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CNN Newsroom

Aired September 26, 2001 - 04:30   ET

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

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TOM HAYNES, CNN CO-HOST: (INAUDIBLE) ...civil liberties, Joel Hochmuth reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOEL HOCHMUTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the wake of the terrorist attacks two weeks ago, many Americans are asking themselves how much personal liberty are they willing to give up to prevent such tragedies in the future. President Bush himself weighed in on the debate, Tuesday.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT: Ours is the land that values the constitutional rights of every citizen, and we will honor those rights of course. The World War, a war we're going to win. And in order to win the war we must make sure that the law enforcement men and women have got the tools necessary, within the constitution to defeat the enemy.

HOCHMUTH: To that end his administration is urging Congress to pass an anti-terrorism package by the end of the year.

JOHN ASHCROFT, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: The American people do not have the luxury of unlimited time in correcting the necessary defenses to future or further terrorist attacks. The danger that has darkened the United States of America and the civilized world on September 11 should not pass with the atrocities committed that day. Terrorism is a clear and present danger to Americans today.

HOCHMUTH: Among other things the administration feels wiretapping is a way to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists.

BUSH: Therefore we must give the FBI the ability to track calls, when they make calls from different phones for example. Now, this is what we do for drug dealers, and members of organized crime and it seems like to make sense to me. If it's good enough for the FBI to use these techniques for facing down those threats to America, that now that we are at war, we ought to give the FBI the tools necessary to track down terrorists.

HOCHMUTH: Not everyone is convinced the measures are warranted.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: We have to struggle constantly to maintain civil liberties. The struggle for liberty never stays one, and we shouldn't give it up even at a time when we know we're going to have to have somewhat greater intrusions on our personal privacy.

HOCHMUTH: Famed Defense Attorney Alan Dershowitz appeared on the CNN program "TALKBACK LIVE" Monday. Not all viewers agreed with him.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I certainly wouldn't want people to know if and when I get my laundry done, but I couldn't care less if they did especially if it meant the discovery some potential information for the FBI.

DERSHOWITZ: That's an attitude that's widely shared and that was rejected by the framing fathers of our constitution. You know, we put the fourth amendment in the Constitution to provide a degree of security and privacy in certain spheres of our lives.

HOCHMUTH: Dershowitz and others are especially concerned about one measure in the proposal that would let investigators hold immigrants suspected of terrorism, indefinitely.

DERSHOWITZ: Every single compromise with civil liberties has to have a sunset provision otherwise they can last for years. When we suspended civil liberties during the Second World War, some of those lasted for 20 or 30 years.

HOCHMUTH: Another big concern is airport security. Although it's not directly addressed to the administration's proposal, Americans should get used to closer scrutiny and searches.

DERSHOWITZ: We're going to have to be much tougher on airline security and we're all prepared to give it up. I think the key is if we're all prepared to give it up and not just limited to people of a certain ethnicity or race or religion or background. That would be very un-American, I think.

HOCHMUTH: As the administration continues to argue its case, it maintains civil liberties are not at stake.

ASHCROFT: I can assure the committee and the American people we are conducting this effort with a total commitment to protect the rights, the constitutional rights and the privacy of all Americans. We will respect, we will safeguard the constitutional protections, which we hold dear.

HOCHMUTH: The nation's current debate over civil liberties certainly isn't the first, more on that from Garrick Utley.

ASHCROFT: ...confronted challenges...

GARRICK UTLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: If all the flags, the stars and bars across the land stand for one transcendent belief, it is to defend the freedoms under attack. Including the freedom from fear.

(on camera): Which brings Americans to that central question being debated across the country and which will be decided in Washington, to preserve the freedom from what happened here September 11, which individual rights is the nation prepared to trim, to compromise? (voice-over): Those who have been detained, more than 350, bare not the first. Back in 1798, when the young United States feared attack, Congress passed emergency laws allowing the detention and deportation of foreigners without evidence or trial. In the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln suspended that most basic right of habeas corpus.

PROF. RANDOLPH MCLAUG: That gives individuals who are being detained the power to come into the court and say, I'm unlawfully detained; you shouldn't hold me any longer.

UTLEY: In World War I, socialists who tried to persuade Americans to peacefully oppose the draft were convicted under the Espionage Act. The case reached the Supreme Court where Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes issued his famous opinion that the defendants had no more right to oppose the draft in wartime than a person had the right to shout "fire" in a crowded theater.

MCLAUG: The courts have bent over backwards in those periods to give the executive grant and the legislative grant, the latitude it needs to function and to shut down the problem.

UTLEY: And so the Supreme Court also upheld the internment of 120,000 Americans of Japanese decent during World War II. Were they a security problem, or merely guilty by ethnic association?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Calling the house on American activities committee to order...

UTLEY: And then in the early years of the Cold War, there was the guilt by association of those caught up in the McCarthy investigation of communist activities in the United States. Throughout history, Americans have found that some inalienable rights have been more inalienable than others. Still when the Founding Fathers drafted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights more than 200 years ago, they guaranteed freedoms that remained broader than in many other democracies.

In France today, citizens are required by law to carry national identity cards, which the police can inspect at any time. In Germany, citizens are required to register at local authorities when they move to a new address and from age 16 they too must carry a government issued identity card.

(on camera): Of course the United States is not Germany, it is not France but at the same time it has not been above or beyond rebalancing the scale between basic human rights and basic human security.

(voice-over): So now the nation searches again for that balance, decides which rights will be buried in order to preserve other rights in this new war.

Garrick Utley, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE) SHELLEY WALCOTT, CNN CO-HOST: Our Michael McManus joins us now with the third in our three part series on the Afghan refugees. Michael, a personal look at our videographer today.

MICHAEL MCMANUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right Shelley. These pictures were shot by the man behind me, Sid Akbar, 21-year-old youth advocate, who volunteers time at the Afghani refugee camps. On our final day with Sid, we spent a few minutes discussing his personal thoughts on his journey.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SID AKBAR: I saw some very vivid, very horrific living conditions, very poor standards for sanitation. I saw people who didn't eat regularly, who couldn't bathe; there wasn't just enough water to bathe. Crowded shoulder to shoulder.

MCMANUS: What are some of the most memorable images that you took away from your trip there?

AKBAR: These are young people, the teenagers and the preteens. And those people who just developed their awareness of their life in their situation. Who just started questioning why they're there? What their future holds for them? They didn't have much going for them.

Not a lot of people liked them, that are native Pakistanis and they can't go back to their country because it's just so dangerous. It's hot, the days that I was there, they were all over 100; one of them was actually 100 degrees. One of the days actually got to 52 degrees Celsius, which is over 125. They don't have much protection from the sun.

If you're able bodied, if you're young, you normally walk out of the camps and you try and find labor work in the city, or worse you go and do drug smuggling or weapons trafficking. It's a difficult life within the camps. A lot of refugees actually died while I was there too and I had to help bury four of them, three girls and one older man, girls were young girls. And along with, you know, digging, along with the spiritual rituals that they go through I even was involved in having to lay the body down in a ritualistic manner. And it was really heavy.

MCMANUS: Many people were afraid of your camera. Tell me about this one young man you met that wanted everything to do with your camera.

AKBAR: He was full of energy, he was young, he was idealistic yet he went through a lot of severe problems that he learnt to live with and he's trying to move on ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to go back to Afghanistan and help my people because I love my people. I love my country.

AKBAR: His hopes and dreams are to go back to his country, to open up Internet facilities, to open up courses in English. (END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: Now Shelley, Sid Akbar told me he would like to travel back to Afghanistan someday and find that young man to see if his dream became a reality.

WALCOTT: OK, thank you Mike.

MCMANUS: You're welcome.

WALCOTT: Hundreds of volunteers and official K-9 rescue teams are assisting in the World Trade Center recovery mission. Each team is determined to stand till every scrap of what's referred to as the pile has been inspected and towed away.

Kitty Pilgrim looks now at the various and vital roles of K-9 units in search and rescue operations.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At the World Trade Center disaster site, heroes come in all shapes and sizes. Each one brings the unique and necessary skills.

RICK SCRANTON: My name is (INAUDIBLE). I'm with the New York State Police K-9 unit; this is my partner Seal. We generally leave where we're staying at 5:00 in the morning and we get home anytime between 8:00, 9:00, 10:00 in the night all the time.

PILGRIM: SPCA, the law enforcement division that protects animals, has established an on site medical unit especially for dogs. Between grueling shifts K-9's are fed, bathed and rehydrated

ROY GROSS: I saw one handler come in here with his dog, the back legs were giving out on the dog. He rehydrated and we gave him whatever care was needed. The dog actually pulled his handler back towards the pile. I never saw anything like that. I see that the dogs and the handlers work as a team. They're like two trained soldiers.

PILGRIM: However not all dogs are soldiering through piles of rubble. One special unit was brought in to provide emotional support to rescue workers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Both of these dogs have been trained to pick up on trauma and go towards it so they actually pursue people who they perceive as being in a state of trauma.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've been visiting a lot of firemen, a lot of police, a lot of the cleanup detail.

PILGRIM: They reach out to these dogs because it's OK to.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a unique concept.

PILGRIM: (INAUDIBLE) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Identifies (INAUDIBLE) dog was just playing around.

PILGRIM: Like a company of firemen, the bond between rescue dog and handler is tight.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We live with these dogs. These dogs go home with us every night.

PILGRIM: About 350 K-9 teams have been deployed to the disaster site. Working around the clock, they're joining a rank of heroes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's really a hero because he has been trying to find heroes.

PILGRIM: Kitty Pilgrim, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCMANUS: Well it turns out dogs aren't just helping at the World Trade Center but at landfills as well. Rubble taken from the disaster sites is often reinspected because even the smallest items can tell a family worlds about missing loved ones.

Jason Bellini takes us to one landfill for a look at the lengthy and daunting search process.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the land of no hope and no delusions. The second to last stop for the wreckage of the World Trade Center disaster. At this Staten Island landfill it's sorted, sifted, raked and sniffed through.

BRUCE BARTON: As the piles are dropped off from the vehicles they're spreading the material out, fairly flat on the ground, and then the dogs are run through the piles looking for any remains that they can identify.

BELLINI: Trained noises help the trained eyes of the FBI, NYPD, FAA and other investigators. The agents and their volunteers know this junk contains answers, the most pressing of which are the identities of the thousands of people still missing. Little things tug hard at the humanity of the people tasked with this gruesome labor.

JOSEPH PIRAINO: Today I found a woman's necklace -- and it was in the rubble. It's a small beautiful necklace; it stays with me that that was on someone in the World Trade Center that day.

BELLINI: But little else is even worth saving. In one pile, crushed police cars and fire engines, sad and unsalvageable.

(on camera): Here the six steel beams that once held up the floors of the World Trade Center, now warped, severed and ready for burial. (voice-over): The chore will take months. Of the 68,000 tons of debris already delivered here from Manhattan, only a third has been rummaged through.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're trying to do it as quick as we possibly can.

JAMES LUONGO, NYPD: I hear estimations from six months to a year, I don't know.

BELLINI: The work goes on 24 hours a day, the fragments of lives lost they say, deserve one last look through.

Jason Bellini, CNN, Staten Island, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALCOTT: Rebuilding the World Trade Center will take years but some are already suggesting ideas on what to put in its place. In fact one group of artists in New York wants to create an outline of the twin towers etched in beams of lights.

Jeanne Moos reports on a proposal for a unique memorial.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Seen from above, seen from across the Hudson, they are nowhere to be seen.

GUSTAVO BONEVARDI, ARCHITECT: When you see the New York skyline without those two buildings, it just didn't work.

MOOS: Which is why a group of artists are suggesting there could be light at the end of the rubble, beams of light.

Is there a name for this project?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Towers of Light.

JULIAN LVERDIERE: We need a surrogate where those towers were.

MOOS: In form, if not in substance, the concept's being kicked around, bear a striking resemblance to the originals.

JOHN BENNETT: It's got to be at least as tall the towers -- I mean that's, I think it's really important as in something you see from far away.

MOOS: The towers of Light would be intended as a temporary monument, near but not on the disaster site so as not to interfere with reconstruction.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's gorgeous.

MOOS: Do you like the idea?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I love the idea.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it would be somewhat ghostly. I think having it disappear, once is enough.

MOOS: The idea originated when "The New York Times" asked a pair of artists to imagine an image to fill the void. Paul Myoda and Julian Lverdiere once shared an art studio on the 91st floor of the World Trade Center. They described the missing towers as Phantom Limbs: we can feel them even though they are not there, anymore.

PAUL MYODA: It's still beyond words for me and beyond the reaches of grammar.

MOOS: They realized the light beams they envisioned were similar to what two architects were proposing. The groups teamed up and the effort is being led by an arts organization called Creative Time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, is this pie in the sky.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't think it is pie in the sky.

MOOS: Executive director Anne Pasternak, is gently feeling out city officials to see if their support for a temporary memorial constructed at no cost to tax payers.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wow, I don't know -- I am speechless; I don't know what to think.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it will stir up too many emotions about the whole incident, you know, just bring everything back up.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I think it would weird me out to see it from my apartment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nothing creepy about it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No way it's creepy, that's what really happened.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's a very good idea.

MOOS: Among the ideas: light beams rising from platforms on the water.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a very straightforward statement, it's putting the towers back.

MOOS: And these towers not even a hijacker could destroy -- Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYNES: A number of famous faces are doing their part to raise money for relief efforts following the terrorist attacks on America. Some celebrities are donating out of pocket; others are organizing fund-raising projects or benefits.

And appeal by Hollywood actors and musicians during an unprecedented Telethon last week has generated millions of dollars in pledges.

With more here's Lauren Sydney.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM HANKS: Those of us here tonight are not heroes. We are not healers nor protectors of this great nation. We're merely artists and entertainers here to raise spirits and we hope a great deal of money.

LAUREN SYDNEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): And they did. The unprecedented Telethon has brought in more than $150 million in pledges so far.

Historically, the entertainment industry has always enlisted in raising funds and the spirits of our nation and now is no different with celebrities helping raise money for victim's family.

JERRY SEINFELD: And we are calling it the Stand Up for New York, for obvious reasons. We're just trying to raise some money and help some people out.

SYDNEY: While Seinfeld and friends helped to raise funds with the sound of laughter, others were doing with the sound of music. Diana Ross is the member of the all-star musical family, who is re- recording the disco classic to aid victims' charity.

DIANA ROSS: We've been singing this song, it's been here. I'm very emotional because, you know, it's affected all of our lives.

SYDNEY: What's going on with U2's Bono and friends, their re- recording of the Marvin Gay classic will benefit victims' charity.

The king of pop Michael Jackson hopes to raise $15 million dollars with his 'We Are The World' style benefit song 'What more can I do?' Whitney Houston's version of the Star Spangled Banner is being re-released; originally sold during the Gulf War, proceeds now will benefit New York's finest.

PAUL MCCARTNEY: Oh, Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Paul McCartney whose dad was a firefighter will hold a concert in October to benefit relief efforts.

SYDNEY: Rap artist Dr. Dre wrote a check for $1 million.

DR. DRE: I didn't donate the money to get on, you know, the recognition from it or to be noticed like that, I did it to help. SYDNEY: Also helping with million dollar donations are Rosie O'Donnell, Sandra Bullock, and Jim Carey. Julia Roberts paid $2 million.

Whether it's the music, laughter or generosity of spirit, celebrities continue their longtime tradition for their home sweet home -- Lauren Sydney, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: They don't have a lot of money to give to charity but a group of Maryland children are paying respect to the victims in ways they know best through songs and memories.

HAYNES: The youngsters were friends and classmates of 8-year-old Zoe Falkenberg a victim of the September 11 terrorists attacks.

Kathy Slobogin tells us how these young students are coping.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATHY SLOBOGIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They look like most 9-year-olds fresh from a soccer game, happy to be together. But look again, these 9-year-olds are different; death has come to their neighborhood.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Zoe was born November 8, 1992.

SLOBOGIN: They are preparing a memorial service for one of their own. Zoe Falkenberg died on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, along with her parents, Charles Falkenberg and Leslie Whittington and her 3-year-old sister, Dana. They were on their way to Australia for a two-month stay.

Zoe was their friend. She played on their soccer team, danced in their ballet classes, was in their school play -- and now she's gone.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When I heard, I was really shocked. And I was just speechless.

SLOBOGIN: These children live in a close-knit Maryland community called University Park, a town of about 900 people. The Falkenbergs had lived there for 12 years.

Patrice Pascual and Michele Dudash were close friends of the family.

MICHELE DUDASH: This family was an integral part of my daughter growing up because we all shared childcare together. There are a lot of working families; we act as one another's surrogate families.

PATRICE PASCUAL: Our daughters both got calls from Zoe the night before the plane crashed, because she had had a really exciting day, and she wanted the girls to know she had ridden in a limousine. She was just excited about everything. SLOBOGIN: The memories of Zoe are what they have left here. She collected snow globes, was a terror on a scooter, and had nearly 50 Beanie Babies.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When I think of Zoe, I think of playing Beanie Babies; I think of her as my sister, because we have known each other since we were 6 months old; I think of a nice, caring person that's always there for you; and she is just Zoe -- you can't exactly describe such a good person like her.

SLOBOGIN: The plane that blasted the Pentagon blasted a hole in the heart of this town. The worst was telling the children what had happened.

PASCUAL: We sat on our hammock in the backyard, and we told Kate that something terrible had happened, and we told her that Zoe and her family were gone, and she sobbed for an hour.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just thought this couldn't happen, but I had to believe it, and I just thought I'm never going to see her again.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We kept saying it's not true. We can't get it in our heads.

CHILDREN (singing): Oh, beautiful for spacious skies

SLOBOGIN: This week, the children are trying to find some peace with the memorial service at their school.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Zoe was a good friend of mine. I miss her terribly.

SLOBOGIN: It's a service for their friend Zoe, and the other children who perished. But it's also for them.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel really proud because I feel like I'm in everything, and I'm not being left out.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's sort of like a gift that we have to be able to express our feelings about Zoe, and that we get to do something for Zoe.

SLOBOGIN (on camera): Does it make any of you feel better about it?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, because Zoe's watching us, and I think she would really appreciate this.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): Their parents say the children are emotionally volatile. Some want to sleep with their parents. Some beg them not to fly. They are haunted by the question were the children on the plane afraid?

PASCUAL: Were they afraid? And I said, no. The parents wouldn't -- let them be afraid. They would have comforted them as much as they could, and they wouldn't have known, and we have to draw comfort from that.

SLOBOGIN: Comfort is scarce. The parents find it in the sense of community the Falkenbergs were so much a part of. The children find it where they can.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm happy because I know where she is. She knows that nothing can hurt her, and she knows that none of the hijackers will go there, so she's safe.

SLOBOGIN: The children draw strength from each other, say their parents. They seem happiest when they're together.

Kathy Slobogin, CNN, University Park, Maryland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: And that wraps up today' s show.

HAYNES: Yes, we will see you back here tomorrow.

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