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Will U.S. Use Nuclear Weapons in Iraq?; Pollution-Detecting Equipment Helps Fight Terror; Interview With Kevin Metnick
Aired January 26, 2003 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SHARON COLLINS, HOST: Live from CNN's world headquarters. This is NEXT@CNN. I'm Sharon Collins.
We have a lot packed in the show today, so let's get right to it. One of the most intriguing stories, when scientists first theorized nuclear energy might be one day harnessed into a bomb, they likely foresaw a single bomb doing a massive damage. In the "Los Angeles Times" suggests the U.S. might consider a series of smaller nuclear strikes in the war with Iraq. A response from the White House chief of staff leaves the Iraqis and the rest of the world guessing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDREW CARD, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: Should Saddam Hussein have any thought that he would use a weapon of mass destruction, he should anticipate that the United States will use whatever means necessary to protect us and the world from a holocaust.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Here to talk about it all is Joseph Cirincione. He is director of the non-proliferation studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Welcome. Thank you so much for joining us today.
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE, DIRECTOR OF THE NON-PROLIFERATION PROJECT, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE: My pleasure.
COLLINS: Now, I know you've heard rumblings about this. Under what type of scenarios would such strikes take place and what would be used?
CIRINCIONE: Well, for the last 10 years some scientists and now some leading members of the Bush administration have been talking about developing new types of nuclear weapons, smaller, what they consider more usable nuclear weapons, to go after four kinds of targets: chemical, facilities, biological weapons facilities, deep heavily fortified underground bunkers, or here is the catch-all category, of unexpected military developments.
COLLINS: But why, or when will we use -- what are you hearing? Why would we use these weapons?
CIRINCIONE: Well, there's two favorite scenarios. One is that we find a biological weapons facility that we believe is in imminent danger of being used against U.S. troops or allies. And we need one small highly flammable nuclear weapon to just incinerate the toxin and eliminate it from doing any damage. Or, that Saddam has got a war in underground bunkers, and the only way to get at them is drop a nuclear weapon top of them.
COLLINS: But don't we already have conventional weapons that just bring on massive damage, like the daisy cutter that just sucks the air and life out of caves?
CIRINCIONE: We do. If we're talking about a small nuclear weapon, we're talking about something that might be 500 tons, as compared to say the one-ton that is in a normal bomb that we'll be dropping in a conflict. The daisy cutter is a very large bomb. It has like 15,000 pounds and creates a huge overpressure. And this we used in Afghanistan to crush cave structures, to seal up cave entrances. In fact, there are numerous conventional alternatives to use the nuclear weapons. There really is not a good reason to threaten the use of nuclear weapons in Iraq.
COLLINS: But let's suppose we have a smaller nuclear weapon that would go underground. Would there be any fear of radioactive fallout, perhaps this would all stay underground?
CIRINCIONE: Well, here's the problem. That's exactly the -- you put your finger on it. That's the attractive notion, that if we make them small enough, say 1,000 kilotons to 1,000 tons, or 500 tons of explosives, then there wouldn't be much fallout. We would ram this earth-penetrating warhead approximately five yards underground. You set off the one-kilo ton blast. That would pulverize 20 yards of solid granite destroying anything within 20 yards.
Here's the problem, though. When you do that, a plume of radioactivity rises and goes downwind, and our calculation shows that would kill 50 percent of the population in a 5-kilometer swath downwind from the explosive. If you detonated this near an urban center, you're looking at thousands, maybe tens of thousands of casualties. The radioactive fallout is not contained.
COLLINS: What does it say to the rest of the world? Are there concerns about the impact it might have on perhaps the conflicts between India and Pakistan?
CIRINCIONE: This is one of the dangerous things about throwing around the use of nuclear weapons so loosely. It feels good. It feels like, you know, we'll use anything in our power. We want to threaten him, intimidate him. But we're making the use of nuclear weapons more likely, not just by ourselves, but by other countries. What's the message that is being sent to India or Pakistan? Two countries that have fought three wars in the last 30 years. Now, both have nuclear weapons. Both have talked about using these nuclear weapons in battlefield situations. They might well conclude that if the United States thinks it's OK to do it, then why isn't it OK for them?
COLLINS: But isn't it true that other presidents at other times have considered using nuclear weapons if they need to? CIRINCIONE: It is a long history in the United States of threatening the use of nuclear weapons, going back to china, or Tien Vien Foo (ph) 1954 in Vietnam. Or General MacArthur wanted to use nuclear weapons in the Korean War in the 1950s. People have threatened the use of it. Most of those occurred during the heyday of nuclear weapons, during the cold war when we all went a little nuclear crazy and had tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. The use of nuclear weapons has steadily declined. There really isn't any good reason to use the nuclear weapon now, except to deter someone else from striking you with a nuclear weapon. A battlefield nuclear weapon is an extremely dangerous notion.
COLLINS: Joseph Cirincione, so glad you could join us today and let's hope it doesn't come to that. Thank you again for joining us.
CIRINCIONE: My pleasure. Thank you.
COLLINS: Well, switching to a much lighter note. Kickoff for Super Bowl XXXVII is just about two hours away. Now, before the fans at Qualcomm Stadium can be -- see any football, they have to pass by some probing eyeballs. High-tech and old-fashioned ones. Josie Karp joins us now, from San Diego, with the latest on Super Bowl security. How are the lines there with people going through all these new detection devices?
JOSIE KARP, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Well, I am glad you asked that, because I can actually look just to my right and see one line, which actually, if you are at home right now and you have a ticket for the game, come right to this line, because it's very, very short. And that's a bit of a surprise because earlier today we saw a lot of people waiting a very long time to get through that line. They're doing some extensive security screening. They're checking every bag that you bring into the stadium. They are doing some extensive security screening. They are checking every bag that you bring into the stadium, and you're only allowed to bring the very small ones.
Every single person in there, are more than 67,000 fans expected at the game, is going through a metal detector. And earlier today, just about 45 minutes ago, I spoke to one gentleman, he told me from the time he got off his trolley, and again, there's no parking here at the stadium, so everybody has to find a different mode of transportation. By the time he got off his trolley to the time that he made it through security, it was about one hour. But again, it varies depending on where you actually go through the line right now. The place that I can see from my vantage point, it's moving very quickly. As it gets closer to game time, there's a chance it could slow down a bit.
COLLINS: Josie, what kinds of things are they pulling people over for? I know some of the Raiders come decked out in pretty extreme costumes. What kind of people are you seeing pulled? Or have you seen anybody get pulled?
KARP: Well, from my vantage point, I haven't seen anyone physically get stopped and be told you have to take this off or you have to take that off, Sharon. But one of the interesting things you bring up, Raider Nation, the fan base for the Raiders, they have a reputation for dressing up, sometimes putting on extraordinary costumes that contain perhaps pieces of metal or something that could be construed as a weapon. And that's what these security officers are looking for.
As it pertains to the Raiders fans, they're going to do it on a case-by-case basis. If there's something on a costume that they think might be used as a weapon, they might have, and they have the authority to ask that person to remove that article of clothing. But again, in general, just the regular fans, the list of banned things is relatively obvious. I mean, they put it out, saying, hey, no explosives, things like that. Pretty obvious what you're not allowed to bring in, Sharon.
COLLINS: Is this kind of like going through airport security? And have you heard people complain? I would think it takes a little bit of the fun out of the whole deal.
KARP: Well, the one thing they have done here in San Diego is that they publicized this, they told people to get here early. They opened up the gates at 11:00 for a game that starts after 3:00 here in the Pacific Time zone. So people are prepared. And a lot of the folks that I talked to, it's the Super Bowl. They're in a good mood. They knew this was going to happen. And they're dealing with it and rolling with the punches, Sharon.
COLLINS: All right, Josie Karp in San Diego. Thanks for joining us, and I hope they let you in. Have a good time at the game.
KARP: I think I'll be all right.
COLLINS: Coming up, air quality sensors are now looking for biological weapons. Could they present -- or prevent a disaster?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Well, we have some good news. A child that was kidnapped this morning, a 10-month-old little baby was kidnapped in the car he was actually lying in, has been recovered, has been found. The Amber Alert has been canceled.
The vehicle and child were found in the city of Norwalk. The child is safe. Police in Compton, California, have canceled, again, an Amber Alert for a 10-month-old child. The vehicle has been recovered. The suspect is still outstanding but once again, that 10- month-old child that was reported missing this morning has been found. So, good news there.
Now, pollution-detecting equipment across the United States has become the latest tool in the fight against terror. Jeanne Meserve reports on environmental monitors that are now doing double duty.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For years they have detected carbon monoxide and other noxious pollutants. Now they'll detect the likes of anthrax and smallpox. Some environmental protection agency air quality monitoring stations in the nation's cities are being retrofitted to pick up releases of biological weapons. Since 9/11, medical surveillance systems have been expanded and improved to detect early any outbreaks of disease. But now filtering of the air and follow-up testing of the 120 CDC response laboratories could detect a bioweapon by 12 to 24 hours of its release.
PATRICK BREYSSE, ENVIRON HEALTH SCIENTIST: We can do a lot more for people if we detect it early in terms of removing people from potential exposure and also treating the people who are exposed more effectively.
MESERVE: The system is a newer generation of the monitoring system used at the Salt Lake City Olympics. Officials insist it is reliable, with a low rate of false positives and false negatives.
But because the monitoring stations are outside, they would not have detected the anthrax letters that went to Capitol Hill, or a bioweapons release an in closed space like a subway. Administration officials say there is no credible intelligence that al Qaeda has biological weapons. And although U.N. weapons inspectors are in Iraq searching for bioweapons, administration officials say the prospect of war is not why the new technology is being deployed. Nevertheless, a spokesman for the Office of Homeland Security says, we need to be prepared for all possibilities.
MESERVE (on camera): The administration will not say how many of these monitors are being deployed, or how many or what pathogens they can detect, because they don't want potential enemies to know the nation's capabilities or vulnerabilities.
Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: Now, like surveillance cameras, air monitors and radiation monitors are in a lot of places you might not think about. Some patients being treated with radioactive materials are finding this out the hard way. Endocrinologist Dr. Stephanie Lee joins us from our Boston bureau. Doctor, welcome. What kinds of patients would get in trouble with the radiation monitor?
DR. STEPHANIE LEE, ENDOCRINOLOGIST: Well, the radiation monitors can monitor any kind of radioactivity inside a patient. In fact, we use radiation both for diagnostic and for therapeutic reasons.
As an endocrinologist, I treat many patients with overactive thyroid conditions and with thyroid cancer with outpatient doses of radioactivity. And these will persist in the body for several weeks, and any of these patients could be picked up on a monitor. In fact, one of my colleagues had a patient who received a dose of radioactivity for an overactive conditions called Graves Disease. And because it was stored in the thyroid for several weeks, he was actually detected in the subway stations in New York City, and unfortunately had been strip searched at least twice because of looking for the presence of this radioactivity.
COLLINS: But if these monitors perhaps kept us from being attacked, or would stop someone with a weapon, I would think that they would serve a good purpose. Your point is that there should be some better way than having these people set off the alarm?
LEE: Well, the alarms are so sensitive that it will pick up both the therapeutic doses of radioactivity, and also diagnostic doses. We use -- for every patient who gets radioactive iodine, there are perhaps a hundred patients who get a diagnostic dose of radioactive, for a cardiac scan or bone scan. And in fact, there will be perhaps 250 to one million patients a year who will have these radioactive treatments. I think that it will cause a great deal of concern, both on the parts of the police people who are have been given the charge to look for radioactivity, and they will be stopping a lot of people. And the question is, how can we allow patients to receive these very safe doses of radioactivity, but not create a great deal of concern and problems on the part of the people monitoring for radioactivity.
COLLINS: All right, Dr. Stephanie Lee, thank you very much for your time. Obviously a concern for people already feeling at risk being treated with radiation or being diagnosed with some illness.
Now coming up, Kevin Metnick served his time for computer crimes, and now he's out and back online. We are going to talk to him live when we come back. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Well, using a little CNN technology, you're seeing video from the USS Constellation. These are live pictures from the USS Constellations in the Persian Gulf. These guys are having their own Super Bowl party. Like the rest of you will be having later on. Again, that was the USS Constellation, have a good time, guys.
Now, making technology news this week, experts say the September 11 attack on the Pentagon could have been much more deadly if the building hadn't been constructed so solidly. The American of Society of Civil Engineers says reinforced steel and other elements built into the building decades ago saved many lives. According to the report when the Boeing 757 tore into the building at more than 500 miles per hour, only the immediate area collapsed.
A new NASA satellite is off on a mission to soak up some sunshine. The source satellite, that's short for solar radiation and climate experiment, was launched on a Pegasus rocket from a carrier jet yesterday afternoon. It carried four instruments to study the sun's influence on the climate. Scientists hope to learn more about which climate changes are natural and which ones are caused by human activity.
A San Francisco area engineer launched a new kind of submarine this week. The craft called the Deep Flight Aviator took a spin in the waters of San Francisco Bay on Thursday. Inventor Graham Hawks says his two-seater sub is unlike any previous submersible. It flies through the water using wings and thrusters like a plane rather than using ballasts to go up and down. Hawks hopes his invention will have how to make underwater exploration accessible to more people.
Now, since Friday night, a fast spreading bandwidth clogging computer worm called the SQL Slammer is causing worldwide havoc. Thousands of Bank of America ATMs stopped working on Saturday, and Internet traffic slowed. South Korea's major Internet providers briefly shut down. It briefly knocked CNN's computers for a loop. Now some say it is the most damaging Internet attack since the Code Red worm 18 months ago.
Now, Kevin Metnick was perhaps the world's best-known hacker before his arrest in 1995. After completing nearly a five-year prison stretch in 2000 he's really free. Free to go back online by the terms of his probation. Kevin joins us now from Los Angeles. Kevin, welcome to our show, and welcome back on the web.
KEVIN METNICK, RETIRED HACKER: Very nice to be here, Sharon. Thank you.
COLLINS: When we talked earlier, and you don't think this kind of worm that we're seeing today is your traditional computer hacker?
METNICK: No. Usually hackers, at least the ones I know of, I know the definition of a hacker, there's a lot of different definitions, but the person that would do something like this is kind of a malicious person. I'd really label the person as a computer vandal, not a person who tries to stretch technology and do innovative things.
COLLINS: Has this worm caught some folks with their pants down? Because you were telling me, they've known about this vulnerability.
METNICK: Yes. In fact, I was at the Black Cat Security conference last year in Las Vegas, and a renowned security researcher, David Litchfield (ph), is the one that found this vulnerability. He reported it to Microsoft. And Microsoft issued a patch. But sometimes companies and people aren't vigilant in applying these patches. And the attackers have taken this exploit and they wrote some code around it to be able to penetrate any computer system that's running Microsoft SQL server that isn't patched.
COLLINS: OK, let's talk about your book for a minute. Because I read most of it over the last couple of days. And I came away from with it with the feeling that you can't trust anyone. I mean, what you're telling me in this book that, a lot of the ways people get information from computers is by calling somebody on the phone and simply asking for key passwords and things like that.
METNICK: Yes. There's a misconception that industrial spies, private investigators, computer hackers only exploit technology like this Saphire worm is doing. Hackers also exploit people. Trusted people within companies, within government agencies, to give them the keys to the kingdom.
COLLINS: I was laughing earlier, there was one little scenario you had in your book about how to get out of a traffic ticket. Not that I would need such a thing. METNICK: Of course not.
COLLINS: But you bring up a good point. And that is, you know, if you have the schedule of the arresting officer, then you just make sure you show up in court when he's on duty someplace else. Now, how do people get into a police station and get information like that?
METNICK: Well, you don't need to get into a police station. It's just a matter of knowing the process of how the court subpoena officers, and then finding out the process that happens, that there's a subpoena control clerk. And then a social engineer, and the term is called social engineering, which is basically using manipulation and deception to get people to comply with requests, and calling the subpoena clerk, and using some sort of a pretext that you're an attorney, and you need the officer's schedule to subpoena him on a case, and then you try to schedule your court trial on a different date. And it's kind of -- what we call a social engineering attack.
Many companies invest thousands of dollars in security technologies like firewalls, intrusion detection systems, biometric authentication, and all it takes is a hacker to use social engineering and call just one trusted person within that company, and that will bypass any type of technology, and essentially thousands of dollars could be wasted unless the people are trained within the organization about these type of attacks.
COLLINS: All right. Kevin Metnick, thank you so much. I certainly will not trust anyone who calls me for any information ever again.
METNICK: You shouldn't -- you shouldn't take the position that you can't trust anyone. What you have to do is be aware, and use common sense.
COLLINS: All right. Again, Kevin Metnick, thank you so much.
METNICK: Thank you.
COLLINS: And I guess this is a good lesson for informing all of your employees, not just the ones at the top of the chain.
Now coming up in our next half hour, is military training hamstrung by environmental regulations? We will some from strong opinions on both sides. But first a quick break and a check of the latest headlines. Stick around.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWSBREAK)
COLLINS: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN. Environmentalists are up in arms these days because the military wants to roll back some eco- regulations. Green groups claim this is just an excuse to change major environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act. But the Pentagon says this is a matter of national security.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RAYMOND DUBOIS, DEPARTMENT OF THE UNDERSECRETARY OF DEFENSE: We have, granted, some anecdotal evidence. But I've talked to some of the young troops who have come back from Afghanistan, who, quite frankly, had to learn how to dig fighting holes when they got to Afghanistan because they didn't have an opportunity to do it at Camp Pendleton.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Joining us live from Washington now are Jeff Ruch from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, and Jack Spencer from The Heritage Foundation.
Gentlemen, welcome. Jeff, let's start with you. You heard Mr. Dubois' comments. If environmental laws interfere with training soldiers, why not relax the regulations?
JEFF RUCH, PEER: Well, first of all, as he pointed out, there's at best only anecdotal evidence for that. And given that the military has 25 to 30 million acres in this country, an area about the size of the state of Georgia, the notion that they have no place for troops to dig holes is kind of hard to believe.
Congress asked the GAO to look at this question, and GAO concluded while there is evidence that there are inconveniences, what they call in the military work-arounds, there was no evidence that the readiness of a single unit of any service was at all diminished by environmental regulations. The notion that whales and wildlife are a threat to national security is absurd. And it raises sort of the dangerous kind of mindset that national defense requires destroying what it is you're trying to defend.
COLLINS: Jack, what about that? I mean they've got millions and millions of acres. They can't get around the environmental regulations and still train the soldiers?
JEFF SPENCER, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Well, it's just not true. The fact of the matter is while the military does have a lot of land, it's not all used for training, only a small portion of that is. And a lot of that which is available for training has very strict restrictions on it for what kind of training can be used and when that training can be done.
The fact of the matter is that while there are -- or that there are strict environmental regulations that are very -- that had to do with simply making certain wildlife that are -- that is protected annoyed. So if any sort of activity simply annoys a whale or a certain kind of bird, then that particular activity cannot move forward.
And saying that the military wants to wipe out any particular species or type of plant simply isn't true. What the military, what the armed forces are looking to do, is simply to come up with a compromise because what's happening is that as populations expand in the United States, it's forcing many of these species onto the regulated lands of the U.S. military. And what so often happens in the past, the U.S. military becomes that which becomes the focus of different social engineering type activities, because laws can be passed that dictate how the military behaves. And that's what's occurring here.
COLLINS: Well, Jack, let me interrupt you for a second. I mean the military does hold some of the most pristine, beautiful land in the United States.
SPENCER: That's true.
COLLINS: Is it really that hard to kind of work around these regulations?
SPENCER: To the point -- there are many examples where it is difficult to do that, where they can't conduct the training. Like in Vieques Island, for example, where because of a lot of environmental concerns there, which I think have been largely unfounded, no longer -- live fire-training can no longer be held there. And there are examples like this, not closing down the entire bases, as is going on in Vieques Island, but there are instances where this is becoming increasingly a problem. And there is evidence that it is a problem now.
But what we want to do is before we keep moving forward in this direction, certainly in a wartime setting as we are in now, let's come up with some compromises. There are places that compromises can be held, and that's all the Defense Department is looking for. They don't want to go out and use whales for target practice.
COLLINS: All right. Jeff Ruch -- Jeff, excuse me, I'm sorry, Jack. Why do compromises scare you?
RUCH: Actually, compromises don't scare us. As a matter of fact, the GAO report points out that the military has an awful lot of room to consolidate and coordinate activity, to address land use and other kinds of issues like that. And as a matter of fact, the Department of Defense doesn't even have an inventory for all of the ranges within its possession. So there are -- is a wide array of legal and logistical kind of combinations that can be made. But the notion that the Department of Defense is seeking to compromise is like suggesting that Sherman Tank is an economy vehicle.
COLLINS: Now, I'm told that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will take this to Congress on February 4 and 5. Is this a better likelihood from both of you that it will go through, that these environmental regulations will be dropped, or certainly compromised because of the potential war with Iraq?
SPENCER: I think it will, not necessarily because of the war with Iraq, but simply because it's a common-sense approach to our nation's security. And what we'll see is that environmental regulations won't be dropped and the military will not be allowed to go out and cut down redwood trees and things of that nature, as environmentalists might have us believe. But what you'll see is some sort of a method by which the military can put forth a plan to execute its own training while maintaining the integrity of a species of plant, or the certain land or something of that nature. And that's how the compromise I believe will emerge.
COLLINS: All right. We're almost out of time. Jeff, last word, very quickly, please.
RUCH: We're not just talking about wildlife. We're talking about people. At places like the Massachusetts Military Reservation, military munitions have contaminated the drinking supply for a million permanent residents and visitors. These are the kind of exemptions that are going to lead to more and more of those public health disasters. So it's not just the fury animals. It's the human animals that are at stake. And I think that's the reason that it's going to be a very, very difficult issue this year.
COLLINS: All right.
SPENCER: So it is the American people who are at stake. That's what we need to remember.
COLLINS: All right. Gentlemen, thank you again for joining us. Jeff Ruch and Jack Spencer. Thanks for both of you taking some time out of Sunday. And this will be debated in Congress, I'm sure.
Just ahead, the week's environmental news, including a reason for manatee lovers to smile. Stay can with us.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS (voice-over): A dinosaur with wings on its feet and forearms. Even the researchers who discovered this in Western China couldn't believe dinosaurs with four wings. Xing Xu and his team studied more than six of these fossils before adding a new species to the dinosaur family tree.
Published in the "Journal of Nature," it's little for a dino. Its body is about the size of an eagle, has a very long tail. Its name, Microraptor gui. Gui could be the dinosaur that evolved into modern day birds. Xu thinks that unlike its closer relative, Velociraptors on the run in Jurassic Park, Gui didn't run fast enough to live on the ground but probably lived in trees and glided from branch to branch using its tail for balance and occasionally, flapping its wings. It couldn't fly like a bird, but with wings on its feet, it could soar.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is a possibility that this was a hoax.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: In environment news this week a downtown fossil. Students from the University of Arkansas dug up the world's largest known fossil of an ancient squid-like creature. They were looking for fossils besides a drainage ditch in downtown Fayetteville near Interstate 540. The students hoped to find fossils a few inches long, maybe a foot. But the one they turned up was nine feet long. It's a creature called a nautaloid. And in case you're wondering, what is now Arkansas was under water 300 million years ago.
A submarine is sealing the cracks in the hull of a tanker, which sank off the Spanish coast. The Prestige went down in November carrying more than 20 million gallons of oil. Nearly half that cargo is believed to have leaked out already. Salvage experts hope to close all the cracks in the wrecked ship by early February.
And a new agreement aimed to cut the death toll of Florida's cute but ugly manatees. Ninety-five of the slow-moving mammals died in boat accidents last year. The deal between environmentalists and the federal government will lead to slower speed limits and tighter enforcement in Florida's waterway to protect the few thousand remaining manatees.
Now just ahead, when medical treatments that are supposed to help do harm instead. The repercussions can go on for decades. A tragic example when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: On Tuesday, a court in Toronto, Canada, is expected to set a trial date for an American pharmaceutical firm facing prosecution in the AIDS tragedy of the 1980s. CNN investigative correspondent, Art Harris, has an exclusive report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ART HARRIS, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Canada, white crosses left in past protests to mark victims of bad blood, among them, hundreds of hemophiliacs who caught AIDS in the 1980s from the blood of strangers. One victim, a 15-year-old boy, growing up in a small town outside Vancouver.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was a strong fellow. He was a good student.
BRUCE LEMER, VICTIM'S LAWYER: Yes, he was one of the sorts of kids that would have achieved something. And makes it all the more painful to see someone cut down.
HARRIS: To prevent uncontrolled bleeding, hemophiliacs use what's called clotting factor. It's made from the plasma of thousands of blood donors. Because the plasma is mixed together, one bad donor can contaminate a whole batch.
By the mid '80s, Armour Pharmaceutical, like other blood suppliers in the U.S., had begun using heat to try to kill the AIDS virus. Now scientists thought hemophiliacs would be safe, but...
DR. ALFRED PRINCE, NEW YORK BLOOD CENTER: We found that that particular heat sterilization process was not very effective.
HARRIS: Armour was heating its product less than half as long as its competitors. When Dr. Fred Prince was hired as an outside researcher to run tests for Armour, he found the shorter time failed to kill all the AIDS virus.
PRINCE: I felt it was almost certainly not reliable.
HARRIS: Armour officials met in 1985 to go over his findings. Records show the company was hesitant to spend the money to lengthen its heating process and was worried it might lose business in Canada and elsewhere. Armour called the test failures preliminary results. Its files show company VP, Michael Rodel (ph), said it would be unwise to notify the government until Armour's testing was complete. In Mike's view, the issue is not one of regulation but rather marketing.
In 1987 a doctor at this hospital in Vancouver was shocked to discover six of his hemophiliac patients had been exposed to AIDS. All but one were children. The youngest was 5, others 10, 13, 15.
LEMER: There wasn't anyone amongst the group that wasn't basic salt of the earth sort of people.
HARRIS: Half of those Vancouver patients are now dead. Each one, a Canadian investigation found, was using the Armour clotting factor that research had indicated was not fully sterilized. A decade and a half later, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has filed charges against Armour, its former VP and three Canadian officials. This is the first time an American company has ever faced prosecution in a case like this. It's accused of criminal negligence, causing bodily harm to three Vancouver-area victims, including the small-town youth who died.
Armour Pharmaceutical in a statement called the charges "unfair and unjustified." It said it expects both the company and Dr. Rodel (ph) to be acquitted. The names of the Vancouver patients have been kept secret through the years.
LEMER: They were mortally afraid of being identified because of the stigma that surrounded AIDS at the time.
HARRIS: In the court papers they're only listed by initials, like J.A., who was 13 when he caught AIDS.
LEMER: He came from a small town in British Columbia. He loved the outdoors, just a nice guy.
HARRIS (on camera): A decade ago in a civil lawsuit, J.A. was asked what lay ahead in life. His answer, "I have no future." But J.A. has survived and now plans to break the silence of the past and testify against Armour when the case comes to trial, probably later this year.
Art Harris, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE) COLLINS: Joining us now from Montreal is David Page, the blood safety coordinator for the Canadian Hemophilia Society.
David, thank you for joining us today. How did this ever get to court?
DAVID PAGE, CANADIAN HEMOPHILIA SOCIETY: Well, back in 1987, a group of Canadian hemophiliacs decided never again -- this shouldn't happen again. And after much pressure, we obtained a royal commission of inquiry, called the Weaver Commission in 1993. And in 1997 it made its report, made findings of fact that there were many wrong doings and that led eventually to an RCMP investigation, which led to the charges.
COLLINS: Now, I would imagine anyone who needs blood right now is wondering, are things OK now? Are people in Canada, and for that matter, in the U.S., safe now?
PAGE: Well, we have to think about first factor concentrates and then other products. Factor concentrates are extremely safe today whether they're recombinant or plasma drives. So I think people could be -- can be very confident in those products today. In terms of other blood products, well, they can never be perfectly safe. There are new problems all the time, and we've seen that recently with the West Nile Virus.
COLLINS: Now, will this case come to trial even though the statute of limitations at least in the U.S., I would think, would have run out some time ago?
PAGE: Well, the statute of limitations has run out in Canada, too, for certain charges such as manslaughter. But it hasn't run out for lesser charges such as reckless endangerment.
COLLINS: And will there be more charges in this case?
PAGE: According to the RMCP, there could be more charges. We don't know who or for what reasons, but it's certainly possible.
COLLINS: All right. David Page, thank you very much for joining us. We will certainly follow this case.
PAGE: You're very welcome.
COLLINS: When we come back, we'll talk with high school scientists and find out why and how they put ants -- yes, ants -- on the space shuttle. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS (voice-over): Twenty-six thousand light years from here in the center of our Milky Way, there appears to be a large black hole called Sagittarius A, experiencing some indigestion. Analyzing x-ray data from the space-orbiting observatory, Chandra, MIT scientists pinpointed what appears to be a star being gobbled up by the giant black hole. Apparently, it's not going down easy.
Scientists say those bright spots in the center indicate it's burping up some of the gases. Even though no one has ever seen a black hole, scientists say the behavior of stars around them indicate they do exist. And this one in the center of our Milky Way, they say, is a doozey, three million times the mass of our sun.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: The Shuttle Columbia is circling 150 miles overhead right now carrying some tiny passengers that usually don't travel more than a fraction of an inch off the ground. We're talking about ants. Two of the high school students responsible for the experiment join us now from Syracuse, New York.
Abby Golash and Rachel Poppe, do I have that right?
RACHEL POPPE, SENIOR, FOWLER HIGH SCHOOL: Yes.
ABBY GOLASH, SENIOR, FOWLER HIGH SCHOOL: Yes.
COLLINS: How did you guys pull this off? How did you get ants on a space shuttle?
GOLASH: Well, actually, what we did is it started as a normal high school science project. We were both told by our teachers that we could go -- we could have a project with NASA. And we started when we were freshmen and we're seniors now. So it's been a long...
COLLINS: Why did it take so long?
POPPE: There were 19 delays. Most of them where there were problems with the shuttle. Our latest delay was actually when we were in Florida. We thought there was a problem with the ball in the shuttle, but we finally went off.
COLLINS: Now, what do you hope to find out? Now, I had an ant farm here at CNN and all the ants died. So I don't know if it was me or the ants. Are they hard to keep alive and what are you trying to accomplish with this experiment?
POPPE: We chose harvester ants, which are very hearty. So we were hoping they wouldn't die. We're trying to see if the ants will tunnel differently in microgravity. We're not sure what they would have done -- they have tunneled incredibly differently than we had thought. We thought they were going to tunnel smaller in microgravity. But they have been going very, very fast.
COLLINS: Warp speed?
GOLASH: Definitely.
COLLINS: Now, this is going to look great on your resume. Where do you hope to go from this? I mean, your high school seniors. Have you decided what you want to do? GOLASH: Actually, out of the two of us, I'm the only one who wants to go in science. I plan on being a botanist. And although, I can't say this has really changed the direction I want to go in science, it's definitely helped define the experience.
POPPE: I have the same sort of feeling. I've always loved science, but I'm not heading toward a science career. I would like to report on science as a broadcast journalist.
COLLINS: Oh, girlfriend, we need to talk. Now, tell me, have you chosen schools to continue in?
GOLASH: Yes, I actually am going to Cornell next fall.
POPPE: I have applied to Syracuse University. I'm hoping to go there.
COLLINS: Would either of you like to go into space eventually?
GOLASH: I can't say that space appeals to me. I would like to work in space science, but I think I'd stay on the ground.
POPPE: I think going into space would be awesome. I've never put too much thought into it, but I think it would be very, very cool.
COLLINS: Have you gotten to speak with people in NASA? I mean have you really been involved?
POPPE: Yes, we've spoken to Sean O'Keefe, who is the administrator of NASA. He's like the top dog, so to speak. And he came to our school and we met him again in Florida. We actually got to sit in the VIP section with him as the launch went off.
COLLINS: Now, what happens to the ants when they come home?
GOLASH: What will happen is we don't actually get to touch them after they come back, February 1, when the shuttle lands. Space Lab and BioServe (ph) who were our big supporters when it came to the experiment will actually take them and they'll process them and then send us a CD-ROM of data to look over that we'll be able to look over and make a report on.
POPPE: Right now, we can see all of the ants tunneling on the Web site. There's -- Starsacademy.com/sts107 has all of the results and everyone can go to that and see the data as we're seeing it.
COLLINS: Repeat that again because I think that would be fun to see.
POPPE: Www.starsacademy.com/sts107.
COLLINS: And is there any cool, funky things about ants that you guys found out that most of us don't know? Well, these ants bite, and it really hurts. You don't think of ants as violent creatures, but they hurt. COLLINS: Space ants that bite. Somehow that sounds like a bad B movie. All right, Abby Golash and Rachel Poppe, good luck to you both in your future, and thanks for joining us today.
POPPE: Thank you.
GOLASH: Thank you.
COLLINS: All right. That's all the time we have. I'm Sharon Collins and thanks for joining us. Next week, could that lunch box staple, the banana, go extinct? We'll talk with a scientist who says it could happen. Hope you can join us then.
Now, just ahead an update on our top news stories followed by "SHOWDOWN: IRAQ, THE WEAPONS REPORT," CNN's special coverage of the rapidly changing situation as tomorrow's U.N. weapons inspector report approaches. It's followed at 7:00 by "PEOPLE IN THE NEWS" profiling chief inspector Hans Blix.
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Detecting Equipment Helps Fight Terror; Interview With Kevin Metnick>
Aired January 26, 2003 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SHARON COLLINS, HOST: Live from CNN's world headquarters. This is NEXT@CNN. I'm Sharon Collins.
We have a lot packed in the show today, so let's get right to it. One of the most intriguing stories, when scientists first theorized nuclear energy might be one day harnessed into a bomb, they likely foresaw a single bomb doing a massive damage. In the "Los Angeles Times" suggests the U.S. might consider a series of smaller nuclear strikes in the war with Iraq. A response from the White House chief of staff leaves the Iraqis and the rest of the world guessing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDREW CARD, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: Should Saddam Hussein have any thought that he would use a weapon of mass destruction, he should anticipate that the United States will use whatever means necessary to protect us and the world from a holocaust.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Here to talk about it all is Joseph Cirincione. He is director of the non-proliferation studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Welcome. Thank you so much for joining us today.
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE, DIRECTOR OF THE NON-PROLIFERATION PROJECT, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE: My pleasure.
COLLINS: Now, I know you've heard rumblings about this. Under what type of scenarios would such strikes take place and what would be used?
CIRINCIONE: Well, for the last 10 years some scientists and now some leading members of the Bush administration have been talking about developing new types of nuclear weapons, smaller, what they consider more usable nuclear weapons, to go after four kinds of targets: chemical, facilities, biological weapons facilities, deep heavily fortified underground bunkers, or here is the catch-all category, of unexpected military developments.
COLLINS: But why, or when will we use -- what are you hearing? Why would we use these weapons?
CIRINCIONE: Well, there's two favorite scenarios. One is that we find a biological weapons facility that we believe is in imminent danger of being used against U.S. troops or allies. And we need one small highly flammable nuclear weapon to just incinerate the toxin and eliminate it from doing any damage. Or, that Saddam has got a war in underground bunkers, and the only way to get at them is drop a nuclear weapon top of them.
COLLINS: But don't we already have conventional weapons that just bring on massive damage, like the daisy cutter that just sucks the air and life out of caves?
CIRINCIONE: We do. If we're talking about a small nuclear weapon, we're talking about something that might be 500 tons, as compared to say the one-ton that is in a normal bomb that we'll be dropping in a conflict. The daisy cutter is a very large bomb. It has like 15,000 pounds and creates a huge overpressure. And this we used in Afghanistan to crush cave structures, to seal up cave entrances. In fact, there are numerous conventional alternatives to use the nuclear weapons. There really is not a good reason to threaten the use of nuclear weapons in Iraq.
COLLINS: But let's suppose we have a smaller nuclear weapon that would go underground. Would there be any fear of radioactive fallout, perhaps this would all stay underground?
CIRINCIONE: Well, here's the problem. That's exactly the -- you put your finger on it. That's the attractive notion, that if we make them small enough, say 1,000 kilotons to 1,000 tons, or 500 tons of explosives, then there wouldn't be much fallout. We would ram this earth-penetrating warhead approximately five yards underground. You set off the one-kilo ton blast. That would pulverize 20 yards of solid granite destroying anything within 20 yards.
Here's the problem, though. When you do that, a plume of radioactivity rises and goes downwind, and our calculation shows that would kill 50 percent of the population in a 5-kilometer swath downwind from the explosive. If you detonated this near an urban center, you're looking at thousands, maybe tens of thousands of casualties. The radioactive fallout is not contained.
COLLINS: What does it say to the rest of the world? Are there concerns about the impact it might have on perhaps the conflicts between India and Pakistan?
CIRINCIONE: This is one of the dangerous things about throwing around the use of nuclear weapons so loosely. It feels good. It feels like, you know, we'll use anything in our power. We want to threaten him, intimidate him. But we're making the use of nuclear weapons more likely, not just by ourselves, but by other countries. What's the message that is being sent to India or Pakistan? Two countries that have fought three wars in the last 30 years. Now, both have nuclear weapons. Both have talked about using these nuclear weapons in battlefield situations. They might well conclude that if the United States thinks it's OK to do it, then why isn't it OK for them?
COLLINS: But isn't it true that other presidents at other times have considered using nuclear weapons if they need to? CIRINCIONE: It is a long history in the United States of threatening the use of nuclear weapons, going back to china, or Tien Vien Foo (ph) 1954 in Vietnam. Or General MacArthur wanted to use nuclear weapons in the Korean War in the 1950s. People have threatened the use of it. Most of those occurred during the heyday of nuclear weapons, during the cold war when we all went a little nuclear crazy and had tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. The use of nuclear weapons has steadily declined. There really isn't any good reason to use the nuclear weapon now, except to deter someone else from striking you with a nuclear weapon. A battlefield nuclear weapon is an extremely dangerous notion.
COLLINS: Joseph Cirincione, so glad you could join us today and let's hope it doesn't come to that. Thank you again for joining us.
CIRINCIONE: My pleasure. Thank you.
COLLINS: Well, switching to a much lighter note. Kickoff for Super Bowl XXXVII is just about two hours away. Now, before the fans at Qualcomm Stadium can be -- see any football, they have to pass by some probing eyeballs. High-tech and old-fashioned ones. Josie Karp joins us now, from San Diego, with the latest on Super Bowl security. How are the lines there with people going through all these new detection devices?
JOSIE KARP, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Well, I am glad you asked that, because I can actually look just to my right and see one line, which actually, if you are at home right now and you have a ticket for the game, come right to this line, because it's very, very short. And that's a bit of a surprise because earlier today we saw a lot of people waiting a very long time to get through that line. They're doing some extensive security screening. They're checking every bag that you bring into the stadium. They are doing some extensive security screening. They are checking every bag that you bring into the stadium, and you're only allowed to bring the very small ones.
Every single person in there, are more than 67,000 fans expected at the game, is going through a metal detector. And earlier today, just about 45 minutes ago, I spoke to one gentleman, he told me from the time he got off his trolley, and again, there's no parking here at the stadium, so everybody has to find a different mode of transportation. By the time he got off his trolley to the time that he made it through security, it was about one hour. But again, it varies depending on where you actually go through the line right now. The place that I can see from my vantage point, it's moving very quickly. As it gets closer to game time, there's a chance it could slow down a bit.
COLLINS: Josie, what kinds of things are they pulling people over for? I know some of the Raiders come decked out in pretty extreme costumes. What kind of people are you seeing pulled? Or have you seen anybody get pulled?
KARP: Well, from my vantage point, I haven't seen anyone physically get stopped and be told you have to take this off or you have to take that off, Sharon. But one of the interesting things you bring up, Raider Nation, the fan base for the Raiders, they have a reputation for dressing up, sometimes putting on extraordinary costumes that contain perhaps pieces of metal or something that could be construed as a weapon. And that's what these security officers are looking for.
As it pertains to the Raiders fans, they're going to do it on a case-by-case basis. If there's something on a costume that they think might be used as a weapon, they might have, and they have the authority to ask that person to remove that article of clothing. But again, in general, just the regular fans, the list of banned things is relatively obvious. I mean, they put it out, saying, hey, no explosives, things like that. Pretty obvious what you're not allowed to bring in, Sharon.
COLLINS: Is this kind of like going through airport security? And have you heard people complain? I would think it takes a little bit of the fun out of the whole deal.
KARP: Well, the one thing they have done here in San Diego is that they publicized this, they told people to get here early. They opened up the gates at 11:00 for a game that starts after 3:00 here in the Pacific Time zone. So people are prepared. And a lot of the folks that I talked to, it's the Super Bowl. They're in a good mood. They knew this was going to happen. And they're dealing with it and rolling with the punches, Sharon.
COLLINS: All right, Josie Karp in San Diego. Thanks for joining us, and I hope they let you in. Have a good time at the game.
KARP: I think I'll be all right.
COLLINS: Coming up, air quality sensors are now looking for biological weapons. Could they present -- or prevent a disaster?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Well, we have some good news. A child that was kidnapped this morning, a 10-month-old little baby was kidnapped in the car he was actually lying in, has been recovered, has been found. The Amber Alert has been canceled.
The vehicle and child were found in the city of Norwalk. The child is safe. Police in Compton, California, have canceled, again, an Amber Alert for a 10-month-old child. The vehicle has been recovered. The suspect is still outstanding but once again, that 10- month-old child that was reported missing this morning has been found. So, good news there.
Now, pollution-detecting equipment across the United States has become the latest tool in the fight against terror. Jeanne Meserve reports on environmental monitors that are now doing double duty.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For years they have detected carbon monoxide and other noxious pollutants. Now they'll detect the likes of anthrax and smallpox. Some environmental protection agency air quality monitoring stations in the nation's cities are being retrofitted to pick up releases of biological weapons. Since 9/11, medical surveillance systems have been expanded and improved to detect early any outbreaks of disease. But now filtering of the air and follow-up testing of the 120 CDC response laboratories could detect a bioweapon by 12 to 24 hours of its release.
PATRICK BREYSSE, ENVIRON HEALTH SCIENTIST: We can do a lot more for people if we detect it early in terms of removing people from potential exposure and also treating the people who are exposed more effectively.
MESERVE: The system is a newer generation of the monitoring system used at the Salt Lake City Olympics. Officials insist it is reliable, with a low rate of false positives and false negatives.
But because the monitoring stations are outside, they would not have detected the anthrax letters that went to Capitol Hill, or a bioweapons release an in closed space like a subway. Administration officials say there is no credible intelligence that al Qaeda has biological weapons. And although U.N. weapons inspectors are in Iraq searching for bioweapons, administration officials say the prospect of war is not why the new technology is being deployed. Nevertheless, a spokesman for the Office of Homeland Security says, we need to be prepared for all possibilities.
MESERVE (on camera): The administration will not say how many of these monitors are being deployed, or how many or what pathogens they can detect, because they don't want potential enemies to know the nation's capabilities or vulnerabilities.
Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: Now, like surveillance cameras, air monitors and radiation monitors are in a lot of places you might not think about. Some patients being treated with radioactive materials are finding this out the hard way. Endocrinologist Dr. Stephanie Lee joins us from our Boston bureau. Doctor, welcome. What kinds of patients would get in trouble with the radiation monitor?
DR. STEPHANIE LEE, ENDOCRINOLOGIST: Well, the radiation monitors can monitor any kind of radioactivity inside a patient. In fact, we use radiation both for diagnostic and for therapeutic reasons.
As an endocrinologist, I treat many patients with overactive thyroid conditions and with thyroid cancer with outpatient doses of radioactivity. And these will persist in the body for several weeks, and any of these patients could be picked up on a monitor. In fact, one of my colleagues had a patient who received a dose of radioactivity for an overactive conditions called Graves Disease. And because it was stored in the thyroid for several weeks, he was actually detected in the subway stations in New York City, and unfortunately had been strip searched at least twice because of looking for the presence of this radioactivity.
COLLINS: But if these monitors perhaps kept us from being attacked, or would stop someone with a weapon, I would think that they would serve a good purpose. Your point is that there should be some better way than having these people set off the alarm?
LEE: Well, the alarms are so sensitive that it will pick up both the therapeutic doses of radioactivity, and also diagnostic doses. We use -- for every patient who gets radioactive iodine, there are perhaps a hundred patients who get a diagnostic dose of radioactive, for a cardiac scan or bone scan. And in fact, there will be perhaps 250 to one million patients a year who will have these radioactive treatments. I think that it will cause a great deal of concern, both on the parts of the police people who are have been given the charge to look for radioactivity, and they will be stopping a lot of people. And the question is, how can we allow patients to receive these very safe doses of radioactivity, but not create a great deal of concern and problems on the part of the people monitoring for radioactivity.
COLLINS: All right, Dr. Stephanie Lee, thank you very much for your time. Obviously a concern for people already feeling at risk being treated with radiation or being diagnosed with some illness.
Now coming up, Kevin Metnick served his time for computer crimes, and now he's out and back online. We are going to talk to him live when we come back. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Well, using a little CNN technology, you're seeing video from the USS Constellation. These are live pictures from the USS Constellations in the Persian Gulf. These guys are having their own Super Bowl party. Like the rest of you will be having later on. Again, that was the USS Constellation, have a good time, guys.
Now, making technology news this week, experts say the September 11 attack on the Pentagon could have been much more deadly if the building hadn't been constructed so solidly. The American of Society of Civil Engineers says reinforced steel and other elements built into the building decades ago saved many lives. According to the report when the Boeing 757 tore into the building at more than 500 miles per hour, only the immediate area collapsed.
A new NASA satellite is off on a mission to soak up some sunshine. The source satellite, that's short for solar radiation and climate experiment, was launched on a Pegasus rocket from a carrier jet yesterday afternoon. It carried four instruments to study the sun's influence on the climate. Scientists hope to learn more about which climate changes are natural and which ones are caused by human activity.
A San Francisco area engineer launched a new kind of submarine this week. The craft called the Deep Flight Aviator took a spin in the waters of San Francisco Bay on Thursday. Inventor Graham Hawks says his two-seater sub is unlike any previous submersible. It flies through the water using wings and thrusters like a plane rather than using ballasts to go up and down. Hawks hopes his invention will have how to make underwater exploration accessible to more people.
Now, since Friday night, a fast spreading bandwidth clogging computer worm called the SQL Slammer is causing worldwide havoc. Thousands of Bank of America ATMs stopped working on Saturday, and Internet traffic slowed. South Korea's major Internet providers briefly shut down. It briefly knocked CNN's computers for a loop. Now some say it is the most damaging Internet attack since the Code Red worm 18 months ago.
Now, Kevin Metnick was perhaps the world's best-known hacker before his arrest in 1995. After completing nearly a five-year prison stretch in 2000 he's really free. Free to go back online by the terms of his probation. Kevin joins us now from Los Angeles. Kevin, welcome to our show, and welcome back on the web.
KEVIN METNICK, RETIRED HACKER: Very nice to be here, Sharon. Thank you.
COLLINS: When we talked earlier, and you don't think this kind of worm that we're seeing today is your traditional computer hacker?
METNICK: No. Usually hackers, at least the ones I know of, I know the definition of a hacker, there's a lot of different definitions, but the person that would do something like this is kind of a malicious person. I'd really label the person as a computer vandal, not a person who tries to stretch technology and do innovative things.
COLLINS: Has this worm caught some folks with their pants down? Because you were telling me, they've known about this vulnerability.
METNICK: Yes. In fact, I was at the Black Cat Security conference last year in Las Vegas, and a renowned security researcher, David Litchfield (ph), is the one that found this vulnerability. He reported it to Microsoft. And Microsoft issued a patch. But sometimes companies and people aren't vigilant in applying these patches. And the attackers have taken this exploit and they wrote some code around it to be able to penetrate any computer system that's running Microsoft SQL server that isn't patched.
COLLINS: OK, let's talk about your book for a minute. Because I read most of it over the last couple of days. And I came away from with it with the feeling that you can't trust anyone. I mean, what you're telling me in this book that, a lot of the ways people get information from computers is by calling somebody on the phone and simply asking for key passwords and things like that.
METNICK: Yes. There's a misconception that industrial spies, private investigators, computer hackers only exploit technology like this Saphire worm is doing. Hackers also exploit people. Trusted people within companies, within government agencies, to give them the keys to the kingdom.
COLLINS: I was laughing earlier, there was one little scenario you had in your book about how to get out of a traffic ticket. Not that I would need such a thing. METNICK: Of course not.
COLLINS: But you bring up a good point. And that is, you know, if you have the schedule of the arresting officer, then you just make sure you show up in court when he's on duty someplace else. Now, how do people get into a police station and get information like that?
METNICK: Well, you don't need to get into a police station. It's just a matter of knowing the process of how the court subpoena officers, and then finding out the process that happens, that there's a subpoena control clerk. And then a social engineer, and the term is called social engineering, which is basically using manipulation and deception to get people to comply with requests, and calling the subpoena clerk, and using some sort of a pretext that you're an attorney, and you need the officer's schedule to subpoena him on a case, and then you try to schedule your court trial on a different date. And it's kind of -- what we call a social engineering attack.
Many companies invest thousands of dollars in security technologies like firewalls, intrusion detection systems, biometric authentication, and all it takes is a hacker to use social engineering and call just one trusted person within that company, and that will bypass any type of technology, and essentially thousands of dollars could be wasted unless the people are trained within the organization about these type of attacks.
COLLINS: All right. Kevin Metnick, thank you so much. I certainly will not trust anyone who calls me for any information ever again.
METNICK: You shouldn't -- you shouldn't take the position that you can't trust anyone. What you have to do is be aware, and use common sense.
COLLINS: All right. Again, Kevin Metnick, thank you so much.
METNICK: Thank you.
COLLINS: And I guess this is a good lesson for informing all of your employees, not just the ones at the top of the chain.
Now coming up in our next half hour, is military training hamstrung by environmental regulations? We will some from strong opinions on both sides. But first a quick break and a check of the latest headlines. Stick around.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWSBREAK)
COLLINS: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN. Environmentalists are up in arms these days because the military wants to roll back some eco- regulations. Green groups claim this is just an excuse to change major environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act. But the Pentagon says this is a matter of national security.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RAYMOND DUBOIS, DEPARTMENT OF THE UNDERSECRETARY OF DEFENSE: We have, granted, some anecdotal evidence. But I've talked to some of the young troops who have come back from Afghanistan, who, quite frankly, had to learn how to dig fighting holes when they got to Afghanistan because they didn't have an opportunity to do it at Camp Pendleton.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Joining us live from Washington now are Jeff Ruch from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, and Jack Spencer from The Heritage Foundation.
Gentlemen, welcome. Jeff, let's start with you. You heard Mr. Dubois' comments. If environmental laws interfere with training soldiers, why not relax the regulations?
JEFF RUCH, PEER: Well, first of all, as he pointed out, there's at best only anecdotal evidence for that. And given that the military has 25 to 30 million acres in this country, an area about the size of the state of Georgia, the notion that they have no place for troops to dig holes is kind of hard to believe.
Congress asked the GAO to look at this question, and GAO concluded while there is evidence that there are inconveniences, what they call in the military work-arounds, there was no evidence that the readiness of a single unit of any service was at all diminished by environmental regulations. The notion that whales and wildlife are a threat to national security is absurd. And it raises sort of the dangerous kind of mindset that national defense requires destroying what it is you're trying to defend.
COLLINS: Jack, what about that? I mean they've got millions and millions of acres. They can't get around the environmental regulations and still train the soldiers?
JEFF SPENCER, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Well, it's just not true. The fact of the matter is while the military does have a lot of land, it's not all used for training, only a small portion of that is. And a lot of that which is available for training has very strict restrictions on it for what kind of training can be used and when that training can be done.
The fact of the matter is that while there are -- or that there are strict environmental regulations that are very -- that had to do with simply making certain wildlife that are -- that is protected annoyed. So if any sort of activity simply annoys a whale or a certain kind of bird, then that particular activity cannot move forward.
And saying that the military wants to wipe out any particular species or type of plant simply isn't true. What the military, what the armed forces are looking to do, is simply to come up with a compromise because what's happening is that as populations expand in the United States, it's forcing many of these species onto the regulated lands of the U.S. military. And what so often happens in the past, the U.S. military becomes that which becomes the focus of different social engineering type activities, because laws can be passed that dictate how the military behaves. And that's what's occurring here.
COLLINS: Well, Jack, let me interrupt you for a second. I mean the military does hold some of the most pristine, beautiful land in the United States.
SPENCER: That's true.
COLLINS: Is it really that hard to kind of work around these regulations?
SPENCER: To the point -- there are many examples where it is difficult to do that, where they can't conduct the training. Like in Vieques Island, for example, where because of a lot of environmental concerns there, which I think have been largely unfounded, no longer -- live fire-training can no longer be held there. And there are examples like this, not closing down the entire bases, as is going on in Vieques Island, but there are instances where this is becoming increasingly a problem. And there is evidence that it is a problem now.
But what we want to do is before we keep moving forward in this direction, certainly in a wartime setting as we are in now, let's come up with some compromises. There are places that compromises can be held, and that's all the Defense Department is looking for. They don't want to go out and use whales for target practice.
COLLINS: All right. Jeff Ruch -- Jeff, excuse me, I'm sorry, Jack. Why do compromises scare you?
RUCH: Actually, compromises don't scare us. As a matter of fact, the GAO report points out that the military has an awful lot of room to consolidate and coordinate activity, to address land use and other kinds of issues like that. And as a matter of fact, the Department of Defense doesn't even have an inventory for all of the ranges within its possession. So there are -- is a wide array of legal and logistical kind of combinations that can be made. But the notion that the Department of Defense is seeking to compromise is like suggesting that Sherman Tank is an economy vehicle.
COLLINS: Now, I'm told that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will take this to Congress on February 4 and 5. Is this a better likelihood from both of you that it will go through, that these environmental regulations will be dropped, or certainly compromised because of the potential war with Iraq?
SPENCER: I think it will, not necessarily because of the war with Iraq, but simply because it's a common-sense approach to our nation's security. And what we'll see is that environmental regulations won't be dropped and the military will not be allowed to go out and cut down redwood trees and things of that nature, as environmentalists might have us believe. But what you'll see is some sort of a method by which the military can put forth a plan to execute its own training while maintaining the integrity of a species of plant, or the certain land or something of that nature. And that's how the compromise I believe will emerge.
COLLINS: All right. We're almost out of time. Jeff, last word, very quickly, please.
RUCH: We're not just talking about wildlife. We're talking about people. At places like the Massachusetts Military Reservation, military munitions have contaminated the drinking supply for a million permanent residents and visitors. These are the kind of exemptions that are going to lead to more and more of those public health disasters. So it's not just the fury animals. It's the human animals that are at stake. And I think that's the reason that it's going to be a very, very difficult issue this year.
COLLINS: All right.
SPENCER: So it is the American people who are at stake. That's what we need to remember.
COLLINS: All right. Gentlemen, thank you again for joining us. Jeff Ruch and Jack Spencer. Thanks for both of you taking some time out of Sunday. And this will be debated in Congress, I'm sure.
Just ahead, the week's environmental news, including a reason for manatee lovers to smile. Stay can with us.
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COLLINS (voice-over): A dinosaur with wings on its feet and forearms. Even the researchers who discovered this in Western China couldn't believe dinosaurs with four wings. Xing Xu and his team studied more than six of these fossils before adding a new species to the dinosaur family tree.
Published in the "Journal of Nature," it's little for a dino. Its body is about the size of an eagle, has a very long tail. Its name, Microraptor gui. Gui could be the dinosaur that evolved into modern day birds. Xu thinks that unlike its closer relative, Velociraptors on the run in Jurassic Park, Gui didn't run fast enough to live on the ground but probably lived in trees and glided from branch to branch using its tail for balance and occasionally, flapping its wings. It couldn't fly like a bird, but with wings on its feet, it could soar.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is a possibility that this was a hoax.
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COLLINS: In environment news this week a downtown fossil. Students from the University of Arkansas dug up the world's largest known fossil of an ancient squid-like creature. They were looking for fossils besides a drainage ditch in downtown Fayetteville near Interstate 540. The students hoped to find fossils a few inches long, maybe a foot. But the one they turned up was nine feet long. It's a creature called a nautaloid. And in case you're wondering, what is now Arkansas was under water 300 million years ago.
A submarine is sealing the cracks in the hull of a tanker, which sank off the Spanish coast. The Prestige went down in November carrying more than 20 million gallons of oil. Nearly half that cargo is believed to have leaked out already. Salvage experts hope to close all the cracks in the wrecked ship by early February.
And a new agreement aimed to cut the death toll of Florida's cute but ugly manatees. Ninety-five of the slow-moving mammals died in boat accidents last year. The deal between environmentalists and the federal government will lead to slower speed limits and tighter enforcement in Florida's waterway to protect the few thousand remaining manatees.
Now just ahead, when medical treatments that are supposed to help do harm instead. The repercussions can go on for decades. A tragic example when we come back.
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COLLINS: On Tuesday, a court in Toronto, Canada, is expected to set a trial date for an American pharmaceutical firm facing prosecution in the AIDS tragedy of the 1980s. CNN investigative correspondent, Art Harris, has an exclusive report.
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ART HARRIS, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Canada, white crosses left in past protests to mark victims of bad blood, among them, hundreds of hemophiliacs who caught AIDS in the 1980s from the blood of strangers. One victim, a 15-year-old boy, growing up in a small town outside Vancouver.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was a strong fellow. He was a good student.
BRUCE LEMER, VICTIM'S LAWYER: Yes, he was one of the sorts of kids that would have achieved something. And makes it all the more painful to see someone cut down.
HARRIS: To prevent uncontrolled bleeding, hemophiliacs use what's called clotting factor. It's made from the plasma of thousands of blood donors. Because the plasma is mixed together, one bad donor can contaminate a whole batch.
By the mid '80s, Armour Pharmaceutical, like other blood suppliers in the U.S., had begun using heat to try to kill the AIDS virus. Now scientists thought hemophiliacs would be safe, but...
DR. ALFRED PRINCE, NEW YORK BLOOD CENTER: We found that that particular heat sterilization process was not very effective.
HARRIS: Armour was heating its product less than half as long as its competitors. When Dr. Fred Prince was hired as an outside researcher to run tests for Armour, he found the shorter time failed to kill all the AIDS virus.
PRINCE: I felt it was almost certainly not reliable.
HARRIS: Armour officials met in 1985 to go over his findings. Records show the company was hesitant to spend the money to lengthen its heating process and was worried it might lose business in Canada and elsewhere. Armour called the test failures preliminary results. Its files show company VP, Michael Rodel (ph), said it would be unwise to notify the government until Armour's testing was complete. In Mike's view, the issue is not one of regulation but rather marketing.
In 1987 a doctor at this hospital in Vancouver was shocked to discover six of his hemophiliac patients had been exposed to AIDS. All but one were children. The youngest was 5, others 10, 13, 15.
LEMER: There wasn't anyone amongst the group that wasn't basic salt of the earth sort of people.
HARRIS: Half of those Vancouver patients are now dead. Each one, a Canadian investigation found, was using the Armour clotting factor that research had indicated was not fully sterilized. A decade and a half later, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has filed charges against Armour, its former VP and three Canadian officials. This is the first time an American company has ever faced prosecution in a case like this. It's accused of criminal negligence, causing bodily harm to three Vancouver-area victims, including the small-town youth who died.
Armour Pharmaceutical in a statement called the charges "unfair and unjustified." It said it expects both the company and Dr. Rodel (ph) to be acquitted. The names of the Vancouver patients have been kept secret through the years.
LEMER: They were mortally afraid of being identified because of the stigma that surrounded AIDS at the time.
HARRIS: In the court papers they're only listed by initials, like J.A., who was 13 when he caught AIDS.
LEMER: He came from a small town in British Columbia. He loved the outdoors, just a nice guy.
HARRIS (on camera): A decade ago in a civil lawsuit, J.A. was asked what lay ahead in life. His answer, "I have no future." But J.A. has survived and now plans to break the silence of the past and testify against Armour when the case comes to trial, probably later this year.
Art Harris, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE) COLLINS: Joining us now from Montreal is David Page, the blood safety coordinator for the Canadian Hemophilia Society.
David, thank you for joining us today. How did this ever get to court?
DAVID PAGE, CANADIAN HEMOPHILIA SOCIETY: Well, back in 1987, a group of Canadian hemophiliacs decided never again -- this shouldn't happen again. And after much pressure, we obtained a royal commission of inquiry, called the Weaver Commission in 1993. And in 1997 it made its report, made findings of fact that there were many wrong doings and that led eventually to an RCMP investigation, which led to the charges.
COLLINS: Now, I would imagine anyone who needs blood right now is wondering, are things OK now? Are people in Canada, and for that matter, in the U.S., safe now?
PAGE: Well, we have to think about first factor concentrates and then other products. Factor concentrates are extremely safe today whether they're recombinant or plasma drives. So I think people could be -- can be very confident in those products today. In terms of other blood products, well, they can never be perfectly safe. There are new problems all the time, and we've seen that recently with the West Nile Virus.
COLLINS: Now, will this case come to trial even though the statute of limitations at least in the U.S., I would think, would have run out some time ago?
PAGE: Well, the statute of limitations has run out in Canada, too, for certain charges such as manslaughter. But it hasn't run out for lesser charges such as reckless endangerment.
COLLINS: And will there be more charges in this case?
PAGE: According to the RMCP, there could be more charges. We don't know who or for what reasons, but it's certainly possible.
COLLINS: All right. David Page, thank you very much for joining us. We will certainly follow this case.
PAGE: You're very welcome.
COLLINS: When we come back, we'll talk with high school scientists and find out why and how they put ants -- yes, ants -- on the space shuttle. Stay with us.
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COLLINS (voice-over): Twenty-six thousand light years from here in the center of our Milky Way, there appears to be a large black hole called Sagittarius A, experiencing some indigestion. Analyzing x-ray data from the space-orbiting observatory, Chandra, MIT scientists pinpointed what appears to be a star being gobbled up by the giant black hole. Apparently, it's not going down easy.
Scientists say those bright spots in the center indicate it's burping up some of the gases. Even though no one has ever seen a black hole, scientists say the behavior of stars around them indicate they do exist. And this one in the center of our Milky Way, they say, is a doozey, three million times the mass of our sun.
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COLLINS: The Shuttle Columbia is circling 150 miles overhead right now carrying some tiny passengers that usually don't travel more than a fraction of an inch off the ground. We're talking about ants. Two of the high school students responsible for the experiment join us now from Syracuse, New York.
Abby Golash and Rachel Poppe, do I have that right?
RACHEL POPPE, SENIOR, FOWLER HIGH SCHOOL: Yes.
ABBY GOLASH, SENIOR, FOWLER HIGH SCHOOL: Yes.
COLLINS: How did you guys pull this off? How did you get ants on a space shuttle?
GOLASH: Well, actually, what we did is it started as a normal high school science project. We were both told by our teachers that we could go -- we could have a project with NASA. And we started when we were freshmen and we're seniors now. So it's been a long...
COLLINS: Why did it take so long?
POPPE: There were 19 delays. Most of them where there were problems with the shuttle. Our latest delay was actually when we were in Florida. We thought there was a problem with the ball in the shuttle, but we finally went off.
COLLINS: Now, what do you hope to find out? Now, I had an ant farm here at CNN and all the ants died. So I don't know if it was me or the ants. Are they hard to keep alive and what are you trying to accomplish with this experiment?
POPPE: We chose harvester ants, which are very hearty. So we were hoping they wouldn't die. We're trying to see if the ants will tunnel differently in microgravity. We're not sure what they would have done -- they have tunneled incredibly differently than we had thought. We thought they were going to tunnel smaller in microgravity. But they have been going very, very fast.
COLLINS: Warp speed?
GOLASH: Definitely.
COLLINS: Now, this is going to look great on your resume. Where do you hope to go from this? I mean, your high school seniors. Have you decided what you want to do? GOLASH: Actually, out of the two of us, I'm the only one who wants to go in science. I plan on being a botanist. And although, I can't say this has really changed the direction I want to go in science, it's definitely helped define the experience.
POPPE: I have the same sort of feeling. I've always loved science, but I'm not heading toward a science career. I would like to report on science as a broadcast journalist.
COLLINS: Oh, girlfriend, we need to talk. Now, tell me, have you chosen schools to continue in?
GOLASH: Yes, I actually am going to Cornell next fall.
POPPE: I have applied to Syracuse University. I'm hoping to go there.
COLLINS: Would either of you like to go into space eventually?
GOLASH: I can't say that space appeals to me. I would like to work in space science, but I think I'd stay on the ground.
POPPE: I think going into space would be awesome. I've never put too much thought into it, but I think it would be very, very cool.
COLLINS: Have you gotten to speak with people in NASA? I mean have you really been involved?
POPPE: Yes, we've spoken to Sean O'Keefe, who is the administrator of NASA. He's like the top dog, so to speak. And he came to our school and we met him again in Florida. We actually got to sit in the VIP section with him as the launch went off.
COLLINS: Now, what happens to the ants when they come home?
GOLASH: What will happen is we don't actually get to touch them after they come back, February 1, when the shuttle lands. Space Lab and BioServe (ph) who were our big supporters when it came to the experiment will actually take them and they'll process them and then send us a CD-ROM of data to look over that we'll be able to look over and make a report on.
POPPE: Right now, we can see all of the ants tunneling on the Web site. There's -- Starsacademy.com/sts107 has all of the results and everyone can go to that and see the data as we're seeing it.
COLLINS: Repeat that again because I think that would be fun to see.
POPPE: Www.starsacademy.com/sts107.
COLLINS: And is there any cool, funky things about ants that you guys found out that most of us don't know? Well, these ants bite, and it really hurts. You don't think of ants as violent creatures, but they hurt. COLLINS: Space ants that bite. Somehow that sounds like a bad B movie. All right, Abby Golash and Rachel Poppe, good luck to you both in your future, and thanks for joining us today.
POPPE: Thank you.
GOLASH: Thank you.
COLLINS: All right. That's all the time we have. I'm Sharon Collins and thanks for joining us. Next week, could that lunch box staple, the banana, go extinct? We'll talk with a scientist who says it could happen. Hope you can join us then.
Now, just ahead an update on our top news stories followed by "SHOWDOWN: IRAQ, THE WEAPONS REPORT," CNN's special coverage of the rapidly changing situation as tomorrow's U.N. weapons inspector report approaches. It's followed at 7:00 by "PEOPLE IN THE NEWS" profiling chief inspector Hans Blix.
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