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Terror in Hindsight; Worker Satisfaction at Record Low; Humane... and Armed; The History Behind and Importance of the U.S. Census; Afghanistan Base Bombing Carried Out by Double Agent

Aired January 05, 2010 - 14:00   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: And it's 2:00 p.m. Eastern now. Pushing forward in the CNN NEWSROOM.

We're waiting to hear what comes out of a high-level meeting in the White House Situation Room. It starts later this hour. The topic? The near bombing over Detroit and why the suspect got as far as he did.

The president is hearing from his top staff. We're waiting to hear from him.

Maybe by then the Bakersfield, California, airport will open again. It's been shut down and evacuated after TSA workers opened a bag and got sick. The bag's owner is being detained. Don't know yet what was in the bag.

And the bodies of seven CIA officers killed last week in Afghanistan have been returned to the U.S. The suicide bomber who killed them was a trusted double Agent. Now a top U.S. military intelligence officer says his own people are ignorant and disengaged when it comes to Afghanistan.

Secretary of State, secretary of Defense, secretary of Homeland Security, direction of National Intelligence, and the list goes on. The people in charge of protecting you and me are due in the White House Situation Room 30 minutes from now for a meeting with President Obama. They and other higher-ups will brief the president on the probe into the Christmas Day airline terror scare and the government's attempts to close the security gaps it exposed.

The meeting is private, but afterward the president is expected to make public remarks 4:00 p.m. Eastern, CNN. We'll bring it to you live.

I mentioned those gaps. They range from al Qaeda intercepts that went nowhere to a father's own warning that his son may be a terrorist.

Our John Roberts takes an eye-opening look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: The picture of the failed Christmas Day terror attack all too clear now, but we've broken it up piece by piece here to look at what clues were missed all the way along the line.

We start last August with electronic surveillance. The National Security Agency intercepts communications from al Qaeda leaders in Yemen. They talk about using a Nigerian to launch a terror attack. U.S. intelligence picks up a partial name, Umar Farouk.

Also around August, more intercepts, direct communications between Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Awlaki a key link here, he also communicated with alleged Fort Hood shooter, Major Nidal Hasan and two of the September 11th hijackers.

Late November, the key piece of human intelligence, Abdulmutallab's father, a former bank executive, goes to the U.S. Embassy after getting a phone call from his son, the son reportedly warning his father that it will be his last communication. The father tells the CIA he's worried that his son is under the influence of religious extremists based in Yemen. Two reports are written up, one a so-called Visa Viper from the State Department, the other a bio of Abdulmutallab by the CIA.

And finally, a final chance on the front lines. Before Abdulmutallab's plane can head to the United States, the Department of Homeland Security receives an electronic summary of his reservation. The file would likely include two key details that might have sent up some red flags -- that he paid in cash and didn't check any bags

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: So, now we've got pat-downs, in-flight restrictions, and a rush to buy and install body scan machines. Will it ever be possible to make air travel completely safe?

I'm joined by Tom Sanderson, a counterterrorism analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Also, Mary Schiavo joins us by phone. She's a former inspector general at the Transportation Department, now a private lawyer who deals with airline issues.

Tom, let's start with you.

A lot of criticism over these new regulations. As a matter of fact, yesterday I talked to an insider that used to be with counterterrorism, and said all these new rules are basically half- assed.

What's your take?

TOM SANDERSON, COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: Well, I think the new rules are important. However, there is a tremendous tension between creating a perfectly secure traveling system and the necessity to enable commerce, travel for tourism, people going home to visit family members. You can't have perfect security and the kind of commercially-based society that we have. We need freedom of movement.

PHILLIPS: So, Mary, how do we protect ourselves? Because it seems every time something happened, or something is thwarted, we react, but don't we have to work more on preventive measures?

MARY SCHIAVO, FMR. INSPECTOR GENERAL, TRANSPORTATION DEPT.: Yes, we do. But the important thing to note is that we have to do and we have to follow the measures and we've already put in place.

For example, this fellow did get secondary screening, but they didn't catch anything when they did the pat-downs and when they looked at his bags. Was that a known problem? Yes, it was.

The inspector general released a report over the summer saying the TSA doesn't do body searches very well, they miss a lot of things. Can you do it better? Yes.

When I was inspector general, for example, we had some airports that caught items and caught people trying to sneak through checkpoints 100 percent of the time, so they did get perfect scores. We had airports that got around 20 percent. So it really does boil down to knowing what to do, which is hopefully what the president is going to take care of today, and then doing it every time, every passenger, because the terrorists watch and they scope out the airports to find the weaknesses, to find out who is sloughing off.

PHILLIPS: And you bring up a good point about finding weaknesses, finding who is sloughing off and where.

I mean, Tom, it is possible to stay one step ahead of these terrorists?

SANDERSON: It's extremely difficult because there are so many elements to their operations, there are so many different tactics and types of organizations around the world that are looking for weaknesses in our system. And for us to predict every move that they are going to do is extremely difficult, and they have a lot of ways that they can probe our defenses.

So, I think it is tremendously difficult to stay ahead. And again, reconciling that need for security and the need to get people moving through these airports, millions of people, is very difficult to reach.

PHILLIPS: All right. We're not finished yet. More with Tom and Mary and the state of airline security right after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: All right. I've been talking with counterterrorism analyst Tom Sanderson about ways of making air travel as safe as it can possibly be. Weighing in also by phone, former Transportation Department inspector general Mary Schiavo.

So, Tom, should we even be publicizing these new regulations?

SANDERSON: Well, certainly the American people and, in fact, the international traveling public need to know what it is they can and cannot do when they come to an airport. Take the liquids prohibition of a couple of years ago. That's still in place. People need to know what they should not do.

Now, to believe that we're informing extremist groups and terrorists of different tactics and countermeasures that we're putting in place, I don't think we're really doing that. These are groups and individuals who know what's going on.

They have people who travel, who report to them. They're excellent at gathering intelligence. They know what they're going to face at the airports, so they're developing their own countermeasures for that. But I don't think we're letting the cat out of the bag by informing the general public as to what the new procedures are.

We also put a lot of randomness in these screenings. So, when you get to Schiphol airport, you don't get the same thing that when you get to Dulles airport, for example. So there is a randomness and a different tactic used at all different airport. So, that is built in and that's a good measure.

PHILLIPS: And Mary, bottom line, it was a very vigilant passenger that recognized that something was wrong with this guy sitting next to him, and he jumped him and took him down, and passengers prevented an explosion because they paid attention. So much of our security depends on how we are looking at things from this point on, correct?

SCHIAVO: That's right. The vigilance is the most important thing, and already we see -- I mean, who would have thought that after September 11, 2009, we would lose our vigilance? But apparently we have, and that's our biggest problem.

We get complacent. And, for example, the TSA already announced that these measures would be put in place temporarily. We put these measures in place for a few weeks or a few months, and yet terrorists and extremist groups do things over years of time. It took four to five years of planning to carry off September 11th.

PHILLIPS: You know, you mentioned September 11th. Maybe I should get you both to weigh in on this.

Mary, isn't there anything to say for the fact that we haven't had another September 11th? We've had a lot of thwarted attacks.

SCHIAVO: Yes, absolutely. And I've said, particularly within the United States.

People are very critical of the TSA, and so am I, because you have to criticize them when they don't catch a terrorist. But you cannot possibly overstate how bad security was in the United States on September 11, 2001, and it has improved in the United States because of machinery, because of better-trained personnel, and because we have professional law enforcement officers at the TSA doing security.

So, we did learn that lesson on September 11th. It's just impossible to express how bad it was.

We didn't even know who our screeners were, much less that they were doing the job. And so I think that the world has perceived, at least the United States, we're attempting to tighten it up, and that has had a deterrent effect.

PHILLIPS: Mary Schiavo, Tom Sanderson, thanks, you guys, so much.

SANDERSON: You're welcome.

PHILLIPS: And before we move on, a quick reminder. President Obama due to come out of his Situation Room meeting and talk about security. That should happen about 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time. You'll see him live, right here on CNN.

You expect the cops and security guards to be armed, but Humane Society workers? Why are they packing heat? Let's put it this way -- they're not so much worried about the dogs anymore.

And a quick farewell to a fashion pioneer. Eunice Johnson died Sunday. Her late husband, John, founded "Ebony" magazine. Eunice ran the Ebony Fashion Fair and put on traveling runway shows for African- American audiences.

Eunice Johnson was 93 years old. Her show will definitely go on.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC)

PHILLIPS: We've been working like a dog, we can't get no satisfaction. How many other songs are out there.

Millions of Americans out of work. That's not funny. And even those who do have jobs are increasingly unhappy. But we're trying to have some positive news here.

Susan Lisovicz has details of a new report.

How big is the problem?

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It's a big problem, Kyra. I mean, we concentrate, rightfully, on the people who don't have jobs. We understand how huge that is of a concern. But you have a nation full of disgruntled, bored workers.

Think about it. I mean, you're stifling...

PHILLIPS: Are there more people that hate their jobs than there are people out of work?

LISOVICZ: Yes. The Conference Board has been doing a survey for 22 years, found the lowest level of satisfaction in its just-completed survey. Forty-five percent -- only 45 percent -- of respondents said they are happy with their job.

Why is that? Well, they are not recognized, they're downright bored, they're not engaged, and that's a real problem for an employer, when you think about it. That directly affects your productivity, your efficiency, your innovation, things that really drive a company's performance, and the overall economy at time when you need it.

But some of the other problems, Kyra, we've been talking about for months, if not years -- pay. Your pay is not keeping up with inflation. And then the benefits, they're eroded. So that further eats into your pay.

PHILLIPS: You know, and you bring up a good point, because the recession, it is cutting out bonuses, promotions, having the opportunity to set a goal and make more money. But then what do you say to all of the people that -- I mean, well, I guess you're right, there's very few people that don't make a lot of money that are really, really happy. I mean, missionaries seem to be pretty darned happy, but they don't make a lot of money.

LISOVICZ: Yes.

PHILLIPS: It goes to show how money really drives our happiness, I guess, in many ways.

LISOVICZ: Well, you know, it's always a balance, but it does affect your quality of life if you want to send your kids to school, if you want to...

PHILLIPS: Sure. Retire early.

LISOVICZ: Exactly. Want to pay off your house, things like that.

The recession, the great recession, no doubt, has affected job satisfaction, because I don't know about you, but I know lots of people who have taken any job, jobs that certainly don't match their skills, their training, their education, their background, just to get a job. But this trend has been happening for decades, Kyra, because when this survey was just done in 1987 -- first done -- 61 percent of us said we liked our jobs.

But let's end it on a bright note.

PHILLIPS: OK.

LISOVICZ: More than half of the people in the survey said they really like their co-workers.

PHILLIPS: Well...

LISOVICZ: And we know.

PHILLIPS: Yes, we're there.

LISOVICZ: We know that's true.

PHILLIPS: It doesn't matter what kind of day you have. We have each other.

LISOVICZ: That's right.

PHILLIPS: All right. Now we've gotten mushy and everyone is -- OK. Thanks, Susan. Appreciate it.

Well, Humane Society workers in Kansas, they're packing heat. And it's not because they are afraid of the dogs.

Jesse Fray from Topeka affiliate KTKA explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JESSE FRAY, REPORTER, KTKA (voice-over): The Lawrence Humane Society is the only animal shelter in this state that investigates animal abuse cases. It's a job that puts workers in contact with many angry pet owners.

MARK GRINSTEAD, WORKER: They are usually not very happy to see us. They don't think anything's wrong, or if there is something wrong, they don't want to admit to it. So they're usually not in a very good mood.

FRAY: Sometimes the anger spills over into the shelter as people come to get their pets back, and that is why workers like Mark Grinstead have started carrying concealed guns at work.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's important to have people here that can protect the public and our animals and make sure that, you know, nothing bad is happening.

FRAY (on camera): On more than one occasion, Humane Society workers say someone has come through these doors either swinging a ball bat or pointing a gun in their face demanding their dog back.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There is no consequences.

FRAY (voice-over): The shelter's director also got her license to carry a gun. She says she has been threatened many times for taking people's animals both at work and at home.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's good to know that if that happens again, I can protect myself, legally, and not get killed because somebody doesn't want me to take their dogs that are dead already.

FRAY: The director says she is not a big fan of weapons, but she says the violence is escalating and she wants her shelter to be safe.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: That was KTKA's Jesse Fray reporting from Lawrence, Kansas. And those workers you saw have gone through special training, by the way, at an animal cruelty school in Columbia, Missouri, and have had concealed carry training required in Kansas.

Other top stories now.

He was hailed for convicting the assailant of civil rights trailblazer Medgar Evers, but today, former Mississippi prosecutor and John Bobby Delaughter reports to a federal prison to serve an 18-month for obstructing justice. Delaughter pleaded guilty to lying to an FBI agent in a wide-ranging corruption probe.

Some old pictures mean new exposure for Tiger Woods. He's been staying out of the public eye since allegations cropped up that he had a string of mistresses. A topless Tiger armed with barbells will grace the cover of next month's "Vanity Fair." The pics taken back in 2006, by the way. Advanced copies go on sale tomorrow in select markets.

New figures out today from the Labor Department. It looks like it's getting even tougher for people to find work in big cities. Jobless rates in a number of metro areas went up late last year.

If you think times are tough here in the U.S., check out Mexico. New consumption taxes and a hike in state-run energy prices have many Mexicans hungering for the past.

CNN's Rafael Romo explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SENIOR EDITOR FOR LATIN AMERICA AFFAIRS (voice- over): Tortillas have long been a staple at Mexican dining tables, but prices have just gone up on the familiar then round of unleavened cornmeal. Teresa Jimenez says it's going to hurt her family and others.

TERESA JIMENEZ, CONSUMER (through translator): Tortilla prices should remain the same. We already have to limit the amount to appeal we eat and we don't have extra money to afford the new prices. We don't have jobs.

ROMO: The increase in tortilla prices is just one result of the higher taxes put in place January 1st by the Calderon government. The sales tax on most products went up by one percent to 16 percent as well as income taxes on workers with a fixed salary.

GABRIELA VILLANUEVA, CONSUMER (through translator): I'm angry because our president is not helping people in need. He raises salaries for bureaucrats and we the people are only getting a three- peso raise.

ROMO: The higher taxes are pushing up the cost of gasoline, which creates a domino effect.

PEDRO CAMPOS, CONSUMER (through translator): Wages don't go up as fast as prices. Ideally they would keep up with inflation, but they never do.

ROMO: Mexicans are also seeing price hikes in other basic food products such as eggs. Electricity and propane gas are also more expensive now.

ISAIAS FERNANDEZ, CONSUMER (through translator): The rise in basic food products and fuels is higher than ever. It's really ridiculous.

ROMO: Mexicans have a name for the kind of inflation that seems to hit the country at the beginning of each year. They call it the January slope.

(on camera): The minimum wage in Mexico is less than $5 per day, and about 40 percent of the population lives in poverty. Mexico's Central Bank expects consumer prices to increase by more than five percent before the end of the year.

Rafael Romo, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, in parts of the U.S. weather is so cold that it's dangerous to spend much time outside. And the Deep South really feeling the chill. In Tennessee, at least four deaths are blamed on the arctic air, three of them in Memphis. In Nashville, police say an 81-year-old man with Alzheimer's froze to death in his yard after wandering outside wearing nothing but a bathrobe.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

PHILLIPS: It's the brainchild of the founding fathers, and it's getting under way again for the first time in 10 years. Census count 2010 -- why should you be counted? We'll tell you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: No, it is not a big government conspiracy. In fact, it is the creation of the Founding Fathers for the good of the country. We are talking about the every-ten-year census count. It is just getting under way. CNN's Christine Romans explains why you should care and even take part in it.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, the census forms land in your mailbox beginning in March, but the push has already begun. The government will spend more than $14 billion and hire ultimately more than 1 million workers to track down the 300 million plus men, women, and children in this country.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS (voice-over): In New York's Times Square, the launch of a road show - not a Broadway show, but a national tour sponsored by the US government to get America ready for the 2010 census.

GARY LOCKE, SECRETARY OF COMMERCE: It will have enormous impact on communities and people all across America.

ROMANS: Commerce Secretary Gary Locke heads up the agency that's supposed to count every single person in the country.

LOCKE: It's the responsibility of every person living in America, whether they're are a voter or not, whether they're registered as a voter or not, or even whether or not they're a national US citizen.

ROMANS: The government is spending more than $340 million, including a massive ad campaign in 28 languages, to get people to fill out this census form. At stake - power and money. Congressional seats are doled out depending on a state's population, and so is $400 billion in federal funding.

LOCKE: If you want your fair share, be counted, because this is money for schools, for human services, for medical services, as well as for transportation.

ROMANS: Things got so contentious during the 2000 count that Utah sued the Census Bureau.

PAMELA PERLICH, SR. RESEARCH ECONOMIST, THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH: In the end, we were 856 persons short of having that Congressional seat.

ROMANS: The Supreme Court ruled Utah couldn't count missionaries serving overseas. Since Congressional seats are limited to 435, the extra seat instead went to North Carolina.

PERLICH: Who knows exactly what that would have meant as far as dollars and cents and programs and policies, but, at the margin, to have one more person there in the Congress working on behalf of Utah does make a difference.

ROMANS: This time around, Utah is likely to get that House seat. According to one projection, eight states in the South and West are expected to gain at least one seat after the big 2010 census. Texas could gain as many as four. Ten states, most located in the Northeast and the Midwest may well lose at least one House seat, but those numbers could have been far worse.

LARRY SABATO, DIR., CENTER FOR POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: The recession has actually frozen a lot of people in place, and so people who might have left the North and Midwest and gone South or West stayed. They stayed where they were. And that's saved some seats for the North and the Midwest.

ROMANS: All of this depends on how many people actually fill out the form. Historically, counting minorities has been an issue and the Census Bureau is working hard to combat mistrust.

ROMANS (on camera): There are some - a vocal minority, I would say, who've been cautioning against some people in the Latino community actually participating in the 2010 Census. What do you say to that?

LOCKE: You don't obtain political empowerment unless you're counted, so that we know exactly how strong and how large you are. So I think that boycotting the census is actually counterproductive to their goals of greater political participation.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: The Latino demographic is the fastest growing in the United States over the past decade, and accurate census count will show just how fast growing. Another challenge for the Census Bureau: reaching millions of families newly homeless by the foreclosure crisis. Census workers will take special care, they say, to track those people down. Kyra?

PHILLIPS: Christine, thanks.

Speaking of, government lawmakers are back on Capitol Hill today. Sort of. It is called a pro forma session. If you are like us, you scratch your head over that. So, we looked it up. Pro forma means "in form only." It is a brief meeting, sometimes only a couple of seconds, of the House or Senate, and in today's case, it is the Senate. No votes, no business to speak of, and in fact, hardly anyone shows up, so why do it? Well, it is usually held to satisfy a constitutional rule that says that neither chamber can adjourn for more three days without the consent of another. And now you know.

Back in business at the U.S. embassy in Yemen. It reopened today after being closed over the weekend because of possible threats by al Qaeda. And embassy statement says that the move was taken after the Yemeni security forces carried out successful counterterrorisism operations north of the capital yesterday. Yemen says two al Qaeda suspects were killed and two others wounded in that raid. That said, the embassy warns that attacks against the U.S. interests remains high.

Your friend or enemy? Another deadly lapse in U.S. security. We are digging deeper into the suicide bombing at a CIA outpost.

And what were you doing six years ago today? Maybe digesting the big news from Pete Rose? Today, 2004, Charlie Hustle admitted he bet on baseball when he was the Reds' skipper. He had spent the previous 14 years in denial.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: It was a bold and daring attack against the CIA in one of the deadliest of the agency's history. The suicide bombing on a U.S. base in Afghanistan that killed seven CIA officers last week. And now a stunning development. The bomber was a double agent. People actually trusted him.

CNN's Chris Lawrence is at the Pentagon with the latest. Chris, what can you tell us about the bomber and how he got on the base?

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: A lot. Well, first of all his name is a mouthful. Hammam Khalil Abu Mallal al-Balawi. He was a Jordanian doctor who the Jordanian authorities picked up more than a year ago on suspicion of certain activities. They investigated him and they didn't find enough to keep his, so they let him go

At that point, he moved to Pakistan, ostensibly to study. And at that point shortly thereafter that he started sending e-mails to the Jordanian government, tipping them off to potential plots against both Jordan and targets in the West.

Jordan started to share the e-mails and the information with the allies and in fact, one former U.S. intelligence official told us that this is a man who was giving very good intelligence about some very high-value targets over a period of time.

At one point last week, they finally were able to bring him in, to be debriefed in person by some CIA intelligence officers. So they got to Afghanistan, and they met him outside of this forward operating base, put him in the car without ever searching him, and then they drove him right on to the base themselves. When they got on the base, he was in the middle of his debriefing, and that is when he set off his explosive vest killing seven CIA officers as well as a Jordanian military officer working with them.

PHILLIPS: Wow. It seems like they disregarded protocol, Chris. I mean, any reason that they would not search him?

LAWRENCE: Well, this was obviously a man who, you know, authorities are telling us that they thought he had left his extremist views behind, and they thought that they had converted him, and they were using him to go after a high-value target. They were trying to get at Iman Al-Zarquari, al Qaeda's number two man, Osama bin Laden's right-hand man. But he was not secretly no on board with the CIA's plan.

I was talking to a former intelligence official who spent 30 years in the intel community who said the problem here is that CIA officer - these people are dealing with some of the most dangerous and surly people around. That's who they have to deal with to get good intelligence. And he talked about possibly the challenges of establishing trust as one possible way why you would not want to do an invasive search of someone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEN ROBINSON, FORMER INTELLIGENCE OFFICER: This is not a normal job. This is not people who are flipping hamburgers at Wendy's, this is someone trying to convince someone to betray a tribal interest or an interest of a group, and they know that that betrayal could cost them the death of their entire family. There are very, very, very, very brave Afghanis who have supported and helped the United States government and enabled them to find the people who are killing Americans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAWRENCE: So, obviously, it does not account for the lapse in security that obviously went against the grain, but again, it just shows you that delicate balance you have of both protecting people on the base and at the same time trying to build trust with these people to bring them in.

PHILLIPS: Chris Lawrence, thanks.

Other top stories now. Word of a possible motive in yesterday's deadly shooting at the federal courthouse in Vegas. Investigators now say the gunman had recently lost a Social Security claim and was mad. He killed a security officer and wounded a deputy U.S. marshal before he was shot and killed.

Also, word today of a terror threat against President Obama the day he was sworn in. "The New York Times" says that security chiefs worried extremists from Somalia would try to attack the inauguration, but the information turned out to be wrong, fueled by a false report from a rival terror group.

How did a man almost bring down a U.S. jetliner on Christmas Day? Well, President Obama is demanding answers to that question. He has called in his security experts to explain why and how it happened. They are meeting right now at the White House. Meantime, White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs says the FBI has gotten, quote, "actionable intelligence from the suspect."

Get ready for your close-up. We're talking so close even your doctor might squirm, all in the name of protecting you, planes and the less-than friendly skies.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: U.S. rival off of the coast of Key West ramping up its dislike of President Obama. Surprising considering the support that Fidel Castro originally showed the new president. So why the about face? Well, our Shasta Darlington takes to the streets of Havana.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHASTA DARLINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For nearly 50 years, Cuban leader Fidel Castro led marches against the United States and blasted the Cold War-enemy in marathon speeches. Then, sidelined by illness, Castro railed against President George W. Bush in written essays published on the Internet, state newspapers and even read aloud on Cuban television.

But with the election of Barack Obama, a new mood took hold in Cuba.

"We're all happy to see they've elected a black president for the first time," this man says. "We have high hopes he does a good job."

Fidel Castro was the first to signal a mood change. In his columns called "Reflections of Comrade Fidel," he praised Obama's youth and vigor and defended the decision to award him the Nobel Peace Prize. Of the 100-plus columns that he wrote last year, a quarter of them were focused on Obama. But by December, they had turned less flattering, as we saw in a letter he sent to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez insisting Washington was on the offensive in Latin America. Chavez read the message aloud at a summit.

"The intentions of the empire are obvious," he said. "This time hidden behind the friendly smile and African-American face of President Barack Obama." In November current Cuban leader, Raul Castro, led the country's biggest military exercises in five years, saying he wants to be prepared in the event of a U.S. invasion. And in a recent speech, he accused Mr. Obama of what he called the same dirty tricks that President Bush had used.

"The enemy is as active as always," he said.

He was referring to the American contractor detained in Cuba last month for surreptitiously distributing satellite here under a program started by the last administration.

DARLINGTON (on camera): In his first essay of the new year, Fidel Castro takes another swipe at the current president. Not a good sign for the future of relations between Cuba and the United States.

Shasta Darlington, CNN, Havana.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Speaking about Fidel Castro, we are getting an apparently new glimpse of how he's looking these days. These pictures of Castro are posted on three Nicaraguan news outlets today. They show him sitting in a wheelchair meeting with his brother, Cuban President Raul Castro, and the Nicaraguan president, Daniel Ortega. This was apparently last year, they reportedly held meetings in April and December. CNN has not authenticated these photographs, by the way, but if they are real, it does make the first pictures that we've seen of Castro since his operation back in 2006.

Protecting flights with body scanning machines, privacy experts say, we don't want to be seen. But a lot of travelers say, scan me anytime, anywhere. Our Jeanne Moos shows us -- and I do mean shows us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Is it a woman?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It look like an alien.

MOOS: Is it a man?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To me it looks like a group of four robots.

MOOS: It's sort of like Superman, the first time young Clark Kent experienced x-ray vision and penetrated the girl's locker room.

(on camera): This is the airport scanning device now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, that's gross.

MOOS (voice-over): But he was pretty much the only one we talked to who objected, and even he changed his mind.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not as though we're naked. It's just an x-ray.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The thing is, we all go to doctors.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am old. I don't care.

MOOS: Life has finally caught up to Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Total Recall."

The technology has had reporters doing exposes exposing themselves.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The monitor displays my humble contours.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Apart from my manly physique, you can actually see the porridge I had for breakfast.

MOOS: Porridge is one thing, but hide those private parts.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I should put a metal plate in my pants. I'm going to do that now right before I get screened.

MOOS: A metal plate in your pants is nothing compared to a bomb in your underpants -- suicide underwear, crotch bomber, fruit of the boom.

(on camera): He obviously was not listening if and when his mother told him to always wear clean underwear.

You know the guy that got caught with a bomb in his underwear?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow, I did not know that.

MOOS: You've been out of it over the holidays.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I just watch the Disney channel more than anything.

MOOS (voice-over): Maybe he should watch this old Bud Light commercial.

ANNOUNCER BUD LIGHT COMMERCIAL: Superior drinkability and now, x-ray vision. X-ray vision no longer available in Bud Light.

MOOS: Now available at airports. Last year, need to get in shape for spring, this year you need to get in shape for airport screenings. But most don't mind.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. If it meant that I might not have my ass blown out of the sky.

MOOS: And speaking of that body part, an MSNBC anchor compared J.Lo's New Year's Eve outfit to a scan.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It looks like a TSA body scan.

MOOS: Hey, if we looked like J.Lo, we'd be clawing and clawing our way toward the scanner.

Jeanne Moos, CNN...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They see my underwear?

MOOS: ... New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Sweatshirts are turning a school inside out. That's what happens when your hoodie looks a little too much like one of America's worst days. Next stop -- the principal's office.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Team Sanchez, what are you working on for the next hour?

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: I'm sure you guys have been all over this meeting that the President's having right now. He's meeting with the FBI, the CIA, the Military, the NSA. He's meeting with Homeland Security, counterterrorism experts. He's trying to apparently drill down on exactly what happened on Christmas Day.

The bigger question may be about what's going on with our strategy on trying to stop the terror all over the world. So, we're going the drill down. Maybe two of the best people to talk about this because they've both been in meetings like the ones that are going on right now -- Zbigniew Brzezinski, who as you know worked for President Carter. And then we've got David Gergen who worked for four different presidents. We're going to be talking to them about this meeting and about where the direction needs to go over the coming months.

Kyra, that's what we'll have.

PHILLIPS: Sounds good. Thanks, Rick.

SANCHEZ: All right.

PHILLIPS: Well, here's a story straight out of the what were they thinking department. Dearborn, Michigan, Edsel Ford High School. About 15 students Arab-Americans by the way, they had these sweatshirts made over the holiday break. Not sure if they're 100 percent cotton, but the 100 percent inappropriate material is making lots of folks chafe. The number 11, the year they graduate, looking a lot like the Twin Towers in New York. The school's thunderbird mascot, looking a lot like a jet. And the caption, "You can't bring us down." Oh, boy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID MUSTONEN, SPOKESMAN, DEARBORN SCHOOLS: Totally inappropriate, totally disrespectful, and just was -- they just were not thinking. They were adolescents who were not thinking.

(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIPS: Well, thank God the sweats were confiscated. The school district says the students won't be punished because they agreed to take off the shirts. We haven't heard from the kids or their parents yet.

Facebook's gotten folks in trouble in a lot of different ways, usually though it's because skeletons in the closet, not dead bodies. Police officer in Massachusetts under investigation now for allegedly fostering a picture of what appears to be a corpse on her Facebook page. We've actually blurred the person shown but you can see around there's pill bottles, cigarettes butts, other trash. The officer's profile was set to private but someone e-mailed to a local TV station. The department is trying to determine if it shows a real crime scene, or just somebody posing.

Someone who knows a bit about fake crimes -- the Louisiana dad charged with real ones for a stunt that he pulled with his 12-year-old daughter. Police say he thought it would be funny to tie her up in the front seat of the car, gag her with duct tape, and then watch other drivers react. Well, amazingly hilarity did not ensue. Besides calling 911, a couple of drivers actually boxed the car in until the police came. Dad of the year has been charged with criminal mischief and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Google's search for an iPhone killer begins in earnest. The web giant finally unveiling its first phone. We're going to show it to you in just a sec.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, Google is dialing for dollars in the mobile market, finally unveiling it's rumored Smartphone. So does this Nexus One have Apple's number or what?

CNN's Errol Barnett watched the big rollout and has been checking out online reactions.

So, what do you think? Are you buying it?

ERROL BARNETT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I don't know, Kyra. Look, it's nice, shiny and it does a lot as well. And we only just confirmed all the cool snazzy details of this phone that so many tech- savvy people have been blogging about for weeks now.

Google says that this is a Super phone with the most up to date android software -- Android 2.1. They say it's completely designed by Google, and you'll have to purchase it through the Google web store. So as we click around the new site that just went active at google.com/googlephone/tour, with the specs, it's thinner than a pencil, lighter than a pocket knife. It has a camera with flash and five megapixels. What does that mean? Well, it means that there's 5 million little dots that make up the picture on the camera. It has the GPS, the accelerometer, a compass, all of the devices you'd expect to come along with a phone like this.

And the key, too, we just heard from the people from Google is that they want this to be customizable. You can have applications, five different home pages. You also get the Google maps and Google Earth and Gmail and those things. But you can create your own apps to put onto this phone, as well.

The big question though -- price. They are making it available in the United States, but you can believe it's pretty steep. Without a cell phone carrier, this will run you about $529. So, the other option is to purchase this phone through T-Mobile, it will cost about $179. They now want to make this available outside the United States.

So they're saying this is the very first truly all-Google phone available today for everyone to pick up. It's very snazzy and pretty sharp. Kyra. Not sure what you think.

PHILLIPS: IPhone killer, what do you think?

BARNETT: That's what some speculate and we really don't think that this is going to completely change the game. Consider how popular the iPhone application store is. They announced today that some three billion apps have been downloaded. They offer more than 100,000. Google has about 16,000 apps, so they're not going to be able to compete in that aspect. And of course, the price is an issue, as well.

The reality is that the Smartphone marketplace has just become a bit more crowded and you, the viewers, the consumers will now decide just how much of an iPhone killer this Google phone Nexus One will be. But there will be many talking about this through the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas, which is taking place later this week -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: I know. I'm looking at all the pictures right now. They're all over the place. Errol, thanks so much.

BARNETT: Sure.

PHILLIPS: That does it for us. I'll see you back here tomorrow.

Rick Sanchez picks it up from here.