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At This Hour

Poll: Obama Not Tough Enough in Ukraine, Middle East; Human Trials Begin for Ebola Vaccine; Protecting Privacy Online; Should You Recline on Airplanes?

Aired September 02, 2014 - 11:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: The president is getting ready to pack up and take his foreign policy on the road. He will visit Russia's nervous neighbor, Estonia. Russia's aggression in Ukraine and ISIS terror is likely to be the topics.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Maybe the president's policies will be more popular overseas. A recent poll shows more than half of Americans don't think he's been tough enough in dealing with the crisis in Ukraine and Middle East. Even loyal Democrats like Dianne Feinstein think the president is being too cautious.

Let's talk about that. I want to bring in political commentators, Reihan Salam and Marc Lamont Hill.

Reihan, what do you make of too cautious by Dianne Feinstein?

REIHAN SALAM, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I'm not sure that the problem is he's too cautious. He's not done a very good of job of matching the capabilities the U.S. has at the moment. The world is permanently dangerous. You have to have the capabilities. You've got to build them up before you start talking tough. I think the president hasn't always been attentive to the fact that you got to walk and speak softly and carry a big stick. It's that latter part that matters a lot.

PEREIRA: Marc, is it fair to say Obama hasn't been tough enough? In certain areas, you can look at Osama bin Laden, the strike that killer Anwar Awlaki in Yemen, drone strikes in Pakistan, even the situation today with the drone strikes in Somalia, is that a fair assessment?

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No. If we're talking about tough as being hawkish and tough as using war as an instrument of foreign policy, if we're talking tough as in a doctrine of permanent war, I would say that President Obama has been tough as George Bush or anyone else. I don't think there's a lack of toughness here. But I think they don't want the president to be contemplative. They don't want the president to think about these issues. They want what we saw yesterday from David Cameron, a kind of hawkish and probably, to me, short-sighted. I don't think boots on the ground in Syria or Iraq is the best strategy. It's the worst possible strategy, to put American -- to be clear -- American boots on the ground. I think the president understands that. He understands that there's a need to be contemplative here. And not doing so makes he seem weak to some. But in the grand scheme of things, history will bear out this is probably the right approach.

SALAM: I actually think almost the opposite is the case. I think the president has been pretty quick to draw red lines, to use force without actually having a coherent world view. I think when he recently said, look, we're looking at our strategy, vis-a-vis, ISIS, the reason it is resonating with so many people is it's not clear that we've had a strategy with Russia and the Ukraine crisis. I think there are many domains where the president's watch word has been restraint. And after 10 years of wars, I think that's actually very sensible. The trouble is that restraint alone isn't having a realistic and coherent foreign policy. You need to be contemplative about larger strategic questions. That's what people are wondering about, including Democrats.

BERMAN: Marc?

LAMONT HILL: I think there is a larger strategic vision here he's only going to act when it's directly connected and compromising --

(CROSSTALK)

SALAM: That's not a strategic vision, Marc.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: Marc, Marc, Marc, directly -- sorry. Let me just dump in here. What happened in Somalia today, we haven't heard from the president justifying why the United States did this. But how would you explain to the American people why this drone strike on al-Shabaab in Somalia somehow solves a direct threat to the United States while taking on ISIS, who just beheaded an American journalist in Syria, would not be?

LAMONT HILL: Two things. One, when I say a direct threat, the loss of James Foley is a threat or something that affects America. But I'm talking about a domestic attack. Britain seems to be much more likely to have an attack. They have more radicalized citizens coming back there. Potentially, to the United States, and that's a concern. What happened with al-Shabaab, we don't know yet. I'm actually eager to hear what the president says about that. I think right now, when it comes to ISIS, I think there's a sense here that ISIS is powerful, dangerous, and needs to be contained, but the president doesn't want U.S. to be the leader on this. They want the region to lead on this. Iraqis and Syrians need to lead on this. Again, that makes strategic sense. If you have the United States on the ground combined with these odd bedfellows like Iran and Syria, what you do is create a global narrative that the Sunnis are being repressed by a Christian/Shia alliance. That only foments more terrorism, only creates more push back. I think that's a reasonable strategy the president is engaging in.

SALAM: ISIS is creating a state that is devoted to a brand of apocolypticism that's quite unique. It's in the heart of the Middle East. It's extraordinarily dangerous. They are going to be a base for terrorist activity throughout the region. That is happening. That is pretty close to a direct threat. And it's something we need to take a role in.

And I think you're right. You don't want the United States to have enormous numbers of boots on the ground. But there is a perception that the president doesn't have a very clear strategy. He reinforced that very recently and I think that's a huge problem.

BERMAN: I think what we're seeing is some agreement on the minimalism here. This is an issue that will be very interesting to discuss. I hope you guys can come back and discuss.

PEREIRA: And important, too.

LAMONT HILL: Absolutely.

PEREIRA: Guys, thanks so much.

Ahead @THISHOUR, human trials for the Ebola vaccine are going to begin this week. It's going to be tested on three healthy adults that are volunteering to do this. What makes somebody volunteer? We'll speak to Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

BERMAN: And we all know planes are crowded, but if you inch your way into someone else's space, would you be inching yourself closer to a fight? If you recline your chair, do you deserve to be shouted at? We'll discuss that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: The first human trial for an Ebola vaccine is set to start today. This comes as the epidemic spreads at an alarming rate across West Africa. More than 3,000 cases confirmed. Half of the infected people have died.

PEREIRA: Those are the official numbers that John just gave you but the director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells me that the actual numbers are much higher. Dr. Tom Frieden is just back from the epicenter from the outbreak. He was in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. He's about to discuss his findings at the CDC.

But he spoke with me earlier on "New Day," about how grave this crisis is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. TOM FRIEDEN, DIRECTOR, CDC: We've seen outbreak of Ebola before. This is the first epidemic, spreading widely throughout country and many countries and it's spiraling out of control. It's bad now. Much worse than the numbers show. It's going to get even worse in the very near future and our window of opportunity to turn it around is closing, but it's not yet closed. The crucial thing we do -- we need to do is to act fast. Action today is worth much more than action in a couple of weeks or a month of two.

PEREIRA: Why is the window closing? FRIEDEN: What we're seeing a spreading of cases, hugely fast increase

in cases that's harder and harder to manage. The more we can get in there and tamp that down, the fewer cases we'll have in the weeks and months to come.

PEREIRA: Last final thought, are you hopeful of this clinical trial of Ebola vaccine? It starts today.

FRIEDEN: I certainly hope we'll have a vaccine and a treatment. But we can't count on it. We know that the methods that we've used have stopped every Ebola outbreak to date but what we have to do now is scale them up massively.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now.

And, Sanjay, you just heard Dr. Frieden say he's hopeful but we can't rely and count on that Ebola vaccine that's in trial today. Give us a little more background.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It does start today. There's going to be 20 healthy volunteers who are going to get this vaccine. The first one gets it today, second one tomorrow, third, and so forth. Within three weeks, they are going to have everyone enrolled in this particular trial. What they are looking for over the next few months, really until the end of this year is safety. That's the first thing you look for in any clinical trial, to see is this safe. We know that the people who are getting the vaccine aren't getting the Ebola virus itself, so there's no risk of infection to them to getting an Ebola infection, for example, but they obviously want to make sure it doesn't cause any other side effects in the body and that's what they are testing.

One thing I should point out when you listen to Dr. Frieden's comments, Michaela, there's some bad news accident good news in his answer about this vaccine. He's saying he doesn't think it's going to be effective for the outbreak. That's the bad news. That's in part because the projections are the outbreak will be over before the vaccine is ready. There is still a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel there.

BERMAN: Sanjay, you said there's no risk in theory to the people taking this vaccine, of getting Ebola. I do know there are a lot of vaccines you take, you get a little bit sick, under the weather, your arm hurts for a period of time. Who are these volunteers for this type of thing?

GUPTA: Yeah. These are -- it's a pretty incredible people. These are altruistic people. The first question is, are they paid for this? There is some money. We calculated it out. Roughly, there's about nine visits involved to the NIH to take part in this trial and they get paid about $1,700 total. That's for time and inconvenience. But they are not getting paid extra to be a volunteer.

You know, look, people have all sorts of different reasons for volunteering for these types of studies. Unlike a cancer trial, for example, where you have people who are hopeful that whatever the trial is could help them, that's not necessarily the case here. I mean, these are people who may never get exposed to Ebola in their life times, so it's generally altruistic. They are a special bunch.

PEREIRA: They really are. Thank goodness they are willing to do that. Hopefully, we'll get to meet one of them some day.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much for joining us.

GUPTA: You've got it.

PEREIRA: And of course, stay with us here on CNN. We're going to have more at the top of the next hour, the CDC will explain further about this human trial. Dr. Tom Frieden will be speaking at the top of the hour.

BERMAN: Ahead for us, Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Victoria Justice exposed on line. They say their naked photos were private, but is anything really private anymore? How can you secure your information, your photos on line?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: Well, the FBI wants to know who hacked celebrity accounts and leaked nude photos. Apple says it's looking into reports that maybe its popular iCloud service could have been compromised.

BERMAN: And Laurie Segall talks about how this happened.

And what can you do to protect yourself. You know, do we know for a fact, first of all, this was -- these photos were in the iCloud or is that a theory?

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN MONEY TECH CORRESPONDENT: We have to be careful about saying iCloud was hacked. The leading theory is up until about a week ago Apple didn't lock people out. If you went in and say, I forgot my password, you could keep typing in what you thought it was. Because of that, hackers have a way to generate common passwords and keep trying until one clicks. Many people think that might have been the case.

When we talk about these images, I should say, these images sell. Celebrity nudes sell on the Internet and the dark web for a lot of money. I spoke to Michael Gregg, who deals with celebrities who have been hacked. Listen to what he said about these images.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL GREGG, ETHICAL HACKER: A lot of times, these things might be privately traded. Think of them as baseball cards. You've got one, I've got one. They're traded in these groups. We may never even hear about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: Geez.

SEGALL: One of the most eye-opening things I got out of my conversation with him is these photos might have been surfacing and traded back and forth for months and years and now they're just surfacing and there could be many more on the dark web.

PEREIRA: Here's the question. These were celebrities. Is there a chance other people who have photos, maybe not necessarily naked pictures but other photos, could they have been compromised?

SEGALL: Absolutely. What this does, this is a grand case right here. This happens all the time. This can happen to you and me. There are a couple steps you can take to just be a little bit more secure when it comes to your iCloud account. Two factors. Authentication is important. Instead of signing into Gmail, I'll try to sign in, I get a text and use that code to get in.

PEREIRA: Every single time?

SEGALL: It's a pain but that could have potentially prevented what happened here.

Use a pass phrase instead of a password. You think, OK, I can't come up with a password that's a billion characters long but a pass phrase, think of a sentence you always tell yourself.

PEREIRA: John likes purple bananas times four.

SEGALL: Exactly. You'll remember that.

(CROSSTALK)

SEGALL: Also, you can disable Photo Stream on your iPhone because that automatically syncs to the Cloud.

BERMAN: That's a great point. I think the Cloud is this thing that's out there, you know, you don't have direct control over it. So it makes you worry.

SEGALL: When I spoke to Michael Gregg, who helps celebrities who have been hacked. He said, Laurie, I tell them to not upload images to the Cloud. Even if you delete them, on many services, they still don't go away.

PEREIRA: He seems awfully concerned about this. I'm worried about what photos you have out there, Mr. Berman.

BERMAN: I've always been nervous about the Cloud and I have my own reasons.

PEREIRA: Doth thou protesteth too much.

Laurie Segall, thank you.

SEGALL: Thank you. PEREIRA: We'll talk about an airline passenger sitting quietly in her seat. She happened to be knitting. How does this scenario end with a plane being diverted? Yes, somebody reclined.

BERMAN: No, they reclined?

PEREIRA: Ooh, they reclined.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right. So you have the right to recline, but should you?

PEREIRA: Yeah! Don't you think?

That's the urgent question we're asking today because of this. A Delta airlines flight diverted overnight because of a fight over leg room. A passenger says it started when a woman who was knitting decided --

BERMAN: She was knitting.

PEREIRA: She was knitting, people. She decided to recline her seat. The woman behind her, well, she went off.

BERMAN: Delta says it rerouted the flight out of an abundance of caution.

PEREIRA: Joining us now, Mark Murphy, travel expert and author.

Mark, so good to have you. You are the man to talk about this.

We know that traveling, my friend, these days, is working our last nerve. The flights are delayed. Your luggage might get lost. There are all sorts of issues. You paid too much. We're not as excited about traveling. And then you get on the flight and the seats are smaller, you have no leg room. Is this what is making people go off when someone reclines their seat?

MARK MURPHY, TRAVEL EXPERT & AUTHOR: I don't get it. At the end of the day, it's my seat, I can recline it if I so choose. But I always look behind me to make sure the person behind me doesn't have a computer out or something else, I give them a head's up. That's a normal -- I think the challenge is the planes are full. So people are getting jammed into these planes. You're right. The seat pitch used to be 34 inches. That's the difference between the front of your seat and the back of the seat in front of you. In some cases, that's down to 28 inches. The average is 30. So it's tight. People get frustrated, as we see.

BERMAN: Yeah, the leg room thing is one of the -- you know, the giant problems with traveling. I dread it.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK) BERMAN: I'm 6'3" but I'm not 6'5". I mean, you know, are the airlines begging for this kind of attention on the flight by reducing the amount of leg room, by flying fewer planes? The number of planes is down 7 percent in the last seven years? They seem to be asking for these types of problems.

MURPHY: The airlines want to make profitable flights. They want to fly without incident. When you have to divert a plane that costs a lot of money to do that. And it disrupts the whole flow. It creates a domino effect. That plane has to pick people up at the next destination and you've got delay, delay, delay, which costs the airlines money. I don't think they want that. What does the consumer want? Cheap prices. By many jamming more people in, the idea is the price comes down, but since there are fewer planes flying and there's as many people, if not more people flying today, that supply and demand meant the prices were still high, yet you're a little more uncomfortable. But we're not really getting the benefit of the lower fares too much.

PEREIRA: But that's the problem. The answer seems to me, if you're frustrated, you reach out to the airlines, you find an airline that isn't necessarily cramming people in. Because it's not the knitting lady's fault. She should be able to recline.

BERMAN: I love the detail that she's knitting. It makes her seem even more innocent.

PEREIRA: I'm a good person. I want to fly. I don't want to get into a fight with somebody. Most people just want to get from point A to point B, don't they, Mark?

(LAUGHTER)

MURPHY: You want to do it as cheaply, as safely as possible. The airlines have made it tighter in the back of the plane for certain seats. They really squeezed down the seats. If you really pay a little extra, they will give you more leg room. You get a few more inches of leg room, but you will pay for that. So what they're doing, trying to maximize their profitability and basically said if you want to be a sardine, great, we got you covered.

PEREIRA: Mark Murphy, appreciate you. Thanks for joining us.

Don't think I didn't hear that 6'3" comment you made a little earlier. We're all suspect.

BERMAN: We want to know what you think about leg room. Is there ever a right time to go bonkers if someone reclines in front of you? Message us on Twitter or Facebook. If your answer is yes, I'm a little frightened of you.

PEREIRA: That's it for us @THISHOUR. I'm Michaela Pereira.

BERMAN: And I'm John Berman.

"LEGAL VIEW" with Ashleigh Banfield starts now.