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Guantanamo Facility Still Open; North Korea Blasting U.S. On Hacking Accusation; New Immigration Facility; Misty Copeland At The Met

Aired December 20, 2014 - 16:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Martin Savidge. It's great to be with you. Our attention tonight is on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The U.S. detention center there is still open nearly six years after President Obama signed an order to shut it down. But the number of people up there is shrinking.

The Pentagon has now confirmed that four men were sent back to their home country of Afghanistan. That's in addition to six others who were released earlier this month. About 800 terror suspects in all have been held at Guantanamo connected to the U.S.-led war on terror. After this release, it will remain at 132.

I want to bring in Robert Baer. He is a former CIA officer and CNN intelligence and security analyst. Bob, who are these men that have been sent back to Afghanistan this morning and what do we know about them?

ROBERT BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: Well, as you said, Marty, they're suspects. There's no evidence that they've killed Americans. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They may have connections with terrorist groups but it's not something that military prosecutors can prove and at this point there's absolutely no reason why we can't let them go. And they will go back and some of them almost certainly will join a terror group and eventually be caught again or proved to be terrorists and there's just nothing you can do about it. Just like the police when they arrest suspects that they can't bring a case against, they have to release them, they go on to commit another crime. I don't see any difference at all.

SAVIDGE: Do you see or whose job will it be to try to keep track of these suspects? I presume somebody is going to try to keep tabs on them.

BAER: They'll end up on lists, you know, their biometrics, any indicia , digital indicia associated with them they'll keep track of them. They'll go back to Afghanistan, where who knows what's going to happen to them then. A lot of these people frankly will just go back to peaceful lives but, again, let's not get excited about this right now. Some of them will join terrorist groups.

SAVIDGE: Now, we know that Congress has struck down the outright closure of Guantanamo in the new defense bill but that doesn't stop the release of more detainees. Can President Obama shut it down without Congress approving?

BAER: Well, I hope they shut it down. After all we are going to normalize relations with Cuba and I could see at one day that that base is at least jointly administered with Cuba, you know, if things go well. We have to come to a system, the world does, to deal with these jihadists a way to put them behind bars and, you know, put them out of the business.

SAVIDGE: I wanted to ask you real quick, there is a report now, and I'm switching gears now to ISIS. ISIS barely has banned devices with GPS tracking. Smart move on their part? Belated? What do you think?

BAER: No. These guys are very good. You know, what surprised me about ISIS is they've gone to mobile wi-fi. I mean, they only go for a couple minutes. They have simply looked at the Snowden documents that were leaked and they have found a hole in our coverage. National security agency, you know, a lot of young kids from Europe and the United States are showing up there that understand their way around computers and communication system. They're getting better and it's really a tough catch-up game for the national security agency.

SAVIDGE: Yes. I think many people have been impressed with sophistication. Even when it comes to just the video presentation. Bob Baer, thanks very much. We always look forward to your insights.

Moving to North Korea, moving on that is, the state-run news agency there today blasted what it called America's childish investigation. That concluded North Koreans were behind that Sony computer hacking. Hackers broke into Sony servers and they even threatened to attack movie theaters that screened "The Interview," that's a comedy film about an assassination plot on North Korea leader Kim Jong-un.

The Guardians of Peace, the hackers accused of carrying out the attack issued a new message today taunting the FBI and congratulating the bureau for its investigation. Experts say the hacking required a high level of technical knowledge and North Korea may have had some help. Here's CNN's Brian Todd -

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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The cyber forensic evidence all points to North Korea, according to the FBI. The computer code, algorithms, the IP addresses but that's not necessarily a clear path to Pyongyang.

SCOTT BORG, U.S. CYBER SECURITY GROUP: It's all circumstantial evidence that can be faked.

TODD: Scott Borg's cyber security group monitors the skill levels of hackers across the globe. Despite North Korea's efforts to develop sophisticated army of hackers he says there were elements in the Sony attack that went beyond their skill level.

BORG: The biggest one is that they were able to carry on with activities inside Sony's network for so long without being spotted. Moving possibly terabytes of data without anyone noticing requires a lot of skill. Opening documents all over the place in order to download them and have no one notice requires quite a bit of skill.

TODD (on camera): And they just didn't have that even recently?

BORG: That's right. Earlier this year there was no sign of that level of skill.

TODD (voice-over): Borg believes Kim Jong-un's regime may have outsourced at least some of the Sony hack but to whom?

BORG: I think the most likely, this was hacking talent that volunteered to help them or criminals that they hired. Or someone inside of Sony who provided them with all kinds of inside access.

TODD: U.S. investigators have evidence that hackers stole the computer credentials of a Sony system administrator to get inside access but could another government have helped North Korea? One analyst says another U.S. enemy may be involved.

UNIDENTIFED FEMALE: There are signs that suggest Iran may indeed have helped. Because they have worked together on missile development for many years because Iran has been a major client of North Korea weapons.

TODD: CNN reached out to Iranian officials about that. They didn't respond. The White House maintains North Korea acted alone.

BARACK OBAMA, U.S. PRESIDENT: We've got no indication that North Korea was acting in conjunction with another country.

TODD: North Korea denies hacking Sony but if Pyongyang pulled this without any outside help it would be the greatest success for their shadowy hacking group called Bureau 121.

UNIDENTIFED MALE: Frankly, North Korea probably doesn't need the help. They've been investing in their own cyber capabilities for the last four or five years very heavily and they've had a couple of trial runs with attacks on South Korean media and banks.

TODD (on camera): And one analyst points to a key reason why other governments may not have helped North Korea with the Sony hack. He said most governments wouldn't be foolish enough to hand any kind of attack tools to North Korea given their erratic behavior.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: Not everyone loves the decision to bring Cuba and the United States closer. Some people have committed heinous crimes and when they go to the safe haven, they caught the first flight to Havana. So should Cuba turn them over to us? We'll talk about that, just ahead.

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SAVIDGE: President Obama's historic shift in U.S./Cuba relations now prompting for fresh calls for Cuba to return one of New Jersey's most notorious fugitives. Her name is Jo Ann Chesimard. She is the only female on the FBI'S list of most wanted terrorist. Chesimard is a convicted cop killer who escaped from an American prison back in the 1980s and then fled to Cuba. Our Jason Carroll has more on the push to return her to U.S. soil.

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UNIDENTIFED FEMALE: ... learn a lot from people?

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): (INAUDIBLE) is somewhat of a cause celeb in Cuba, called on to speak about issues such as equality and human rights but it wasn't always like this. In fact, she didn't always go by the name Asada Shakur.

AARON FORD, FBI: The addition of Joanne Chesimard to the FBI's most wanted terrorist list.

CARROLL: Shakur's given name is Joanne Chesimard. Last year she became the first woman added to the FBI's most wanted terrorist list a $2 million reward offered for her capture in connection with the fatal shooting of a New Jersey state trooper in 1973.

FORD: While living openly and freely in Cuba, she continues to maintain and promote her terrorist ideology.

CARROLL: Back in 1973 Chesimard was a member of the black panther party. In 1987 Chesimard while a fugitive in Cuba talked about what happened the night she and two of her companions were stopped while driving on the New Jersey turnpike.

JOANNE CHESIMARD, FBI'S MOST WANTED: We ate. We got back into the car. And shortly after we were stopped by the police.

CARROLL: She claims things turned violent almost without warning.

CHESIMARD: He had a gun in my face and I put my hands out like this. In a matter of seconds I was shot.

CARROLL: When the shooting had ended, state trooper Wernor Forester was dead. Chesimard and another man charged with his murder.

(on camera): What happened out here on the New Jersey turnpike took place decades ago, but one chilling detail is still very clear to state troopers. According to the FBI, Forester was shot at point-blank range with his own gun.

(voice-over): A jury found Chesimard guilty of murder. She was supposed to serve a life sentence but two years later she was broken out of prison by three armed members of the Black Liberation Army. And after hiding out for years finally surfaced in Cuba, she was granted asylum by Fidel Castro.

Since then state officials have fought for her extradition. In 1998 New Jersey's governor Christine Todd Whitman had this message for Chesimard - CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: You are holding up the ability of the Cuban population to enjoy a better relationship with the United States by your presence in Cuba.

CARROLL: Now a historic shift in U.S./Cuba relations. Could it translate into an extradition agreement? One that would finally force Chesimard back to U.S. soil to be held accountable for her crime.

JOSE CARDENAS, FORMER STATE DEPT. OFFICER: What cuba wants always is to get into a swap situation. And for U.S. officials that's a very difficult road to go down.

CARROLL: Over four decades since the shooting troopers here in New Jersey are still waiting for justice.

Jason Carroll, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: My next guest is slamming President Obama for not making Joanne Chesimard's return part of his landmark deal with Cuba. With me now, "Daily Beast" special correspondent Michael Daly. Michael, what do you think the odds are that Chesimard will be extradited back to the U.S.?

MICHAEL DALY, "DAILY BEAST" SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: My guess zero. I mean, by the Americans take the step that they took, I mean, how are we going to force Cuba to give her Joanne Chesimard now unless there's some deal we don't know about. Unless there's some understanding that we don't know about. But Castro's kind of got what he wants. I mean, we can use our credit cards and debit cards down there. We can go down to the beach and show people who flock down there, there will be American money going down there. I'm sure Wall Street is full of guys now -

SAVIDGE: There's still a trade embargo in place.

DALY: Yes, I mean. But I think that it's the steps towards that. I can't see at this point I'm holding the trade embargo up, give us Joanne or we're not going to do that.

SAVIDGE: But perhaps as time progresses and the relationship grows closer between these two governments that eventually someone says it's time we do talk about Chesimard and her return.

DALY: That's possible. I'm just saying if you are talking about in the immediate foreseeable future. I don't see it personally.

SAVIDGE: I want to talk about how - you wrote about this. I want to read your quote exactly which is why I'm still - I got it. You said, quote, "unless Cuba sends American fugitives back, you might consider following the now lifted embargo with your own personal boycott." Do you think that Americans are really going to boycott over -

DALY: No, I don't think they will. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't. SAVIDGE: Yes, but it's a point of conscience here.

DALY: Well, this is a police officer who was murdered in the course of his duty. I mean shot twice in the head with his own gun. She went to trial. She was convicted. She broke out of prison. And to me I - you know, I don't want to be sitting on a beach with her.

SAVIDGE: Do you think that eventually someone is going to say, "all right, we'll make an exchange for her and we find someone else?" I presume there are other captives that we still hold.

DALY: Well, it's possible. I mean I think we have a couple of their spies still in jail. I suppose it's possible.

SAVIDGE: You don't strike me as a man who is full of hope on this, though.

DALY: I don't. I think that - not that I'm an expert on Cuba, but if I'm Castro of the Castro regime, I want to still send a signal to people that, you know, we're still the Castro people. We're still communists. We're still, you know, we're not like them and one way they can do that is by holding on to Joanne Chesimard. It's that last little fragment of their political stance.

SAVIDGE: Well, hopefully you're wrong and maybe they will have a change of heart. We'll see.

Michael Daly, thanks very much.

DALY: Thank you.

SAVIDGE: And just in to CNN, we should bring this to you, a huge protest at the Mall of America, that's outside of Minneapolis over the grand jury decision in the Eric Gardner and Michael Brown deaths. You're looking now at pictures from moments ago that were inside that mall. The protesters at one point were holding up their hands in a gesture from Ferguson, hands up, don't shoot.

People also had signs declaring black lives matter. CNN affiliate KARE reports mall officials warned protesters against the demonstration since the mall is private property. And, of course, today happens to be the busiest shopping day of the holiday season.

In a desolate part of Texas, a huge building has got a lot of people upset. It's a brand-new immigration detention center. But it's not an ordinary one. We'll tell you why it's made so many people angry.

But first, time to check in with Dr. Sanjay Gupta for a look at what's ahead on "SGMD" at 4:30 Eastern.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Martin, scientists are now in a race against time to find new ways to treat common infections before it's too late. So we're going to take you to the north of the arctic circle where research teams are on the hunt for the next generation of antibiotics. That's ahead on "SG MD" at the bottom of the hour. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: A few days ago the U.S. government opened the largest-ever facility set up to receive, house and process the flood of families arriving in the country mainly from Central America.

CNN's Nick Valencia is joining me now and Nick, you and I were both on the border in Texas there and we actually witnessed as people came across. So tell me more about why this place is needed. You and I know but for the general public.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this detention facility is for those family units that surge that we saw happen this summer of unaccompanied minors, that's children accompanied by at least a parent. Usually a mother. DHS, Department of Homeland Security, they think that this is a solution to house those tens of thousands of immigrants that cross the border this year. Immigrants rights groups and human rights advocates say not so much.

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VALENCIA (voice-over): Behind the chain-link fence and just beyond the dusty dirt field sits the largest immigrant family detention center in the United States. The facility quietly opened this week in Dilly, Texas about an hour outside of San Antonio. While the surge of unaccompanied children fleeing Central America spiked this summer, months later the federal government continues to work to solve the problem.

JEH JOHNSON, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Those who came here illegally in the past who have been here for years have committed no serious crimes and have become integrated members of American life, are not priorities for removal.

VALENCIA: But they are candidates for unnecessary trauma and prisonlike conditions according to immigrant rights groups who oppose facilities like the one in Texas.

VICTOR NIEBLAS, PRESIDENT-ELECT AMERICAN IMMIGRATION LAWYERS ASSOCIATION: It's the wrong side of history. When I see these pictures of Dilly, many people say it reminds us of the Japanese internment camps that we had in our history. Certainly we don't want to repeat that.

VALENCIA: With 2,400 beds the detention center at Dilly will essentially replace a separate facility in Arteja, New Mexico which will close by the end of 2014. Immigrant advocate Victor NieblAs says at a cost of $260 million per year to the American taxpayer there are cheaper and more moral options.

NIEBLAS: Whether it be churches who are in charge of these individuals who can be responsible for them or community-based organizations or even one of our most criticized program, you know, giving these individuals electronic bracelets. At the very least that would be an option that would not cost the taxpayers money. VALENCIA: DHS would not respond to specific criticisms of the centers but did say the facility in Dilly, "promotes and highlights the border security aspects of the executive actions President Obama announced on November 20th.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VALENCIA: The federal government has had a high detention rate this year just looking at that group of unaccompanied minors. They've caught more than 68,000 trying to cross the border this year. The problem, though, Martin is trying to figure out what to do with them after they're detained.

SAVIDGE: Getting back to the opponents of that detention center, so what exactly would they like to see? Do they have some sort of an alternative?

VALENCIA: Well, you heard there from Victor Nieblas, but principally what they want is legal representation for these undocumented immigrants. They say that if these undocumented immigrant family groups are given bonds or all allowed to reunite with their family groups that would be a more humanitarian option. The problem with that, though, Martin is that statistically speaking once these family units are let go given those court dates they very rarely show up for the court date that they're given. Martin?

SAVIDGE: Nick Valencia, thanks very much.

VALENCIA: You bet.

SAVIDGE; Coming up, an American success story for the holiday season. Misty Copeland, a ballerina who dedicated herself to ballet long after most girls give up. She persevered to make history and inspire others. That's ahead.

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SAVIDGE: Christmas is just five days away. If you're a kid, you can't wait. If you're a parent you are, like, oh, my gosh and families everywhere are now flocking to see what is always a holiday tradition "The Nutcracker" ballet.

In New York, Misty Copeland is starring in the lead role as Clara - she is living out really what is a dream for a lot of aspiring ballerinas. But her pathto the spotlight was very different than most. Randi Kaye tells us why.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She's long been called an unlikely ballerina. But at 32 years old, Misty Copeland is the first African-American soloist in two decades at the prestigious American Ballet Theater. Her story is different than most ballerinas.

(on camera): You took your first ballet class at 13. MISTY COPELAND, BALLERINA: Yes.

KAYE: Which is a pretty late start in the ballet field, right?

COPELAND: It is. It is.

KAYE (voice-over): Months after that first class at a Boys and Girls Club in San Pedro, California, people were calling misty a prodigy. She was just 17 when she joined the American Ballet Theater, but not everyone was quick to accept this ballerina who didn't look like at all the rest.

UNIDENTIFED FEMALE: "Dear candidate thank you for your application to our ballet academy. Unfortunately, you have not been accepted." "You're not the right feet, Achilles tendon, turnout, torso length and bust."

KAYE (on camera): Did you ever receive a letter like that? Could you relate to that?

COPELAND: I did. My teacher said keep that letter because you're going to want to look back on it one day. As an adult I was told that I didn't have the right skin color. I was too muscular. I was too curvy. My breasts were too big. I was too short.

KAYE: You wrote about an experience years ago where your friend overheard an American Ballet Theater staff member saying that you didn't fit in with your brown skin. Especially in a ballet like "Swan Lake." Do you remember how that affected you?

COPELAND: Yes. I get emotional right now just thinking about it. I tried to understand the person's perspective. And how deep rooted it is in the ballet culture. It's so easy for them to just say these things out loud and not understanding the effect it can have on someone.

KAYE (voice-over): Misty proved her critics wrong and played the dual role of the white and black swan in "Swan Lake" in Australia. And will reprise the role for the Washington Ballet and the American Ballet Theater next year.

(on camera): I want to ask you about one moment when you saw you in front of the MET. Is that - did your heart just skip a beat?

COPELAND: It was overwhelming and I didn't see myself up there. I saw a black woman. And that was the part that made me so emotional to see a black woman representing ballet, representing America's national ballet company on the front of the Metropolitan Opera House. I was, like, that's change.

KAYE (voice-over): Randi Kaye, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: Good story. All right. One more before you go. And it's one where everybody gets ready to say, ahh, in unison. We're talking pandas. A pair of female panda cubs in Japan has visitors there flocking to the Wakayama Japan Park. Staff at the Adventure World say the babies which were born on December 2nd weigh just over one pound each. The zoo plans to start soliciting names for the cubs very soon. Adventure World by the way has seven of these rare giant pandas on site.

CNN NEWSROOM continues at the top of the hour. Right now, keep it here for SANJAY GUPTA M.D. I'll see you in just a bit.