Privacy a Casualty in War on Terror?; Italian Authorities Arrest London Bombing Suspect
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everyone. Glad to have you with us tonight. Tonight, we deal with national security. Is your privacy about to become a casualty of the war on terror?</s>ZAHN (voice-over): Lesson from London. It's tough to stop a terrorist using a fake name and a phony background. Tonight, the first in our series, scanning, Big Brother watching. How much privacy would you give up to be safe at home? What if your child crossed this border and disappeared without a trace? It happened more than 40 times in the last year.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would call it epidemic.</s>ZAHN: Why is this town so dangerous for Americans? And from dazzling diva to tabloid target.</s>BOBBY BROWN, MUSICIAN: Me and her were playing. And she took it wrong. I took it wrong. And then the 911 people took it wrong.</s>ZAHN: Our exclusive interview with Bobby Brown, as he and his wife Whitney Houston tried to ride their reality show back to the top.</s>ZAHN: Terror is where we begin tonight, first the latest on the London attacks. Late today, police in South London arrested two men in connection with the failed bombings on July 21. Earlier, Italian authorities charged one of the July 21 suspects with terrorism. So far, investigators haven't been able to tie the failed bombings to the deadly July 7 attacks. And that is anything but reassuring. Here's Matthew Chance.</s>MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): London remains a city on edge, police on heightened alert, concerned a third terror cell may be intent on bombing the British capital. Less than a month since more than 50 passengers were killed on the city's transport system, even though the key arrests have been made, people seem to need the reassurance of increased visible security. Police in Italy say the suspected bomber they've now charged with international terrorism had been living in Britain under a false name, is in fact an Ethiopian, Hamdi Ados (ph) Isaac. He earlier identified as Hussain Ahmed Osman of Somalia, the name on his son's British birth certificate. Isaac was arrested in Rome, as co-suspects in Britain were detained in raids across West London. He was traced through cell phone calls, including to Saudi Arabia, where authorities are investigating further links. At least one call was recorded, Italian police matching it to a sample from their British counterparts.</s>CARLO DE STEFANO, ITALIAN ANTI-TERROR POLICE: It's turned out that the voice of the suspect was exactly the same as the voice recording which we received from the Metropolitan Police. So, we were more or less convinced that this was one and the same person.</s>CHANCE: Isaac's defense lawyer says he has told police the failed attacks in London on July 21 were meant to scare, not to kill and that he's linked to neither the July 7 bombers, nor the al Qaeda network. That issue is central to the investigation.</s>DE STEFANO: You have to realize that we're confronted here with facts which have to do with what seems to us to be more like an impromptu or informal group, rather than some kind of well-organized terrorist network.</s>CHANCE: And while police forensic experts try to determine whether the two London attacks were in fact linked, security analysts say the idea isolated groups carried out separate bombings is provoking concern.</s>CRISPIN BLACK, SECURITY ANALYST: I think most people would accept, better to have two cells that are connected in some way, because then you have unraveled the whole plot. Than you've got a handle on what is going on, rather than two possible completely different groups of people, both emerging with the same sort of fiendish techniques, both at about the same sort of time, and both with the same sort of aims, but they have developed completely separately. That would suggest that there are other groups of these people gestating, if you like, somewhere within our society.</s>CHANCE: And while high-profile police patrols are aimed, at least in part, at easing public concerns, there may also be a last line of defense against a threat authorities here still don't fully understand.</s>ZAHN: Matthew Chance joins us now. And we want to more fully understand the arrests of earlier this evening. Two more folks in custody, are they related to any of the other suspects being held?</s>CHANCE: Well, according to the police, Paula, they are, yes. They were arrested in south London suburb of Stratham (ph), under the Prevention of Terrorism Act in this country, in connection with the July 21 bombings, bringing to 20 the number of people now held in police custody in connection to those series alone, including of course the four main suspects, the four main suspected bombers -- Paula.</s>ZAHN: So, Matthew, are they giving investigators anything that's helpful?</s>CHANCE: Well, in terms of the three main suspects, the main bombers that are being held in British custody, they're being interrogated. They're being held at the Paddington Green high- security police station here in Central London. But, Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the London police force, are being absolute adamant that they're not going to give a running commentary on what is being talked about in this interrogations. These are still top-secret talks. They say they're preparing a prosecution. And so, all this evidence has to be held in secret at the moment. It's a very different story, as we reporting there, from Italy, where that one suspect is being held by the Italian police there. We're getting all sorts of information trickling out to us about what he believes the attacks were for, who he was or wasn't associated with. It's a very different situation when it comes to that suspect -- Paula.</s>ZAHN: Well, we're hoping that all a great assist to investigators who are working around the clock there. Matthew Chance, thanks so much for the update. Appreciate it. Back home here, do you feel like you're being watched, being examined more than ever before? Well, no wonder. After 9/11 and now even more after the London bombings, we have grown use to policeman with automatic weapons, security cameras just about everywhere, our bags being searched. So where it is all headed? Do we need more security or is Big Brother already here? We're looking at that this week in a special "Security Watch" series called safe at home. Now, take a look at these numbers from a new CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll. First, a shocking result. More than half of all of us say that Arab Americans should be singled out for special security checks before getting on planes. What that means, an awful lot of us in the United States favor some kind of racial profiling when it comes to our security. Also, close to 80 percent of us want airport-style security, you know, bag searches, metal detectors, for subways and buses and trains. And 81 percent of us favor sending everyone who goes into office buildings through metal detectors. Looks like a lot of support for tighter security. Here's more of what we can expect from Tom Foreman.</s>TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the four years since the world came to face greater fears, greater forces, greater security, Lisa Casmer (ph) has accepted one thing above all else.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The world has changed a lot. It's a difference place to live.</s>FOREMAN: Living and working near Washington, D.C., she watches America's security revolution up close. And she doesn't always like it.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have to worry every time I go anywhere about emptying my pocket and having somebody look at everything that I have and look through my purse. (on camera): Some people say we just have to put up with this and it's worth it.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To some extent, I definitely agree. But, like I said, I think that there is such a thing as too much, as excessive.</s>FOREMAN: But jumps forward five to 15 years and security analysts say most Americans will be in for a lot more. Commuting, count on cameras. Experts say the millions of police and private surveillance cameras already at work will be increasingly watched by computers. So, if you circle a government building too many times, license plate recognition could give police instant pictures and a map of everywhere else you have been, then match that with your driver's license, cell phone, Internet and credit records.</s>JAMES LEWIS, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: There are some really big gaps in our security.</s>FOREMAN: Jim Lewis is with the Center For Strategic and International Studies.</s>LEWIS: We're seeing some of these things tested for power plants, where cameras will notice if a car is driving around, if someone appears to be in a vehicle and surveilling the plant.</s>FOREMAN: At some offices and large public places, biometric systems are already becoming more common, scanning eyes or fingerprints to guard access to buildings and especially computers. Sophisticated I.D. badges designed to thwart counterfeiting are also growing in use at work and at schools. And more contain radio tracking devices to record your location every second, again matching your electronic record with any suspicious activity. The use of sophisticated software to do data mining is already something that the private sector is doing. And it will be natural to look for solutions in antiterrorism there as well.</s>FOREMAN: The biggest challenge is public transportation because it involves so many people moving so rapidly. Today, security is obvious at most hubs, with police sometimes armed with machine guns making their presence known. Bomb dogs, random bags searches. And experts are promoting more of all of this in the name of future safety. In a dozen years, they say, when you enter many train stations, subways or airports, you will walk through built-in biohazard, bomb and weapon detectors. Even highly advanced X-rays that look through your clothing may become cost-effective. No wonder, in the rush to security, privacy experts say American laws, written long before such technology, much also be scrutinized.</s>CEDRIC LAURANT, ELECTRONIC PRIVACY INFORMATION CENTER: The problem is that there no privacy framework in place that specifies what's going to happen with that data, for which purpose it could be used.</s>FOREMAN: ... electronic data.</s>LAURANT: Who will get access to it.</s>FOREMAN (on camera): Still, the Security Industry Association says, while, right now, the nation's security infrastructure is like an unfinished building, with bare beams and wires hanging everywhere, over the next decades, it will be completed. And in the process it will largely disappear. (voice-over): So much so, that they dream of a day when at the airports you will be so thoroughly scanned, identified tracked walking through the building that you'll get right on to your plane. Lisa Casmer can't wait, because right now, the endless of talk of terror and security is unsettling.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That it definitely makes people more aware.</s>FOREMAN: And when she turns on the news each evening, though she knows she is safer, she doesn't always feel that way.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're starting to see a pattern here.</s>ZAHN: Very scary prospect to think about. Tom Foreman joins us now. Tom, I think the bottom line is, we all want to be safe. But I'm not so sure that we're all that comfortable not knowing how our privacy will be protected down the road. Your expert raised the question about who is going to have access to this information. Do we know?</s>FOREMAN: We don't really know. And even a lot of the people who are behind all of this technology are saying, we really have to look at our laws, because this is technology we never dreamed of. Nobody thought you could connect all of these things instantaneously and pull it up just because somebody drove past your building. That is one of the concerns. Now, on the positive side, they say, so far, we're able to do a lot of this anyway. And a lot of industry is doing this. And horrible things don't see to be happening every day with our private information. But as the country gets concerned about identity theft as this technology gets better, there's a war coming to a head over this whole thing. And you know this one thing, Paula. No matter where you go to school, to work, on the highways, to the airport, to a ball game, you're going to be watched in the future.</s>ZAHN: And, of course, the other issue you raised at the very top was the issue of profiling as well, which is a big concern to a lot of folks. Tom Foreman, thank you for walking us into the future. Coming up, a mystery, how could a young American woman just blocks from the U.S. border vanish without a trace?</s>DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: I can see the American flag from here.</s>WILLIAM SLEMAKER, FATHER OF MISSING WOMAN: Yes, she was not far at all. It's very unfortunate that she didn't make it from such a close distance.</s>ZAHN: Stay with us and visit a frightening, lawless no-man's land. And, unbelievably, it's just steps from our border.