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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Stars Slammed In Leaked Sony E-mails; Obama's 3D Portrait: How'd They Do It?; ISIS vs. al Qaeda; Regulation on Drones Coming; New Safety Proposal from International Airline Air Safety Association

Aired December 10, 2014 - 16:30   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is a senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and joins me live.

Daveed, al Qaeda in Yemen is a savage group. They released a hostage video of Luke Somers. They killed Luke Somers, we're told, during that rescue attempt. How can they attempt to take a high road with ISIS?

DAVEED GARTENSTEIN-ROSS, SENIOR FELLOW, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: They're taking the high road not so much because they're good guys, obviously, but rather for strategic reasons. Al Qaeda had a very bad experience, actually, from ISIS's predecessor, al Qaeda in Iraq, which was known for its beheadings, known for its brutality and ended up creating among other things, a massive uprising against it the and diminished al Qaeda's brand worldwide. For strategic reasons they don't want to engage in the overt savagery that ISIS does, although they have no problem with engaging in savagery.

TAPPER: And it's also, over savagery against Muslims that they really have the issue is, right not savagery against Jews or Christians.

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: Again, it's a little bit of a complex issue in that way because they do engage in overt savagery against other Muslims ...

TAPPER: Right.

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: But even, for example, ISIS' attack on the Yazidis, it didn't serve any strategic purpose. The Yazidis are not only non- Muslim. They're not even going to be considered Dhimmis, people who can have a pact to continue practicing their own faith under Islamic law. But ISIS decided to engage in a genocidal campaign against this group that posed no military threat to them. Al Qaeda probably wouldn't have made the same decision, in part because they're not as obsessed with carrying out and showing their ability to inflict massive pain on a population right now. Instead, they have a bit of a longer term game than ISIS does.

TAPPER: ISIS keeps releasing these propaganda videos. What are U.S. intelligence officials gaining from them, if anything?

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: Well, for one thing, you know, faces and voice recognition, they've shown a number of the same figures repeatedly. In some this cases they've shown their faces and this is helpful. Secondly, the location to be pinpointed from these videos and then third, looking at the narrative art that they're putting forward. They are constantly releasing things. They currently have very good media capability and something that other terrorist groups are going to try to mirror. These are all things that the United States can glean in looking at the videos.

TAPPER: And - one of the videos, ISIS terrorists are forcing shop owners in Mosul, Iraq to shut down their stores (INAUDIBLE). Is that evidence at all of ISIS starting to win hearts and minds or these Iraqis are just doing what they need to do so they don't get killed?

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: Look, it's always difficult to say from a propaganda video, and particularly when you have totalitarian rule. Such as ISIS is, I think, though, that aside from the video, we can see that increasing pockets of resistance are forming against ISIS in places like Mosul and Fallujah. It's not like the awakening '06 to '07. They don't have a major sponsor. So, they're not a major strategic threat right now, but they're certainly a big thorn in their side.

TAPPER: Fascinating. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, thank you so much, really appreciate it, as always. On our national lead, if a few birds can take down a passenger plane, what do you think a drone can do? Well, it turns out more than two dozen have nearly hit passenger planes since July and lawmakers say not enough is being done to stop them. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to "THE LEAD." I'm Jake Tapper. The national "LEAD" now. So, here is the thing about drones. They are very cool. They are also potentially quite dangerous. The House of Representatives today held a hearing on drone use in the United States, which is quite restricted as of now. Also today the Federal Aviation Administration opened up a path for more companies to use drones, allowing four new businesses to conduct aerial surveys and monitor construction sites among other things bringing the total to 13. Meanwhile, there have been several near collisions between drones and passenger planes, which, of course, has been raising serious safety questions. Joining me now to discuss it all, CNN aviation and government regulation correspondent, Rene Marsh. Rene, something else for me to fear when I get on an airplane.

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. As if, you know, your list isn't long enough, right, Jake? So here's the prediction. In the next five years there will be some 7500 drones in the skies. So here's the thing, without any strong regulation and enforcement, it could be a disaster waiting to happen. Well, today the FAA got an earful. One complaint, the agency isn't moving fast enough to find a safe way for you to get your pizza or online delivery delivered by drone.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARSH: This is the nightmare. A drone and a passenger jet on a collision course. These few frames of video reportedly taken by a German military drone over Afghanistan. It narrowly misses a passenger plane, but the drone crashes. In the U.S. from police helicopters --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had a drone come within 50 feet of us.

MARSH: To passenger planes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We saw a drone. A drone aircraft.

MARSH: Close calls are becoming disturbingly frequent. Since July, the FAA received more than two dozen reports of drones nearly hitting planes. On Capitol Hill Wednesday, the agency grilled. Lawmakers say rules to safely integrate unmanned aerial systems or UAS into the airspace aren't coming fast enough.

REP.FRANK LOBLONDO (R) NEW JERSEY: Road builders in Germany and farmers in France today are enjoying economic benefits from UAS because safety regulators there have found ways to permit such flights. I can't help, but wonder that if the Germans, the French and the Canadians do some of these things today then why can't we also be doing that?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We all agree that that project is taking too long.

MARSH: With the drone industry booming, preventing crashes is becoming even more critical.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have got a quadcopter on my Christmas list as I suspect quite a few people do. We have got a problem and our failure to regulate them we're going to have a genie out of the bottle.

MARSH: To get an idea of what a drone could do to a plane, look at what birds have done. Breaking windshields and destroying engines. A flock of large birds forced this crash landing on the Hudson River. A small drone impact could do the same or worse. One frightening possibility, a drone smashes into the wing of a plane where fuel is stored and causes an explosion.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's akin to standing on an over overpass and throwing a rock down. You may hit a car or you may not hit a car, but if you did, it could have potential catastrophic repercussions.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARSH: Well, drones are not allowed to fly commercially without FAA approval, however hobbyists flying something that looks like this, they are allowed to fly their drones below 400 feet, Jake. So if you decide to fly this below 400 feet. The problem is a lot of people are not following the rules and we're talking about recreational people who are using this for recreational purposes, of course, you have to stay away from airports. One other issue that came up in the hearing today is that they believe that the FAA is moving too slow. They say many other countries are way ahead of us when it comes ...

TAPPER: Interesting. What could go wrong?

(LAUGHTER) TAPPER: What could go wrong, Rene? Thank you so much.

MARSH: Hey. That's close to my head there.

TAPPER: I appreciate it. In more aviation news, it's been nine months since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and the 239 passengers and crew members onboard disappeared without a trace in the biggest aviation mystery in the world. Now the International Air Transport Association is trying to make sure that never happens again, releasing its safety proposal for airline carriers today including four- dimensional tracking which reports the plane location every 15 minutes and is accurate to within at least one nautical mile. The group, which has 250 airlines members also suggests updating communication protocols and equipment, but some airlines are pushing back on its proposal, especially the 12-month timeline.

Joining me now from New York, CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien.

Miles, thanks for joining us. Will this work to prevent another airline from disappearing?

MILES O BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, you have to remember one thing, the devices in this case, the transponder and the satellite link in Malaysian Airlines 370 were evidently turned off and so no matter what you do, if someone onboard decides to turn all those devices off, we're right where we started in the MH-370 case. It would be nice if they had some rules which required, for example, that a transponder had to stay on or the satellite link could not be turned off by the crew. That would help a little bit. This is good. I mean, the Malaysian Airlines had a kind of a low-grade subscription on their satellite service. This would force them to upgrade to at least provide these 15-minute position reports. But bear in mind, Jake, every 15 minutes an airliner travels about 100 nautical miles. So it's not that precise even.

TAPPER: Miles, when the Malaysia Airlines flight went missing earlier this year. Airlines said it was too expensive to put these trackers on to the planes. They can afford it now all of a sudden?

O'BRIEN: Well, let's - First of all, what we're talking about here are devices that are on all of the aircraft that travel overseas anyway. This is requiring the airlines to turn on a subscription, which provides more frequent updates, which Malaysia did not have. 80 percent of the world's airlines already have these subscriptions are already in compliance. This is IATA trying to stave off something that they really don't want, which is streaming data. That is more expensive. That would provide essentially all of the information that's in the black box, up on the cloud, if you will, and sent out when something goes wrong on the airplane. This is something a lot of safety experts believe needs to happen because then you don't even have to look for the black box, because you know what's going on in that plane and it has been sent up by telemetry to people on the ground.

TAPPER: Miles O'Brien, thank you so much. I want to figure out how to put you in charge of it all. When we come back, our pop culture "LEAD." Ever wonder what Hollywood executives really think of celebrities? Well, you're about to find out. Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. The Pop Culture Lead now, Sony Pictures has audiences captivated with a new edge of your seat drama. Unfortunately, for Sony Pictures it's not a drama that you are going to see on the big screen.

It's the real-life behind the scenes Hollywood back-biting and smack- talking among company executives that's been exposed through a hack of Sony's emails.

We first learned of the hack back in November when yet to be released Sony movies and scripts appeared online and now hacked emails are revealing what some Hollywood heavy hitters really think about A-list stars including Angelina Jolie who was described by an Oscar-winning producer as a, quote, "minimally talented spoiled brat."

I disagree with that. She's very talented. Let's bring in CNN's Pamela Brown to dig deeper into these emails and the investigation into who leaked them -- Pamela.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, these are pretty scathing email exchanges.

TAPPER: Not nice.

BROWN: Not nice at all.

TAPPER: Surprising for Hollywood.

BROWN: Sure to put a strain on some relationships in Hollywood. In fact, this mega hack of Sony's computer system is seen to be unprecedented and bigger and more damaging than previously realized and in fact today the FBI is at Sony headquarters meeting with employees and training them on how to protect themselves.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Today FBI agents are meeting with thousands of Sony employees training them on how to protect themselves from fraud after their personal information was leaked into the public domain including their bank information and social security numbers.

AMIL YORAN, FORMER NATIONAL CYBERSECURITY DIRECTOR: I think it's a very scary trend and it's something that organizations, which have sensitive information, have to be very concerned about.

BROWN: A group known as "The Guardians of Peace" claimed responsibility for the hack, leaking documents that show the darker side of Hollywood, email exchanges between producer and directors bad- mouthing A-list actors like Tom Cruise who they say could be difficult and demanding. And there are emails that predict Angelina Jolie's upcoming film "Cleopatra" will bomb. The documents also divulge personal information about celebrity such as aliases they use to stay under the radar. Tom Hanks apparently goes by the name, Johnny Madrid, Jessica Alba as Cash Money and Sarah Michelle Gellar as Neely O'Hara.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kim Jong-Un wants to do an interview.

BROWN: The leak shows Seth Rogan raked in nearly $2 million more than co-star, James Franco, for the interview, a comedy about a plot to kill North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Un. North Korea has condemned the film as a moral attack on the leadership leading the widespread speculation on whether it's behind the cyber-attack.

CNN has also learned the code used in the attack was written in Korean and was used in previous attacks against South Korea.

YORAN: It's important to realize depending on how sophisticated your adversary is, they may be routing attacks through a certain country or known attacks from a certain language code base in order to throw your attribution thoughts off.

BROWN: According to the leaked documents, the hackers sent extortion e-mails to Sony executives in the days leading up to the attack, telling them pay the damage or Sony Pictures will be bombarded as a whole.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The North Korean regime flatly denies any involvement, but did call the cyber-attack righteous. Meantime, Jake, FBI not saying who is behind this attack. James Comey saying he is not ready to say who is behind it. He doesn't know yet.

TAPPER: Pamela Brown, thank you so much.

Coming up on THE LEAD, 3D imaging like you've never seen it before. See how computers remade my own face. How soon will you be able to do this yourself at home? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Look at this. Look at me. What? Hello? Hello? Welcome back to THE LEAD. The Tech Lead now, 3D printers can crank out everything from cars to guns and they can even put the president or your favorite CNN news anchor in the palm of your hands.

The world was stunned a few days ago after the Smithsonian released that first ever 3D presidential portrait, a scientifically accurate face mask and bust that you will eventually be able to re-create for yourself at home along with dinosaur fossils and other items from the Smithsonian Museum collection.

The only thing more fascinating than the finished products is how the 3D wizards behind this technology pull it off.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER (voice-over): The world was amazed when the Smithsonian Institution went public with this bust and face mask of President Obama just a few days ago. These aren't interpretations. These are not a sculptor's rendering, these are digital re-creations of his actual face using special lights, handheld 3D scanners and more.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It took from the minute he walked into the room until we were done with the process, 7 minutes.

TAPPER: Seven minutes. Gunter Waiber and the Smithsonian team were able to do the same thing for Abraham Lincoln.

GUNTER WAIBEL, DIRECTOR, SMITHSONIAN DIGITIZATION PROGRAM OFFICE: These were created by the president having plaster on his face, so it's a direct line to his face.

TAPPER: This is part of a massive effort to put 3D copies of the collection of the Smithsonian into your hands. Scans are cataloged and the data is put online so you can print them out at home with 3D printers.

WAIBEL: So for us it's a way to document our collects and it's a way to engage the public in these collections.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are looking at a T-Rex.

TAPPER: This is the tyrannosaurus rex.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. That's a one to one scale printed on a consumer 3D printer.

TAPPER: And these guys are what the Smithsonian calls their laser cowboys. They travel the world scanning and recording and allowing you to put say a t-rex toe in your hands.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very soon you'll be able to download the entire t- rex skeleton on our web site 3d.si.edu and in theory if you had a consumer grade 3D printer, you could re-create a one to one scale t- rex at your home.

TAPPER (on camera): We're a few years away from like really, really good Halloween costumes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's up and coming. Yes.

TAPPER (voice-over): The Smithsonian is partnering with outside companies like 3D systems who printed the one to one scale bust of President Obama.

AVI REICHENTAL, CEO, 3D SYSTEMS: The question is not if it's going to be in every home. The question is what room in your house will your 3D printer reside?

TAPPER: This technology is being used for far more than education and history as seen in this recreation law enforcement can do a 3D scan of crime scenes. They scanned the discovery of ancient whale fossils in Chile and then there's the way medicine is putting this to work.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Imagine if there was a broken hip bone? They can CT scan that hip bone and look at the fracture is and print that out, plan the surgery and then 3D print replacement parts in titanium.

TAPPER: I was convinced to give it a try.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So here we've lured Jake Tapper out of his natural habitat and we are scanning him.

TAPPER: Voila! A re-creation that you can even make at home. More seriously, the 3D printouts of Lincoln's plaster face molds from 1860 and 1865 make the history of his humanity tangible.

WAIBEL: We noticed schools all over the country were 3D printing President Lincoln's face because they wanted their students to be able to experience history and all of a sudden you can print a life mask of the president and hold it in your hands and you could trace the deep furrows on the president's face and make a direct connection to what that man went through and the toll of the civil war took on him.

TAPPER: It's a toll that we can see and even touch for ourselves.

WAIBEL: That's right.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

TAPPER: President Obama's 3-D portrait will be featured in The Smithsonian until the end of the year.

As for me, I'm just finished with phase one of my plan to create an army of mini Jakes to take over the world.

That's it for THE LEAD.

I'm Jake Tapper.

I'm turning you over to Wolf Blitzer in THE SITUATION ROOM.