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CNN Live Today

Proof of I.D.; Brain-Dead Virginia Woman Gives Birth

Aired August 03, 2005 - 10:32   ET

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

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We are coming up on the half hour. Good morning once again. I'm Daryn Kagan. Here's a look at what's happening "Now in the News."
High above Earth, a daring and delicate mission is just about done. Here now, live pictures from the repair mission for the shuttle Discovery. This one started at about two hours ago. Earlier, astronaut Steve Robinson successfully pulled two potentially dangerous pieces of ceramic material from Discovery's underbelly.

In Iraq, 14 U.S. marines dead after a blast near the Western town of Haditha. Officials say a roadside bomb struck the marines' vehicle. The military says an interpreter was also killed and one Marine was wounded.

The president of Zambi says a suspected al Qaeda operative in custody in that country will be deported to his native Britain. Haroon Rashid Aswat was arrested in Zambia two weeks ago. He's suspected of having a role in the July 7th bombings of a London transit system that killed more than 50 people. Aswat is also wanted here in the U.S.

And in Riyadh, a ceremony was held today, honoring King Abdullah as Saudi Arabia's sixth king. He has been the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia for the last ten years. Abdullah officially assumed the post Monday, following the death of his half-brother, King Fahd.

In today's "Security Watch," we're going to talk about proving who you are. For most of us, it's pretty simple, but there are plenty of ways to slip through the cracks.

CNN contributing correspondent Frank Sesno takes a closer look at one controversial proposal to fill in some of those gaps.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK SESNO, CNN CONTRIBUTING CORRESPONDENT: In Hollywood's black-and-white world of wartime Casablanca, not having the right papers could cost you your life. In real-world America, it's nowhere near that bad, but just a few years ago, when Nevada rancher Dudley Hiball (ph) repeatedly refused to give his name and I.D. to a local sheriff's deputy, he was handcuffed and arrested.

Hiball (ph) argued his right to refuse I.D. all the way to the Supreme Court.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This isn't just about me. This is about all Americans.

SESNO: He lost. The court ruled that because the cops had reasonable suspicion that Hiball (ph) was abusing a passenger in his truck, they had every right to demand I.D. The American Civil Liberty's Union called the ruling, "... a step on the road to a police state."

But in our War on Terror, I.D. is now standard fair at airports, federal buildings and increasingly, at the office.

(on camera): So, what's the most common form of identification in the United States? What do I already share with 200 million other people? It's this: My driver's license. It's my permit to drive, but it's a lot more.

(voice-over): Name, height, date of birth, my address, which I'm not going to let you see here, all courtesy of the commonwealth of Virginia. But each state does licensing in its own way. So, brace yourself for a brave new world. A brand new law, the Real I.D. Act, creates standards for driver's licenses, making them harder to get, harder to forge, more high-tech, linking databases. Non-citizens will have to prove they're here legally. A first step toward a national I.D.? "Yes," says none other than the former head of Homeland Security, who believes it's about time.

TOM RIDGE, FMR. HEAD OF HOMELAND SECURITY: A standard form that basically says Frank Sesno is Frank Sesno, Tom Ridge is Tom Ridge. It gives anyone involved with combating terrorism a base of information about people who are legitimately here.

SESNO: Knowing he's stirring a hornet's nest, Ridge favors a national I.D. system.

RIDGE: Look, there's so many people, going down so many paths. Is it not in the national interest that we come up with a standard form?

ZAHN: Jim Harper is a privacy advocate who vehemently disagrees. He's with the Libertarian Cato Institute and runs a Web site called Privacilla.org.

JIM HARPER, CATO INSTITUTE: The dominant use of national identification will be surveillance of ordinary law-abiding citizens.

ZAHN: But the systems are being built. We visited a company, Visage, that's working with DMVs in more than a dozen states.

KENNETH SCHEFLEN, SENIOR V.P., VISAGE: The biggest problem and the hardest one to solve technically, is knowing who the person is in the first place. Are they really who they purport to be.

SESNO: Authenticating documents is the first step. So they looked at mine as if I were an applicant. My passport takes just a nanosecond to get a green light. My license...

KEVIN MCKENNA, DIRECTOR, VISAGE: We look for certain visible patterns on that driver's license.

SESNO: Security features, sum exposed only by infrared light. yes the documents are real, but am I really who I say I am? Picture time.

(on camera): I failed.

MCKENNA: You failed on biometrics.

SESNO (voice-over): Now, I've got a problem. Because of the poor quality of my passport and driver's license photos, the machine can't verify I am who I claim to be. A DMV employee will have to look closely. But can any of this stop the bad guys?

Say I'm a terrorist, I want to change my face, warts and all, because I know the authorities have my original photo on file. What happens now? My scruffy self, scanned against 50,000 others in this sample database. The computer sees right through the new me and zeros in on a likely match.

MCKENNA: Those are under different names, but it sure looks like the same guy.

SESNO (on camera): What's going on here that makes this computer say: These are the same guys?

MCKENNA: Well, what we're actually doing is we're taking a flexible grid, placing it over the face and it's comparing over 1,700 different feature points on your face.

SESNO (voice-over): The technology is imperfect, but improving. Already, Illinois is using it every day, scanning new applicants against the pictures of 18 million license holders. Critics say terrorists will still do whatever it takes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The terrorists will use fraud to acquire cards. They will corrupt DMV employees. They will use forgery to create cards.

SESNO: "But it's an important layer of security," insists Tom Ridge, that with oversight and limits on access and use can make us safer."

(on camera): You know what people say: There goes Tom Ridge. What's wrong with Tom Ridge? A national I.D., a central database in the United States of America? Are you crazy?

RIDGE: It doesn't have to be a central database, but it does have to be a standard form of identification. I am optimistic enough and confident enough that we could come up with a system that would protect privacy rights, but also significantly enhance security.

SESNO: Would it prevent another 9-11? Those hijackers all managed to get valid driver's licenses or state-issued I.D.s Would it have stopped Timothy McVeigh? He had a license long before he bombed Oklahoma City. Would a national I.D. have stopped the London bombers? Apparently, they were all legal residents.

RIDGE: It should not be viewed as the beat-all and end-all and the answer to every security problem that we have. It should be viewed as one of a series of steps, particularly in a post-9-11 world, that has, I think, definite security benefits, but also other benefits to the 21st-century world in which we live in.

SESNO: A dangerous digital world, where we have to decide how to balance security and privacy when there are no guarantees.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: Now, for more on special series "Safe at Home," tune in tonight at 8:00 p.m. to CNN's "PAULA ZAHN NOW."

Be sure to tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security.

We have additional information now. Associated Press reporting on the 14 Marines that were killed today. It turns out, the Marines say, those 14 marines are members of the same Ohio-based battalion that lost six Marines two days ago. Now this the Third Battalion 25th Marines. It based in the Cleveland suburb of Brook Park, but the battalion also has units in Columbus, Akron, Ohio, Moundsville, West Virginia and Buffalo, New York. But once again, new information on those 14 Marines that were killed in Haditha, from the same battalion, Marine battalion, that lost six Marines two days earlier. We'll work on getting our Barbara Starr up out of the Pentagon to get more information on that developing story.

Good time for a story of hope. It was the best that this family could hope for, a healthy baby girl, born to a mother who was already gone. Elizabeth Cohen has that story just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(STOCK MARKET UPDATE)

KAGAN: Months ago, she was deemed brain dead from cancer. Since then, the hope is that her unborn child could survive, and that little girl was born yesterday. The full story when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: To Richmond, Virginia now, where a new mother is brain dead and unaware that her battle is over and her victory won. Susan Torres has delivered a tiny but healthy little girl. Nearly three months ago, her family made a decision to keep her cancer-ravaged body alive in order to give the baby a chance of survival.

Our medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen has this story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a bittersweet day for Jason Torres. His wife, Susan, gave birth to their second child, Susan Anne Catherine Torres. A team of doctors had worked round the clock to save the child long after they knew they couldn't save her mother.

Susan and Jason Torres, both 26, were college sweethearts. They got married and had a son, Peter, now 3. She was pregnant with their second child and living her dream, doing vaccine research at the National Institutes of Health.

JUSTIN TORRES, BROTHER: It was a wonderful partnership because Susan was tough and focused and Jason was fun-loving and sort of easy- going.

COHEN: When Susan was 17, a small spot on her shoulder was diagnosed as melanoma. Doctors removed it and she remained cancer free. Then a couple of months ago...

JU. TORRES: She had started to have headaches and dizziness and nausea and symptoms like that that got sort of progressively worse.

COHEN: On May 7, Torres had a stroke that left her brain-dead.

JASON TORRES, HUSBAND: The melanoma metastasized and went to the brain and caused a bleed in the brain which then the pressure just built up and built up.

COHEN: She was put on a ventilator to keep her lungs going as doctors tried to save the baby and allow her to develop. It was a race against time. They had to wait 12 weeks to let the baby develop. But during that time there was a risk of the cancer spreading to the placenta. Doctors say it's unusual, but it does happen.

DR. DAVID LAWSON, ONCOLOGIST, EMORY UNIVERSITY: There are only about 21 or so cases of that reported of melanoma going to the placenta and only about 5 cases reported of the fetus actually having melanoma.

COHEN: Even so, experts say the baby, who is 12 weeks early and weighs just 1 pound and 13 ounces, is not out of the woods just yet.

DR. SIVA SUBRAMANIAN, GEORGETOWN UNIV. HOSPITAL: Potentially after one to two years we need to look at the mature that there is no disease that has spread to the baby.

COHEN: And while today is a day of mixed emotions, Justin says he will have a message for his niece.

JU. TORRES: You have no idea how hard some people fought for you. And you have no idea how important you are to us.

COHEN: Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: There's a story that warms your heart and gives you chills. The father, Jason Torres, still has more of his story to tell. He will be holding a news conference today in a couple hours, 1:00 p.m. Eastern. CNN will carry that news conference for you live.

Right now, let's take a look at other stories from coast-to- coast.

To San Jose, California, digging up answers to a mammoth mystery. Experts are working to excavate bones that they say could be the remains of a Colombian mammoth. Experts think the animal could have roamed around Santa Clara County about 10,000 years ago.

In San Diego, California, she came, posed, she signed autographs. Tuesday, actress Pamela Anderson paid a visit to sailors on board the newly-commissioned Halsey Destroyer. The former "Baywatch" star also presented the U.S., though, with a $150 donation from a major media company.

And in Washington state, she's hanging up her sash for a soldier's uniform. This 18-year-old is a teen beauty queen who is enlisting in the U.S. Army. The former Miss Everett Teen USA for 2004 leaves for boot camp in South Carolina next week. The self-described girly girl comes from a military family. She says she has always wanted to serve.

A new addition to Madam Tussaud's Museum. Prince William finally gets his likeness in wax. We'll show you what he looks like after the break and we'll let you decide if it looks like the real thing.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: All right, you decide. He is second in line to inherit the British throne. Let's take a look here. Wow, I think it's very good. Prince William has a new measure of his power today. Madame Tussaud's in London has unveiled a waxen image of the 23-year-old prince. The dapper-dressed prince is flanked by the likeness of his mother, the late princess Diana.

(WEATHER REPORT)

KAGAN: The miracle in Toronto. More than 300 people escaped to survive after their plane skidded off the runway. You're going to hear an experts' tips on how you can survive a plane crash.

And it's exactly evolution or creation. The president says schools should teach the theory of intelligent design. You're going to hear both sides of that issue, as the second hour of CNN LIVE TODAY begins right now.

Let's get things started with taking a look at what's happening "Now in the News." Fourteen U.S. marines and a civilian interpreter were killed by a roadside bomb in western Iraq today. It happened near the insurgent hotbed of Haditha. The Associated Press says there are members of the same Ohio-based battalion that lost six marines two days earlier. A live report from Iraq is just ahead.

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