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Mass Hacker Arrest; MERS Fears; Hillary Clinton Inevitable?

Aired May 19, 2014 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hour two. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Had to get to this international crackdown of this mass invasion of privacy involving half-a-million computers worldwide. These victims here were allegedly terrorized without ever leaving their homes. The FBI says more than 90 people have been arrested in 19 countries. You see all the green on your screen? Nineteen countries for allegedly using a program called Blackshades.

With it, these hackers could turn Webcams into spycams, hold files captive, demanding ransom and even record users' keystrokes for passwords. CNN obtained this exclusive look at the FBI's cyber command room as the takedown of these offenders actually happened.

And among the victims, this young woman, Miss Teen USA, who said she turned -- quote -- "hysterical" last year after getting an e-mail with pictures of herself without wearing any clothes taken secretly with her own Webcam. The sender threatened to do it more if she did not do what he wanted.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CASSIDY WOLF, VICTIM OF COMPUTER HIJACKING: I received this e-mail and I saw, you know, the first three lines. I scrolled through it really quickly on my iPhone and I just scrolled to the bottom and saw the two photos and became hysterical, because I didn't feel like this was really happening. It was -- it was crazy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: CNN justice reporter Evan Perez has been all over this.

Evan, and so how did the whole takedown happen?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, the FBI and working with the police agencies in France and Germany and the Netherlands, and, you know, various places in Europe and Canada, have been studying this and looking at this for the last couple of years.

And finally they decided to take some action. They rounded up a lot of people in the last few days and U.S. attorney Preet Bharara today was describing a little bit about what this software does.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PREET BHARARA, U.S. ATTORNEY, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK: The RAT is inexpensive and simple to use, but its capabilities are sophisticated and its invasiveness breathtaking.

For just $40, the Blackshades RAT enabled anyone anywhere in the world to instantly become a dangerous cyber-criminal able to steal your property and invade your privacy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREZ: Brooke, one of the big things here was, you know, the FBI and these partners in other countries were able to go after not only some of the users of this software, but a couple of the co-creators of the software, including one guy who was marketing it all over the world.

And, again, this is hundreds of thousands of computers that have been infected with this thing. And a lot of people don't even know that they have been infected, Brooke.

BALDWIN: That's frightening. And hearing the story from Miss Teen USA, I was telling our ethical hacker guest last half-hour, I know this is -- seems very simple.

PEREZ: Yes.

BALDWIN: But I use duct tape on my laptop camera just because there are a lot of creeps out there. But beyond something like duct tape, how can we protect ourselves?

PEREZ: It's really scary to think about, right, that your own personal computer could be turned as a weapon against you.

In the case of Miss Teen USA, they were watching her for a year before she even found out about it.

BALDWIN: Creepy.

PEREZ: So in this case, I think the advice that people give to you is to update your antivirus software, to not click on anything that you don't know where it's coming from, you know, and just to be very careful about what you share online,because they use that information online, the things you share on Facebook and on Twitter, and they use it against you to figure out how to target you and how to make you a victim of a crime, Brooke.

BALDWIN: And how to get more out of you, because...

PEREZ: Exactly.

BALDWIN: ... they say, hey, we're going to show this to everyone if you don't -- if you don't listen to us. It's frightening.

Even Perez, thank you so much. And because of today's great news, this takedown, we will be hearing reaction from Miss Teen USA herself, Cassidy Wolf. She will be talking exclusively to Anderson tonight, so sure you watch her, "A.C. 360," at 8:00 Eastern.

Today, Washington took the unprecedented step of charging five Chinese military officers with cyber-spying against vital U.S. industries. The Justice Department says the five officials worked for a super- secret spy cell. They're known as Unit 61398 believed to be housed in this 12-story building in Shanghai.

Some are saying we're talking about trillions of dollars of theft against industrial giants like Westinghouse, U.S. Steel, Alcoa, even the Steelworkers union, China allegedly planting malware in the company's computers to suck out sensitive information.

China is disputing those U.S. allegations.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: Breaking news out of New York, where a federal jury has just convicted radical Islamist cleric al-Masri of multiple counts of trying to kidnap Americans in Yemen and trying to set up a terror training camp right here in the United States.

Let's go to CNN's Deborah Feyerick in New York for more.

Deborah, what do you know?

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, Abu Hamza al-Masri was found guilty on all 11 counts of terrorism.

As you mentioned, they include kidnapping and trying to set up this obscure training camp in Oregon. This is the radical Islamist cleric. You may know him. He had a pulpit at the Finsbury Mosque in London. He is accused of inspiring the failed shoe bomber Richard Reid, as well as the convicted 9/11 terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui.

Well, a jury listened to the case against him, and even though this -- these charges were from back in 1998, prosecutors were able to convince that jury that, in fact, he was guilty of all these terrorism charges. It took a long time for the U.S. to get him extradited from Great Britain, but he was.

He now faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. And, Brooke, one of the key people who testified against him was a woman who actually had confronted him, because she was one of the women taken hostage in Yemen and he is alleged to have coordinated that entire attack.

He also took the stand in his own defense and he described Osama bin Laden, saying that Osama bin Laden was a hothead and that he was in charge of an unfocused organization. Those were his thoughts about Osama bin Laden.

But right now, he himself has been convicted on all 11 terrorism charges -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: A hothead, he says, and now convicted. Deborah Feyerick, thank you so much for that.

FEYERICK: Of course.

BALDWIN: Well, today, we do have some new developments in this back and forth over the release of that raw data used to shape the search zone from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, because now we have Malaysia's acting transportation minister saying today, calling on Inmarsat -- that's the company whose satellites last communicated with this plane -- to release its data to the public.

So many people, including some of my next guests, calling on them to do so. Families of the 239 people lost in the plane have as well been clamoring for that Inmarsat data to be released.

So let's bring in CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest and CNN aviation analyst Jeff Wise.

So, gentlemen, as we well know, there has been a lot of back and forth, back and forth. Who has -- who actually possesses the information? Who can actually release it? And here we have this possible news.

Richard, to you. Is this a breakthrough, potentially?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it is. My understanding is that the data is to be released.

There have been backward and forward negotiations between Inmarsat in the U.K. and the Malaysian government and the various other authorities basically setting out exactly what should be released. It's fine to say, release the data. But once you start going down the road, you have got to work out, well, what is the data?

If you have got 500 pages of satellite logs, how much of it's relevant? How much of it's not? Who's best qualified to put it together into a package to be released? There's just no point in throwing everything out there, as most of it would be absolutely irrelevant.

And then you have got questions such as how much about the satellite do you really release? How much do you release about the analysis? My understanding is that the word is very clear from both sides. As much as should be released as is possible. It's just a question of the logistics of working out what that is.

BALDWIN: OK. So, let's look potentially here beyond logistics, Jeff Wise. You have been part of this chorus calling on the transparency from this Inmarsat data.

What then? Once this data comes down and some really smart experts take a look at this, what do we get from that?

JEFF WISE, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, really, we hope to see some fundamental answers to these questions that we have been asking all along.

Remember, we still don't know why exactly the authorities have been searching in the Southern Indian Ocean. They say that it has to do with -- something to do with the analysis of this data, perhaps also including the radar data that may or may not exist.

What this is going to allow us to do is, the minute this gets released, experts from around the world are going to start poring over it, trying to figure out why exactly the authorities reached the conclusions that they did and were the -- and reaching their own judgments as to whether those conclusions were valid.

BALDWIN: OK. So, it's the Inmarsat issue.

Richard Quest, here's my next one, because the former prime minister of Malaysia, he wrote this opinion column questioning Boeing, Boeing's role in this investigation.

He writes: "A search on the Internet reveals that Boeing in 2006 received a U.S. patent for a system that, once activated, removes all control from pilots to automatically return a commercial airliner to a predetermined landing location. Boeing should explain about this so- called anti-terrorism auto-land system. I cannot imagine the pilots made a soft landing in rough seas and then quietly drowned with the aircraft. Someone is hiding something. It's not fair that MAS and Malaysia should take the blame."

Does he have a point? Where's Boeing in all of this?

QUEST: It's not the first time Dr. Mahathir Mohamad has raised this question.

Quite early on in the investigation and just -- and then several times subsequently, the former prime minister, who is now getting on this years, has raised the question of whether or not U.S. corporations that are involved in the manufacture should be -- so, particularly Boeing -- should be criticized, U.S. companies.

Look, this is a former prime minister who was not the U.S.' best friend in many diplomatic incidents. It's not surprising that he now takes a certain anti-U.S. stance in looking at this.

From Boeing's point of view, I can tell you quite clearly they are sitting at the table with the Malaysians and with everybody else and they are heavily involved, but they are bound by Annex 13 into what they can and they cannot say. It's their plane. They would come under the rubric of state of manufacture.

BALDWIN: OK. I was wondering the context and if this was deflection or not.

Jeff Wise, just hearing this whole thing and hearing the possible news with Inmarsat, final word. What are you thinking?

WISE: I think we're going to -- if this does happen -- and I'm very hopeful that it will we will happen -- we're going to have a very busy day tomorrow trying to sort through it, trying to figure out what it all means. Do we have the data that we need?

We don't just need the data relating to the pings, but we need to know what kind of instrumentation is aboard the satellite, what kind of instrumentation was aboard MH370. There's quite a few pieces that have to fit together before we can really start to find our own answers from all this data. BALDWIN: We will talk again. Gentlemen, thank you. Jeff Wise, Richard Quest, appreciate it.

And are we any closer to figuring out what happened? Join my colleague Don Lemon taking your questions the with the experts tonight 10:00 Eastern here on CNN.

General Motors, GM going through some turmoil. You know about that, faulty ignition switches, the payout of $35 million, that fine from the federal government, but now some more bad P.R. CNN has learned the auto company is banning their workers from using certain words in internal memos. We will share those words with you and explain what led to this bizarre guidance ahead.

Also, it's a merger between these two massive media companies that would change how we watch our favorite TV shows. And even if you're not a customer of AT&T, DirecTV, it would still impact your monthly TV bill.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

General Motors, ah, yes, first, the automaker was hit with a $35 million fine for its sluggish response to the ignition switch problem, and now we have this brand-new public relations disaster for the company because of this leaked list of words, phrases that GM workers were asked not to use in internal communications.

For example, Hindenburg, that is a no-no. That's the blimp that went down in flames. Can't say powder keg. Can't say Kevorkian-esque, the doctor who helped people commit suicide. Can't say Titanic and apocalyptic. That's a no-no.

So this list here appeared in a 2008 presentation, well before we all knew about the ignition switch issues, which is tied to 13 deaths.

Alison Kosik joins me now with more.

And do we know -- do we have context of this list of banned words? I mean, where did this even come from?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This actually came from, Brooke, a presentation that people at GM gave way back in 2008.

So now that the cat's out of the bag that these words seem to have been used in internal communications, GM is coming out and saying to employees, look, you can use your words. Just make them constructive. Don't be cute. Don't be clever. Instead, say specifically what the issue is in a subjective way.

So, for example, don't say, this is a lawsuit waiting to happen. Instead, say something specific, like windshield wipers don't work properly. So what GM is telling workers is to really think about how they would react if their e-mails were reported in a newspaper or TV.

Now, we did talk with GM about this, and they told us that they encourage their employees to be factual in their statements, though you have got to admit, this doesn't look good for GM, when you consider there's been 11 million recalls so far this year and a good chunk of that number is for cars that came out before that 2008 presentation.

So it would be very interesting to really get a good look at what some of those e-mails really look like.

BALDWIN: I mean, was this because there were fears that an internal memo could then be leaked externally and fears of litigation over these negative-connotation sort of phrases? Is that what it is?

KOSIK: That would be a logical conclusion, that GM is worried that maybe an e-mail could be misconstrued, that perhaps e-mails like this were written that could get out of the company, especially when the company is really trying to show that it's cleaning up its act.

BALDWIN: Yes.

KOSIK: Its new chief, Mary Barra, now has this program called Speak Up For Safety, and it recognizes workers who come forward and point out potential safety issues and share ideas to make vehicles safer.

So you're seeing a company really trying to come back and make good on what seemingly doesn't look good, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Speak up, but maybe just not use these words. OK.

KOSIK: Right.

BALDWIN: Alison Kosik in New York, Alison, thank you for that.

KOSIK: Sure.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, a top Democrat has some pretty controversial things to say about someone in his own party. The governor of Massachusetts made some remarks about Hillary Clinton, drawing all kinds of attention today. We will share what he said, perhaps look into his possible motivation for that. That's next.

Also ahead, for the first time, MERS, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, has spread from one person to another person right here in the United States. Is the virus easier to catch than we originally thought? We're talking live to the CDC. Don't miss that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: A leading Democrat is saying, hold on, let's not coronate Hillary Clinton as the party's nominee for president, at least not yet.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GOV. DEVAL PATRICK (D), MASSACHUSETTS: I do worry about the inevitability thing, because I think it's -- I think it's off-putting to the average -- the average voter. And I think that was an element of her campaign the last time.

And I would just -- you know, as an enthusiastic Democrat, I just hope that the people around her pay attention to that this time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The governor of Massachusetts sitting down with our own Candy Crowley.

So, what we need is this. Is Deval Patrick speaking for himself, for his own reasons, or do other top Democrats feel the same way?

Ryan Lizza is with me now, CNN political commentator and Washington correspondent for "The New Yorker."

Mr. Lizza, nice to have you back.

RYAN LIZZA, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: How are you?

BALDWIN: I'm wonderful.

OK, first things first. When I saw this, the first thought is, is Deval Patrick maybe planting the seed of an insurgent challenge against Hillary Clinton?

LIZZA: You know, he did -- in that same interview, he did say that it's not his time yet. He has been someone who has been talked about as a potential candidate for 2016.

And not that long ago, he sort of opened the door up to running, but in that interview, he said it wasn't his time.

BALDWIN: OK.

LIZZA: That's not Shermanesque, right? That still gives him a little room. Remember at this point in the last cycle, Barack Obama was still saying that he was definitely not running.

So, look, he's a smart politician. When a smart politician is asked a question about Hillary Clinton, they know their words are going to be looked at under a microscope. They know people like you and me are going to be talking about them the next day, so I take -- I imagine he chose his words very carefully and knew the impact.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Let's discuss two words that he used, because he said -- he said, how about this inevitability factor and how it made turn off some voters?

LIZZA: Yes. BALDWIN: You know, again, you mentioned just going back to 2008, when Clinton to some seemed unbeatable, and then obviously we know how that turned out for her.

LIZZA: Yes. I feel like deja vu, right? We all -- there was this long period in 2007 when everyone said -- 2006 and 2007, when everyone said there was no chance that anyone could take her on, nobody could beat her.

And then people started to rethink that. And I think his comment yesterday was one of the first prominent Democrats who actually is raising the question of whether she is as inevitable, she is as unstoppable as everyone has been saying. And so it's a pretty significant -- it's a pretty significant statement, pretty significant moment in what we call the invisible primary, the sort of pre-pre- period.

BALDWIN: So in the pre-pre-period, because it is pre-pre-pre -- that is sort of my next point, that there is some sort of nugget in the news about Hillary Clinton, whether it's Clinton people putting her out there, or then you have the likes of Karl Rove attacking her as we saw last week.

My question to you -- you have been through so many of these different cycles -- is it too early? I mean, Ryan Lizza, we're like two-and-a- half years away. Can you have too much too soon?

LIZZA: You know, it is.

But the people that are really paying attention right now -- and I think that polls would show that average Americans are really not paying attention to the 2006 presidential primaries -- but the donors and the party insiders are paying...

BALDWIN: 2014.

LIZZA: Excuse me. Yes.

But they're not paying attention to the 2016 presidential cycle, right?

BALDWIN: The '16, '16, yes.

LIZZA: But that the donors and insiders who are -- who are looking to back someone are paying attention.

And so when someone like Deval Patrick says something like this, something that's a subtle criticism of Hillary Clinton or a warning...

BALDWIN: They're listening?

LIZZA: ... they're listening. They are listening.

And that's why we call this period the invisible primary. And by the time everyone else is paying attention, a lot of this invisible primary has happened. And it affects what people -- the choices that people have and the candidates that actually end up really running in 2015 and 2016.

So it's insider stuff, but it does affect the process.

BALDWIN: It's absolutely fascinating. And you have your job cut out for you, I suppose, right now.

Ryan Lizza, in this -- the days of this invisible primary, thank you so much.

LIZZA: Great. Thanks.

BALDWIN: We will see you back here, hopefully soon.

We are going to have some new information for you today about this MERS virus that has some health officials concerned because -- here's the first in this story -- for the first time, the virus has spread from one person to another within the United States. We will talk to the CDC live about how concerned they are.

Plus, look at this, Michael Jackson like we have never seen him before. We have to talk about this hologram performance and explain the potential fight over using someone's image,someone who's no longer with us. That's coming up.

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