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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Potential Child Welfare Head Draws Fire from Liberals; Creationism Advocates Go on the Offensive; Are Civil Liberties Disappearing Since 9/11?

Aired August 23, 2002 - 22:00   ET

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

AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening again, I'm Aaron Brown. The program tonight is the kind I love. It is chock full of interesting and important questions, and the answers are neither simple nor easy, which is not to say that some might try to make them so.
Two examples at the top. The first involves the new head of the Child Welfare Agency in the state of Florida. It turns out that Jerry Regier has some very strong religious beliefs, on both corporal punishment, spanking, and the respective roles of men and women in families. Women should serve their husbands, should work at the home but not outside the home; men should rule the roost. These are his beliefs, and while many may see them as extreme, they are his and he is entitled to them.

The question, of course, is do these beliefs -- and the latter surely is outside the mainstream -- in some way disqualify him from running a department that deals with families and often single mothers? There are plenty of people in Florida tonight who say yes, but if they're just his own views and he doesn't attempt to make them public policy, what difference does it make? Now, granted, it would be easier to deal with this if he were running a department that did nothing about families and kids, but still, simply believing something is different from acting upon it, or is it?

The other question on the table tonight may be among the most important we ever deal with on the program, the balance between civil liberties and national security, and here things are quite murky. As we will shortly report, the secret intelligence court, judges who pass on request by the Justice Department to wiretap in national security cases, has shocked the Justice Department by rejecting guidelines the department issued in the aftermath of 9-11. It said the department's guidelines for wiretaps and the like did not adequately protect the privacy rights of American citizens.

Now, this is not some bunch of wacky liberal judges, not even close. The court has never ruled against a Justice Department request in its history, until now. So that issue is on the table too tonight, and that issue goes to the very heart of the meaning of an American democracy. This is not a light and fluffy Friday program. It is full of meat and perhaps tough to chew, but a good meal to end a fascinating week around here.

Take a look at these two cases. Also tonight on the agenda and in the whip, the government's position on enemy combatants, two of whom are also American citizens held without charges, lawyers or court dates. Kelli Arena works the Justice Department and covers this. Kelli, a headline, please.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the question is: Should the president have sole discretion over who is classified as an enemy combatant? It's a battle that could make it all the way up to the Supreme Court. Back to you.

BROWN: Kelli, thanks. Be back with you in a moment or so.

Our final installment from Nic Robertson tonight and the al Qaeda tapes. Nic, a headline.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, tonight we look at more tapes in the al Qaeda library; these sent to al Qaeda from jihadi organizations around the world, turning al Qaeda, our experts are telling us, into an organization of organizations, with global reach.

BROWN: Nic, thank you.

And now to the mess in Florida child welfare system, the controversy over the new head of the department chosen by Governor Jeb Bush. Mark Potter is working that for us, so, Mark, a headline from you.

MARK POTTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, Jerry Regier is a conservative Christian with controversial views on women and the disciplining of children. Governor Jeb Bush who appointed him suggests those who oppose Regier's views might be considered bigots -- Aaron.

BROWN: Mark, thank you very much. Back with you, all of you, in a moment.

Also coming up tonight, two interesting perspectives on civil liberties on the war on terror. Stewart Baker, the former general counsel of the National Security Agency, and Stephen Jones, former attorney for Timothy McVeigh.

And this one is one of those hardy perennials, a topic that appears to be always flaring up again. In one of the largest school districts in the state of Georgia, evolution versus creationism. Gary Tuchman tonight on where the debate stands in Georgia and the rest of the country.

And a small, small world indeed. Millions of people in China see it all in just a few hours, a visit to Windows of the World in "Segment 7" tonight, and that will wrap up the week around here. It's a very full hour.

We begin with the ruling of a secret court you probably never heard of, and the Bush administration's appeal to a court that's never, ever heard a case. In a criminal case, to get a wiretap, law enforcement must show probable cause. To get a tap in a terrorism case, it is a lower standard of proof. That is the heart of the issue and has the Justice Department and the White House scrambling. Later in the program, we will debate in that gentle NEWSNIGHT way the issue. First, the reporting of the case. Here is CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court meets secretly on the sixth floor of the Justice Department to carefully monitor all spying done by the U.S. government inside the United States. Before this ruling, it had never turned down a U.S. search warrant, and none of its opinions had ever been made public.

The court ruled unanimously that Attorney General Ashcroft and his department are trying to go too far. "The Bush administration is trying to break down the legal wall," said the court, "between powerful national security surveillance tools for use against possible terrorists and spies and the much more limited rights to wiretap Americans, with a judge's permission, in a criminal case."

The court also criticized the FBI for misleading the court 75 times before the Bush administration took over.

GREGORY NOJEIM, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, ACLU: I was astounded that the court issued this public rebuke of the Department of Justice. It's never happened before. I don't know if it will ever happen again.

STEWART BAKER, FORMER NSA GENERAL COUNSEL: This is a real butting of heads between the FISA court and the administration over a pretty fundamental issue. They disagree about the extent to which the wall between law enforcement and intelligence surveillance ought to be torn down in the wake of September 11.

ENSOR: Ashcroft's team quickly appealed the court's decision, saying the court ignored the USA Patriot Act passed by Congress after September 11, which loosened the rules on sharing of top secret national security surveillance information with crime investigators and police.

"The most striking aspect of the court's decision," says the appeal, "is its express refusal even to consider the meaning of the USA Patriot Act."

Civil liberties advocates hope the secret court's ruling stands.

NOJEIM: This case is about whether, when the government thinks you are a criminal, it can go through your bedroom dresser drawer, listen in on your telephone conversations and read your e-mail without having to show probable cause of crime to a judge, strong evidence of crime to a judge. The stakes couldn't be higher.

ENSOR: But Stewart Baker, former counsel at the U.S. National Security Agency, predicts the Justice Department may win on appeal, because, he says, the USA Patriot Act really does dramatically change the rules that the special court had grown accustomed to. BAKER: I think part of this is they just can't believe that Congress intended to knock down a wall that they spent so much time maintaining.

ENSOR (on camera): The Justice Department appeal will be heard by a special three-judge panel, a court that exists on paper, but has never met before. It never needed to until now.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: It's that last line in David's story gives you a sense of how important and unique this all has been. It's not the only legal novelty to talk about tonight. There's also the question of the government's decision to hold two American citizens as enemy combatants without charges, indefinitely, in military brigs. The government today was supposed to justify its detention of one of those men, Jose Padilla, who we ought to say faces very serious accusations but no formal charges. A federal judge had given the Justice Department until today to file papers. Instead, that deadline was extended until next week. So the next chapter in the Padilla story will have to wait. And tonight, we revisit the extraordinary issues that are at stake. Here again, CNN's Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA (voice-over): Jose Padilla, taken into custody as he deplaned in Chicago for allegedly participating in a dirty bomb plot. Yasser Hamdi, caught on the battlefield in Afghanistan, the government says, with an assault rifle as his Taliban unit surrendered. Both U.S. citizens, and classified by the U.S. government as enemy combatants.

They are not charged with any crime, are being held indefinitely, with no access to a lawyer.

LARRY THOMPSON, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: There is clear legal authority, that even a U.S. citizen who takes up arms against his fellow countrymen and who is trying to hurt them or is trying to kill them can be detained during the pendency of the hostilities.

ARENA: The hostilities aren't limited to the battlefield. Editorial pages are full of harsh criticism of the Bush administration's declaration that as commander-in-chief, the president has the sole authority to determine who gets labeled an enemy combatant, and that the courts have little to say about it.

BOB HIRSHORN, AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION: One branch of government cannot be the final arbiter of what liberties should or must be curtailed. We have to have a dialogue.

ARENA: Jose Padilla was originally given access to counsel, before he was re-classified as an enemy combatant in June. His lawyers are trying to force a hearing in civilian court to contest his detention. ANDREW PATEL, PADILLA'S ATTORNEY: Just hold somebody without charging them with a crime, without a finding of probable case either by a civil or military court, it's just not how we do things in this country, at least that's not how we used to do things in this country.

ARENA: In the Hamdi case, a federal judge complains, the government has to provide a lot more justification than this two-page statement of fact, mostly detailing how he was captured. Justice has refused and is appealing.

THOMPSON: What we have here is the preservation of the president's authority to prosecute the conduct of a war in a way that is designed to protect our country and to prevent future terrorist attacks.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA: Both sides predict that the legal battle will ultimately end at the Supreme Court. And both sides, at least at this point, Aaron, are confidently predicting victory. Back to you.

BROWN: Both sides always confidently predict victory at some point. Just to be clear, Hamdi is an interesting case because he was found in Afghanistan, and that one, we can argue about the question of his American citizenship, but that is one example.

The case of Padilla is more interesting in a sense, because he was not captured in Afghanistan, and there is an accusation against him, and if I understand the governments position, he has no opportunity to challenge the accusation against him. Is that right?

ARENA: That's right. He is being held in a military facility. He has no access to a lawyer, although he did, when he first got here, because he was first placed in the criminal justice system, consulted with a lawyer, but then his status was changed to enemy combatant and then he was moved over to military custody.

BROWN: And at that point he lost the ability to say anything. You got the wrong guy, or I haven't done this, and here's evidence of that, nothing?

ARENA: This is true. There were no charges against him, and according to the government he can be held indefinitely or as long as this war on terror continues.

BROWN: Kelly, thank you. We will talk more about this in just a moment. Appreciate your work tonight, as always. Ahead on NEWSNIGHT the growing empire of al Qaeda. Part 5 in our series "Terror on Tape." But when we come back, your civil liberties, and whether they've been sacrificed in the name of security. We'll kick that around, both sides on the table. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Two views now on the tension between public safety and individual rights, the new balance being hashed out right now over the USA Patriot Act and the enemy combatants and all the rest.

We are quite pleased to be joined in Washington by Stewart Baker, who you saw briefly a few moments ago on David Ensor spot. Mr. Baker is a former general counsel of the National Security Agency.

Also tonight from Oklahoma City, Stephen Jones, who is familiar to many of you. He was the chief trial lawyer for Timothy McVeigh. It's good to see both of you.

Mr. Baker, a couple of questions to start with you. I (UNINTELLIGIBLE) if you could amplify on something you said in David's piece, that the Patriot Act, in your view, makes quite clear that the Justice Department's position, while right up against the line, perhaps, was legally correct and the court apparently didn't -- couldn't imagine that.

BAKER: It's legally correct in the sense that they very definitely intended -- Congress and the administration, when they wrote that law -- to allow law enforcement to be the principal reason for conducting a FISA wiretap.

What the court was troubled by was the idea that that would mean prosecutors would run the FISA process. They've spent 25 years as a court policing a line that kept a wall between those -- the prosecutors and the FISA process, and they were troubled at the idea that that wall would be completely knocked down, so they found provisions in the law that haven't been changed, that they thought meant that some parts of the wall ought to stay up.

BROWN: And just one more point on this, why should anyone be troubled by this wall being torn down, if one were troubled by it?

BAKER: In an ideal world, the methods we use to attack foreign countries, to gather intelligence about foreign countries and even foreign terrorist gangs, wouldn't be used in the United States against people who might be American citizens.

But increasingly it's difficult to draw a line that separates foreign terrorist activity from activity that's occurring inside the United States. We are a smaller world than we used to be.

BROWN: Let me ask you one more time, then I want to go to Steve Jones. Just to make sure I'm understanding this right, if you say that there is some foreign intelligence purpose in asking for the wiretap, but it turns out that what you find out is that the guy is a bank robber, you can then use the bank robbery information in court. Is that essentially the issue?

BAKER: Well, not quite. It's always been that true if you happened across information showing that a foreign spy also killed his wife, that you could prosecute him using that information. This is more a question of you think someone is a terrorist, you're investigating them as an intelligence matter, and then you think, well, we could put him in jail, too, the question is well, suppose you, by the end of this process, you're sure that all you're really going to do is send him to jail. You're going to arrest him and go through the criminal process.

At some point, the courts felt, you ought to start using the criminal investigative tools for wire taps, which is Title 3, which has more safeguards than FISA does.

BROWN: Right. Steve Jones been very patient here while I try to work through and understand some of this.

Give me a general sense of how different you think the landscape is in this balance between civil liberties and national security in the 11 months since September 11?

STEPHEN JONES, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, clearly there's been a seismic change. We are not dealing with the same landscape before September 11. What I think is perhaps unusual and was not anticipated is there's -- I perceive at least -- a sort of growing public unease at some of the steps that the administration has gone to prosecute the war on terrorism.

Usually we think of the American people as very supportive of law enforcement and very supportive of these efforts, but informed editorial opinion, opinion on the Hill, from the churches, and indeed in the grass roots, even in Oklahoma, which is a very conservative state, we find a sense of unease that are we losing some basic value that makes us the unique democracy that we are?

And so I think the court's decision today is good.

BROWN: Steve, is there one area of this more than any other that seems from your view in Oklahoma City to be resonating with people and concerning people?

JONES: Out here of course we are a very conservative state, and I'm surprised at how many critics John Ashcroft has in Oklahoma, from not liberals, not members of the ACLU, but from conservatives who are disappointed that he seems to have abandoned some of those basic safeguards of human rights and civil liberties that they believe that he had, and that has truly been surprising to me.

BROWN: Mr. Baker, why don't you react to that, if you will. You think that -- obviously this is always a fine line, and it's an especially fine line in the aftermath of the of the attack. Do you think that the Justice Department, the administration has pushed the line a bit far?

BAKER: I think they have not. Obviously, we are in a situation we've never contemplated before. But a lot of the unease has been driven by a sense that really I've seen in the newspapers since September 12 that surely something this terrible is going to result in a loss of civil liberties, but I really don't see it in the measures that the administration has taken.

BROWN: So, for all the fuss and all the talk, you think that, in fact, the landscape has not changed that much?

BAKER: No, I think that's right. The USA Patriot bill mostly made changes that the Justice Department had been recommending since the early 1990s. Many of those changes were proposals that were taken off the shelf after September 11 that had been proposed in a much different environment.

BROWN: And Steve, let me give you a last word here. I wonder from a lawyer's point of view, or, well, two lawyers in the program here, from a defense lawyer's point of view -- if you could rescind any of these laws that you find onerous or, in some cases, they're not laws, they're guidelines, I guess, which one troubles you the most? Is it the enemy combatant one?

JONES: First, let me say I agree with Mr. Baker. These laws or proposed laws are held back. They can't get them passed except in response to a specific terrorist action, or some major criminal action. We saw that with the Oklahoma City bombing where there was major changes in habeas corpus, and now we've seen in the Patriot Act.

And I also agree the line hasn't been pushed too much, but it's the precedent, it's the movement in that directions. Having said that, though, I think that the greatest wrong that was committed in this effort was really the change in the habeas corpus procedure following the Oklahoma City bombing, and that was wrong, because we now know and we see evidence almost daily through DNA testing that in many cases the wrong man is on death row.

BROWN: Mr. Jones, Mr. Baker thank you both. I feel like literally we could spend hours talking about this, and I hope over the next months we shall and that you'll both come back and join us. Thank you very much.

JONES: Thank you, sir.

BROWN: Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, the global reach of Osama bin Laden. CNN's Nic Robertson looks inside al Qaeda. We'll continue in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The al Qaeda tapes now, the tapes what we showed, how we got them -- all of this has dominated much of our week around here. There has been a spirited debate over their value, there was tremendous reaction to Monday night's story dealing with the dog and the poison gas. There have been questions about hype and ratings and all the rest. And in the end, I think it's all been very good. It proved again that one of the best things about the program is how engaged you all are in it, how you react, how you argue with us sometimes, often support us, but 99 times out of 100 you do it in a smart and civil way.

Tonight, we end the series how al Qaeda sees itself -- again, CNN's Nic Robertson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON (voice-over): From tape C89 in the carefully numbered al Qaeda video archive, young Arab fighters, frolicking in an Afghan river, to tape B135 from Chechnya, where Arab fighters ambush a Russian convey. The library contains a remarkable cross-section of material.

(on camera): Digging deep into this archive provides an extraordinary insight into this most secretive of organizations, and the man at its head, but it is the breadth of the collection that reveals al Qaeda's global reach and its links to other terror groups.

(voice-over): Look at tape C205, shot in 1990 in the south Asian country of Burma. It shows jihadi fighters there, training with an Arabic-speaking instructor. And this tape from Eritrea in East Africa shows fighters proclaiming an Islamic battle to drive infidels out of their country.

Just some of the international tapes in the al Qaeda library that terror analyst, Rohan Gunaratna, reviewed for us. For him, proof al Qaeda was binding itself to other jihadi groups, becoming what he calls an organization of organizations.

(on camera): What would you think is the most important thing about the collection?

ROHAN GUNARATNA, AUTHOR, "INSIDE AL QAEDA": It gives a comprehensive picture of al Qaeda's strategic gift, of al Qaeda's global reach. Here, it very clearly demonstrates that al Qaeda is waging a universal jihad campaign.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): As we go through the tapes, we find how al Qaeda kept its growing empire together. Tape C189 shot in a clean office, believed by coalition intelligence sources, who looked at this tape, to have been al Qaeda's secure Afghan communications room. The man using the two-way radio tells the person at the other end to look for a message on his computer and decode it.

(on camera): And the computer wasn't just for sending e-mails. Look at this videotape of Osama bin Laden giving a speech. In the same library, we also found some CDs. On this one, the same Osama bin Laden speech, evidence al Qaeda was disseminating its knowledge through much harder-to-track means.

(voice-over): These CDs, a reminder, says Professor Magnus Ranstorp, that al Qaeda is more than willing to embrace the technology of its enemies to get its message out.

MAGNUS RANSTORP, UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS: Bin Laden uses the whole spectrum of technology -- videocassettes, he uses e-mail, he uses encryption. And he also understands how his enemies operate, and how to function without being impaired in terms of security-wise.

ROBERTSON: Other tapes from the archive, like this one, his own recording of the 1997 interview with CNN, tell us more about Osama bin Laden himself.

Peter Bergen, who was there, was surprised bin Laden had his own camera rolling. PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: It was very odd to see it so many years later and to realize that the whole thing was, you know, being videotaped by him. I mean, I actually I had no idea it was being videotaped. I just had no idea.

ROBERTSON: There are other examples from interviews with ABC, Al Jazeera. For Bergen and others, a glimpse into the terror leader's strategy and his psyche.

BERGEN: Bin Laden has been interested in his sort of media profile for a long time, and in a way, this videotape collection that you have discovered is sort of the ultimate sort of manifestation of that.

RANSTORP: I think it shows personal vanity on behalf of bin Laden, of understanding the power of the media, how to communicate or how to persuade.

ROBERTSON: Personal and institutional vanity, perhaps evident in al Qaeda's final edition to the library. Tape B222, titled "American Under Fire." We see news coverage from September 11.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It seemed like it wasn't even real.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was like a bomb went off, and it was like holy hell coming down them stairs.

ROBERTSON: A chilling reminder of the terror group's dedication to detail, leaving no stone unturned in its planning for the future. It seems al Qaeda and possibly Osama bin Laden were reviewing their own handiwork.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: OK, Nic joins us. Nic, I feel like you've probably answered 10,000 questions in the last week. Let me throw some personal ones your way. In the -- has your own view of al Qaeda change because of all the tape you've looked at? You've looked at all the stuff and you've looked it all more than once.

ROBERTSON: I think my understanding of it -- of al Qaeda has changed. Certainly, the things that I've heard from all the experts who have studied al Qaeda far longer or perhaps in far more depth, far more scrutiny than I've been able to, they've brought to me a whole new level of understanding and meaning, the intentions of this terror group. So it has been a very personally moving experience this week.

BROWN: Did anything -- are you surprised by -- what here -- their sophistication, the scope of their operation, all of it, any? I guess there's been so much about this this week that it does have a tendency to blur at some point, so help separate that which should be, I guess, highlighted.

ROBERTSON: I think it's the breadth very much of their capabilities, having this documentary evidence of that capability, of the chemical agents, of the ability to make explosives and transport that knowledge, and essentially make it very, very difficult for international agencies to track al Qaeda down, to have seen the level and depth of their training, so it's the breadth of what they're capable of, but perhaps more than that, it is the degree to which they follow through, the degree to which they continue to learn and refine their methods.

And each of the experts we brought to bear on this -- this is what they told us. They explained, look how they've developed this angle, look how they've made a shortcut here, look how they've proved this point here, so it's the breadth, but also it's the way that al Qaeda has tried to perfect everything that it's doing.

BROWN: Is there anything in the tape library, if that's the right word for it, that is more recent than September 11, 2001?

ROBERTSON: There's nothing there that we could see that indicated it was more recent than September the 11th. Except the off- air recordings that we saw at the end of the story, the most recent that we could find.

BROWN: Nic, we have about a minute here. You and I talked about this a week ago in Atlanta last Sunday. Why do you think they taped all this stuff?

ROBERTSON: In part, it appears to be because they want to record their own place in history in their own minds, in part because they're trying to refine and improve the mechanisms by which they do everything, and in part to disseminate. And that's perhaps the thing that worries the experts the most.

The very fact that they have all these affiliated organizations, the experts believe that they have contacts in maybe as many as 60 countries, the fact that they have perfected the techniques of encrypting their communications, not so difficult, but on that videotape, what we didn't tell you there was they gave out a code, several different six-digit number codes to the person at the other end of the radio, the lengths that they will go to do avoid and evade capture.

BROWN: Nic, what ought not be lost in the fuss over all this is what an extraordinary piece of reporting you and your producers have done, just a terrific job. Thank you.

Nic has a bit more work to do this weekend. Sunday night, CNN will present an hour-long special on the tapes. If you missed some of this over the last several days for one reason or another, you can catch up on it. CNN Sunday night, 10:00 Eastern time.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, creationism in the classroom, but first the flap over the man picked to run Florida's troubled child services agency. Is anyone asking what it means for the 500 kids the state still cannot find? This is NEWSNIGHT from New York on a Friday night.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And coming up on NEWSNIGHT, an added layer of controversy in Florida's child welfare scandal. Short break, and then we're back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Two stories tonight about the clash of religion and public policy. The first one, strangely enough, involves the Florida child welfare system. We say "strangely enough" because only a week ago, we were focused solely on lost kids and bad management. The department head had just resigned. It's her replacement who more or less has brought religion into all of this. Jerry Regier has written some things in the past that prove him to be a religious conservative, in terms of disciplining children and what a woman's proper role is. The question is whether Regier can resist imposing his view of the ideal family on families he's supposed to serve.

And one paper quoted a recent speech that raises some questions. "One of my passions," he said, "has been to bring the voice of God, in a sense, to public policy." Once again, here is CNN's Mark Potter.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

POTTER (voice-over): Governor Jeb Bush came to Miami to meet with law enforcement officials, and to unveil a new plan to find more than 500 children in state care who are missing. But afterward, he spent much of his time defending Jerry Regier, his controversial choice to take over Florida's child welfare agency, the Department of Children and Families.

GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: Jerry Regier is a dedicated public servant who has a proven record of dealing with crisis management situations and doing so with integrity in a broad-gauge kind of way.

POTTER: But many in Florida disagree. Regier has drawn fire for his evangelical Christian beliefs and his views on subordinating women and providing, in his words, manly discipline for children.

BARBARA DEVANE, DIRECTOR, WE ALL CARE: You can't say you support women and children and appoint a right wing extremist to head the Department of Children and Families.

POTTER: The controversy began when Regier's name was found on a 1989 paper that approved of disciplining children to the point of welts and bruises. Regier denies writing the paper and says he does not favor such harsh treatment, but he does support a parent's right to use corporal punishment.

JERRY REGIER, SECRETARY DESIGNATE: I've spanked my kids, yes, and I think that probably parents who give a swat to a two-year-old would agree with that. I think disciplining children is fine. Whether children want -- whether parents want to do that in a different way, that's great, too.

POTTER: Regier says his writing about the role of women can be widely interpreted, and points out that his own wife has a career as a registered nurse. Governor Bush argues that those opposing Regier's religious views are intolerant. BUSH: I just get a sense that somehow the implication is that people of faith can't -- somehow they're a little strange. And I just reject that. I'm very troubled by this somewhat -- I think there's bigotry here, and it troubles me.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

POTTER: Now many in Florida are demanding Regier's removal, and with the Florida governor's race in full swing now, the Democrats have a hot new issue. But Jeb Bush, the Republican incumbent, so far, Aaron, is not budging.

BROWN: Well, it's hard to imagine him budging at this point. He seems to have both feet in the water. Just give me as quickly as you can -- he said his view on women working outside the home is more nuance than at first blush. How does he explain that?

POTTER: Well, he simply says that he writes these things from a theological point of view but there are different ways to interpret it. In the outside world it's not always easy to understand exactly what he means, but he does point out that in his own case his wife is a nurse, she works outside the home, and he says that it's open to interpretation, and that's the explanation he gave today.

BROWN: Thank you, Mark Potter, out of Miami tonight.

A few quick stories around the nation, beginning with an arrest in the state of Florida. A podiatrist is in custody tonight after investigators found more than 15 homemade bombs in his home.

Authorities say Dr. Robert Goldstein had detailed plans to blow up an Islamic educational center and a list of about 50 Islamic worship centers in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area.

Guilty plea in a case that had New York abuzz last year about this time, when all things seemed a whole lot simpler. New York publicist Lizzie Grubman pleaded guilty today in a hit-and-run crash that hurt 16 people outside a Hamptons night club. A judge said Miss Grubman will receive two months in jail, community service and five years probation and perhaps be off the tabloids now for at least a bit.

And three of the nation's big airlines have forged a partnership to expand their market reach and get some business. Delta, Continental and Northwest are teaming up to sell tickets on each other's flights. United Airlines and U.S. Airways announced similar pact last month. Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, adding creationism to the curriculum, the evolving debate when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: On to our second story now about religion and public policy. This one has science thrown in for good measure. It's about an idea that's been a sensation since the 24th of November, 1859, when the "Origin of the Species" was first published, and all 1200 copies sold out that day. Evolution caused an instant stir and it was inevitable that the fiercest debate between those who believed it and those who believed in the Bible's version would play out in classroom and sometimes in the courtroom, as it did back in 1925, the infamous Scopes trial.

Back then it seemed the lines between creationists and evolutionists were sharply drawn. Now things are a little more blurry in battles going on in a huge Atlanta school district and other communities around the country, which may be the purpose. Here's CNN's Gary Tuchman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Seventy-seven years after biology instructor John Scopes was prosecuted for teaching evolution, the issue has evolved.

JAY SEKULOW, AMERICAN CENTER FOR LAW AND JUSTICE: There is a move. You're seeing it in states, really, from coast to coast...

TUCHMAN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) County, Georgia.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Separation of church and state is an absolute fallacy that's perpetuated upon our nation by a liberal press.

TUCHMAN: The school board has decided to spend the next 30 days reviewing a proposal to allow teachers to discuss the concept of creationism along with evolution. At the same time the board is being sued by the ACLU for requiring stickers on school biology textbooks that state in part, "Evolution is a theory, not a fact."

GERRY WEBBER, ACLU: Creationism is a doctrine of belief, of religious belief that should be taught in churches and in homes, and evolution is a scientific theory that should be taught in schools.

TUCHMAN: But in the latest twist in this argument, those who favor the teaching of creationism say science is their friend, too.

SEKULOW: Darwinian evolution with the whole survival of the fittest talked about this common creation, this idea that we were just evolving from animals and eventually into mankind, and the specific nature of the DNA and the gene evidence that science is now dealing with clearly points the other way, that there had to be some intelligent design going on here, because of the individual nature of DNA.

TUCHMAN (on camera): So that's why many creationists have come up with a new strategy. They call it intelligent design. Continue to teach evolution, they say, but also teach that a force greater than man orchestrated the origins of man.

(voice-over): In Ohio, the state board of education held a panel discussion to discuss intelligent design. Many opponents believe it's a backdoor approach to bring creationism to schools.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's an agenda here, and it's not a scientific agenda.

TUCHMAN: Meanwhile, other tactics in other states. A decision by the Oklahoma State Textbook Committee to place stickers in its science books was overruled by the state attorney general, but the argument continues.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Seven in favor. Those opposed? Three opposed.

TUCHMAN: As it does in Kansas, where the new school board reinstituted the teaching of evolution, after it was voted out by the old board.

Including Georgia, Ohio, Oklahoma and Kansas, there are now at least nine states where battles have recently been fought regarding the issue of evolution and creationism.

John Scopes won his case on appeal, but all these years later, the book is not closed on the issue. Gary Tuchman, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

Aaron: Now, we haven't done this for a couple days at least, I guess, but now on to some of your ideas on what to do with the 16 acres in lower Manhattan, ground zero. We're taking your proposals at cnn.com/newsnight. And then you follow the links. We have gotten well over 1,000, but greedy as we are, we'd love to see more. Again, it's not a contest. There's no prize at the end.

Here's a few we have gotten over the last several days. Barry in Queens sent us this one, and it echoes one theme we have seen a number of times. A structure that is, has transparency, helping bringing back the skyline but acknowledging the loss of September 11.

This idea came from David in Philadelphia. Two L-shaped buildings that are connected, parts of them transparent as well.

Ray in New York calls this "Unity Square," two buildings, reflecting pools, eternal flames at the base. Interesting concept there.

And Kimberly out in Sherman Oaks, California, in San Fernando Valley, sent us this one: A swirling wall surrounding the buildings, which could have the names of the victims as well. Again, we would like to see your ideas, cnn.com/newsnight, follow the links, and if you're computer savvy you can figure out how to send them our way. We'll take a look at them.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the best deal of the day: You give us two minutes, we will give you the world. This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

Aaron: Finally from us tonight, your reward for staying through to the end on a pretty weighty Friday night. A theme park in China that takes visitors on a virtual tour around the globe. Millions of tourists, millions of Chinese get a hint of the real world far beyond Chinese borders. The story tonight from Andrew Brown.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDREW BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is how millions of Chinese people learn about other cultures, at a theme park that reduces an entire planet into a series of miniature landmarks, with exhibitions showing what foreigners wear and how they behave. At least, that's the idea.

The very first thing you've got to do is to get a passport issued to you. It costs 20 yuan, or about $2.50. The passport's valid for all countries inside the park, which is called "Window of the World," and is located in Shenzhen, southern China. Most of the tourists who come here are from the PRC, and have never traveled internationally.

SUSAN GONG, TOUR GUIDE: They will be quite surprised by how the human beings can make so wonderful architectures.

BROWN: It took two years to build these models. Despite their cosmopolitan appearance, they were all made locally.

(on camera): Even the camels are from China. How do you know that? Because the camels here have two humps, whereas in the land of the Pharaohs, they only have one.

(voice-over): In summer, the mercury can rise to 35 degrees Centigrade -- 95 Fahrenheit -- hot enough to generate a mirage.

(on camera): At the other end of the thermometer...

(voice-over): There's a miniature version of the European Alps, featuring artificial snow. Visitors to Window of the World seem convinced by what they see.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): It's as if you're overseas learning about other cultures.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): It's like being abroad.

BROWN (on camera): Do you think when Chinese people come here, if they've not traveled in the outside world, this is what they think the outside world is like?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it is.

BROWN (voice-over): If only the fantasy were true. Window of the World makes England seem sunny, suggests the Pyramids are served by sky rail, and an American president here can always promise you a bed of roses.

And you can race around, visiting more than 40 countries in one day. Although, be warned, the journey's exhausting.

Andrew Brown, CNN, Shenzhen, China.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Nice way to end the week. We'll see you the day after Labor Day. Anderson is here next week. Have a wonderful weekend, a great Labor Day holiday coming up. And good night from all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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