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Business As Usual at Sears Tower Despite Terror Plot; Inside the Mind of an FBI Informant

Aired June 23, 2006 - 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: Well, as if there weren't enough news in Miami today, live pictures now from WPLG, one of our affiliates there in Miami. The city is saluting its basketball team, the Miami Heat, the new NBA champs. We're looking at live pictures now of the ticker-tape parade. Somewhere there within that crowd, Shaq, Dwyane Wade, Coach Pat Riley and the rest of the team.
The Heat won the team's first NBA title. There's the fine art for you, Scotty, there on the firetruck. They beat the Dallas Mavericks, by the way, four games to two. Hey, can you -- is that a player? What do you think? All right, we don't think so. Nothing like a little water from the hose there.

All right. Another hurdle for the nation's housing market. Stephanie Elam is live at the New York Stock Exchange with more on that story. Hey, Steph.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, Kyra. That's right. Mortgage rates are continuing to creep higher as investors worry about inflation and more Fed rate hikes. The average rate on a 30-year fixed average jumped to 6.71 percent this week and that hit a four- year high. A year ago, the 30-year stood at 5.63 percent.

The average rates on the 15-year fixed and one-year adjustable also rose from last week and they're significantly higher than they were at the same time last year. Now, rising rates have been a factor in the housing market's recent slowdown. All of this, of course, follows a decade-long boom which sent sales and, of course, right along with it, prices to record level -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. Google making movies, TV shows all available on the site for free. What's up with that?

ELAM: That's right, Kyra. The Internet search giant began streaming videos on its Web site just yesterday. And for now, you won't have to pay for them. The move is part of a trial run to see if online ads can actually support video content on the Web. This would be is similar to the way commercials pay for broadcast television.

Now owners of the videos had been charging for their content and splitting the proceeds with Google. Here's how it works exactly. When you click on a piece of video, you'll now see a small banner directly above the video with a picture and a link to the advertiser's site. A commercial will also be played at the end of the video and that would, obviously, get more people to come in and take a look at it, Kyra. PHILLIPS: All right, Things looking up for the markets, what's going on?

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

PHILLIPS: All right, thanks, Stephanie.

We may be getting closer to "The Jetsons" era than you think. CNN's Daniel Sieberg takes a look how creating a community of robots could help humans with dangerous or tedious tasks.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Mother Nature holds many secrets. And James McLurkin is using The Swarm Project to reveal some of them.

JAMES MCLURKIN, MIT GRADUATE STUDENT: So the inspiration for the swarm comes from nature. Ants, bees, termites, all these insects produce very complicated group behaviors.

SIEBERG: And it's these group behaviors that McLurkin is aiming to imitate. His ultimate goal? To program large numbers of robots to perform tasks that are too complicated and dangerous for humans.

MCLURKIN: So imagine you have 20,000 cockroach-sized robots, and they scurry through the pile looking for survivors and for signs of life, and they send a signal out and they may have to relay that from cockroach to cockroach to get a rat-sized structural engineer.

That robot will then assess the structural integrity of the building and maybe pull the groupings (ph) from the database and figure out how to pull the rubble off of the survivor.

SIEBERG: Still to be worked are many technical issues, such as power sources for these energy-hungry robots.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Of course you're concerned. But, you know, you have no control over anything that happens, so we have to do what we have to do, and that is to keep moving.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You just have to take every day as it comes. There's nothing I can do. I think it's in somebody else's hands. I trust the government that they're doing all they can and I think it is more of a reactionary stance that I have to take. You know, I'll react if something does happen. If not, I take every day as it comes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've lived here all my life. I mean, what's going to happen is going to happen, but I feel pretty confident that we'll be safe. (END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Well, it's the age we live in. The nation's tallest building naturally presumed to be a prospective target of terror. Today though, in Chicago, it's business as usual at the Sears Tower.

CNN's Keith Oppenheim is there -- Keith

KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It really is business as usual, Kyra. There's even a cookout going on across the street from the base of the Sears Tower just half a block behind us, and the reason was explained by Chicago Police officials, as well as one of the owners of the Sears Tower and the managing director, as well.

They said that based on all the information that they were able to gather from federal law enforcers that the threat against the Sears Tower, the alleged plot, in their view, was not credible and never went beyond talk. It was just that, in their view. And we're going to hear now from Barbara Carley, who is the managing director of the Sears Tower.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARBARA CARLEY, MANAGING DIR., SEARS TOWER: This group never got beyond talking about a workable plot. Federal and local authorities continue to tell us they've never found evidence of a credible terrorism threat against Sears Tower that's ever gone beyond just talk.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OPPENHEIM: We've been talking to residents all morning long and last night, too, Kyra. And one of the interesting things that came out is that while people were upset to hear about the possibility of a terror plot against the Sears Tower, people really seem to have a lot of confidence in law enforcement at various stages within the city and at federal levels that they could handle this kind of thing.

And, you know, keep in mind that since September 11, there has been increased security in this city. It's very high tech now. There are cameras all over the place downtown, including right around and in the Sears Tower, of course.

Some of it is public, some of it is private. But while there are some objections to that kind of thing, there are also a lot of people who feel it's exactly what the city needs. Back to you.

PHILLIPS: All right, Keith, thanks so much.

Well, new details about the suspects in these raids. Our reporters are digging in Miami and Atlanta. We're going to check in with them when LIVE FROM continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: All right, we decided we had enough talking about the terror suspects in Miami. This is what's really gaining everybody's attention right now. I'm talking probably almost 300,000 people have gathered at this massive parade in downtown Miami, of course, celebrating The Heat. Not the heat they're probably feeling, but the basketball season the Miami Heat. They're the new NBA champs.

We've been seeing various shots of some of the players. You can see some of the police in the crowd over here. That might be Shaq, actually, that's in that truck. Probably is because he can't fit in it very well. Yes, I think it is, too, Scott. My director is trying to keep an eye to see -- it does look like it's Shaq. He was walking through the crowd, it got a little crazy, so they put him back in the truck. But you can see all the people that have lined the streets.

These live pictures coming to us via WPLG. And in case you didn't know that the Heat won the team's first NBA title. They beat the Dallas Mavericks four games to two. We'll keep our eye on the parade.

Well, if he opens his mouth in public, it's normally probably to sing at the top of his lungs. Bruce Springsteen doesn't really talk that much, but the famously (sic) Boss man has opened up last evening to CNN's Soledad O'Brien, and here's a little bit of what was on his mind.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Are you sending a political message with this album?

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, MUSICIAN: I like that to be an organic part of what I'm doing. I think because I -- I always search those -- in trying to explain the world and the times to myself, I search those elements out and the music that I like. And so it wouldn't -- I mean, Pete Seeger record without politics in it wouldn't feel right.

O'BRIEN: In 2004, you came out very strongly in support of John Kerry, performing with him. Your fellow guitarist, I think is how you introduced him to the crowd.

SPRINGSTEEN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: And some people gave you a lot of flack for being a musician who took a political stand. I remember...

SPRINGSTEEN: Yes, they should let Ann Coulter do it instead.

O'BRIEN: There is a whole school of thought, as you well know, that says that musicians -- well, you see it with the Dixie Chicks, you know, that go play your music and stop.

SPRINGSTEEN: If you turned on to -- present company included -- the idiots rambling on on cable television on any given night of the week, and you're saying that musicians shouldn't speak up? You know, it's insane. It's funny.

(END VIDEOTAPE) PHILLIPS: Well, we're going to have more on that interview later on, and you can catch the whole thing throughout the day online at CNN.com/pipeline.

Well, pilots say any landing that you walk away from or swim away from is a good landing. One looks bad, but both men on board got out safely. Their plane, well, it's going to need a little work, but the pilot reported some sort of fuel problem, couldn't make it back to the airport in Sarasota, Florida, so you see what happened

More amazing video to share with you. Wild weather across the country. Dust storms, tornadoes, floods. We'll check with Reynolds Wolf. LIVE FROM, back after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, a rain would be welcome, but not the wind. Storms are in the forecast for Sedona, Arizona, this afternoon, and firefighters are worried that the winds could blow burning branches, quote, "all over the place." They've been battling a wildfire since Sunday. It's burned about 33,000 acres, but no homes or businesses so far. Fire crews say for the moment their lines are holding.

Blinding sandstorm in the Texas panhandle, and this is what happened. Police counted 27 wrecks along an 11-mile stretch of Highway 62 to 82. One person was killed in last evening's pile-up. One officer called it a domino effect. A dozen people were hurt.

A tornado touched down in Albert County, Colorado, yesterday. More straight -- and made straight for houses under construction. It also toppled a tree into another home that was occupied. No one was hurt.

Parts of Ohio are under water. Thousands of people there don't have power after two days of brutal storms. We know of at least one death near Cleveland. Firefighter Alan Anderson Jr. (ph) drowned in the flood waters. He was trying to rescue two teenagers who were stranded in their jeep.

(WEATHER REPORT)

PHILLIPS: Straight ahead, we're going to talk more about those terror suspects. We're actually going to go into further detail about the south Florida counterterrorism task force and the informant that got all that alleged activity on tape. More LIVE FROM right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, in order for that terror raid in Miami to go down the way it did, there had to be someone working the deal on the inside. What goes through the mind of an informant working such a big case?

Joining me here in Atlanta, former D.C. detective Mike Brooks, a former member of the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. I guess hats off to the South Florida Counterterrorism Task Force.

MIKE BROOKS, FMR. DETECTIVE: Absolutely.

PHILLIPS: This was the group that organized this and actually got this information. So, let's just kind of put ourselves in the mindset of how this goes down, the checklist for an informant. I mean, how do you know you're on to something and where do you begin?

BROOKS: Well, you know what I thought was interesting today with Director Mueller when was he was giving his speech, he was talking about three things that help make a terrorist case like this: intelligence, technology and partnerships. And partnerships come in federal, state and local. One-stop shopping for all your counterterrorism needs is what (INAUDIBLE) used to say, of a joint terrorism task force like the South Florida South Task Force.

Now, when you're starting a case up like this, Kyra, there's a lot of things you have to take into consideration. One of them, how was the case initiated? You know, what is from an informant tip, a prior terrorist act? Was there somebody in the neighborhood? Possibly in this case, was there someone in the neighborhood who saw them just acting a little strange?

Now, how are we going to make your first contact? Will it -- and where will it be conducted? Is it going to be from a confidential informant who is -- who maybe knows someone in the group and is helping out the FBI, possibly getting paid?

Or is it going it be by an undercover who's going to go out and just hang out maybe in the places where these people hang -- are known to associate, and kind of lure them in, kind of see what their interests, see what kind of books they're reading, magazines they're reading. You know, what kind of things are they espousing? Are they talking about certain -- the United States, anti-government? You know, kind of get into them -- into their head that way.

Now, what kind of technology is going to be used? Now, we don't want to get in too much -- I don't want to give away too many secrets because there's a lot of technology that they use on a regular basis. You know, is it going to -- are you going to need any court orders by a United States attorney and a judge? Are you going to use wiretaps? Are you going use, audio, video for surveillance? And then I'm sure...

PHILLIPS: That's what works best in court.

BROOKS: It sure does.

PHILLIPS: And hearing how -- I mean, that deals with the whole entrapment issue. If that becomes an issue, well, you got everything on tape or you got everything on camera.

BROOKS: Exactly. And as has been discussed as we've moved along today, some of the cameras, the video, were supplied by the al Qaeda representative who was the FBI undercover person. Now, you know, what is the next step? Safety. Now, you're going to have to make sure that you're undercover officer, your undercover agent or your confidential informant is safe.

So, you're going to have to have some backup. And how are these back up? What role are these going to play? How are they going to look? You know, are you going to have -- the FBI has ways of doing things and, again, not giving away too much, but they are the best at making sure that informants stay safe.

Now, how long will the case go and how will it play out? As a case manager, as you're moving along and you're discussing how the case will go along and how it will play out with the United States attorney's office and your agent, you want to decide, you know, how far are we going to let this go? How far are we going to let this case play out? And when and if we take it down, how is that going to happen and why is it closing out now?

Now, in this particular case, in the indictment, I thought it was something -- was interesting. It says on or about May 24th, 2006, Narseal Batiste told the al Qaeda representative that he was experiencing delays because of various problems within his organization, but that he wanted to continue his mission and maintain his relationship with al Qaeda through this representative.

PHILLIPS: See, that was sort of a key word that got the informant nervous. We better take this down or we might lose it.

BROOKS: I think so. And, you know, was the organization falling apart? Or were they going to go look somewhere else other than this al Qaeda representative? Were they going to go look for someone else to help fund this?

Because, you know, they'd asked for helmets, they'd asked for boots, uniforms, bullet-proof vests, machine guns, explosives, $50,000 cash and vehicles. You know, was -- they did provide some of these things, but maybe they were going to go somewhere else to look for it. But -- so it should be interesting when it goes to court exactly what evidence they had and why they took it down at this time.

PHILLIPS: Now, how does the informant know how far to go, when to pull back with regard to questions? Because the issue of entrapment is coming up. Some are saying, ah, this went well, others are saying it didn't. So how do you play that out in your mind? Or how do you prepare for that?

BROOKS: Well, you have to have someone who's been trained in this and knows the right questions to ask. But you go ahead and you'll want to know the basic investigative questions: the who, what, when, where, why and how. And what is the motive behind them doing this? You know, is it the overthrow of the United States government? You know, are they in it just to pull a scam and get some money? These are the things that a good informant, a good undercover, has to know, and the right questions to ask at the right time.

PHILLIPS: Mike Brooks, thanks so much. Interesting stuff.

BROOKS: Thank you, Kyra.

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