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Sarmad Qaseera on Being Photographer in Iraq during War; Meeting Captive Americans in North Korea; Militiamen Partying in Deserted U.S. Embassy in Libya; Embarrassing Cloud Security Breech for Hollywood Actresses

Aired September 01, 2014 - 15:30   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And just on a much more personal note for a moment, if I may, today, our family here at CNN is grieving.

We lost Sarmad Qaseera, an Iraqi photojournalist who came to our country and liked it enough to make it his home, his home away from the field, that is.

I had the pleasure of working with Sarmad. We worked together a lot. And one thing I really respected is how someone who has captured some of the absolute worst of it in the world through his lens, including the Iraq war, always walked around CNN with such a grin.

You talk to anyone, and it's Sarmad's grin, and he always would say: "Hello. How are you?"

To quote a colleague, it is hard to believe that someone who lived through so much is gone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARMAD QASEERA: To be an Iraqi journalist, photographer, yes, it's very difficult. As a journalist, you have to be honest. And at the same time, you know, like really difficult when you shoot, like, your own people. Like you are just sorry about your own people. Because I work with an American company, after the war, I have death threats and I have to leave. I have to leave, because they are serious. They will kill me. I left Iraq just for six months. I'm back to Iraq with CNN. When you go outside, you carry your camera, and your camera gear, tripod, microphone. You have to think about not just picture, you have to think about audio. And at the same time, you have to think about your security. One day, I remember that in 2006, there is - they call it Baghdad sniper.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A sniper is watching these American soldiers. You're looking at the unobstructed view from the sniper team's vehicle.

QASEERA: As a photo journalist, you have to see in viewfinder the frame. And at the same time, I can't shoot -- I can't see the -- what I shot, because I have to move my head, because the sniper -- you have to move your head how much you can to make the sniper, like -- he can't focus on you and your head if you're shot. You know, that's really difficult when -- I can say it's easy now when I say it's really easy. But no, it's not easy. You know, like really -- this moment, I can never forget. They put gun in your head. And I'm like -- like it's really difficult to do your job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: The message was clear. Help bring us home. In this rare interview inside of uber-secretive North Korea, you have these three detained Americans getting the chance to speak to the world via an interview, three interviews, to be precise, with CNN. You have Kenneth Bae, Matthew Miller, Jeffrey Fowle. They met with CNN's correspondent Will Ripley at this Pyongyang hotel earlier today under some incredibly strict guidelines, each was allowed to speak for just five minutes. There was a timer, he was getting cues to wrap-up each interview. Could only, you know, answer very specific questions. But they made one point very clear. The time is running out. Let me bring in international security analyst Jim Walsh. Jim, welcome.

JIM WALSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good to be with you.

BALDWIN: So, let me just begin with a little bit of sound and we'll chat on the other side. I just want everyone to hear these desperate pleas from each of these three men, because they want to come home. Here it was.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFFREY EDWARD FOWLE, AMERICAN HELD IN NORTH KOREA: This is an opportunity for maybe Bill Clinton to come back, and he had - released a couple of journalists a few years back. Maybe George Bush (INAUDIBLE) statement to try his hand at that. I would appreciate any help that they could lend. Start resolve our cases and bring us home.

MATTHEW TODD MILLER, AMERICAN HELD IN NORTH KOREA: I've been requesting help for a long time, and there has been no movement from my governments. The American government is known for having a strong policy of protecting its citizens. Yet for my case, there is still no movement. I've also written a letter to my president with no reply.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: While you're in North Korea?

MILLER: Yes. About one month ago. So for this reason, I am disappointed in my government. However, I want to believe that my government or someone is trying their best to help me, and I would be very glad to meet the person that saves me.

KENNETH BAE, AMERICAN HELD IN NORTH KOREA: For American government right now, I've been asking the American government to act upon getting me released here. And I do believe that special envoy needs to come in order to resolve this situation that I'm in right now. So I do ask the U.S. government to send an envoy as soon as possible. And otherwise - I think that's the only hope that I have right now in order for me to go home, and be reunited with my family.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: So just quickly, Jim, I want to read this. The State Department has acknowledged these interviews saying there is no greater priority for us than the welfare and safety of U.S. citizens abroad. All of that said, Jim, what is this really about for North Korea?

WALSH: Well, I think they're signaling pretty strongly that they're ready to talk, and under some circumstances release these folks. Now, you need to go back about two weeks ago. There was, reportedly, a secret mission of a U.S. high-ranking official going to Pyongyang sometime before August 20TH. If that's true, then this thing is either good news or it's bad news. It's good news, because it means some progress was made in that discussion and this is part of the rolling out of what will be a deal to return them. Or those talks didn't go well. And now this is North Korea trying to up the ante saying, you know, by putting public pressure on the president or on the government to do something. I don't know which it is, but I would say in general it's good that they say that they want to talk.

BALDWIN: I thought it was interesting that one of the Americans mentioned specifically by name George Bush or Bill Clinton, people who have -- Bill Clinton, sort of famously went just a couple of years ago before to secure the release of someone in the past. Do you think, you know, climbing inside the brain of North Korea, which, by the way, is impossible. But is that who they want or do they want someone from, you know, the government currently because maybe they're willing to broker some kind of deal?

WALSH: You know, it's hard for me to believe that the three detainees would use that sort of suggestion casually on their own.

BALDWIN: OK.

WALSH: My guess -- I'm assuming they said that because North Korea told them to say it. That's my working assumption here. I think it's a pretty good assumption, by the way. And when you think about the context, remember, North Korea has a young new leader. His father was visited by U.S. presidents. You've also in that list is Jimmy Carter. And so it may be a matter of status that the new leader on the scene needs to be met with someone of that stature that having been done in the past. That would be my theory.

BALDWIN: What about, Jim, just the way in which the choreography is the word I'm using, you know, and how this whole thing went down? I mean here is our CNN crew, and we're in Pyongyang for five days. Doing stories that North Korea wants the world to see about water parks and wrestling. And the next thing they know, they get this phone call in the middle of lunch, hey, you're going to meet with, you know, a high-ranking official in the North Korean government, you need to get in this super-secret van and go along the super-secret highway to, you know, location undisclosed. And then poof, these three Americans appear.

WALSH: Yeah. Doesn't surprise me at all. Having been to North Korea, you know, on visits, they don't give you a lot of advanced notice. My guess is that this was in the works for a while. That they had been thinking about this. And then just waited until the last minute to tell you guys, to tell CNN. And my guess is that they probably also took some time in advance to prep the three for the interview. So I think this -- I think choreographed is precisely the right word and it fits the pattern.

BALDWIN: Fascinating. Well, hopefully this will be a positive step forward for these Americans. Jim Walsh, we'll keep up the conversation. Thank you so much, sir, for coming in on Labor Day. We appreciate you very much.

WALSH: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Coming up next here on CNN, have you seen this video? This is not a frat party, ladies and gentlemen. This is actually part of the U.S. Embassy in Libya, and these men hurling themselves off the second floor are Libyan militants. What is this about? That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. And I want to take you to Libya for this next story. Because the U.S. embassy compound was the site of this spontaneous pool party attended by militiamen who were supposed to be protecting the site. This was from yesterday. This video appearing on YouTube posted yesterday shows Libyan militia members diving into a pool fully clothed. U.S. officials say the pool is part of a residential annex on embassy grounds. It is not clear if the embassy itself has been ransacked. The compound was abandoned weeks ago because of growing militia violence there. So let's talk about this with national security analyst, and former CIA operative, Bob Baer. Bob, what is going on there? Who are these people?

BOB BAER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, Brooke, you know, it's funny on one level. But it's indicative of a failed state. And I've been thinking about this a lot. And this is what we keep on seeing as these militias, most of them just completely out of control. But the well-organized ones are the fundamentalists and they seem to be winning, predominating and they are predominating in Libya. And I think behind these people, from everything I've heard, is the same sort of people that run ISIS.

BALDWIN: I wanted to ask you if there was any kind of connection, anything -- any of these groups in Libya to what we have seen play out both in Syria and Iraq?

BAER: There's only one connection, and that goes to Qatar. They have been funding both groups in Libya, they have been funding ISIS. All, the Islamic fundamentalist groups, Muslim Brotherhood, the militant wing, they fund it. And there is sort of a connection. But the real thing is, they could do -- get all their ideology offline, all the authorities they need are also online. And that's where it is. Otherwise it's just a very chaotic movement, but very lethal.

BALDWIN: You know, in seeing the video, knowing you were coming on, I was immediately struck by a comment you made I think it was when you were on the show last week where you said, you know, Brooke, in the 40 years I've been watching and involved with what's happening in the Middle East, this s the worst I have seen it. I think we were probably talking about ISIS at the time. But I mean, this is sort of a different kind of example of what is going on.

BAER: It's a cancer. I look at this way is - when things get very chaotic in Islam, people turn to religion. It's just - it's almost inevitable. These secular movements have all failed, with the exception of Egypt, and that was the military coup d'etat there. So, the best organized groups are religious ones. The same way in Lebanon with Hezbollah. That is the de factor state there. And we're seeing the same thing on the Sunni side of the equation. And it's not very promising. I think this - it could take a long time for this prairie fire, if you like, to burn itself out.

BALDWIN: It is just absolutely bizarre what happened, the Arab spring, Gadhafi and now this video. Bob Baer, thank you so much for coming in today and talking us through. We appreciate it.

Now to celebrities hacked, nude pictures of huge stars like Jennifer Lawrence now out there on the Internet. How could this happen? How can the rest of us protect ourselves from hackers? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: This holiday is not exactly fun for a long list of celebrities who had their nude pictures leaked all over the web. Talking about A-list actresses like Jennifer Lawrence. Her rep said they would request the prosecution of anyone caught posting these pictures. Although it's not known whether a criminal investigation has been launched. Another victim, actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead vented her anger on Twitter. She tweeted "To those of you looking at photos I took with my husband years ago in the privacy of our homes, I hope you feel great about yourselves." Knowing those photos were deleted long ago, I can only imagine the creepy effort that went into this, feeling for everyone who got hacked. So, CNN technology analyst Brett Larson joining me now. I mean I just have a total ick factor over there ....

BRETT LARSON, CNN TECHNOLOGY ANALYST: Yeah.

BALDWIN: All the way around. And then, do we even know who is this for Chan person or website?

LARSON: He may - and I'm sure we're going to be able to get some more confirmation on this as the hours and minutes go on. He may have been just a system administrator who knew his way around and how to hack things. It seems like this was not a real big effort, but was more of a I have these user names, I know of this loophole, the security loophole. I'm just going to run this password app and see if I can get into these people's cloud-based account. And what's sad about it, I'm sorry that I'm laughing because it's not funny. It's awful if this has happened to you. But what said about it, is this has become sort of our new reality as with the cloud.

BALDWIN: With the cloud. That's what I wanted to get to. Listen, we've all, a lot of people have.

LARSON: We've all done these things in front of cameras.

BALDWIN: You know, whatever your situation is taking a photograph and then poof it's out there in the ether. What can we do to not have ...

LARSON: Not have this kind of stuff happen?

BALDWIN: This happen.

LARSON: There's not a lot you can do. Well, you absolutely have to have good passwords. You have to have passwords that aren't words. You have to have like if your password was literary password which is the most common password, change the S to a dollar sign. I mean there's things you have to do because it's looking like this guy who got in literary ran a program that just runs through every word in the dictionary and one of those ends up being your password. That's really bad if that was that easy. So, you absolutely have to change your passwords. You have to consider using encryption on if you're backing up files because this could also happen to you if you're using an online backup service that backs up all of your computer. You might delete something on your laptop but it's still going to be in your backup because you want it to be in your backup, because that's why you have a backup.

And that's how - pictures ...

LARSON: Right.

BALDWIN: That had been deleted but because they were put out there, they were still floating out there on the ether. And we love that when we wish we had files and want to recover them.

LARSON: Or your computer gets stolen, or your iPad gets stolen, or your computer gets stolen, you think thank Gosh I have all of my computer - all of my files are backed up, so I'm not going to lose anything. But you also have some files backed up that you might not want, that you may want to purge from your ...

BALDWIN: Privacy all the way around.

LARSON: It will be interesting to see if they get prosecuted.

BALDWIN: That's a whole - I totally agree, that's a whole legal angle of the story.

LARSON: That's going to be a big change. Because it's, you know, whose fault? I mean hacking is against the law.

BALDWIN: Yeah.

LARSON: So we'll see what happens.

BALDWIN: Brett, thank you very much.

LARSON: Thanks, Brooke. Coming up next, more on the health of legendary comedienne Joan Rivers right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Fingers crossed. That is the latest word on Joan Rivers' condition from her daughter Melissa. The 81-year old "Fashion Police" host stopped breathing on Thursday during a routine throat surgery. First responders who rushed the comedienne to the hospital say she was in critical condition after suffering cardiac and respiratory arrest. Rivers' daughter released a statement saying her condition remains serious, but she is receiving the best treatment and care possible. Joan Rivers, we are thinking about you and we are wishing you well. Thank you so much for being with me here on this Labor Day. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Now to my colleague Dana Bash, "The Lead" starts now.