Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Cold Temperatures Hit Parts of U.S.; Possible NSA Super Computer Examined; Crime Down in Many Major U.S. Cities

Aired January 04, 2014 - 14:30   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Fredricka Whitfield and here are the top stories we're following in the CNN newsroom.

A powerful arctic blast is about to barrel across the U.S. adding insult to injury for tens of millions of people who were hit by this week's massive snow storm. The National Weather Service says this could be a historic event, with temperatures plummeting to record low levels in parts of the Midwest. That cold air will head east at the start of the week, and then southern states as well will feel some of the pain. You could see zero temperatures as far south as Nashville.

So people in Boston including our own Margaret Conley know what that's like, the chill that it. Margaret, the temperatures are just bone- chilling there, and still lots of snow behind you. So what's the biggest problem for folks there?

MARGARET CONLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fred. We are actually pretty lucky. The coastal regions were hardest hit. There were actually about 13 deaths that resulted from the storm. But here in Boston there were up to two feet of snow in the Massachusetts area, and actually last night temperatures were near record low temperatures.

But here most people have been spending the day trying to scoop out their parking spots, a lot of shoveling of snow. We ran into Danielle here, and she's taking care of little Nicholas here. She was telling us how difficult it was for her to get a parking spot.

DANIELLE ALIVEIRA, BOSTON RESIDENT: That's right. It's very hard. The people put things in the spot and we can't park.

CONLEY: You can't park. People are putting in chairs and cones trying to reserve their spot, right?

ALIVEIRA: That's right. Little chairs, big chairs, everything.

CONLEY: And you don't want to mess with those spots?

ALIVEIRA: No, no.

CONLEY: You're taking care of Nicholas. He's all bundled up.

ALIVEIRA: He's very good. I warmed him very nice. It's really cold, especially today. But he's very warm. CONLEY: He's in a little bubble here, Fred.

The good news is that travel does seem to be getting better. We see them flying in and out of Logan. A lot of flights were canceled yesterday and into today, so the hope here is that they're going to get back on track and on schedule.

WHITFIELD: Oh, boy. I know folks are hoping from some normalcy, but something's telling me with this one-two punch, more snow, more bad weather on the way, it's only going to add insult to injury. I think somebody's trying to get into their parking space behind you right now, Margaret.

CONLEY: Thanks, Fred. Don't mess with parking in Boston.

(LAUGHTER)

WHITFIELD: Margaret Conley, thanks so much, in Boston.

So 140 million people will be getting hit by this new round of winter weather. Samantha Mohr is tracking the path of the cold front. So Samantha, is it true? Boston too will be hit again?

SAMANTHA MOHR, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Oh, yes, definitely will be hit again. And the brunt of the throw or the punch, since you called it a one-two punch, will be throughout the midsection. There was the first punch here. The second punch on its way in. And now we finally, we've been watching for the snow to move into Chicago. It is indeed moving in right now, O'Hare just reporting light snow. So just the outer edge of the snow, but it's going to turn into much heavier snow as we head into the overnight hours and through Sunday as well.

Winter storm warning in effect for Chicago through tomorrow evening. All the areas you see draped here in pink and that lavender color, that means winter weather, gusting winds, blowing snow, incredibly cold temperatures once the arctic air moves in behind the low itself. So it's all about timing. It's all about timing the moisture with the cold air. And exactly when the two will meet will determine how much snow you get and how heavy that snow will be. So we'll be watching that carefully as the low moves on up from the south central plains toward the Ohio valley. You know, we have a bit of a football game in Cincinnati.

WHITFIELD: Just a little one.

MOHR: Just a little one with the Bengals hosting the Chargers. We originally thought heavy, heavy snow. But now it looks like it's going to turn out as rain and turn to snow. So it's all about that crucial timing of when that cold air moves on it. Now the models are trending a little bit more wet than snowy, but they will end up getting cold air in behind it, we do know that.

And look at how tightly packed the isobars are, Fredricka. That means incredibly gusty winds, and the wind-chill factors likely to be record-breaking.

WHITFIELD: Oh, my gosh, keep those extremities warm. This is mittens, gloves, hats, scarf-wearing weather, people.

MOHR: And put your baby in a bubble.

WHITFIELD: And the baby in bubble. I like that. Thanks so much, Samantha.

All right, a bit of good news out there for former first lady Barbara Bush. She is back home this afternoon after being admitted to the hospital. She was admitted six days ago, being treated for pneumonia. In a statement today she thanked all of her doctors and nurses. The former first lady is 88-years-old.

New developments in the case of a 13-year-old girl declared brain dead after a tonsil surgery. A death certificate was issued for Jahi McMath yesterday. It came as her family reached an agreement in court with the hospital to transfer McMath to another facility. Details of the transfer have not been determined as yet.

And we've been reporting on a vicious crime being played out on city streets around the country lately. Now a New York man is facing hate crime charges for allegedly playing this so-called knockout game. The attacks taking place in predominantly Jewish sections of Brooklyn. And in the so-called game, attackers try to knock an unsuspected stranger unconscious with a single blow.

And as violence continues in South Sudan, the U.S. is evacuating Americans from that country. About 20 embassy staff members have already been flown out of the capital of juba and others have been encouraged to leave. The U.S. ambassador is still in-country to help international efforts to end the fighting. Tomorrow South Sudan's government and rebels will begin face-to-face talks in Ethiopia.

All right, first it was our e-mails, then our computers. Now the NSA is building a new super computer, and if you thought your online records were safe, think again. This computer will be able to crack everything.

WHITFIELD: Republican Senator Rand Paul is now leading a class-action lawsuit against the Obama administration for the NSA policies. He claims they violate the Fourth Amendment, which protects people from unreasonable search and seizure. And he says just about everybody is eligible to be part of the lawsuit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL, (R) KENTUCKY: We now have several hundred thousand people who want to be part of this suit to say to the government and to the NSA, no, you can't have our records without our permission or without a warrant specific to an individual. So it's kind of an unusual class action suit in the sense that we think everybody in America who has a cell phone would be eligible for this class action suit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Paul, who was considering running for president, has a page on his website for people to join the lawsuit, and it also asks for a $25 donation. A judge said last week the NSA's program is constitutional.

All right, what's driving that lawsuit is opposition to a string of NSA tactics from eavesdropping on our e-mail to hacking into our computers to developing software that tracks iPhones. Well, now the NSA is building a super computer that will be able to crack encryption on practically every compute never the world. Here's CNN's Brian Rodd.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Encryption, those scrambled codes that protect our most sensitive information online, shield the most top secret crucial data that governments possess from hackers and cyber spies. Now the NSA is reportedly developing what's called a quantum computer. When it's complete, it will be able to break just about any encryption in the world.

When NSA gets that quantum computer, what will it then do?

JAMES LEWIS, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: Quantum computing will be a game-changer. It will make it a lot easier for NSA to break the codes that foreign governments use, that foreign criminal groups use.

TODD: But NSA will also be able to break encryption codes that we all use to break into our bank accounts, emails, medical records. A privacy advocate says that may lead to a world with no secrets, where it would be almost pointless trying to protect anything.

MARC ROTENBERG, ELECTRONIC PRIVACY INFORMATION CENTER: We don't know, in fact, what the capabilities are, what steps are being taken to undermine the types of encryption that you and I might rely on, for example, when we go online to purchase a book or download some music.

TODD: The quantum computer program is revealed in documents provided by NSA leaker Edward Snowden and reported by the "Washington Post." How would the super computer work? When a regular computer tries to solve a problem it has to go through each possible solution one by one by one until it arrives at the correct answer. What makes a quantum computer so special is that it simultaneously tries every possibility, arriving at the correct answer much quicker.

According to documents the quantum computer is being developed at this lab in College Park, Maryland. How close is NSA to finishing this computer? Experts say it could be anywhere from five years away to a decade or more. Contacted by CNN, the NSA wouldn't comment on the project.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Support from two newspapers to give Edward Snowden a break. Should the fugitive be given a deal to come home? (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Two huge newspapers, "The New York Times" and Britain's "The Guardian," want the U.S. to grant Edward Snowden clemency. The papers' editorial boards are calling him a whistle blower and courageous. Snowden admits leaking details of how NSA collects data on phone calls and e-mails of nearly all Americans. CNN Justice reporter Evan Perez explains why clemency for Edward Snowden is such a hot button issue.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: It engenders a lot of sharp opinion on both sides of this question, whether or not is he a traitor, as some people in Congress have called him, or as some people -- some of his supporters, some of his journalist supporters, say he is a hero.

He himself told the "Washington Post" recently that he felt his mission was accomplished already. But, you know, the question of whether or not the government can try to, you know, give him some kind of clemency, that's a very complicated thing. For instance, Snowden has allegedly took hundreds of thousands of documents, but he no longer controls most of those documents, according to the journalists that he has been working with. I asked Attorney General Eric Holder this question a couple of weeks ago, and here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC HOLDER, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: It's not something that I would support. I think that he has clearly broken the law and harmed the nation that he claims to love. The conversation that we are engaged in is one that I think is certainly worthwhile, to try to determine how do we safeguard privacy and keep the American people safe. How do we find balance with regard to our surveillance activities? But I would not say what he did is worthy of clemency.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREZ: As you can tell, there would be tremendous pressure on the other side to not do this within the government, Fred.

WHITFIELD: And so the Snowden leaks overall, what, if anything, has been impacted by him revealing this classified information?

PEREZ: Well, you know, there are -- there are some changes that are being contemplated right now, and Congress is in some discussion of bills to pull back what the NSA is doing. The question of whether or not -- there's big argument over what the NSA has been doing, whether it's legal or not. It's clear Congress has authorized it, the president is in favor of it and authorizes it, and the courts, so far, has signed off on what the NSA is doing. So the question of legality probably is separate.

So the question of whether the government should be doing this, whether the NSA should be doing this, that's a more complicated question. You're talking about politicians who have to worry whether or not there's a terrorist attack tomorrow and whether or not there will be questions later on that what the NSA was doing could have prevented those attacks, for instance. So that's a much more complicated question. That's for Congress and for the president to decide. The president said he'll address this next month, and we'll see what he says, Fred.

WHITFIELD: OK, thank you so much. Appreciate it, Evan Perez.

And there's a new reason to put away your cellphone away before you get behind the wheel now. It's a new study on the dangers of texting, dialing, and chatting while driving. And as CNN's Tory Dunnan explains, some distractions are worse than others.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TORY DUNNAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There's a guy on the road. I'm trying to text.

We all know texting and driving is a dangerous combination, but could dialing while driving be even worse? Behind the wheel of a driving simulator I discovered just how distracting it could be.

The number I'm calling --

It's even worse for newly licensed drivers.

CHARLIE KLAUER, STUDY AUTHOR, VIRGINIA TECH: We found that for novice drivers, texting increased your risk for a crash three times that of an alert teen driver, and dialing and reaching for objects increased it by seven to eight times that of an alert driver.

DUNNAN: Researchers at Virginia Tech put camera sensors and GPS devices on cars belonging to more than 40 new drivers and more than 100 experienced ones. Dialing a cellphone, reaching for it or any other object, even eating while behind the wheel greatly increases the chances of an accident. But according to a study, the act of talking on a phone while pushing the pedal is actually OK. Not so fast says the co-director of the South Florida Driving Simulation Lab.

KINSUK MAITRA, HU DRIVING SIMULATION LAB: The simple question of will you go to the market today, you can have a simple answer yes or no, but if somebody asks what is the multiplication of 365, you have to think.

DUNNAN: Distractions inside the car can quickly turn you into a terrible driver.

So what happened whelp I was texting?

MAITRA: You were deviating from the lane a little bit, all within the road, but you slowed down quite a bit.

DUNNAN: Bottom line, the safest way to drive is with both hands on the wheel.

Tory Dunnan, CNN, Miami.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: And Chicago put a big dent in its skyrocketing crime rate last year. Why are things looking safer there and in other big U.S. cities? We'll ask an expert next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Chicago's big push to curb violence appears to be working. Crime is down in the city that has been synonymous with violence. It's not the biggest city in the country, but Chicago comes in number one for homicides. But as Ted Rowlands reports, 2013 was a step in the right direction.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The final roll call of the year at Chicago's ninth precinct. Lieutenant Tom Wazirick talks about New Year's Eve and goes through his precinct's numbers for the year.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shootings were down 88 from last year, a 46 percent decrease.

ROWLANDS: 2013 was a great year for the entire Chicago police force. Overall crime was down nearly 25 percent from 2012, and the murder rate was the lowest since 1967.

SUPERINTENDENT GARRY MCCARTHY, CHICAGO POLICE: It's hard not to be pleased, but, you know, we're not satisfied.

ROWLANDS: Some of the credit goes to Chicago police superintendent Gary McCarthy who was brought in two years ago by Mayor Rahm Emanuel. McCarthy and Emanuel made sweeping changes that now seem to be paying off, including some major changes at the police department.

MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL, (D) CHICAGO: Moving cops from behind the desk out onto the street, officers doing foot patrol, an interdiction strategy on gangs so there's no reprisal shootings.

ROWLANDS: Besides policing, the city has invested in more after- school programs and this year doubled the size of its summer jobs program. It's also putting pressure on parents to keep better tabs on their kids.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, get close to home now. It's starting to get late, boys.

ROWLANDS: There were several heartbreaking stories in 2013, including the killing of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, an honor student shot after taking a final exam. President Obama talked about Hadiya in his State of the Union.

BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: She was shot and killed in a Chicago park after school just a mile away from my house.

ROWLANDS: The biggest problem still facing Chicago, according to McCarthy is illegal guns and the lack of accountability for those caught with one. An example, the man accused of killing Hadiya Pendleton, who McCarthy says would have been in prison if Illinois gun penalties were stronger.

MCCARTHY: Her alleged killer pled guilty to illegal possession of a firearm in November of 2012 and killed her in January of 2013.

ROWLANDS: Still, things are better, and most people on the south side of Chicago we talked to say they have noticed a difference.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It has slowed down, though. It has slowed down.

ROWLANDS: Is it getting better?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, it is getting better.

MCCARTHY: It's kind of all coming together in one monstrous thunderclap, and the goal is to keep making it better.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Make sure you guys watch each other's backs, OK? Have a good night. Be safe.

ROWLANDS: Ted Rowlands, CNN, Chicago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Chicago isn't the only big city that's seen a drop in homicides. Also on the list, New York, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. So what's behind it all? Joining me now is a criminologist, Jack Levin from Northeastern University. Good to see, Jack.

JACK LEVIN, CRIMINOLOGIST, NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY: Thank you, Fredericka.

WHITFIELD: Yes. There were a lot of predictions within the last five years of crime rates soaring in large part because of the bad economy. But this is the opposite. What is the common denominator in your view?

LEVIN: Well, you're absolutely right. We thought the crime rate was going to skyrocket.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

LEVIN: Because of the budget cuts and so many inmates being released after the war on drugs. Instead, the murder rate, the rate of serious crime has plummeted over the last four years. And, you know, I think Chicago now knows what a lot of other major cities have already discovered, that the police can do a lot more than just respond to crime. They can also prevent it. They can send more and more officers to crime hotspots around the city. They can do more about prosecuting gun crimes. They can supervise our youngsters, collaborate and cooperate with the residents, the probation officers, the parole officers. They can get involved in the gangs. They can do community policing. And all of these policies and procedures will pay off in a lower crime rate. WHITFIELD: And so you're saying in many of these cities, all of those things that you just addressed have actually been applied, and that in large part is why the violent crime rate is dropping. So more of the same, then?

LEVIN: Well, we've seen the rate of violent crime decline really since the mid-1990s. There were certain models like zero-tolerance policing in New York City, the partnership model in Boston and Los Angeles. And now there are other major cities like Chicago that are catching on, and they are using the same very effective methods for reducing the crime rate.

WHITFIELD: Interesting. So, you know, places like Baltimore, Washington, D.C., the homicide rate actually went up in 2013. There were a little more than 100 homicides in Washington, D.C., in 2013. While we're talking, in due part because of the Navy yard shooting, that was a spike. But even though it's higher than in 2012, it's still much lower than what you were talking about, the '90s when Washington, D.C., was considered the murder capital of the world, 400 to 500 murders in one year.

So in your view, is this kind of a short-lived trend particularly for cities like Baltimore or Washington? While the numbers are still high, it's far less than what it used to be?

LEVIN: Well, you know, I hope this is not a short-lived trend. I hope that this is something that we see continue into the future. But there are other factors involved as well. For example, there is the aging of the population so that there are fewer young people around, and young people commit a disproportionate number of street crimes. There's immigration. Believe it or not, the cities with lots of immigrants have much lower crime rates. El Paso, where, you know, the majority of residents are newcomers, well, they have almost no murders at all.

WHITFIELD: Wow.

LEVIN: So there are other factors. And let me just say one more thing.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

LEVIN: About Chicago and some of the other cities, and that is many of these cities have not seen a reduction in shootings, but they've seen a reduction in homicides thanks to trauma centers, hospitals, where people who might have died from gunshot wounds 10 or 20 years ago are now surviving.

WHITFIELD: A host of influences here.

All right, criminologist Jack Levin of Northeastern University. Thanks so much for your time and expertise. Appreciate it.

LEVIN: Thank you, Fredericka.

WHITFIELD: And Happy New Year.