Return to Transcripts main page

At This Hour

FBI's New Information on Chattanooga Shooter; Texas Police Say Sandra Bland Arrest Video Not Edited; Hackers Can Take Control of Cars; Family in Kenya Await Obama; Security Protocols Violated for Obama's Kenya Visit. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired July 22, 2015 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00] REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN, (R), TENNESSEE: And you know that there was a process that was taking place. He was moving to these radicalized ideas. This is all part of the goal of terrorist organizations. They want to uproot our way of life. They want to turn it upside down. They want individuals here to go attack the iconic symbols of our life and of our society. They are encouraging of these attacks on military, whether they're on U.S. soil or look at the story of the 24-year-old being held in the U.K. who was wanting to carry out that attack. So what you see is this pattern and the similarities within that pattern. With woman, the one issue that comes up for them is national security. We have to rein this in, whether it is dealing with these violent radical Islamists or dealing with the issues of illegal immigration, dealing with those things that affect the security in our communities, at our schools, at our public gathering places. And people would like to return to having that sense of security. And right now, especially with women, they feel as if what is happening through the war on terror and through the terrorist threats and what is happening with every state becoming a border state and every town a border town, there is an uneasiness and an unsettled nature about how we go about living our daily lives.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, thank you so much for your time.

BLACKBURN: So glad to be with you.

BOLDUAN: Thank you so much.

As we mentioned, we're awaiting an update from federal officials about the status of that investigation. We'll bring it to you when it begins.

So there were plenty of questions after Texas authorities released video showing the arrest of Sandra Bland. The video was supposed to answer a lot of those questions. But it just seemed to spark a new controversy over whether the video that was posted was edited. We'll look at the glitches and what officials are saying caused them.

And imagine driving down the road and absolutely losing control of your car because of hackers. A rider challenged two hackers to take control of his Jeep and says it got dangerous when they did just that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [11:36:09] BOLDUAN: New this morning, Texas authorities now tell CNN the police dash cam video just released in the Sandra Bland murder investigation was not edited. They blame it on a technical issue when they were posting the video. The 28-year-old woman was stopped by a Texas state trooper for allegedly failing to signal a lane change. Then Bland refused to put out her cigarette and that's when the confrontation escalated. She ended up in jail and days later dead. Police say Bland hanged herself in her cell. Something her family says cannot be true.

Joining us now is a man who has examined thousands of police recordings, forensic expert, Paul Ginsberg.

These videos, Paul, are really at the center of the conversation at this moment. And there are a lot of questions about it. So the dash cam video is where one focus is. We've seen it. There are glitches. There's repetition, duplications. They said that there was a technical issue when they were posting the video. Does that satisfy it for you?

PAUL GINSBERG, FORENSICS AUDIO EXPERT: It doesn't really. Any really true forensic examination requires available of the original because a number of things can happen in the copying process. It may be inadvertent. It may be intentional. I don't know that anything to do with, say, taking out a telephone call audio would have any effect on video and I certainly don't feel that anything would cause a duplication of video.

BOLDUAN: We see a white car come and then go away and a white car show up again. You're seeing the tow truck driver, a duplication where he appears right back at the car again. That's one of duplications we're talking about. That doesn't settle things for you in that regard. But the other bit of video where there is a lot of question is the video inside the jail. It's not inside her cell. It's inside the jail. It's a three-hour time period. But you only have video of nine minutes and 26 seconds just because they use motion-activated cameras. How does that work? And is that common?

GINSBERG: Well, it is. It's to conserve memory space or in the old days tape space. When you set up the device initially, you designate a certain number of areas of the screen in which you will be looking for motion. If there's motion in any of those designated areas, the recorder starts. Happily in this, they have date and time information in the lower left-hand corner so you know each time the machine goes on.

BOLDUAN: Everyone is wondering, though, can you trick it? How reliable is it?

GINSBERG: Well, again, this is a copy that we're watching. And once it's in a format that we can handle, that is not of proprietary file format, anything can be done. There are hundreds of software packages that will easily lead you to edit it and be able to clip segments at your will.

BOLDUAN: That's the center of where this investigation really is and not satisfactory answers quite yet for you.

Paul, thank you so much.

GINSBERG: My pleasure.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, we know they can break into our computers. But now it seems hackers can break into anything, even your car. A rider finds out just how easy it was for hackers to take control when it happened to him on a highway. I'm going to speak to him next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:42:45] BOLDUAN: Imagine you're behind the wheel and someone 10 miles away or so takes control of your car. Yes, it is possible, and, yes, it happened to my next guest, Andy Greenburg, senior writer at "Wired" magazine.

We'll discuss in a second. But just take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC)

ANDY GREENBURG, SENIOR WRITER, WIRED MAGAZINE: Can't turn it down.

(MUSIC)

GREENBURG: Air conditioning is blasting. The music is blasting. And I can't see anything because of the (EXPLETIVE DELETED windshield wiper fluid.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Amazing. All out of his control.

Andy is here to tell us about this.

I guess we could call this -- it's a wild experience.

GREENBURG: I apologize for those "F" bombs.

BOLDUAN: We bleeped it out. So you're OK.

You called yourself a test dummy. How did this happen?

GREENBURG: These two researchers, pretty brilliant hackers, have been working on this problem for three years of how to hack into a car to prove it can be done. And they've now achieved that. They invited me to St. Louis for this demonstration. Told me to get in a Jeep and drive onto the interstate and then they told me they were going to -- I knew they were going to hack the vehicle. But I didn't know what they were going to do. The trick started with small things like turning up the volume of the --

BOLDUAN: We saw the radio goes out of control. The air conditioning goes out of control. The wipers go out of control. They even controlled the speed.

GREENBURG: Eventually, they cut the transmission entirely. I was stalled on the highway with no ability to move the vehicle.

BOLDUAN: What was this like?

GREENBURG: It was really scary. Even though I knew this was coming, I didn't know what they would do. And it was unnerving to find yourself in a two-ton vehicle you can't control that is being controlled by these guys ten miles away. Of course it's the -- because it was over the Internet, it could have been done from across the country --

BOLDUAN: Which is exactly what they wanted to show. These guys wanted to expose the security vulnerabilities of automobiles. How did they do it?

GREENBURG: Well, there's a vulnerability that they discovered in the head unit, this computer that's in the dashboard of 471,000 Chrysler vehicles. The computer is called u-connect. Because of this vulnerability, they can use its cellular connection to the Internet to take control of that computer and pivot from there inside the car's network to attack steering, brakes and transmission, these really scary elements of the car.

[11:45:14] BOLDUAN: How did Chrysler respond to this?

GREENBURG: Chrysler -- these two hackers have been working with Chrysler for nine months already. And Chrysler has released a patch. Everybody should know if they have this u connect computer in a Chrysler vehicle, they need to download -- the patch works as far as we know. But you need to install it manually. This isn't something that has Chrysler has pushed out automatically. You have to put it into your dashboard and update your software.

BOLDUAN: These guys are facing some criticism for the fact that they even took this experiment on because they say there could be copycats and copycats -- they could be putting more people at risk because copycats want to copy them. But now Congress wants to get involved. I mean --

GREENBURG: That's right. I think the fact that there's a piece of legislation dropped by two Senators on the same day our story came out shows this is a serious issue. They're releasing some of the code even to prove to other researchers that this is real. But that's an important element of replicating this, showing that it's a serious thing. It's just good science to allow other researchers to do the same thing. But they've left out a piece of code that basically will allow any hackers to do this.

BOLDUAN: Do you have to be a fabulous hacker to pull this off?

GREENBURG: Some teenager in their basement is not going to be able to do this. These guys are pros. One is a former NSA hacker. But this is a real issue. And as cars become more interconnected, it's going to become realer.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. We saw it play out with you behind the wheel. It absolutely is real.

Andy, great to see you. Great work.

GREENBURG: Thanks for having me.

BOLDUAN: Thanks so much.

You can read it in "Wired" magazine.

Coming up next for us, an extraordinary interview. President Obama's half-sister and grandmother on the other side of the Atlantic in a small village in Kenya. His family waits and hopes to meet during his visit, this week, the man they know who grew up to be president.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:50:48] BOLDUAN: President Obama heading to Kenya on official business this weekend. Some are wondering if this trip will be a personal one. The African nation is not only his father's birth place but many of his relatives still live there.

CNN's Brooke Baldwin traveled to the president's ancestral village and spoke with the president's half-sister and step-grandmother.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He's been in the White House for seven years, what's your most proud moment of your brother?

ALMA, HALF-SISTER OF BARACK OBAMA: Getting in the White House.

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: Getting in the White House. Getting in.

ALMA: Just getting in. He got in twice. I'm proud of that, yes.

BALDWIN: Did you see him break out into "Amazing Grace"? Have you seen that video?

ALMA: I did.

(SINGING)

(APPLAUSE)

ALMA: I'm surprised he sang so well.

(LAUGHTER)

It was amazing.

(SINGING)

BALDWIN: What does she make of the fact that now the name Obama is so globally recognized? MA CERA, STEP-GRANDMOTHER OF BARACK OBAMA: She says, when big things

happened, people were named after big events.

ALMA: She says my dad used to tell her about my brother, he would always tell her, "That son might be in America is going to do great things. You're going to see it." She's seeing it. He uplifts her name as well.

BALDWIN (voice-over): Still, beyond Nairobi, the question looms -- will he come here.

(on camera): What if he doesn't come here? How disappointed will people be?

ALMA: I think we're very realistic about the situation with my brother and the job that he has. I always say it's just another job, he's a government official really, if you look at in a more sober sense. He's doing his job. He's here for work.

BALDWIN: Just a government official?

ALMA: Yes.

BALDWIN: The man is president of the United States of America.

ALMA: But it's still a job. That's a job. That comes first, whatever else happens is a bonus and we're very respectful of that. We have been. I have no worries about that and the community knows that.

BALDWIN: They get it?

ALMA: They do get it. At the end of the day they know that. Barack is an American, he's not a Kenyan. He's a descendent but he's an American.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOLDUAN: Brooke is here with us again.

Brooke, you get emotional when you see this.

BALDWIN: Africa is a special place and I think getting this invitation from the president's sister -- by the way, they don't the half thing, it's just brother and sister. To get in invitation, this is an interview I've been working on for a couple of months, to go to this ancestral village in western Kenya near Lake Victoria, to be invited into the homestead of the Obama family, to stand over Barack Hussein Obama Sr's grave, to speak with his daughter and speaking about how proud he would have been not just of Oma (ph) Obama, Dr. Oma (ph) Obama, who runs a phenomenal foundation called (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE), helping young kids in the community find their own powerful voices, also some of what Alma thinks her father would say with Barack Obama, if the father were alive today. It was a pinch-me experience, that's for sure.

BOLDUAN: Of course, it's not on the official itinerary for him to visit but did you sense anticipation it's possible?

BALDWIN: You sense definite anticipation just walking up into the homestead, going into Ma Cera's home. This is the 93-year-old grandmother who remembers meeting Barack Obama as if it were yesterday. Fresh plantings along her driveway, newly paved roads. I was asking Alma how disappointed people will be in this village -- village full of little boys named Barack Obama and schools named Barack Obama -- and I think, you know, they're realistic but it's tremendous in this tribe, in this cultural heritage that is pride is pervasive. And I think just knowing Barack Obama comes from or his father comes from this village, this part of Kenya and that this is the very first time as president of the United States that Barack Obama will be returning to his ancestral home nation is a huge, huge deal.

But just quickly, I brought this. I might have pilfered this from the airplane, but this is from -- sorry. This is from Kenyan Airways. This is the national airline of Kenya and it's President Obama on the cover. Everywhere you go, not just in western Kenya, I spent time in Nairobi as well --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: -- you see the name Obama, people get excited.

[11:55:12] BOLDUAN: Great trip. Thanks for bringing it to us.

BALDWIN: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Brooke, you can see much more, all of this, all of Brooke's journey at 2:00 p.m. eastern. You can see all of Brooke's interview there.

Coming up next for us, breaking news involving the president's trip to Kenya, speaking of that, and whether security protocol has already been violated. We'll have details on that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:54:17] BOLDUAN: New information coming in of concerns ahead of the president's trip to Kenya that security protocols may have been violated. This coming in, but the Secret Service is not commenting, but they are aware of the information's dissemination of the information. The information appears to have come from Kenya's Civil Aviation Authority. It issued a pre-flight information bulletin and, in part of it, it outlined some of the itinerary of the president's fourth-coming visit to Kenya. Now, CNN obtained this bulletin, a copy of the bulletin. And in it, it outlines a less than hour-long window that the airspace in certain areas would be closed on both of the days of the president's arrival and departure from Kenya. Again, Secret Service is not commenting but aware of this bulletin. We'll have much more on this throughout the day.

Thanks for joining us AT THIS HOUR.

"LEGAL VIEW" starts right now.