Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Live At Daybreak
'Here's What I Don't Get'
Aired November 15, 2001 - 08:40 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Time to check in with Jack Cafferty, who always has a lot on his mind by this time, because he has probably been awake 19 hours by now. He can think a lot better than the rest of us this hour of the morning.
Good morning. How are you?
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm good. How are you doing?
ZAHN: I'm good.
CAFFERTY: Remember yesterday in the news, there was much to do about this idea of these military tribunals to perhaps be used to try suspects who are accused of terrorist activities. There would be military panels. The trials would be held in secret. It would not be used to try U.S. citizens, only non-U.S. citizens, and presumable some of these trials might take place outside the country.
The civil libertarians were quick to point out, hey, wait a second are you playing fast and loose with the freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution. The precedent for this, the Civil War and World War II, were both times in our history these were used, but there is another reason beyond the concerns I think of the civil libertarians.
I talked to a lawyer friend of mine. Let's pretend for a minute that you are on trial. God, would court TV love that.
ZAHN: Thank you, Jack.
CAFFERTY: It would do wonders for their ratings as well, but you go to a courthouse, traditional courthouse, within the system of American justice and you're put on trial. Under the rules of jurisprudence, you are entitled to have access to all of the evidence that the prosecutor has against you.
ZAHN: Sure.
CAFFERTY: Right.
ZAHN: That's the rules.
CAFFERTY: The other thing that we allow in this country is the press is allowed to cover the trials. Apparently one of the concerns about using these military tribunals is to preserve a cloak of secrecy over what is conceived to be sensitive information that relates to national security, vis-a-vis what we know or don't know about activities of various terrorist networks. So what the rationale would be that the press can't cover it, and there is no obligation to release all of the prosecutorial side knows about the defendant. They would get a lawyer. They would have a right to a jury trial.
But that's the other side of the coin. It's not about, you know, let's trample on civil liberties. It's about, you know, let's figure out a way to deal with these and dispense with them without tipping all of our cards about all the work we are doing to find out about terrorist networks.
ZAHN: What's interesting to me is the administration put this out as an option when you have these civil libertarians coming out and saying, we are going to challenge this thing in every courtroom across America. But with the precedence can you imagine in that situation where this would be shot down?
CAFFERTY: Well, there is no declared war. I suppose that is a technicality. Civil War and World War II were a declared war. We are not technically at war. Nobody has declared war, but maybe the other part of this is maybe just a trial, maybe they float that to see how bad the bounce is. I mean, the public opinion polls are so dead set behind the president and the military in this thing, that maybe they are trying to see where the demarcation line is, at what point does the public say, all right, we can't do that. I don't know.
ZAHN: We will follow it very carefully, .
CAFFERTY: One another thing quickly, and I think we should do this everyday until the status quo changes. It has been 65 days the terrorist attacks on America, the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the plane crash in Pennsylvania. The Congress has not passed an airline security measure. The Congress has not passed an economic stimulus package. The Congress is going to go on vacation next week, and my question is, how will we know they are gone?
ZAHN: Should we put a little clock up every morning.
CAFFERTY: We should, tomorrow should be day 66, right?
ZAHN: All right.
CAFFERTY: And we'll just do it until something happens, come on.
ZAHN: Is your goals to get everybody to cancel their Thanksgiving break?
CAFFERTY: Well, no, but I mean...
ZAHN: No, I didn't mean to be that facetious. No, but I think why don't you design a graphic for that, and...
CAFFERTY: Oh yes, I'll get out my paints and my easel and I'll be back to you.
ZAHN: Thank you, Jack. See you in the morning.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
