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Debating the Patriot Act; FEMA Briefing on Hurricane Recovery Effort

Aired December 14, 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: Your medical records, your business records, who you call, even what you read, does the government need that information to fight the war on terror or is your life too much of an open book now?
That's the question as Congress considers a bill that would renew some of the most controversial parts of the Patriot Act. Now just minutes ago the House passed the measure by a vote of 251 to 174. But the bill could hit a snag in the Senate where some Democrats and Republicans say the Patriot Act tramples on your civil liberties.

The bill would make 14 of the acts' provisions permanent and extend two provisions for four years. One of those gives the FBI greater access to library, business and medical records. The other gives police broader surveillance powers especially when it comes to wire taps. For the Bush administration, it is the centerpiece of the war on terror. For critics it's big brother in the flesh.

Bob Barr is a former Republican congressman. He says that the Patriot Act virtually destroys your privacy.

Cliff May heads the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He says that the act is essential to your security.

They both join me now live from Washington.

Are you sitting close to each other?

CLIFF MAY, FDN. FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: No, but we could hear each other.

PHILLIPS: Yes, there you go. All right.

MAY: We're friendly.

PHILLIPS: So you whisper sweet nothings.

I'll just get you both to tell me your concerns or what you support in general, and then I'm going to get into some specifics.

Bob Barr, why don't we start with you.

BOB BARR (R) FMR. U.S. CONGRESSMAN: Thanks, Kyra.

As you know--and I know you have followed this very carefully, as have CNN's viewers over the last several months, particularly. The Patriot Act is problematic because it allows the government to gather evidence on a person's most private personal data, whether that is their medical records, library records, gun purchase records, without having to show any suspicion whatsoever that person on whom they are seeking that information has done anything wrong.

That gives the government far too much power. All we're asking for in the Patriot Act is to require the government to show some suspicion that a person has done something wrong before they can gather this private, personal information.

PHILLIPS: In addition to what Bob is saying, Cliff, I mean it's interesting in just the past couple of years I have gotten to know this Iranian lawyer who represents individuals--and I am talking hundreds of individuals--who were either--they felt harassed or questioned or followed by government agencies and then later cleared.

But they were able to, or they had to go through that because of the changes that were made in the Patriot Act. But you still support this and say it's good for national security. Tell me why.

MAY: I think it is essential Kyra. Look, since 9/11, this is the major piece of legislation we have had in place and it may be a big part of reason why we haven't had another attack successfully launched against us on American soil.

The Patriot Act just does two vital things. One is it knocks down the wall that existed previously between law enforcement and intelligence. It allows the dots to be collected and analyzed by both. It allows for cooperation we didn't have before. That's absolutely essential.

Secondly, it gives law enforcement powers, in regard to terrorism, that they already have in regard to organized crime. No higher levels of powers, just the same. That's vital if you think terrorism is as at least as much of a threat to us as is organized crime.

So there is also plenty of oversight. I really disagree with my friend, Bob Barr. You have judicial review. You have, of course, the Judiciary Committee and Congressional Review. You have the Justice Department's inspector general.

None of them have ever -- let me finish.

BARR: There is not oversight.

MAY: They have never found any abuses whatsoever as a result of the Patriot Act, and there are actually more protections in this new version than they were in the former even though we have had no abuses. That has been established.

PHILLIPS: Cliff, you're saying no abuses that have been established. Well, let me ask you a question then, Cliff, with regard to this attorney that's represented all these individuals. They feel they were abused. They felt they were harassed or put through living hell just because of their ethnicity or the fact that they were somewhere and they looked suspicious and somebody called the feds. And the next thing you knew they were being questioned.

MAY: Kyra, it is very easy for a lawyer to say that I would like them to establish that in any court or by a suit or to show it to the Judiciary Committee of the Congress. They haven't done so.

Yes, we are going to have surveillance when there is the necessity to do that of people who are in this country and in this country illegally or up to activities that may have to do with terrorism. But simply because some lawyer for somebody says, oh, it's very unfair I was harassed, is no reason to get rid of the most important tool that law enforcement now has to keep us safe from terrorism in this country.

PHILLIPS: And Bob Barr, if you think about it, we haven't had a major attack since 9/11. You start to wonder, boy, maybe the Patriot Act is the way to go.

BARR: Well, something else, Kyra. The moon has not fallen from the sky either. Maybe that's because of the USA Patriot Act. You can never refute these arguments.

There have been abuses of the Patriot Act unfortunately, Kyra, as you know and as Cliff, I think, is ignoring. The Patriot Act's provisions are carried out with great secrecy. Something else that has changed dramatically in the country where we used to have something called an open society. We used to have open government. Where you have these powers carried out in secret it is very difficult to establish abuses.

But there have been abuses. We know there have been.

PHILLIPS: All right. I'm getting a one-minute warning to the FEMA presser, guys.

I'm looking--we actually picked four parts of the Patriot Act to talk about. I'm just going to skip all the way down to number four since we're talking about the issues of abuses.

Section 213, people subjected to sneak and peek warrant notified within 30 days of the search unless case justifies a longer wait. A lot of people would say the sneak and peek is an abuse of power, Cliff?

MAY: Yes, the sneak and peek so-called has been around long before the Patriot Act. When the FBI wants to go to the home of a Mafia don, they don't call him and say, look, next Tuesday at 2:00 will it be convenient for us to come by?

PHILLIPS: We are going to check out your backyard.

MAY: Yes, hold on to all the criminal evidence, please.

We have had this for long time. We have it now. And it takes a judge to say, yes, there is a good reason. Sneak and peek means that you don't warn somebody you're coming so that they can destroy the evidence. If you want terrorists to destroy the evidence, absolutely get rid of it and call them up and say we'll be there in three hours. That will not work if you want to successfully prevent terrorism.

PHILLIPS: All right, Bob, remember that. We're going to come back to this. We just need to breakaway for a moment. OK. Gentlemen, stay with me.

We want to go Dave Paulison, acting director of FEMA right now, side by side with Admiral Thad Allen there in charge of operations in New Orleans.

Let's listen to what they had to say.

R. DAVID PAULISON, ACTING DIRECTOR, FEMA: Our recovery effort was unprecedented. However, we still have a lot of work to do. I think what everyone needs to know and probably already understands is the recovery effort will be measured not in weeks or months, but probably in years.

But FEMA is committed to helping the victims of these hurricanes. Their communities have been destroyed. They've lost their homes. They have lost all their possessions. We're committed and will continue to be committed to helping the Gulf Coast recover, and we'll be there for as long as it takes.

This was an unprecedented hurricane season. There were 26 named storms, four major hurricanes and three of those hurricanes were Category 5 storms. Katrina, Rita and, of course, Hurricane Wilma that went through my hometown. Obviously, the worst hurricane season or history.

Unfortunately, the damage also was the worst we've ever seen in any disaster in the history of this country that we can remember. It will take a long time to recover and a lot of hard work for the victims to return to normalcy. And probably even a longer time for the Gulf Coast and economy to recover.

Hurricane Katrina impacted more than 90,000 square miles. That's larger than the country of England. The size of the storm was the most devastating natural disaster in FEMA's 26-year history, and it's an example of the devastation these storms can cause.

Katrina and Rita combined have far surpassed the number of registration for all four major hurricanes we had in Florida last year. In the last three months, we fielded more than 1-800-FEMA calls than ever before. We accepted more registrations than ever before, and we provided more dollars to hurricane victims than ever before.

FEMA has simply helped hundreds of thousands of victims, and we are going to continue to help them with our federal partners, with the state and local officials, our volunteer organizations and the help of our other government agencies to continue to help these people.

As I mentioned earlier, the recovery process is going to take time. And it will be involved a continued commitment from all of us, and you are going to have that commitment from FEMA.

Please, let there be no doubt that the federal government from the president right down to the every FEMA employee will continue to be there on the Gulf Coast until this is finished.

Let me talk now a little more specifically about some of the recovery operations to date. So far, more than 1.4 million victims have been provided cash assistance from FEMA. More than $5 billion in financial and housing assistance provided to Katrina victims. And that's three times more than all the hurricanes in Florida last year, including Hurricane Andrew.

More than 2.5 million registrations received our 800 number and the Internet and 1.7 million of those are from Katrina alone. That is the most ever for any single event that we've handled. Our 1-800-FEMA line has lined up more than 24 hours a day, seven days a week, even before Katrina hit landfall.

Since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, the federal government, along with our state partners, has worked tirelessly to provide housing to an unprecedented number of evacuees forced from their homes. Again, 1.7 million evacuated from Katrina and hundreds of thousands of Americans losing literally everything they own.

The federal government's plan to house hurricane evacuees that are scattered across this country is clear, and it's very comprehensive, and it is working. Our plan has three phases designed to move evacuees to better long-term housing. Phase one ensured that evacuees had their basic needs met. And that is primarily our congregate shelters we had. And we housed more than 270,000 evacuees in congregate shelters immediately following Hurricane Katrina.

In phase two, focus on moving evacuees out of congregate shelters into a more stable environment, primarily hotels and motels. But today, less than 1 percent of those 270,000 are still in shelters. We have 653,000 families who receive rental assistance from FEMA and the rental assistance that we provide -- provides -- is cost-effective, it's compassionate, it's flexible. It helps to make the critical decisions they need to get their lives back in order.

We provided over $5 billion in rental and other assistance through individual and household programs. We've moved people out of shelters into hotels and motels and other long-term housing to provide privacy for them and help evacuees begin that process of rebuilding their lives. At its peak, the hotel population was around 85,000 rooms. We are now down to less than 40,000 rooms and just -- we dropped 10,000 just in this last week.

Phase three is currently under way and we've helped thousands and thousands of individuals, families at hotels and motels, to move into long-term housing. This will allow families to return to some type of a normal life and a much better quality of life than what they have in a hotel or motel. We worked tirelessly to assist evacuees in motels and hotels to find better housing.

In addition to the FEMA cash assistance, we set up over 43,000 mobile homes and travel trailers. We set up a housing locator referral assistance center and we've dedicated over 1,300 of our employees to reach out across this nation. They're using fliers, they're making phone calls, they're making personal visits, they're working with families and they're knocking on door-to-door of each of these hotel rooms to locate the people, find out what their needs are, where they are and whether they're eligible for FEMA assistance or not.

We're going to continue to work with governors. We're going to continue to work with mayors, our state emergency management officials, and to assist the remaining 40,000 or so families still in hotels to find better housing. With respect to the judge's approval on the housing program, we have immediately and fully cooperated and complied with the judge's order.

We have extended the stay to all of those evacuees who live in motels and hotels paid for by FEMA through January 7, 2006. We are making certain, as has always been our intention, that no have evacuee has to make this transition to long-term housing without first receiving rental assistance from FEMA or being provided with referral options if they're not eligible for that type of assistance.

And we will continue to work with these evacuees on a case-by- case basis, even beyond the February 7th date, where they need it because of they continue to be with us. It's been our intention all along to make sure that all evacuees making these long-term housing moves had the assistance to do so. We're making sure that hotels across -- and motels across this country are aware of this. Our call center agents have been dedicated to working with hotels and motel evacuees and are helping evacuees who run into problems with this process.

And let me make a comment here -- that I know there's a lot of rumors out here that evacuees have to apply for a small business association loan to get rental assistance from FEMA. That is not accurate. They can apply directly to us. We do refer them there occasionally, if we feel like there's a need. But they can get our rental assistance without applying for a small business association loan.

As you all are aware, the housing challenge we faced Hurricane Katrina and Rita was unprecedented. We simply have never had to deal with anything of this scale. We've never had to deal with evacuating a major metropolitan city in this country -- or, in fact, anywhere in the world, where those people could not go back home again. I think Hurricane Katrina was a wake-up call, not only to every major city in this country, but every major city around the world.

Our goal has been the same all along, to help evacuees find sustainable, long-term housing. And we realize there have been obstacles along the way in carrying out these housing plans, but we've adjusted those plans to deal with the challenges. And we will continue to do so.

We are going to be flexible. We will make changes in our plan as we move along and run into the obstacles and problems. And we are going to continuously work to make sure that nobody falls through the cracks and if they do fall through the cracks, we want to find them, locate them and get them back into our system.

Now what I'd like to do right now is to talk about some of the broader efforts and turn the podium over to Vice Admiral Thad Allen.

VICE ADMIRAL THAD ALLEN, HURRICANE RELIEF OPERATIONS: Thank you, Chief.

Since Labor Day weekend, I've been assigned as the principle federal official for the response in the Gulf states. Our response operations are nearly done right now and we've shifted largely into recovery, essentially involved in debris removal, getting people into travel trailers, dealing with the housing issues that Chief Paulison enumerated.

As part of my duties, I'm back here in Washington this week to talk with Chief Paulison, the folks at FEMA, the folks at the Department of Homeland Security and the administration regarding lessons learned and how we move forward after this unprecedented response.

I have considered this a capstone event in my career. It's been an honor to serve down there. And right now is a time to assess what we've done, how we have done and how we can move forward and improve.

To give you a sample of the types of things that I'm working on today that are very much different than the response operations that I was involved in when I got down there -- and that would be things like search and rescue, the unwatering of the city, the remains recovery and so forth. We are looking at continuity of government issues in New Orleans, trying to assist them...

PHILLIPS: Vice Admiral Thad Allen, alongside with Acting FEMA Director David Paulison, briefing reporters on the recovery operations that continue in New Orleans, Louisiana. And we'll continue to follow and monitor what the admiral is saying.

Basically, a lot of numbers thrown out there. More than $5 billion in aid to Katrina victims through FEMA, in addition to updating all of us on the housing situation. The money put toward rental assistance, as well as trying to get everybody into full-time housing at some point, whether it's a trailer or a home, then getting them out of hotels -- still in the works.

Prior to going to that briefing, we were talking about the Patriot Act. Bob Barr, former Congressman, Republican, pretty much against the Patriot Act, I should say. Cliff May heads the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He says Patriot Act is essential to our security.

Gentlemen, we were talking about abuses versus proof of performance. We were talking about sneak and peek. Cliff, you made the point, hey, this is something that has been standard operating procedure for law enforcement for years. Bob, do you have an issue with sneak and peek? BARR: We do have an issue with it, Kyra. And it's not that there are not circumstances in which, as Cliff mentioned, the government does need to provide for a delay notification of a search and seizure that it is conducting.

The problem that we have with the Patriot Act is it gives the government too much flexibility to use that power to conduct a sneak and peek search to come into your home, your business, without telling you, basically, indefinitely. It extends it far beyond the necessary cases, such as a case involving terrorism or when a life or when a property is at stake or something like that. And we're simply asking for it to be tightened up.

Cliff and the others, apologists for this law and the administration, don't want anything changes to it. They, in fact, want more power. All we're asking for, Kyra, is to take these extraordinary powers that the government has through the Patriot Act, many of which it did not have previously, and place some limits on them, some modest limits.

PHILLIPS: Cliff, Section 206 limits use of roving wire taps to cases where officials show a target may thwart surveillance. This section in particular, do we know of any known cases where any type of terrorist threat was thwarted, any type of potential terrorist activity was thwarted through this section?

MAY: I can't cite you cases, and probably if I knew about them, they wouldn't want me to. But the point is that criminals and terrorists both, as a matter of routine, do what you -- something very simple. They use one cell phone and then they throw it away and use another cell phone.

Now, previously, that meant you had to give wire tap authority for every specific cell phone they use, if they use a dozen. Now, what this allows is that you target instead the suspect. And he can go through the cell phones he wants, it's still OK to listen too him. Again, if you don't allow this, then you are giving a tool to the terrorists and you're taking one away from law enforcement that law enforcement insists it needs in order to do its job.

PHILLIPS: Cliff May, Bob Barr, we got to leave it there. Thanks for sticking through the FEMA briefing with me, gentlemen. I appreciate it. And talking about the Patriot Act. Thanks so much.

MAY: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Well, talk about special delivery. One post office is getting hundreds of letters addressed to God, but they're not being returned to sender either. Find out where they're going. Straight ahead on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, many people who wish to communicate with God find praying is the best method. Others feel the need to write, and many of their letters are ending up at one particular post office in Jerusalem.

CNN's John Vause takes us there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Avi Yaniv (ph) thinks of himself as God's postman. He is in charge of lost letters at Israel's postal authority and that includes letters to the almighty sent from around the world.

AVI YANIV, ISRAEL POSTAL AUTHORITY: This is God. This is from USA.

VAUSE: As best as anyone here can remember, letters to God have been arriving at this Jerusalem post office for more than 30 years. Just a few dozen at first, but this year there are hundreds, maybe even 1,000. Many arrive just before the holidays.

YANIV: This person has sent us about, I think, more than 100 letters a year.

VAUSE: In the past, the letters were sometimes opened and read out of curiosity more than anything else. Some ask for forgiveness, others material wealth or simply for happiness. But with so many letters these days, none are read we're told.

Instead, they're bundled up and delivered as close to God as these postmen say they can get. The Western Wall in Jerusalem's old city. The most sacred site in all Judaism.

RABBI SHMUEL RABINOVICH, CHIEF RABBI OF WESTERN WALL: I have no doubt at all that everybody who asks of God in his place, God hears.

VAUSE: But whether God answers is another question.

(on-camera): Of all the letters addressed to the almighty, postal workers say their favorite arrived a few years ago from an Israeli man who was living in poverty and asked God for the modest sum of 5,000 sheqels, a little more than $1,000 US.

So postal workers chipped in and collected 4,300 sheqels and mailed it back. A month went by and another letter from the same man, thank you, God, he wrote. But next time don't use those postal workers. They're all thieves he went on to write. When the money arrived, 700 sheqels was missing.

John Vause, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, straight ahead, the president of Iran made some shocking public comments today. Outrage spreading across Europe and the Middle East. What he said and who is fired up about it. Asieh Namdar joins us coming up on LIVE FROM.

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