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CNN Saturday Morning News

Reporter's Notebook

Aired June 29, 2002 - 09:33   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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: All right, time now for our Reporter's Notebook. With beefed-up patrols as the July 4th holiday approaches, we're focusing on homeland security. And you can continue to e-mail us. Actually we've got plenty of e-mails, I'm not going to lie to you, OK? We're good on e-mails. But you can call us, we can put that number up once again, 404-221-1855.

Joining us from Washington to answer your questions is CNN security analyst Kelly McCann.

Hi again, Kelly.

KELLY MCCANN, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: Hi, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right, we're going to get right down to business here. Actually let's go to a phone call first, OK? Bob on the line from Virginia. Bob, what's your question?

CALLER: Good morning to both of you. My question is basically a short and sweet one. What can the public expect -- traveling public expect this week in the way of security, i.e., flying, traveling by train, or traveling by car this 4th of July week for security reasons? What can we expect?

MCCANN: Good question, Bob. I think what you can expect is that all the agencies involved will try to keep it as transparent as possible. However, there probably will be some heightened restrictive measures. So I would expect a little bit more probably than average congestion, and a little longer than average lines. But to the extent possible, they're certainly going to try to keep people traveling.

PHILLIPS: All right, Kelly, here's e-mail number one. This comes from Henry in Washington. "The doctrine of posse comitatus (ph) prohibits the U.S. military from operating in domestic territory. Yet you are reporting that the Air Force will patrol U.S. air space on the July 4th holiday, even though no declared war exists. What is the reason that the U.S. military is not employed to patrol our borders on a regular basis?"

MCCANN: Another good question. There are exceptions to posse comitatus in singular exceptions, and those have to be validated, et cetera. That is a big blue-arrow question, Why don't we patrol the borders? Course, you know that the length of the border between Mexico and the U.S. and the Canada and the U.S. is very, very difficult to control any other way.

And if you think about an individual who means to use that porosity to get across, man packed, et cetera, be very difficult to control.

So I think that in the future, we'll probably be discussing that issue at length.

PHILLIPS: All right. On the phone, Sonia from Georgia. What's your question, Sonia?

CALLER: Good morning. As we receive reports of posed threats, possible threats, and so forth, I think it's very easy for us to become desensitized to all of this. What do you think the answer is, that we expect less reporting from the media on possibilities? Or that, as the American public we remain alert 100 percent-plus of the time? It's a bit confusing, and I'd like your thoughts on that, please.

MCCANN: Sonia, the most difficult thing to do when you go to a hostile area to protect people, for instance, is to maintain that vigilance. We have a saying in that work which is, We do the work. In other words, it is very difficult to maintain a heightened level of vigilance.

However, the cost for not doing it is too extreme. So in fact, I think this is the new landscape, and people should not be desensitized as much as they should incorporate throughout their day-to-day routine against violent criminals who you're still much more at risk by, and other things that are suspicious, a generally higher security posture, and we'll all get through this thing.

PHILLIPS: Here's an interesting idea, e-mail number two. Gerry from Colorado, "Could a controlled and limited electronic bulletin board be established to report sightings of possible terrorist movement or concerns?" He goes on to say on May 18 he saw a white Cadillac full of suspicious-looking people all dressed heading south on I-25 through Colorado. He wrote down the license number. However, nowhere to log this information. "I know this could be a completely bogus sighting, but... "

MCCANN: Sure, and the issue goes to, in fact, the administration had spoken a couple of weeks ago about how difficult it was to handle, funnel, channel, all of the kinds of information that is coming in.

TO the extent possible, that would be a great idea, a bulletin board or other things. And I think you're going to see that coming, because we can't dissuade the public from doing that. In fact, you all are the eyes and ears of the nation, and are a force multiplier for the police and the military.

So they're wrestling with that issue. It's a volume question. But another good question.

PHILLIPS: All right. And here's another one from Ed, "Why aren't our American police more aggressive in an effort to get illegals out of our country and keeping undesirables away from the U.S.?"

MCCANN: Age-old question, and one that begs, you know, why the wood shampoo went away, which is the old baton to the head. I mean, the bottom line is, is that we are now in an age where things that are aggressive and things that even protect police officers are very carefully watched. Every time you take a step towards a more aggressive posture, it will be questioned by the other 50 percent of the public that is not OK with increased security measures.

Now, interestingly, there was a poll done by the Williamsburg Foundation or Williams Found -- Williamsburg Foundation, and they said that fully 50 percent of the American people are OK with lessened rights and broader scope given to the FBI for more security. The other 50 percent was not.

So again, it's one of those issues.

PHILLIPS: All right. This e-mail coming from SLB, "Please address the Bush cabinet post and departmental reorganization. It is just window dressing. He proposed it in response to the failings of the FBI and CIA becoming public that these organizations are not included in the new department. Why are the FBI, CIA not included?"

MCCANN: Some have said that the structure of this is very, very similar to the Rudman-Hart commission findings that were in 1999, with a couple of exceptions. When Mr. Ridge explained it in front of Congress, he was careful to state that his office would not be responsible for connecting the dots completely in a box, that the CIA would continue to connect their dots, that the FBI would connect their dots, and that the homeland department of security would connect their dots, and then they'd see what matched.

I'm not sure that that was the answer everybody was looking for.

There's an awful lot of dupliciousness in the government. And probably the best step first would be to get rid of some of that dupliciousness so that it has one central place to go.

This structure is going to be wrestled in Congress, let there be no doubt about that, so I don't think we have an answer for that yet.

PHILLIPS: Kelly, this is coming across the computer right now out of New York. Deanna's asking, "Why does the government release certain information to the media, such as where security is at the highest level? This just gives away to the terrorists, terrorist attacks because the terrorists will know our weak spots."

MCCANN: Hi, Dan (ph). The bottom line is, is, you don't know what you don't know. And in fact, for everything that's released, there are many, many other things that are not released. So in fact, they would never open themselves to a vulnerability as much as they would maybe try to cannelize (ph) effort. In other words, the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- terrorists may not be stupid, but like all people, they're lazy, more or less, and will seek the path of least resistance. They want to promote the capabilities so they have the best chance of success. If it's known that there is heightened security at a particular place, in fact it could actually push them somewhere else, or it could dissuade them altogether. So that information that's released has been screened by many offices before it's released.

PHILLIPS: All right. CNN security analyst Kelly McCann, always a pleasure. Thanks for your insight today, Kelly.

MCCANN: Thanks, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: And happy 4th of July.

MCCANN: You as well.

PHILLIPS: All right.

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