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Spokesman Discusses Golden Gate Terror Warning

Aired August 12, 2002 - 14:31   ET

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

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Cars are crossing the Golden Gate Bridge today, and state and federal security officials are watching. But the so-called super-heightened alert that was in effect over the weekend has been downgraded, as authorities downplay the threat that prompted it.
CNN's Rusty Dornin is live in San Francisco with more on that.

Hi -- Rusty.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, as it turns out, this was an anonymous tip that was received by the Homeland Security Office on Friday that was in the form of a letter that was received outside of California. It threatened that a U.S. military plane would crash into the Golden Gate bridge.

Right now, you're looking at the midday traffic crossing the span. About 116 thousand cars a day cross the bridge from Marin County into San Francisco and back.

From what we understand. the Homeland Security Office notified the FBI, but by Friday night, they had already downgraded, so that it was not credible, it was not corroborated. However, here is the state of California, they did decide to go ahead and go up to a super- heightened alert.

We're here on the bridge now. A lot of folks, a lot of sightseers here at the vista point. Most of the people here didn't even know about the super-heightened alert.

The news reports did come out over the weekend after someone published this. Apparently, it would not have come out if hadn't been published in this report. There have been other times when there have been these alerts that we didn't even know about.

Here to talk about it is Mary Currie from the Golden Gate Bridge District.

Mary, why did you decide to go on a super-heightened alert even thought this was not a credible threat?

MARY CURRIE, GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE DISTRICT: It is important for us to maintain security here at the Golden Gate Bridge, even if a threat is determined to not be credible. It was date specific, it was bridge specific. So we wanted to go ahead and add additional security and additional patrols and just stray well coordinated through this weekend, and that is what we did. We feel like that is important for the public, and just for assurance, because we really don't know what we're dealing with in all cases. Even though it was deemed not to be credible, we still wanted to have the presence.

DORNIN: What could you do about a plane, though? I mean, there's nobody on the ground that can do much about an airplane that's going to crash into the bridge.

CURRIE: Good question. We get asked that all the time. We coordinate with the FAA, and it's the FAA that has to work with their partners to keep the air space above and around the Golden Gate Bridge safe and secure and know what -- every plane that is flying.

DORNIN: We've been watching today here, we have had patrols going out -- the National Guard and some of the police patrols. And there's this whole area of this foundation of the bridge, Mary. Talk a little about whether the security -- surrounding that. How do you keep folks out of there?

CURRIE: Essentially, again, fencing, cameras, foot patrols, motor patrols, dirt bike, and mountain bike patrols, just a variety of ways that we keep an eye on things.

DORNIN: Thank you very much, Mary Currie, with the Golden Gate Bridge District.

The interesting thing is even though they went down from the super-heightened alert, they're still always in heightened alert. That's been going on since September 11. When we saw these other patrols -- the National Guard and the other police patrols -- those came when it had been downgrades.

So they are still keeping a watchful eye out. They say even though it wasn't credible and could have been a hoax, that they are still going to step up their security measures -- Carol.

LIN: But Rusty, talk about psychology of that, because it seems to me with all this heightened awareness and this hair trigger response, that it would almost encourage crackpots to come out just to see what they could do to stoke up trouble out there.

DORNIN: The interesting thing is, again, Carol, is no one was supposed to know about this. This was something -- apparently, there had been about a half dozen to a dozen alerts we'd known about -- maybe four or five of them. The others the public never knew about. As happens in these situations, the information leaks out to the press and then becomes publicized.

But they take these steps just in case. How can you have a day targeted -- August 11 -- and not want to take extra security measures. But unfortunately, in this case, it was leaked to the press.

LIN: And once it's leaked once, there is a domino effect, and we've all got to follow up on it.

DORNIN: Right.

LIN: Thank you very much, Rusty Dornin, in San Francisco.

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