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Security Changes Affect Daily Life; Debates Over Racial Profiling; Vice of President of Sudan Dies

Aired August 01, 2005 - 14:30   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR; Stories "Now in the News," the White House warns Iran could face sanctions if it resumes uranium processing. Iran has given the E.U. until today to come up with a package of incentives for it to drop its enrichment program.
Thanks but no thanks. The committee drafting Iraq's new constitution says its passing up an opportunity to extend the deadline for that task. Officials had until today to request a six-month extension. Iraqi officials say they remain committed to meeting the August 15th deadline.

Busted. Baltimore Orioles slugger Rafael Palmeiro has been suspended for ten days after testing positive for steroids. This word coming from the office of the commissioner of baseball. Palmeiro told Congress just five months ago that he's never used steroids. We're going to have a live report next hour.

And our "Security Watch" today concerns that your privacy is slowly but surely eroding. If you think surveillance is getting out of hand, just wait. There's more to come, and we may see the day when you don't even notice that it's there. With more on that, CNN's Tom Foreman.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, it looks that way in many, many ways. All of us go to the airports now. You wonder, when's it going to stop? When are they going to stop taking my nail clippers and when are they going to stop frisking every granny who comes along. The fact is, it's going to get bigger. We've been looking at this in depth for several days and these series of reports starting tonight are really the kind of reports you need to watch if you intend to take your kids to school, go to work, travel or even drive the roads in the next few years, because the simple truth is, you just think you've seen high security so far.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN (voice-over): But jump forward five to 15 years, and security analysts say most Americans will be in for a lot more. Commuting, count on cameras. Experts say the millions of police and private surveillance cameras already at work will be increasingly watched by computers. So if you circle a government building too many times, license plate recognition software could give police instant pictures and a map of everywhere else you've been. Then, match that with your driver's license, cell phone, Internet and credit records.

Jim Lewis is with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

JIM LEWIS, CSIS: We're seeing some of these tested for power plants, where cameras will notice if a car is driving around, if someone appears to be in a vehicle and surveilling the plant for a possible attack.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN: This is what we're looking at, a situation where, in practical terms almost anything you do anywhere, especially near a city or near any kind of big building or transportation, is going to be watched and probably watched in multiple layers, which is to say something, somewhere, a computer will be tracking your cell phone, it will be tracking your person, if you're carrying an I.D. badge. It will be tracking your car. Photographs will be taken all the time. This is stuff that will be hard to see in many ways.

But I'll tell you this, no matter where you live in this country, go to any city, ride down the street or walk down the street and just count the cameras that are watching you. Look up and you'll be surprised.

PHILLIPS: Yes, first it was for speeding tickets, right? You get the picture in the mail and it looks like this mug shot of being arrested. But aside from that, Tom, about what's happening to us and maybe there's privacy issues or are we, you know, talking about what could change with regard to our security on that front. But even law enforcement countries -- or stations around the country -- like in Seattle, they're training now for suicide bombings. You know, you've got the NYPD, where Ray Kelly already sends homicide detectives to other countries when bombings take place to bring back more intelligence. It seems like even policing has become like soldiering, in a way.

FOREMAN: Yes, if you look at all of these reports we're preparing -- and these are some terrific bits of work by Kelli Arena, Jeanne Meserve, Frank Sesno -- terrific reporters here really looking in-depth at what is happening. And one of the keys to what is happening is this: police work everywhere is becoming a lot more like soldiers' work and a lot more like spy work, because that's what they have to do to catch the terrorists.

On the flip side, soldiers' work is becoming a lot more like police work. One of the reasons this is happening, one of the reasons you see systems that were aimed originally at criminals being turned at almost everybody, to look at the population, is because terrorists and criminals are very firmly working together. A lot of the funding for terrorist activity comes from criminal activity, and they overlap a lot. So you're going to see more and more of this, so your police force looks more like soldiers, your soldiers look more like police forces.

PHILLIPS: Tom Foreman, thank you so much. And Paula Zahn's going to have more on this tonight, of course. "Safe at Home: A Day in the Life of a Secure America." That's "PAULA ZAHN NOW." Tom's got his special reports ready to go. 8:00 Eastern, 5:00 Pacific. Also today, another riff in the ongoing debate over racial profiling. In the wake of the attacks in London, police in New York have instituted random security searches on the city's transport system. Now a state legislator actually wants to go further than that. Democrat Dov Hikind of Brooklyn says that should focus on young Middle Easterners; otherwise, the searches are worthless. The police say that would be against department policy and ineffective to boot. Hikind says that he'll propose a new bill in state legislature to remove the current ban on racial profiling. So is it a good idea, bad idea?

Joining us to present both of their opinions, Roland Martin, syndicated columnist and executive editor of "The Chicago Defender." And from New York, reporter and syndicated columnist Joel Mowbray. Great to have you both.

JOEL MOWBRAY, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Good to see you.

ROLAND MARTIN, EDITOR, "CHICAGO DEFENDER": Glad to see you here, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: It's good to see you.

PHILLIPS: Been a while since I've seen both of you. Racial profiling. Rowland, what do you think about this? Targeting Middle Easterners?

MARTIN: Well, I think, obviously, the state legislator has no concept of being racially profiled. I have been racially profiled. It is demeaning. It is wrong when you're a tax-paying citizen who is a law-abiding citizen to have someone suggest that we should racially profile you. It is flat out wrong. It is discriminatory and it should not be tolerated. And this suggestion should be simply thrown out immediately.

PHILLIPS: Joel?

MOWBRAY: It's a noble concern to not want to stigmatize any section of the population based on race or ethnicity. But the fact of the matter is we need intelligent policing when it comes to security to prevent terrorist attacks. Race is not something that should be a dominating factor, but one data point in a matrix used by law enforcement to determine threat assessment. For example, you also have, in addition to race, gender and age, dress, behavior. All of these things fit in. And I think to ignore race is only to our detriment.

PHILLIPS: All right, but let's...

MARTIN: Well, actually, Kyra, if we toss something out -- remember the Taliban, American Taliban guy who got caught by the CIA?

PHILLIPS: Right.

MARTIN: He was a white male. He was a white male. So it's not as if we should be simply saying African-Americans or Middle Easterners. And so look at other types of crimes. We don't target white males. And so when you say, race should be a factor, fine, put everybody in the mix, then.

MOWBRAY: Well, Roland, I'll go one better for you...

PHILLIPS: Well, Joel, Roland brings up an interesting point, though. Let's just say -- let's say this racial profiling begins. They're going to turn to the drug dealers -- I mean, we talked about this just a moment ago with Tom Foreman -- the basic criminals on the street. I mean, what's going to keep insurgents from getting another step ahead and recruiting other ethnicities that hate America or believe that they have no problem with suicide bombing or have no other reason to live, so they might as well join a cause? I mean, it's very much like a gang. What if they start going to other races and then you've not just Middle Eastern issues, but all ethnicities?

MOWBRAY: Well, we've already seen that. I mean, you have Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, or the attempted, alleged shoe bomber, who is half Jamaican. You have Adam Gadahn, who was allegedly the translator for bin Laden. He's a white kid from California. John Walker Lindh, who at least went over to the Taliban. We don't know if he was actually recruited by al Qaeda...

PHILLIPS: That's right. John Walker Lindh. That's who Roland was talking about. I was racking my brain.

MOWBRAY: Absolutely, absolutely. And, then, of course, you go back to Timothy McVeigh in 1996, the Oklahoma city bombings. Of course you have whites and Hispanics -- Jose Padilla, for example, the alleged dirty bomber. So you have a number of people who don't fit the Arab profile. But the point is that we should be profiling not just on race, but also on gender and age. And by the way, when you talk about young males, that does fit a profile and that would help catch people like Timothy McVeigh, people like Adam Gadahn, people like Richard Reid, et cetera. So, in fact, profiling does work in those instances...

MARTIN: How would you feel...

MOWBRAY: And we're not talking about -- look, Roland, I agree with you. It is very much...

MARTIN: No, no, I'm simply saying...

MOWBRAY: ... we have to do it with fairness, we have to do it with great concern, and carefulness. But that doesn't mean that we should ignore race entirely.

PHILLIPS: When we talk about racial profiling...

MARTIN: But how would you feel if you were targeted? How would you feel? I mean, I've been there. Have you ever been racially profiled?

MOWBRAY: Well, Roland, well, obviously, I think you...

MARTIN: Ever?

MOWBRAY: ... know the answer to that question. Well, actually, I have. I have been racially profiled.

MARTIN: No, no, no. Have you? Yes or no?

MOWBRAY: I have been racially profiled.

PHILLIPS: What happened, Joel?

MOWBRAY: I moved into an area where I was pretty much the only white guy who lived there, and, at the time, I had out-of-state tags, and just about every night, the police pulled me over, assuming that I was a drug buyer, because I fit the profile of a drug buyer. A white guy with out-of-state tags.

MARTIN: And how did you feel?

MOWBRAY: I felt like it was understandable. It was annoying, it was frustrating, but at least I understood that the police were trying to their job. There's a...

PHILLIPS: Well, I think we know...

MARTIN: How'd you feel?

MOWBRAY: I felt like it was understandable. It was annoying, it was frustrating, but at least I understood that the police were trying to do their job.

PHILLIPS: Well, I think we know...

MOWBRAY: There's a great column in the "Wall Street Journal" by Tom Kuvarajorachin, wrote that, you know, as an Indian who -- you know, he's Hindu. He's not Muslim, but he writes it as an Indian. He is going to get caught up in racial profiling, however, he understands and it's the duty of all Americans to understand this is something that is a necessity.

PHILLIPS: Well, I think that we know no matter what it's like stereotyping, racial profiling, it's going to happen no matter how much we talk about should it happen or should it not. Is it legal or not legal.

MOWBRAY: That's a great point. It's how we do it.

PHILLIPS: I mean, it's going to happen no matter what. it's how we -- but let me ask you, I mean, racial profiling -- stopping someone because they're Middle Eastern and saying, let me see your bag or, you know, jacking up somebody at the airport and saying because you're of a certain descent, I'm going to pull you over. I'm going to frisk you. I mean, those aren't really ways to stop terrorism.

MOWBRAY: No.

PHILLIPS: I mean, everything that's going on -- right? To stop terrorism -- It's intelligence...

MOWBRAY: Right.

PHILLIPS: It's covert operations. So, you know, is this...

MOWBRAY: That's the reason why it can't be the dominant factor. It has to be -- and I mean this, -- one of several factors. We also need, for example, to have better law enforcement training. To have law enforcement personnel instead of staring stoically into the air, they should in fact be interacting with people, talking to people calmly, politely and building a rapport with citizens, so it doesn't feel like a police state when you have armed National Guardsmen standing in Grand Central Station or in Penn Station.

PHILLIPS: And Roland, there's also...

MARTIN: It is simply --

PHILLIPS: It's not just prejudicial

MARTIN: Right. Right.

PHILLIPS: But it's also unconstitutional. If you look at the Fourth Amendment and we talk about our rights with regard to search and seizure, I mean, we've got a whole other issue here. I mean, the chances of this really passing...

MOWBRAY: I don't think it would be unconstitutional. Speaking to someone with a law degree, I don't think it would be.

PHILLIPS: Go ahead, Roland.

MARTIN: First of all, obviously -- if the issue of it being passed, it's not going to happen. But what I think what it does is it puts certain thoughts into people's head: What we may do; what we should do.

It is very dangerous, even when we begin to assert that we should search just Middle Eastern, namely men, especially when you have folks who are law-abiding citizens and I'm sorry, I don't fall back on: Well, I understand why you're doing it. No, I've been there. I don't like it. I don't understand it and it should not happen.

PHILLIPS: Roland, you've been there. Joel, you've been there. I've been there. I'm married to a man from Iran. I have been harassed in the airport and it is not fun. It's a nightmare. Gentlemen, we've got to leave it there, but i know we'll be talking about it more, especially if this legislation goes anywhere.

Joel Mowbray and Roland Martin. Thank you so much, guys.

MOWBRAY: Thank you.

MARTIN: Thanks, Kyr.

PHILLIPS: All right. CNN is committed to providing the most reliable coverage of news that affects your security. Stay tuned to CNN for the latest information day and night.

Straight ahead: Death sparks outrage in Africa and threatens a fragile peace agreement. Violence in the streets of Sudan after a former rebel leader is killed in a chopper crash.

Plus, CNN's Andrea Koppel, out of the box. That's right. Working her own camera. She's got a story to tell us. Her thoughts on the troubled nation and its future when LIVE FROM returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Bloody clashes in Sudan today. Vehicles in flames in the capital of Khartoum. Black smoke choking the air; riots erupted as news spread of the death Sudanese vice president, John Garang. At least two dozen people were killed in that violence.

The former rebel leader turned politician was largely responsible for a fledgling peace deal that ended decades of civil war. Garang had been in office less than a month when his helicopter crashed into a mountain in southern Sudan this weekend. Many of his supporters are suspicious about how the charismatic leader died.

Well, many people see Garang's death as a blow to the tentative peace in Sudan. Both the Sudanese government and leaders of Granang's rebel movement are appealing for calm.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited that country last month and our Andrea Koppel brought us this reporter's notebook on the diplomatic overture as she was there and talks about that was anything but (ph).

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): American reporters and members of Secretary of State Rice's own entourage clashed with Sudan's secret police. They wanted to keep us out of a meeting between Rice and Sudan's president. We wanted to get in.

KOPPEL (on camera): We've been trying to get in for the last half an hour and for some reason, they're not letting us in.

(voice-over): Finally, after trying to ask President Omar al- Bashir a question about ongoing violence in Darfur, an American journalist was manhandled off camera.

(on camera): Now we have to leave.

(voice-over): In an unusual move, Rice vented, telling us she was furious.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: It was outrageous.

KOPPEL (on camera): It's now quarter of 10:00 and we're already sweaty and we haven't even gotten to the Abu Shook refugee camp. These women just told me that they know of at least 70 cases of women in this camp alone who have been raped. With all due respect, Madam Secretary, a year ago your predecessor Colin Powell stood here and was promised that the violence would end.

RICE: I said to the Sudanese government that they had a credibility problem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Andrea Koppel joining me now from the State Department with more on what the vice president's death means for the future of Sudan. Andrea, great reporting. Amazing stuff.

I want to point out: You brought your own camera. Yes. You were working all angles to what's taking place there politically, socially. Your first reaction to the death of the vice president: How you think it's going to affect an already volatile situation, as you saw firsthand when you were there.

KOPPEL: Well, Kyra, it is a very significant blow to the peace process and to U.S. hopes for resolution to what they say is the ongoing genocide is Darfur in western Sudan.

When Secretary Rice was in Khartoum, in the capital of Sudan about ten days ago, she sat down with John Garang and I remember officials remarking on just how really unusual and how special it was to see John Garang not out in the bush as he had been for the last 20 years, but sitting in a very plush office with a chandelier and cushy chairs around there in his new role as the vice president.

There was a lot of hope that was pinned on him for his contacts within Sudan, his credibility among the Sudanese people to not only keep this north-south peace agreement that was signed earlier this year, but to actually get some kind of resolution to the ongoing genocide in Darfur. And to that extent, Secretary Rice has now dispatched two senior State Department officials to go to Khartoum. They're on their way right now or should be very soon, to meet with the Sudanese officials who are still there in power to try to keep the north-south peace deal together -- Kyra?

PHILLIPS: You were there. You stood there among these women. You talked about it in your "Reporter's Notebook." They told you how they had been raped and how they're dealing with starvation and that there is just human rights violations taking place on a regular basis. What do you think now is going to happen among these individuals that you met and spent time with? And how do you think they're reacting to the death of Garang?

KOPPEL: I don't even know if they're aware that John Garang had died, because they don't have television there. They may have radios, although I have to say in the -- we spent less than two hours in the camp in Darfur, and I didn't get a chance to walk throughout the whole camp, so I can't speak for whether or not there were some radios there. Nevertheless, for these women and for the children and that usually is what strikes me the most in situations like this, because they are the weakest, it's a really dire situation. There are two million refugees now that are either living in Sudan, as internally displaced people, or they're in neighboring Chad. They don't have a home to go back to. And these women who are -- and the children in these camps are the lucky ones. These are the guys, the folks who survived. They have to go out every day and collect water and collect firewood. And this is most frequently when the rapes occur.

And, in fact, Kyra, just in the most recent few days, you had the U.N. issuing a report saying that they have been able to catalog that these rapes are occurring by both police officials, Sudanese police and Sudanese army officials. And that's, in fact, what these women were telling me.

PHILLIPS: Well, we're paying close attention to what's taking place in Darfur. We'll follow the outcome of the death of the vice president; also what President Bashir has been doing as he's been challenged by reporters like you and others.

Andrea Koppel, thank you very much.

KOPPEL: Thank you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Well, the company that led the low-carb diet craze goes belly up. Susan Lisovicz on what the future holds for Atkins, just ahead on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(STOCK MARKET UPDATE)

PHILLIPS: Well, Major League Baseball, handing down a suspension to one of the biggest names in the game. Did Rafael Palmeiro lie when he told Congress just five months ago that he never used steroids? We'll go in-depth in our next half hour of LIVE FROM. Don't go away.

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