan National Army the art of fighting a war. The CNN exclusive in less than 10 minutes.
CHETRY: Meantime, climate talks in Copenhagen seem to be stalled as the protests outside the summit heat up. Negotiations right now are deadlocked, hope fading fast for an agreement in reducing greenhouse gases.
But meantime, President Obama is heading there. He flies to Denmark tonight for the final hours of the 11-day summit. And, meanwhile, as we were talking about this, check out this, this is the hundreds of protestors gathered outside.
(VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Some of them very frustrated by any type of lack of progress going inside. Some of them also are being arrested for violent clashes with police.
Meantime, on CNN tonight, will the world leaders at Copenhagen be able to come together to reach some consensus or at least a framework for one on climate change. Will the U.S. take the lead? We're going to get some answers in the CNN YouTube Climate Change Debate, which happens tonight, 11:00 Eastern, after "AC360."
ROBERTS: New this morning, while the Senate is knee-deep in the health care debate, President Obama is warning the price we'll pay if reform does not pass. Here's what he told ABC News.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If we don't pass it, here is the guarantee, that the people who are watching tonight, your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more cost on you, potentially, they're going to drop your coverage because they just can't afford an increase of 25 percent, 30 percent in terms of the cost of providing health care to employees each and every year. And the federal government will go bankrupt, because Medicare and Medicaid are on a trajectory that are unsustainable.
So, anybody who says that they are concerned about the deficit, concerned about debt, concerned about loading up taxes on future generations, you have to be supportive of this health care bill because if we don't do this, nobody argues with the fact that health care costs are going to consume the entire federal budget.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: The president says that if health care reform passes, it will be the single most important domestic legislation that has passed since Social Security.
CHETRY: Well, if you're heading out the door right now, we want to give you a quick check, a picture of what's going on weather-wise around the country.
Our Reynolds Wolf joins us now from Atlanta.
Hey, Reynolds.
REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: OK, guys. Hey, let's give you snapshot of what's happening out there. In parts of the northeast, we got have a chance of seeing some scattered showers, maybe some snow showers back in western New York. But for places like the Big Apple, mix of sunshine and clouds, high is going up mainly into the 30s. As you head down to the gulf coast, that's where a lot of action could take place and heavy rainfall as we go to the map. You're going to see it there, afternoon showers and storms are going to be possibility. And then back out to the west, breezy in the mountains, and then a mix of rain and snow for the Pacific Northwest.
We'll have the full scope for you coming up in a few moments right here.
ROBERTS: Looking forward to it, Reynolds. Thanks very much.
WOLF: Thanks, guys.
ROBERTS: If American forces are to come home from the Afghanistan, the Afghan army has to be able to step in and provide security. Our Barbara Starr is in Afghanistan with U.S. trainers as they try to whip the Afghan army into shape. It's A.M. original reporting you'll see only here on CNN.
Stay with us. Eight and a half minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: It's 10 minutes after the hour, and that means it's time for an A.M. original.
But first, new this morning, a victory in the war on drugs. The Mexican navy says the leader of a top drug cartel was killed in a shootout in an apartment complex in Mexico City. The Justice Department considered the cartel chief one of the most powerful drug traffickers in Mexico.
CHETRY: And Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chris Henry is said to be in critical condition this morning. Police say he has life- threatening injuries. They say he was badly hurt after falling from the back of a pickup truck. Police say that it happened yesterday during a domestic dispute with his fiance that she tried to drive off and he jumped into the back of the truck and that some point he fell out of that truck.
ROBERTS: The Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood is out of intensive care. Major Nidal Hasan was shot during November's rampage and left paralyzed from the waist down. His attorney says he will still be in the hospital for at least another two months.
CHETRY: Well, if the president wants to start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in the next 18 months, the Afghan National Army has to be the ones ready to take over the war.
ROBERTS: But getting them trained in such a short period of time will be costly and challenging.
A CNN exclusive now -- our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, with unprecedented access to U.S. forces teaching the art of war.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Afghan army commandoes training to fight al Qaeda and the Taliban.
The Obama administration is placing its bets on troops like these. If they can take over the country's security, U.S. troops can some day go home.
Lieutenant General William Caldwell heads the $10 billion a year U.S. and NATO effort to train the Afghan army and police. The U.S. just raised their pay to at least $165 a month, in hopes the recruits won't be forced to turn to higher-paying criminal or insurgent activity.
LT. GEN. WILLIAM CALDWELL, INTERNATIONAL SECURITY ASSISTANCE FORCE: That leads to perhaps taking grab at least to them perhaps, working for other subversive elements that they can work, you know -- be hired on as day labor for the Taliban or something like that.
STARR: The new higher pay is part of an effort to recruit more than 30,000 additional Afghan soldiers within a year. But the problem? Developing a core of sergeants and junior officers that can motivate the men to fight.
A rarely U.S. Special Forces sniper team is in the background helping train the Afghan soldiers.
This Afghan officer says his men need the U.S. help.
LT. COL. KOSISTANI, AFGHAN NATIONAL ARMY: We need a new tactic, new weapons. Beside the new weapons, we need the training to get expert how we use our weapons.
CALDWELL: We also got to do a little more work in the basic training element. The soldiers coming through right now have been moved through very rapidly. We need to be a little more rigid in our standards for what we are going to graduate and send out to the units.
STARR: Caldwell's other major worry -- the Afghan police force which is plagued with corruption and poor training.
CALDWELL: What they have done in the past is they've recruited and then employed them with no training. And then now, we are going back to starting to train the police force.
STARR: Caldwell makes clear he believes there is a long road ahead and one more bump, watching to make sure the Taliban and other insurgents don't infiltrate the Afghan security forces.
CALDWELL: They're going to make every effort to that. And there's probably some that have been to training. I don't think anybody is going to be naive enough to think that that has not occurred.
STARR (on camera): But Afghan forces have paid an enormous price for their country. General Caldwell says four times as many Afghan troops have been killed as coalition forces.
Barbara Starr, CNN, Kabul.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY: So, here's a look now at some of the challenges in Afghanistan; certainly, a lot of challenges in Iraq as well. And there is a new report out today from "The Wall Street Journal" that talks about insurgents in Iraq, some of them with funding from Iran, being able to hack U.S. drones, and are able to do this with technology that costs less than 30 bucks. We're going to be talking with "The Wall Street Journal" reporter who broke this story, in just a moment.
It's 15 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONAN O' BRIEN, THE TONIGHT SHOW HOST: According to a new survey the worst cars names of all-time, the worst cars names of all-time, include the Ford Aspire, the Subaru Bratt, and the Ford Probe, and of course at the top of the list, the Chevy Hitler. Remember that? It's not a good car.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Subaru Brat was awesome, right? Pick-up truck and a car --
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Do you remember the Ford Focus? When I went to France, the Ford Focus, give yourself a French accent, say Ford Focus.
ROBERTS: Oh come on. Such sweet girl from Iowa, you are talking like that this morning? Go stand in the corner.
ROMANS: I didn't say it.
ROBERTS: No, you didn't need to say it, did you?
ROMANS: I should be a comedienne.
CHETRY: You should be. All right. It's 18 minutes past the hour. It means we are "Minding Your Business". But first, Christine, new this morning, it's like McDonald's changing the Big Mac. Is it really? I don't think so. Domino's is introducing a new pizza to the public. McDonald's is keeping the Big Mac the same, thank god.
But there's a new garlic seasoned crust, it's a sweeter boulder sauce, and also a blended cheese, mozzarella with a hint of provolone. There you have it, it's the new recipe. It's popping up in most stores, and they say by the end of the month, it'll be in all of them. So, let's hope for their sake, that the new Domino's does not end up on a website with, let's say, new Coke, people did not like new Coke at all and people were even more upset with Crystal Pepsi.
ROBERTS: But it's just a new pizza right? It's not necessarily they are changing everything.
CHETRY: Right, plus there are so many different pizzas you can choose from.
ROBERTS: When I was in London last week, I had a barbecue pizza.
CHETRY: Oh, yummy. California Pizza Kitchen's barbecue pizza is great.
ROMANS: I am a New York thin crust pepperoni pizza girl all the way.
ROBERTS: The one I had was not very good. Not at all. Christine Romans here, "Minding Your Business" this morning talking about jobs.
ROMANS: I am. I am here talking about jobs. I am talking about the White House talking about the stimulus and getting into phase 2 of the stimulus and the house passing a big new jobs plan.
So, what is happening here with jobs and your money being spent to try to rescue and create them. First, stimulus phase one as you know started last February. That was food stamps, Medicaid, filling budget gaps to save jobs like police officers, teachers. That has been the primary focus of the first phase of the stimulus to get the money out there as quickly as possible.
Now the White House says we are right here into stimulus phase two, job creation. More infrastructure spending, more construction spending, more research. Remember the stimulus was always expected to be time-released. It was always these staggered projects along the way to try to get the most bang for the buck and to try to catch any kind of recovery that is happening to push the money on their behalf.
The House yesterday approved $154 billion in a jobs package, that actually kind of mirrors this stimulus phase one, to rescue a chunk of this for extension of unemployment benefits, subsidies, and the like. And then phase two which is job creation. I think about $75 billion dollars in job creation there.
So you are still seeing an awful lot of money moving out the door, your money and my money, moving out the door to try to fix this job problem. A, to rescue people who have lost their jobs, to help them, to mitigate the, you know, circumstances of the damage. B, to try to get jobs created. So, we are still deep in the process of all of this.
CHETRY: All right. Do you have a Romans numeral for us?
ROMANS: I do. And it has to do with how we are going to pay for all of this and then how expensive this whole thing is, I mean, a lot of money going out of the door. My Romans numeral is five. As in five times in two years. CHETRY: This is how many times we have had a, quote, stimulus?
ROMANS: Actually, one, two, I mean I would count maybe three or two years. But yes, no, five times in two years we have had to raise the debt ceiling to pay for all of this. The house yesterday voted to raise the debt ceiling, meaning that we could borrow more money, to pay for things that we do not have the money for. Interestingly enough, we have actually topped the debt ceiling, even though the Senate has not voted to raise it yet, we have a national debt now of $12.13 trillion.
Legally, we are supposed to have $12.104 trillion. I think that life just goes on, the treasury is still going to pay its bills, still going to borrow, be able to borrow money, but it just shows you how much money we are spending. We actually topped above it.
ROBERTS: And you know, it was my good friend Mark Noler, from CBS radio who toils away into this little four by eight cubicle in the White House there. He is a death hawk. He is a death hawk. And he brought that to our attention this morning, busting through the debt ceiling.
CHETRY: Yes, and you ask yourself, what is the point of having a ceiling if you can just go over it?
ROMANS: My question is does the treasury get a $49 dollar over the limit charge.
ROBERTS: There are some ceilings that are meant to be broken, but this is not one of them.
ROMANS: And, when they raised the debt ceiling, in another six straight weeks, they will have to raise it again.
ROBERTS: All right, Christine, thanks so much.
CHETRY: Still ahead, Iraqi insurgents are able to hack U.S. drones. This is enormous technology that the U.S. has key in fighting the war in terror both in Afghanistan as well as Iraq. But for under $26 they are able to outsmart the drone. We are going to find out more about this with the Wall Street Journal reporter who broke this story, still ahead. 22 minutes past the hour
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: 25 minutes after the hour now, and that means it's time for an A.M. original, something that you will see only here on American Morning. And the topic this morning is Are Teens Wired to Fight? Across the country teen violence is ripping apart families in entire communities. New research says some of the aggressive behavior may in fact be biological.
CHETRY: So, we are going inside the teen brain this morning. Our T.J. Holmes joins us now with day four of our A.M. original series "Walk In My Shoes." And T.J., you told us just how dangerous it is and we saw firsthand when you went for a walk yesterday, this girl trying get home. And thinking that her safety was at risk, everyday that she did it. A lot of it stems from teen violence. What is going on?
HOLMES: A lot of it is. It seems that kids are going through -- we are trying to understand why they act out the way that they do. And yes, it's a big problem, it's a complex problem to try to understand. But on some level you can explain it this way and this simple. They're teenagers.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES (on camera): You all have witnessed some kind of violence, shooting?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It happened every day and it be mostly over petty stuff.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Petty stuff.
HOLMES (voice-over): Mix the constant presence of violence these kids on Chicago's West Side face, with a developing teen brain and researchers say you have a recipe for danger.
DR. JAY GIEDD, NEUROSCIENTIST, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: And the frontal lobe, right here, is very late to mature, not until about, age twenty-five.
HOLMES: And so teens are prone to act more impulsively according to Dr. Jay Giedd a neuroscientist at the National Institutes of Health.
GIEDD: Whenever there is high emotion, then this part of the brain is really taxed, it really has to work extra hard to sort it all out.
HOLMES: That's true, even for teens living in the best of circumstances. But add a constant barrage of violence to a kid's life and that risky behavior can become magnified.
GENE GRIFFIN, PSYCHOLOGIST, NORTHWESTERN MEDICAL SCHOOL: They misinterpret signs of danger, they over react to it all the time. And they have trouble calming themselves down and seeing the world the way other people see it.
HOLMES: Dr. Giedd says the brain could actually get used to the violence, taking even more violence to shock it.
GIEDD: If the world of the teen is violent, and that people need to be aggressive in order to survive in that environment, the biology will make the brain change and adapt to whatever demands there are.
HOLMES: The teens we have spoke with say they've seen so much violence that they've actually grown used to it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In front of the store from my house there was a boy with his brains blew out, and so really seeing dead people and stuff, it don't even scare me no more.
DR. CARL BELL, PSYCHIATRIST: How is it that we forgotten that we need to raise children?
HOLMES: Experts say as much as the teen brain can be transformed by excessive exposure to violence or danger, it has the ability to change, also responding to a nurturing environment.
BELL: You have children who are all gasoline, no brakes, it's for parents, and society and schools and communities to provide the brakes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I need a volunteer group to go first.
HOLMES: One such program is Umoja. It partners with Chicago's Manley High School, helping teens to cope by surrounding them with support, teaching them leadership schools and encouraging students to see a future for themselves.
LILA LEFF, FOUNDER, UMOJA: There is not a magic thing we say to kids that will make them stop killing each other. That's not how it works. We connect and we have relationships or none of this ever changes.
HOLMES: When the program started 12 years ago, only 10 percent of the students went on to college. Today that number has grown to 60 percent.
They take me beyond the school, beyond what you ever thought. They took me out of town. And I never though I'd --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They show you more in life than just being around the hood. You can just go out and experience more things.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: So, guys, as you hear there and it seems on some level so simple, a kids' brain is still developing. Doctors say you really don't develop those parts of the brain that allow you that control to slow down that brake, until you are in your early twenties, actually.
So, this is a very sensitive time for these kids where they are put in a environment where there is just a barrage of violence, and they become overly sensitive to it and they react sometimes to it. Some kids are better able to handle it better than others, sure thing, no doubt about it, but some of the kids and the environments that they are in, it's almost as simple as that, you do have to surround these kids with something to give them a brake, because they don't have it on their own and won't have it for sometime.
ROBERTS: People to help them cope with those tough time too. T. J. Holmes, this morning. T.J. that's a great series. Thanks so much for bringing it to us. It really helped us to understand what is going on.
HOLMES: Thank you so much, guys. It has been a pleasure.
ROBERTS: We're crossing the half-hour now and checking our top stories.
New hope for a New Jersey father who has been fighting a long and bitter international custody battle. Right now David Goldman is in Brazil. He left New York yesterday after a court ruled his nine-year- old son should be returned to him.
We spoke to Goldman last hour and he told us he had been waiting five years for this. The boy's Brazilian stepfather is expected to appeal the decision.
CHETRY: French investigators releasing a second report today into the June crash of an Air France plane. It was on route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. Flight 447, it went down in stormy weather during a flight, and 228 people onboard the plane were killed and the cause of the crash still being listed as "undetermined."
Victims' families are demanding answers.
ROBERTS: Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi released from the hospital today. The 73 year old leader was experiencing persistent pain and also had some difficulty eating after getting attacked on Sunday. Police say that a mentally ill man whacked him in the face with a statuette. It broke his nose, cut his cheek and smashed out a couple of teeth.
The man is still in jail. He has apologized for attacking the prime minister.
CHETRY: Breaking news right now. A report out this morning saying militants were able to hack one of the most effective weapons in finding and killing Al Qaeda members as well as other insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
They were able to see what U.S. drones can see on the ground. Joining us now from Washington is the reporter who broke this story, "Wall Street Journal Intelligence correspondent Siobhan Gorman. Thanks for being with us this morning.
SIOBHAN GORMAN, INTELLIGENCE CORRESPONDENT, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": Great to be with you.
CHETRY: First of all, tell us what the software is. Apparently it's only $26. You can find it online. How are they using it?
GORMAN: Well, the software -- some of the software being used is called sky grabber. And what it does is take advantage of a lack of encryption or protection on the communications links between the drone and ground control. And basically what they can do is intercept the feed and watch what the folks at ground control are watching.
CHETRY: OK, and so in this instance it's not as troubling as it would be if they could control the drone or somehow cause the drone not to be able to fire, that's not the problem. But the problem is that they are getting that same real time intelligence of where the drone is and what areas it's targeting.
How does that play out in terms of trying to outsmart the U.S.?
GORMAN: Well, if you are a bad guy and you are trying to evade either capture or attack, or just being watched and tracked, it's a lot easier to do that when you know exactly when and how you are being watched. So that's the real concern.
One thing, though, that the U.S. military did find, we were told, was that in a lab setting, a sophisticated hacker actually could find a way to use that lack of a protected communication link to hop through the various computer systems and eventually get into the control systems.
They said there was no evidence that they saw that anybody was actually able to do that. But the smart military hackers at the Pentagon were able to do that in a lab setting.
CHETRY: Wait, you are saying this happened in a lab setting. But wasn't this discovered, though, by U.S. military personnel in Iraq when they actually got a hold of the jihadists computers and they found it?
GORMAN: Yes.
CHETRY: So they're saying it's happening in a lab setting, but it's also happening on the ground, it's happening in real life?
GORMAN: Yes, very much so. I am sorry. I did not mean to confuse things. I was just saying in a lab setting they did find subsequently that if you wanted to get into the control networks that that was indeed possible. But what they found on the ground were these laptops that evidence that the insurgents had downloaded these predator feeds, yes.
CHETRY: I got you.
Now, it's all the more troubling given that the Obama administration is relying quite heavily on these unmanned drones. They want to target insurgents without having to send American troops into place where things are either too dangerous in the case of Pakistan too politically charged, for example.
So will this vulnerability in the ability to hack the software and be able to see these live feeds change that tactic that we have been using?
GORMAN: Well, it does affect your advantage over the adversary. But what the military is in the process of doing is putting protections on those communication links so they cannot be broken into anymore.
CHETRY: So right now they don't have encryption, as you said. Are they able to easily change that to encrypt some of the down links?
GORMAN: Well, there's some debate about it, but my understanding is that it's a little bit harder than just simply putting a box on a drone, because part of the problem is the predator networks are 1990s era and so you have you to upgrade some of the computer networks as well.
CHETRY: And it appears that, yet again, according to your reporting, that Iran is involved. The militants groups trained and funded by Iran, what ability do we have to counter that?
GORMAN: To counter?
CHETRY: The counter that some of the Iraqi insurgents are getting that help and perhaps in some cases the funding from Iran, who we're not at war with?
GORMAN: Right, but the U.S. military has been concerned for some time now that Iran is in fact training and equipping some of the militants that are fighting in Iraq, and this is a further example of perhaps additional evidence that there could be involvement from Iran in kind of a proxy war in Iraq.
CHETRY: Well, it's certainly a fascinating article. I encourage everyone to read it. We will link it up as well to our Web site. Siobhan, great reporting, by the way, and thanks for joining us to talk more about it. Siobhan Gorman with "The Wall Street Journal."
ROBERTS: It's 35.k minutes after the hour. Ali Velshi is on the road again with the CNN Express. He's been traveling through the south finding ways that people are saving money and trying to prosper in this difficult economy.
Well, today he introduces us to some folks that are turning coupon clipping into a moneymaking business. Wait until you see what they're doing. Ali is joining us, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: There Ali Velshi is, the king of the road with the help of his throne, which is the CNN Express bus.
ROBERTS: Quite a throne. It's more like a chariot, isn't it?
CHETRY: I guess you could say that. But he is on the road yet again, taking the CNN Express bus out there down south this weekend and having conversations with real Americans in terms of what they think is going on in terms of pocket book issues.
ROBERTS: This morning he's talking to a woman who turned coupon cutting into a big moneymaking business. Ali joins us now from Savannah, Georgia. Good morning, Ali.
ALI VELSHI, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John, good morning, Kiran. Yes, Savannah is truly a beautiful place, although the story I'm bringing to you today can be from anywhere in the U.S. In fact, we picked it up yesterday in South Carolina, a woman who just came up to us and told us about something she is doing.
It's not a big moneymaking business, but it's helping her save money and others around her save money, too. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A year ago I was laid off from my job as a marketing director, and because of the economy, and because of needing financial help, we decided to start couponing, me and my friends.
And what has come out of that is we developed a Web site called smartcoupondeals.com where we sent out e-mail shopping lists to people showing people where they can save about 60 to 90 percent on groceries. We match the coupons are that are currently out there with the sales in the local stars.
We e-mail on the day that every single sale starts a list to all the people. We actually do all the hard work for everybody. We do the leg work for them, because couponing is really not an easy thing to do.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What I will do is take the sales flyers.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My father has recently retired, and he has just taken to couponing like a duck in water.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is my stash, as we say here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He had to build on a pantry into his house because he is saving so much and he's buying so many things.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can walk in and spend $150 with my discounts and coupons, and I walk out with $35, $40.
VELSHI: Has this generated some income for you?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very little right now. We're just in our beginning stages. What we've done is we've started with Facebook marketing. Just in the month of October alone we went from having 100 fans on Facebook to 2,067 fans.
A lot of people feel that we are not that bad off that we have to go use coupons. The point is it doesn't matter how bad off you are. You can really take that savings and put it towards something else in your household.
VELSHI: So it's logical regardless of what your financial station is to try and save on the basics.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I believe it is. And one of the things that we do, too, is we also promote charity, too. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of the nice things that I found recently was glucose meters. You can go into some places and pay $20, and they will give you $20 back in extra bucks.
I will donate this to the Mercy Ministries, one of the doctors' offices, so they can start their patients off with a glucose meter. It just surprises me that there are not so many people are out actually doing this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Listen to this. They are saving money. They are making a little business out of this thing, and they're actually taking the things that they get for deep discounts, in some cases free, and he is donating that to missions and people who are in need.
I think in terms of creativity, this one has topped the list so far this week -- John, Kiran.
ROBERTS: That is pretty good. So what your next stop, Ali?
VELSHI: We're in Savannah for the day. We're going to dig up some stories around here. There are some great business stories, small business stories, big tourists destinations, and a sense of Christmas feel around here. We want to talk to people about how they are enjoying the holidays compared to last year.
ROBERTS: I hear there is a little company there that makes small airplanes. Maybe check them out.
VELSHI: We will look that up.
ROBERTS: It's called Gulf Stream.
VELSHI: Yes, I heard about it.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: All right, Ali, thank you very much, and we'll see it again.
CHETRY: Ali, take it easy, thanks so much.
Well, still ahead, we are checking in with Reynolds Wolf. We have rains and potential flash flooding in the south. We will get a check of our forecast when we come back. It's 43 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Take a shot around right now please, please.
ROBERTS: Quick, quick, quick.
Hey, good morning, Miami where it's mostly cloudy and 78 degrees right now. And later on today scattered thunderstorm, 78 will remain the high.
CHETRY: And look at the picture of the little rainbow. Isn't that beautiful?
ROBERTS: Yes, it is. It's a beautiful picture. But not anywhere near as entertaining as the one we just about got with Reynolds Wolf.
CHETRY: Right, I thought you use that thing to change your maps but Reynolds was using his little clicker there swinging it around.
REYNOLDS WOLF, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, I was doing -- I know...
CHETRY: Is that what you do at the clubs?
WOLF: Something like that. A little too much coffee and sugar this morning; no question about it.
ROBERTS: Wait until he takes off the tie and starts doing that?
WOLF: Guys you have no idea. They need a harness to control guys like me. Here's what we got. We got a crazy day today especially in parts of the Gulf Coast. We have rains, some heavy rain from part of the McAllen, Texas and some places over record rainfall of about three or four inches or so. We can see that rain actually focus a little bit more to the east states. It's going to jog this little area of low pressure on the Gulf and this is going to drive its way just on the Gulf Coast.
New Orleans could get some heavy rains; same story for parts of say Alabama and into Mississippi, Louisiana as we mentioned. And even a part of panhandle before all is said and done. And then in the afternoon we have a little bit of daytime heating. We could rule in a few thunderstorms also in the mix.
But rain is going to be the biggest issue, flash warning and then a possibility on the Gulf Coast.
Now from the northeast, a pretty nice day for you in midtown Manhattan; same story for much of the Finger Lakes but it's going to be upstate New York where you might have a few scattered snow showers. Same thing with Vermont and New Hampshire and also Maine, possibly could see some thunder showers out in Arcadia.
Meanwhile, back across the nation, the midsection, freezing conditions for you, a mix of sunshine and clouds in places like say Oklahoma City. It's chains of scattered snow showers and it's heading the northwest. Look for delays at all your major airports later this afternoon in New York all due to the wind.
Let's send it back to you guys.
CHETRY: All right, a little bit of wind and that fog should blow off in San Francisco. I know you were worried about that a little earlier?
WOLF: Absolutely, it shouldn't be an issue about late afternoon.
CHETRY: All right, keep dancing, Reynolds.
WOLF: You got it guys.
ROBERTS: Yes, we wouldn't want four Christmases to happen for real right?
CHETRY: No, no but we do want to actually start taping what goes on in a Reynolds shot before we actually put him on the TV box.
ROBERTS: Yes.
CHETRY: We'll know for next time.
Still ahead, we're talking to Sanjay Gupta yet again about another big issue related to teens and health. There are some studies out talking about teens and drugs and marijuana use up, and drug use among other drugs down. He's going to break it down for us in a moment.
Forty-eight minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to The Most News in the Morning. Fifty minutes past the hour right now.
There are some disturbing signs this morning in a new report about kids and drug use and what the next generation of users may turn to, to get high.
ROBERTS: Fewer teens are using cocaine, crystal meth and drugs like that, but more are smoking pot and abusing prescription drugs. Were paging Dr. Sanjay Gupta; he's here in New York this morning to talk more about this. Good morning.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. There's a survey first of all and I point that out because surveys are always interesting studies to interpret. You are asking people about their drug use. And you've got to take that into consideration whenever considering studies like this.
But having said that, they do these surveys from time to time and compare them overtime and there's some good news and bad news here as you sort of alluded to already. Marijuana use, as you've mentioned, that's up. Really, and for the first time in more than a decade, that was sort of a big headline out of this.
Binge drinking is slightly down but still remains the most commonly abused drug overall. About this stat was interesting about 11 percent of high school seniors say they have had ten or more drinks in a row within the past two weeks.
ROBERTS: Wow.
GUPTA: So I mean, this is heavy, heavy binge drinking.
Prescription drugs also a big headline here. That's really come front and center out of the survey overall. Take a look at the stats specifically with regard to what prescription drugs we're talking about.
Vicodin seems to be the pain reliever of choice; about one in ten said they've abused it recreationally this past year.
CHETRY: That's a narcotic, right?
GUPTA: Yes. Oxycontin also a narcotic, we talk about that quite a bit, one in 20. But take a look at some of the other drugs, Asher Oxycontin, Adderall and cough medicine.
And when I dug deeper in the survey it's says people will take cough medicine 25 times a dose that they're supposed to. So usually you take one teaspoon -- 25 teaspoons, imagine that to try and get that high.
CHETRY: A couple of interesting things and number one is that prescription drug narcotics, I mean, they are more readily available. Since the 90s we've seen sort of an explosion in these prescriptions being handed out. So if you can get them in your parent's medicine cabinet, you don't have to go on the streets and get street drugs.
GUPTA: And if you look at a lot of the ad campaigns to try and deter this, they do talk about the street, they talked about the Internet. It's right at home. It's friends and relatives, about 66 percent of the time according to these surveys as well. You're absolutely right.
ROBERTS: So do you ever valet park your car?
GUPTA: Sure, yes.
ROBERTS: When you go some place?
GUPTA: Yes.
ROBERTS: And then you toss them the keys?
GUPTA: Uh-huh.
ROBERTS: Wait until you see what they do with your car -- not yours, specifically.
GUPTA: Oh yes.
ROBERTS: I mean, in some place.
GUPTA: Yes, I thought we were still on the drug thing.
ROBERTS: Jeanne Moos has got that coming up.
Well, some of these guys apparently were using drugs when they were parking cars.
GUPTA: All right.
ROBERTS: Wait until you see what Jeanne has uncovered.
It's 53 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Fifty-six minutes after the hour and you know what that means. It means it's time for The Moost News in the Morning. When you go out to dinner, you hand your car keys over to a valet attendant, right?
CHETRY: That's right. And you're hoping -- you're keeping your fingers crossed that there's no scratches or dents but that maybe the least of your worries when you get your car back. Do you really know what a complete stranger is actually doing with your car while you are eating?
Take a look. This might make you cringe.
Here is Jeanne Moos.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: When you park, this is how you want the attendant to drive your car. But this is how it was done at a St. Louis garage, at a Hyatt Hotel, no less. It was like valet choreography, valet cinematography.
Under the name "Valet Underground", it was posted on YouTube, got rubber, and then later removed. But it's hard to remove this from your mind. It's enough to give you the dreaded valet phobia, like in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". The attendant took the car, then took it for a joy ride. Pretty soon it was airborne.
Now, we saw no airborne cars at the Hyatt garage, and the valet parking company in charge there at the time has since been replaced though apparently not on account of this.
It turns out there are similar valet stunts on YouTube. This one entitled "Don't Tip a Dollar at Yankee Stadium".
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unbelievable.
MOOS: Actually, Tom Cortese (ph) believes it. Back in his college days he used to valet park in Washington, D.C.
TOM CORTESE, FORMER VALET ATTENDANT: Except the guys I worked with were either drunk or high.
MOOS: And those guys sometimes took the cars for joy rides out on the highway.
CORTESE: One of our guys actually hit a person, smacked right into a pedestrian.
MOOS: Tom's advice?
CORTESE: Ever since I valet parked, I tell all my friends and family, just don't do it.
MOOS: but if you do, check the mileage before and after, and tip.
Can $5 insure that there was no joy ride?
CORTESE: That's right.
MOOS: That's $5 per attendant on duty.
CORTESE: Extortion.
MOOS: Or maybe distortion. Tom remembers one valet...
CORTESE: Who had eaten mushroom -- psychedelic mushroom before driving a car. And that I can't even begin to imagine what the hell that's like.
MOOS: We can only imagine that mushrooms and doughnuts don't mix.
Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY: That last one was Sanjay's car.
(CROSSTALK)
GUPTA: That was a Ford Granada, which is why...
ROBERTS: You got rid of the Ford Focus?
GUPTA: That's right. Exactly.
You get the older cars because of stuff like that.
CHETRY: I just said the same thing. When we go out to dinner, we're bringing the '98 Buick. No worries there.
ROBERTS: It's like you bring the bidder (ph) car, right?
GUPTA: Do you check the mileage before you hand it off?
CHETRY: No. I don't even bother.
GUPTA: I always say I'm going to, and then I always forget to do it.
ROBERTS: You see here's the beauty of living in -- at being in New York City is you don't need a car. GUPTA: That's right.
ROBERTS: If I was to valet anything, it would be a subway.
CHETRY: Although if you dropped off your bike, you'd be even more nervous, the Harley.
ROBERTS: It doesn't live in New York.
GUPTA: You ever valet a motorcycle? No?
CHETRY: He brings it in the restaurant with him.
ROBERTS: I was in Atlanta, I pulled up to the restaurant and the guy said do you want me to valet that for you? No thanks, but where could I park it, please.
Doctor, it's always good to see you. Thanks for ...
(CROSSTALK)
GUPTA: Thanks guys. Thanks for having me.
ROBERTS: Continue the conversation on today's stories, go to our blog at www.cnn.com/amfix.
CHETRY: Yes and thanks for being with us this morning. We'll see you back here tomorrow.
Meanwhile, the news continues. Here is "CNN NEWSROOM" with Heidi Collins. Good morning Heidi.
