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American Morning
Mystery in the Sky; Cruise Ship Stranded; Singapore Air Pulls A380s; Ex-Marines Arrested for Selling Guns To Gangs; TSA's Airport Security Measures for Pilots Under Fire; Could Criticizing Boss Online Be Constituted As Free Speech?; Teens, Texts & Sex; In-Flight Entertainment
Aired November 10, 2010 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good Wednesday morning. Thanks so much for joining us, from being with us on this AMERICAN MORNING. It's the 10th of November. I'm John Roberts.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Kiran Chetry. Glad you're with us.
We want to get you started with the latest news this morning.
Mystery in the sky, still no closer to being solved this morning. A lot of people asking -- was this a missile? Was this a rocket? Or was it just the contrails of a plane with a bit of an optical illusion?
Well, even the Pentagon seems to be baffled by it. This morning, we're live with more on what that unidentified stream may actually be.
ROBERTS: Stuck at sea: Thousands of passengers stranded on a cruise ship more than 100 miles off the coast of California. Fire in the engine room leaving the vessel dead in the water on Monday. A naval aircraft carrier has been called in to help, the USS Ronald Reagan.
A live report from the Reagan coming up in just a moment.
CHETRY: Well, how's this for a holiday cheer? Pay raises all around. Google giving its employees a bonus and a raise. We'll tell you why and how much it's expected to cost the Internet giant.
ROBERTS: But first, look, up in the sky. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a missile?
People are asking a lot of questions about what exactly this was off of the coast of California, near Los Angeles, on Monday night.
CHETRY: That's right. Some say it does look like a missile. Others are convinced that perhaps it's just an optical illusion caused by a plane.
As for the Pentagon, they're really not saying really what they think it is either.
Chris Lawrence is live in Washington.
They're sort of saying, well, it's not, right, Chris?
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Yes. They don't think it's a missile launch. But they can't really be sure exactly what it is right now, Kiran.
You know, NORAD took a look at this and found, you know, they're saying no foreign military launched any missile at that time. There was no danger to the homeland. The FAA went back and did radar replays of that time period. They didn't track any fast-moving unidentified object. None of the pilots in that area at that time reported seeing anything.
And now, the Pentagon is saying, "All DOD entities with rocket and missile programs reported no launches, scheduled or inadvertent, during the time period in the area of the reported contrail."
Of course, all kinds of theories out there -- some speculated it could be a launch, a show of force to someone like, say, North Korea, because President Obama's traveling in Asia. Some speculated that it could be an inadvertent launch, a mistake by, say, a U.S. Navy sub. All kinds of theories out there.
One respected analyst says he thinks it's clearly the contrail of an airplane. He said it's an optical illusion basically that, you know, it looks like it's going straight up when really it's coming straight at the camera and he says the government should have come out and said that almost immediately.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN PIKE, GLOBALSECURITY.ORG: Why the government is so badly organized that they're not able to get somebody out there to explain it and make the story go away -- I think that's the real story. I mean, it's absolutely insane that for all of the money we're spending, for all of these technically competent people, that they can't get somebody out there to explain what's incredibly obvious.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAWRENCE: Well, obvious to him but not obvious to everyone. You know, I got to tell you, you know, sometimes you take an idea to the Pentagon and say, hey, we have heard this, what do you think? And they can shoot it down pretty roughly. You know, they -- you know, they could have just said privately, look, this is a plane you idiot. You know, when they want to shoot something down, they'll tell you in no uncertain terms that's ridiculous.
But in this case, even when you read the statement, there's nothing at this time that leads us to believe it was a missile launch. They're still looking into this. So, still, far from saying this mystery is solved -- John, Kiran.
CHETRY: You also mention if it happened to be the contrails of a jet or anything, couldn't they -- couldn't they check on flight data and information to see if there, you know, if there was a plane in the sky at that time in that location, or can they not pinpoint it with that much certainty?
LAWRENCE: Yes. And again, but even with that, you know, like the FAA said they looked at the radar replays. They didn't see any fast-moving object, but then you've got other people who say, look, if it was moving at, say, rocket speed, it would be a blip on the radar. It might be moving so quickly.
So, none of these people can really agree as to exactly what this was.
CHETRY: All right. The mystery continues. Chris Lawrence for us this morning, thanks.
ROBERTS: Fascinating, though. You know, we got an e-mail from somebody earlier who was in the northwest coast, earlier this year saw exactly the same thing with a 747 as it climbed out. So, maybe it was an aircraft.
CHETRY: Yes. But as Chris said, why didn't the Pentagon just say, it's an airplane, idiot?
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: Maybe they don't know yet.
CHETRY: Well, a carnival cruise ship has been stranded, unfortunately, since Monday, more than 100 miles off of the Mexican coast. There were more than 3,000 passengers, more than 1,000 crew stuck at sea. The naval aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan coming to the rescue with tons of food, water and critical supplies.
ROBERTS: Yes, the carnival cruise line ship is the Splendor. It's now being towed back to San Diego. That's going to take another day.
Our Paul Vercammen is on board the USS Ronald Reagan and he reports in for us this morning on their relief mission.
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PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Just a great sense of satisfaction here on the USS Ronald Reagan as the carrier came in to help the distressed carnival cruise ship Splendor. We're about 200 miles southwest of San Diego right now and there's one pilot who made several of these runs in her helicopter to the Splendor, delivering food and other supplies, said, pretty interesting for those people because they got a visit from helicopters and saw an aircraft carrier nearby and sure that wasn't on the itinerary for that cruise.
Now, the good news also is, is that no one had to be brought to the sick bay here aboard the carrier and they said that when they did see people on the ship itself, these are the pilots and crew men aboard the carrier who went off to help the people aboard the carnival cruise ship, they said most of them were in good spirits. They were snapping photos of the helicopters. They were taking pictures with their phones and a lot of them were waving congratulatory sendoffs to all those aboard here.
What the carrier was doing was bringing vital supplies to the carnival cruise ship, that includes water, bread, sandwich meat, granola bars, even paper plates. But most of all, they were bringing water.
What happened here was the aircraft carrier left its maneuvers. They were getting ready for some pre-deployment and basically, they got that distress call. And as they said, they were more than happy to help out -- John, Kiran.
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ROBERTS: Paul Vercammen on board the USS Ronald Reagan for us this morning -- Paul, thanks so much.
The G-20 Summit, the main event of the president's third leg of his trip through Southeast Asia. The president landed in Seoul earlier this morning. The president is expected to defend the Federal Reserve's decision to pump $600 billion into the economy. He's getting an earful about it from countries like China and Germany who say it's an indication that the United States doesn't know what it's doing.
Also, on the schedule, meetings with the president of China and the president of South Korea.
CHETRY: Well, today, election officials in Alaska are expected to start counting tens of thousands of those write-in ballots in the still undecided Senate race between Joe Miller and incumbent Lisa Murkowski. So, they're pretty sure it's a Republican. Which one, they still don't know.
Miller filed a lawsuit to block officials from using, quote, "discretion" in determining voter intent.
After losing to Miller in the primary, Murkowski ran as a write-in candidate and is believed to have won nearly all of those write-in votes.
ROBERTS: The city of San Francisco putting its stamp of disapproval on McDonald's Happy Meals and other fast food kids' meals that come with toys. The city's board of supervisors is banning most of them until they meet certain nutritional standards.
CHETRY: Well, more hints from Sarah Palin that she may indeed be planning a run for the White House in 2012. The former Alaska governor appeared at a fundraiser for a Christian school in Pennsylvania last night.
And listen to what she said after one of the students finished a rousing rendition of "God Bless America."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SARAH PALIN (R), FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: Daniel, that singing, absolutely beautiful. Daniel, would you like to sing at an inauguration? Not necessarily mine!
(CHEERING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Well, she also told the audience that she needs to pray about her decision. If she does decide to run for president, she says it won't be to shake things up. She says she'll be in it to win it.
ROBERTS: You want to put some money on it?
CHETRY: No. I'm saving up for Christmas.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: I'll bet she runs.
CHETRY: We'll have to see.
ROBERTS: Well, I know a guy who will take a bet, any bet.
Rob Marciano, he's in the weather center this morning with a look at the weather forecast.
Would you put money on her running?
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I would. But you have to get me -- if I were to take the other side of the bet, I have to take some pretty good odds as well, yes. I think that's money in the bank there. How well she does, we'll just have to wait and see.
We are looking at this forecast which is going to bring some heat to the midsection of the country. Western part is looking at some storminess continued.
And the East Coast finally is going to get into some decent weather. I should say the Northeast. Much of the East Coast has been pretty decent in the past couple of days.
But eastern New England really has been peppered with onshore flow, cool rains and it's 40 degrees right now in Boston, misting, fogging and a north breeze. It just continues to be damp and dreary, your typical down east kind of stuff.
Fifty-one degrees currently in the Bridgeport. Temperatures kind of hovering in the upper 40s elsewhere.
And the further west you go away from, say, Boston and Hartford and Bridgeport, the warmer it will be. Raleigh will get to 69. St. Louis will get to 76; 78 degrees in Dallas. We saw a few record high temperatures across the Upper Midwest yesterday.
And there you see out west is where the rain's falling in the valleys and some snow is falling at the higher elevations.
We'll talk more about that and, yes, we'll talk -- we'll talk about skiing. You know, it's getting towards that time of year where some of the resorts are opening. We'll highlight a few of those for you in the next half an hour -- John and Kiran.
ROBERTS: Looking forward to that. Rob, thanks so much.
CHETRY: Yes, send in your iReports if you're out in any of these slopes. See what it's like.
MARCIANO: Good idea.
ROBERTS: Yes, send us your snow shots.
CHETRY: We'd love to see it. And Rob would like to be there firsthand, but that's a close second.
Well, it is official. Tina Fey is funny because she got no word for it. She received the top prize a comedian can get, the Mark Twain Prize for American humor.
ROBERTS: The "Saturday Night Live" alum, a "30-Rock" co-star packed the Kennedy Center. Another funny woman, Betty White paid tribute as only Betty White can.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
BETTY WHITE, ACTRESS: I was so thrilled when they asked me to be part of this wonderful honor for Tina. It is Tina, yes. Especially since I'm probably the only one here who actually dated Mark Twain.
(LAUGHTER)
TINA FEY, MARK TWAIN PRIZE RECIPIENT: I want to thank everyone involved with the Kennedy Center, or as it will soon be known, "the Tea Party bowling alley and rifle range."
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
ROBERTS: Tina Fey follows in the footsteps of past winners of the prize, including Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Bill Crosby, and her boss, Lorne Michaels.
So, what do you think? If Sarah Palin runs in 2012, will Tina Fey reprise her --
CHETRY: Oh, yes, of course.
ROBERTS: -- or will she say, look, I did it in 2008, that was enough?
CHETRY: No, that's money in the bank for her. She'd love -- she did it recently. She just did another one --
ROBERTS: Does she need more money in the bank? My God!
CHETRY: She's one of the power wives out there.
ROBERTS: I would think so. Yes.
CHETRY: Congratulations to her, by the way.
Also, Tim Allen could be returning to television. According to Deadline.com, ABC has ordered a pilot for a new show called -- I'm so sick of this phrase -- "Man Up." It described as a family-themed comedy starring Allen as a guy who's fighting for his manhood in a world of women.
It's been 10 years since comedians -- this comedian, Tim Allen's "Home Improvement" went off the air.
ROBERTS: Yes.
All right. We're 12 minutes after the hour. We'll be back right after this. Stay with us.
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ROBERTS: Coming up now at 15 minutes after the hour. And those of you who have been anticipating the debut of Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner, the high tech airplane, you're going to have to wait a little bit longer. Boeing says no more test flights, the 787.
One of the flight test planes was forced to make an emergency landing in Laredo, Texas, yesterday. The reason: smoke in the cabin. The crew had to evacuate down the emergency slides. Everyone did get out safely.
CHETRY: Speaking of safety checks, more of them for the world's largest plane. Singapore Airlines taking three of the A380 air bus jumbo jets out of service. Airline said it's replacing an engine in each of these planes after inspections found they were stained with oil. All of these renewed inspections come less than a week after an engine on a Qantas A380 exploded shortly after takeoff.
ROBERTS: Three ex-marines busted for allegedly selling assault weapons to Los Angeles street gang. Federal Relations found cases containing AK-47s and other semi-automatic rifles at the home of the suspected ring leader who served in Iraq. The arrests come a week after a navy S.E.A.L. and two others were charged for smuggling machine guns from Iraq for sale in the black market.
CHETRY: You've probably been hearing a lot about Four Loco. It's the alcohol and caffeinated drinks that comes in the large, large container equivalent to three beers and a bunch of coffee. Well, nine college students were hospitalized last month. Now, Washington State is getting set to ban the sale of those drinks known as blackout in a can. The State Liquor Authority expected to vote on a ban today. For its part, the maker of Four Locos says that it's doing all it can to ensure the product is safely consumed.
ROBERTS: And 41 years later, a posthumous pardon for rock legend, Jim Morrison, might be in the works. The lead singer of The Doors was convicted of indecent exposure after a concert in Miami back in 1969. He was sentenced to six months in jail. He was appealing the verdict in 1971 when he died in France at the age of 27. Outgoing Florida governor, Charlie Crist, says he is considering a pardon for the late rock star.
CHETRY: Wouldn't that be ironic all these years later?
Hey, guess what, Tim Allen's returning to television. According to dateline.com, ABC's ordered a pilot for a new show called -- and I'm so sick of this phrase -- like I said it a lot -- man up! It's described as a family-themed comedy starring Allen as a guy who's fighting for his manhood in a world of women. It's been 10 years, by the way, since "Home Improvement" went off the air. It seems like yesterday.
ROBERTS: Sharron Angle going to play his love interest?
CHETRY: Perhaps.
ROBERTS: Internet search engine tighten. Google surprises all of its employees around the world with a little bit of a November surprise. Yes. Everybody's getting a raise. It's being called an award for talent. Christine Romans is going to break down why Google feels the need to do it when so many other companies are cutting costs.
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CONAN O'BRIEN, HOST, "CONAN": Earlier, just a few hours ago, former president George W. Bush appeared on Oprah. That's true. Yes. Yes. Yes, when asked about being the leader of the free world, Oprah said it's not bad.
(LAUGHING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: There's Conan. He's back! And the redhead is out for revenge on Leno, Letterman, and Stewart. Conan O'Brien beating all of them on his opening night. Nielsen rating says that more than 4 million watched just for his show on corporate cousin, TBS. And his Twitter army probably had a lot to do with that. The median age of his audience, just 30 years old.
ROBERTS: Last night on show number two, Conan took a little time to settle another score with special guest, Tom Hanks. It was Hanks who gave Conan the nickname Coco which Conan says he absolutely hates. The payback came with a few humpback whales showed up for a visit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: The whales are breaching.
TOM HANKS, ACTOR: No. They're not breaching. They are lunging. If they were to breach, then actually 40 percent of them would come out of the water. Conan would -- that was amazing! I was wrong. They were breaching.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Tonight, Coco welcomes Mad Men's Jon Hamm, who, of course, had a guest appearance in that opening montage they did on Monday and musical guest, Fistful of mercy tonight.
CHETRY: That's why Tom Hanks is so priceless, though. He didn't miss a beat. I mean, he got water poured on his entire head and body and just wipes it calmly with a tie and kept the joke going. I love him.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Professional. Very professional. Loved it. Loved it.
CHETRY: Well, Christine Romans is here now. How can you beat that?
ROMANS: I know, right? Thanks.
CHETRY: You can, actually.
ROBERTS: Just be careful of the studio bucket up there.
ROMANS: I have fantastic news --
(LAUGHTER)
ROMANS: I know. For anybody who works at Google. Google is a company that is a verb. It's so rare, but Google is announcing to its employees in an e-mail and you're very happy if you got this e-mail that you're getting a 10 percent raise and a thousand dollars after tax bonus because Eric Schmidt, the CEO, says they value their talent and they want to reward them. So, let me tell you what's happening here.
Google is going to give 23,000 of their global employees this raise effective January 1st. They're also going to tweak the way Google employees are paid so that more of their compensation, their bonus goes actually into the paycheck so they feel it every time they get paid. That's going to be about $23 million that they're going to be passing out and a thousand dollar after-tax bonus. Why does the company say they're doing this?
They say that they believe the competitive compensation plans are important to the future of the company. C-net has the entire memo from the CEO, Eric Schmidt, to his employees, but a lot of people are commenting this is part of what is a war for talent in this industry. Something you, guys, that we've talked about a lot here in places like engineering, IT, and in health care. You are seeing companies that are having to become quite competitive with how they're keeping people in areas that are in good demand.
And we know that there have been some high-profile defections of Google experts over to Facebook and other places, too. So, this is a really interesting turn of events for people who work at Google, a company whose stock is above $600 a share and almost (ph) down pretty substantially from the peak that it had been, but I can remember when the stock was only a couple of hundred dollars.
People kept saying, can it keep going much higher? It's really been a place that's been a lucrative place to work for, and Eric Schmidt is trying to reward those employees.
ROBERTS: So, when we talked about 10 percent raise, do we know sort of what the average salary at Google is?
ROMANS: You know, I don't know that outside of my head. I do know that everybody who works there so as high paid software engineers. It's people who are answering the phones at the front desk. It's everybody across the company around the world. What's interesting about the compensation structure change I think, too, is that they're going to put more of a bonus into the paycheck.
So, the people are feeling this all the time. They're feeling the effects of what has been a very great industry for this company. It's also good, GM, for example, had some good profit news as well today, and there are other companies. They're starting to show that they're getting the footing underneath them.
CHETRY: Right.
ROMANS: Especially if you're an IT, engineering, health care, other places. There are some exciting things happening. We told you, (INAUDIBLE) who runs a big employment from a Deco about a year ago. He told me Christine watch for the war for talent.
CHETRY: That's what I want to ask you about. So, can you connect the dots for us? If I'm sitting at home today and I got the news that, you know, I just graduated college. I can't find a job. You still see the bleak unemployment picture of 9.6 percent. What do I do --
ROMANS: Cutting edge software engineer.
CHETRY: Sought after talent that companies are actually paying you to keep.
ROMANS: You got to be in the top 10 percent or 20 percent all the time of what you're doing. I mean, those people are always going to be the cream of the crop. I mean, there's a war for talent for the cream of the crop in every kind of industry you can imagine, even not just software engineering. You know why?
Because they cut to the bone so much that now that their demand is getting a little bit better, they (INAUDIBLE) hiring elsewhere, but they certainly want to keep you. That's a good place to be in. It's a very good place to be in.
ROBERTS: Christine Romans, thanks so much.
ROMANS: You're welcome.
ROBERTS: You bad-mouthed your boss on Facebook and you got fired for it, but was it an illegal dismissal? The controversial and groundbreaking case coming up.
CHETRY: Also, controversy at U.S. airports about the new body scanners and it's not just the passengers that are complaining. The pilots and pilots' unions coming out with some pretty strong advice about why they say pilots should decline this full body scans, next.
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ROBERTS: The president is visiting his third country as he continues his trip through South Asia this morning. The G-20 summit is the main event in Seoul, South Korea. It gets underway tomorrow.
CHETRY: CNNs Paula Hancocks is in Seoul right now with a look at what's on the president's plate today. Hi there, Paula.
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Kiran. This G-20 meeting should be an interesting one. For weeks now, there's been a lot of talk about a potential currency war. And that's all going to come to a head on Thursday when this meeting actually starts. Now, of course, this will start it out when the U.S. accused China of keeping its currency artificially low to help exports. Of course, that helps China, but it does not help the countries that trade with China.
But now, some of that verbal fire is coming the other way after the U.S. Federal Reserve decided on the $60 billion injection into the U.S. economy. What they call a Kiwi 2 (ph). There have been countries that are accusing the U.S. of hypocrisy. We heard from the German finance minister. He said basically this policy was, quote, "clueless" end quote. So, certainly, there is a lot of fighting to walk out there, and the meeting has not even yet begun.
ROBERTS: There's also a little bit of controversy over there, Paula. First lady Michelle Obama and her hand shake with an Indonesian minister. What's that all about?
HANCOCKS: That's right. This happened when there was a welcoming lineup for the president and the first lady. It was actually the Indonesian information minister. He is a conservative Muslim. Apparently, he doesn't shake hands with women for that reason. At least, women he's not related to or his wife. He did shake the hand of the first lady. Now, this has become somewhat of a social media incident now. It was tweeted about by many people within Indonesia, including, apparently, a female reporter who said, well, he's never shaken my hand, but he does for the first lady. He then had to tweet and say, well, actually, I was forced into it.
So now there's kind of a debate on twitter, on Facebook. Was he forced into it? Was he the first to put his hand out? It's become a bit of an incident online.
CHETRY: People will be checking out the videotape for sure. Interesting, though, of all the cultural mores you have to be mindful of while visiting other nations. Thanks, Paula.
ROBERTS: Crossing the half hour now, and your top stories this Wednesday morning. A mystery off of the coast of California. These images show an object streaking across the sky west of Los Angeles. To me people it looked like a missile or a rocket. Right now, the Pentagon doesn't have a full explanation for what it was.
The FAA says radar replays of the area do not reveal any fast- moving unidentified targets. Some people think it's simply a plane climbing out over the ocean to altitude.
CHETRY: A carnival cruise ship crippled at sea, 3,300 passengers and 1,200 crew members on board. It is being towed to San Diego, should arrive tomorrow night. The USS Ronald Reagan rushing in with tons of food, water, and supplies after an engine room fire left the vessel dead in the water Monday more than 100 miles off the coast of Mexico.
ROBERTS: A health epidemic has turned into a national emergency in Haiti this morning. Health officials say the cholera outbreak there has reached the capital city of Port-au-Prince and 73 people there now have the infection. Cholera has already killed nearly 600 people in Haiti.
CHETRY: Commercial airline pilots are being warned not go through airport body scanners. In a letter to his members, the president of the U.S. airline pilots' association calls those scanners, quote, "intrusive," and he goes a step further warning of health risks, saying, quote, "Based on currently available medical information, USAPA has determined that frequent exposure to TSA operated scanner devices may subject pilots to significant health risks."
We reached out the union to talk to us this morning. They declined our request, but we do have with us a current commercial pilot Patrick Smith. Patrick also writes the "Ask a Pilot" blog for Salon.com. He joins us via Skype from Boston this morning. Patrick, good to have you with us. Thanks so much.
PATRICK SMITH, COMMERCIAL AIRLINE PILOT: Thanks for having me.
CHETRY: I know you have broader concerns of airport security in general and whether the TSA is targeting safety measures as they should, but first I want to ask you about this warning from the pilot's associations about avoiding the full body scanner because of health issues. What's your take?
SMITH: Well, there may be some health issues. I'm not an expert in that area so I can't say for sure, but it's obviously something we need to consider.
But as you just touched on, I think we need to back away from this because, really, the overarching issue here isn't body scanners. It's about why are we running airline crews through standard security in the first place?
And when I say that, you know, I'll be accused of being elitist or looking for special treatment, and that's not it. I think airline crews are looking for the same thing that all Americans are looking for, which is effective security and reasonable security.
And I as an airline pilot in my full uniform with all my credentials one day had a butter knife taken from my luggage. I mean, they held up the line for that. That's not reasonable security. That's not improving security. It's not good for the airlines. It's not good for the customers or for the traveling public. That's what we're dealing with now and need to get past.
CHETRY: You bring up the issue of pilots and there are a lot of people agree with the issue of pilots, saying this additional screening for pilots is slightly ridiculous given the fact you're trusting them to fly an airplane. So does it make us safer to take a butter knife out of the checked luggage?
SMITH: And talking about the scanners themselves, this gets into issues of privacy, potential groping, and also you're setting up an arms race where first it was shoes and then underwear bombs. And what's next? We keep going with this?
If you said to people a decade ago or whatever that ten years from now you will have to be basically looked at naked before you get on a plane, nobody would have believed you.
CHETRY: Right. But what do you do as people who would seek to do us harm finding more and more ways around traditional security? We also seem to be sort of keeping up with the last best threat. But the underwear bomber was a perfect example of sneaking on undetectable explosives. What are we supposed to do then?
SMITH: It is an important and big question, but what we shouldn't be doing is what we're doing now, which is wasteful and pointless. Ultimately we are never going to be completely safe and we need to acknowledge that.
We also need to acknowledge that real airport security doesn't necessarily happen at the airport at all. It's going on behind the scenes with FBI, CIA, intelligence agencies around the world getting people before they get to the airport. That's the real key to airport security, not the silliness that we tend to see on the concourse. CHETRY: You know, there is a lot of controversy surrounding this new back scatter machine, this X-ray machine. I want to read something from the guidelines because it was pretty astounding, saying pilots opt out of the body scan and submit to the pat down.
And they ask you to bring a witness to the pat down and after getting the pat down, that you should evaluate your, quote, "fitness for duty because the experience can be devastating." That's quite strong language. Is it devastating to get this pat down?
SMITH: I know that it apparently has been for some pilots and passengers, too who claimed they were groped from TSA. I'm not saying for sure that that happened or didn't happen, but I do hear these things, and it's cause for concern.
CHETRY: And so, what's it been like for you? You have opted out, right? You have not gone through the back scatter machine, right, the body scanner. You have had enhanced pat downs.
SMITH: Yes. I have been patted down and then the other day I was made to take the belt off. This, again, was while I was on duty in the uniform and all of that. And again brings me back to the plight of looking at the bigger issue which is why are we going through the security in the first place?
CHETRY: Here's what the TSA says about it. "Our enemy is creative and willing to go to great lengths to evade detection. TSA utilizes the latest intelligence and inform the deployment of new technology in order to stay ahead of evolving threats." Do you think the body scanner and enhanced pat downs are helping with this, staying ahead of evolving threats as the TSA puts it?
SMITH: In some cases they could be but not in the context of patting down an airline pilot on duty and then, you know, and taking a butter knife from them. That's not what TSA is saying in that statement. TSA does a lot of good things, but it's stuff we don't see.
CHETRY: So should the people that are on the front lines in the TSA, the people determining whether they're going to pat down somebody, determining, you know, whether somebody's pulled out for extra security, do they need better and more training or just following the rules?
SMITH: If it were up to me I would take a high percentage of what we see at the airport check point concourse and reallocate those people, that effort, those resources towards better explosives screening. The real danger is bombs and explosives which it always has been. That hasn't changed in 50 years.
CHETRY: Right. Well, you bring up a lot of good points, Patrick Smith, commercial airline pirate -- pilot.
(LAUGHTER)
No, you're not a pirate. Don't worry. I hope that doesn't get you subjected to more enhanced screening. It's askthepilot.com is your blog. Thank you for joining us this morning.
SMITH: Any time. Thank you.
ROBERTS: An interesting issue in all of this, too, once the pilot passes through security and goes down the concourse, they go down the concourse, they get out the door, they go down on to the tarmac, they check the plane out and have access to things down there to perpetrate a terrorist attack, to get a weapon like that, they could get it down there out of a piece of checked luggage, whatever.
CHETRY: Right, which is why we're eager to talk to a TSA official about this. Is this the best use of resources, as many questioned, but especially with pilots?
ROBERTS: Is it's an issue of, OK, maybe you have to subdue the co-pilot and with control of the aircraft, that's your biggest weapon that you have.
CHETRY: Right.
ROBERTS: Does it all make sense?
CHETRY: Well, she bad-mouthed the boss on Facebook and she got fired for it, but was it an illegal dismissal? The groundbreaking case is coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back. Are you protected if you complain about your boss on a social networking site? There's a woman working far Connecticut ambulance company and she was fired for doing just that on Facebook.
ROBERTS: But the National Labor Relations Board has jumped into the fray to say the firing might be illegal. Earlier on "AMERICAN MORNING" I asked attorney Paul Callan when workers are protected in these situations.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL CALLAN, PROFESSOR OF MEDIA LAW, SETON HALL UNIVERSITY: The workers have to be engaged in what's called "concerted activity," and that means they have -- a number of have to be discussing work conditions.
In the case here with this ambulance service, the woman made a posting critical of a supervisor and then other workers chimed in, also attacking the supervisor. She was then fired for disloyal conduct and violating the Facebook policy and the NLRB said this is protected activity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Callan points out though that protection applies only to unionized workers and workers capable of joining a union. Supervisors if they want to say something nasty about the company, they're not protected. So before you get out there on the Facebook and say it's wide-open world, make sure you're protected.
CHETRY: Legally speaking, it may be one thing, but whether or not it's a wise move for your career is a very different story.
ROBERTS: True.
CHETRY: Is it spring or what? Warm temperatures making a comeback and hurricane season's not over. Rob Marciano checks in with some of the wild weather going on around the country. It's 44 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Good morning, Chicago where right now it's partly cloudy and 49 degrees. Later on today, it's going to be nice temperature wise at the least, back up to 70 degrees. So yes you're back up into early fall there in the windy city and isn't that a great thing?
CHETRY: Yes. It's crazy weather there. I mean, you can go lay out by the lake if you wanted to.
Rob Marciano is checking things out for us this morning. We're getting some of that nice weather soon -- Rob?
MARCIANO: Yes you are as soon as this afternoon and maybe not quite as warm as it is in Chicago right now but the warmth is making its way slowly off to the east. The heat pump coming and bringing some moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and some warmth of course from the south and it's being pushed to the east slowly with this front.
I do want to touch on one thing that's going on down in the tropics. I can't really see it too well. There's a little disturbance out by Puerto Rico. It is moving off towards the north and east. We don't expect it to be any big worry but obviously with the hurricane last week, we'll watch anything that develops in the Caribbean and it's still hurricane season right on through the end of this month.
All right, so what's going on around the East Coast? This stubborn low refuses to go away. We're looking at showers still in Eastern New England but they'll go away later on this afternoon. Temperatures in the 40s right now. Inland areas a little bit chillier but the sun is still pretty strong and we're under a relatively warm air mass so the temperatures should rebound quickly.
But the winds will keep -- keep planes with relatively small problems from New York to Boston. Maybe Salt Lake City, as well, where we're seeing some rain and snow mixing in there and they've seen several inches of snow across the Wasatch, Utah and more moisture coming in to the West Coast.
Some video out of Mt. Hood, Oregon, just east of Portland by about an hour and change, up the mountain you go to about 4,500 feet. Government Camp there, that's the mountain pass. It's snowing heavily and you go up a little bit more, about up a thousand feet and you get into Timberline Lodge where they filmed "The Shining" and you can get skiing nearly year around.
Other spots that are opening now or this weekend, Copper Mountain, Loveland's already open. Wolf Creek, Arapaho A Basin, Keystone is open and Breckenridge about to open. Brighton and Solitude just told me there is about to open as well. Remember yesterday, we highlighted the Sugar Mountain in North Carolina, already open for this season.
Some of that snow is going to melt, thought, it's man-made, of course. It's 76 degrees for a high temperature in Atlanta, it's going to be 80 degrees in Dallas; 58 in New York with a warming trend; 61 degrees in Washington. And as we mentioned, it's going to be toasty in Chicago; 71. We may break some records across the upper Midwest today. John and Kiran, back up to you.
CHETRY: All right, Rob. Thanks so much.
MARCIANO: You bet.
ROBERTS: Now, the students of CEU getting the boards waxed up ready for this weekend.
Well, sex, drugs and brawling, texting and Facebooking. If you are one of those people who texts a lot or uses Facebook a lot, are you potentially at risk for other high-risk behaviors? Well, we'll discuss that issue coming up next. It's 49 and a half minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Bad boys in the control room this morning if you're doing all that texting.
ROBERTS: Oh come on.
CHETRY: You may be doing some other bad things.
ROBERTS: I hope Doug's not doing anything bad. He's a new father for Pete's sake.
CHETRY: If he texted, "Buy more diapers and formula, sweetie." That's all you're texting these days, Doug. Your fun's over.
Fifty-two minutes past the hour.
I'm just kidding. It's wonderful, parenthood.
Time for your "AM House Calls", stories about your health. And if your child is texting too much, you may want to keep a closer eye on what else they're doing. A new study says that hyper-texting teens, those who send at least 120 texts on a school day, are much more likely to do other risky things like, binge drink, take drugs and perhaps have multiple sex partners.
ROBERTS: There are also other risks for young people who use social networking three or more hours a day, they are more at risk for mental health issues. They are twice as likely to attempt suicide and they also have more of a problem with bullying. We talked to the lead author of this study just a short time ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: So these are young people who really are almost obsessed with using SMS messages and -- and social networking?
DR. SCOTT FRANK, CASE WESTERN RESERVE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: They're spending really an excessive amount of time --
ROBERTS: Yes.
FRANK: -- online and connected with friends through social media and in doing so they have perhaps taken peer pressure to a cyber peer pressure level, a high-tech peer pressure.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: The author recommends that parents set limits and rules for texting and social networking but you know, the bottom line is you've got to be aware of -- of what your child is doing --
CHETRY: Right.
ROBERTS: -- because there is no cause and effect that they have determined at this point. It's just they found this association. People who engage in these behaviors also engage in these other behaviors.
CHETRY: Right. Socially isolating. I mean, you know, to -- to be constantly on the computer or texting and not interacting with the real world.
The other thing that's tricky for parents, texting, I mean, it's silent. You can hear your kid talking on the phone. But with texting --
ROBERTS: Well, you can often hear them in the back going -- tick, tick, tick.
CHETRY: The iPad or with the iButton now, it's even harder.
Well, controversial rap star Kanye West grabs the mike again. This time he was on board a Delta flight to New York. It was an impromptu rap performance on tape, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: In-flight entertainment hit new heights on one recent domestic flight.
CHETRY: Yes, rapper Kanye West took over the mike. He wasn't giving instructions on how to buckle your seat belt, he wasn't saying I'm going to let you finish Miss Flight Attendant. No, I'm kidding.
Jeanne Moos has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Normally Kanye West is a down-to-earth rapper.
But the other day that same rap was the in-flight entertainment as first class passenger Kanye West unexpectedly got on the PA system of a Delta flight from Minneapolis to New York.
The Web site Hollywood Life first reported the story. The passenger captured the last few seconds of the rap with a cell phone.
KANYE WEST, RAPPER: OK. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. God bless you.
MOOS: Kanye's known for commandeering microphones. Remember when he interrupted Taylor Swift's award speech? And he has taken over a plane's P.A. system before.
WEST: And even though it's totally illegal, I'm going to fly us out of here.
MOOS: On the show "Entourage."
WEST: I'm just (EXPLETIVE DELETED) with you. I'm just (EXPLETIVE DELETED) with you.
MOOS: But the rap was on a real Delta flight.
Your attention please.
We wanted to ask Delta Airlines how Kanye West got on a plane's intercom but Delta had no comment. I repeat, no comment.
We have heard of candidates taking over the P.A. on campaign planes.
HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Once we have reached cruising altitude --
GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Please store your expectations securely.
MOOS: A Southwest flight attendant became famous rapping the safety instructions.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you for the fact that I wasn't ignored. This is Southwest Airlines, welcome aboard.
MOOS: From rapping in midair to rapping on the air, allow us to introduce you to a rapper of small stature whose reputation is growing.
Up until now 15-year-old Keenan Cahill has been a web sensation for lip-synching songs from Lady Gaga to Michael Jackson. Talk about a thrill, on Tuesday, he made the leap to cable appearing on Chelsea Handler's show.
CHELSEA HANDLER, HOST, "CHELSEA LATELY": Now, get yourself comfortable.
MOOS: That's where they premiered Keenan's latest lip-synch doing a 50 Cent rap when who should appear in the bedroom?
50 Cent himself. The rapper even gave Keenan his cross. A new side kick for 50 Cent. Keep the change.
Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY: Why doesn't something like that happen on one of my flights? Just boring.
ROBERTS: Just boring people, just flying from here to there. Not that it matters whether it's boring. But, you know, nothing really happens.
CHETRY: I wish Kanye was on our flight.
ROBERTS: Something interesting happened to me on a recent flight but --
(CROSSTALK)
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR, "CNN NEWSROOM": Nothing like a grown passenger.
ROBERTS: Well, who's that ringing in this morning.
PHILLIPS: It wouldn't be me ringing (ph) in for a slice, that's for sure. Cranberry and then Club Soda.
Anyway, but that might make it a little more exciting, Kiran. Just pop a few.
CHETRY: Exactly.
ROBERTS: If you haven't guessed by now, we're out of here. Kyra Phillips in the "CNN NEWSROOM" takes over now. Good morning, Kyra.
