September 11 Audio Tapes Released
WHITIFIELD: Now in the news, violence flared in Baghdad today as political leaders met to try to hammer out a new constitution. An Iraqi soldier was shot dead and a civilian was killed in a bombing. President Bush isn't ruling out military force to halt Iran's nuclear program. Just this week, Iran resumed work with uranium at one facility after rejecting incentives from Europe to stop, President Bush tells Israeli television that force is the last option but it is an option nonetheless. And Cuban President Fidel Castro turns 79 today. The world's longest ruling leader has been in power now for 47 years. State-run newspapers splashed news of the big event across their front pages. People in New York and across the nation are reliving some of the horrors of the 9/11 attacks. CNN's Mary Snow reports on the audio tapes released yesterday.</s>MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): September 11th from the voices of firefighters. 8:46 a.m., tower one of the World Trade Center is hit.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The World Trade Center tower number one is on fire.</s>SNOW: A radio call from battalion one, two blocks from the Twin Towers.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tell all units - it could be a terrorist act.</s>SNOW: At times, bursts of activity on the radio. At other times, lapses of silence. There were calls for every available ambulance and every off-duty firefighter to come to the scene. Other times, there is chaos and desperate pleas for help like this man whose identity is unknown.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can anybody hear me? I'm a civilian. I'm trapped inside one of the fire trucks underneath the collapse that just happened. I can't breathe much longer. Save me. I'm in the cab of your truck.</s>SNOW: Victims' families and others who pushed to make the transmissions public say while the tapes are painful, they are necessary to find out exactly what happened that day.</s>CAPT. AL FUENTES, RETIRED NY FIREFIGHTER: I just listened to a couple of videos, a couple of audio tapes, and probably it was the hardest time since 9/11. I listened to my men, I listened to my friends. But I have to tell you and I've always felt that was our finest day as firefighters.</s>SNOW: But 343 firefighters died that day and questions remain about whether more would have survived if they were warned the towers might fall.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The north tower is leaning north. All operations are being moved north of the tower. They're afraid of another collapse.</s>SNOW: But that message didn't get to everyone due to problems with radio transmissions.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Urgent, urgent.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody get out, we had a collapse of the second tower. Everybody is running from there.</s>SNOW: Mary Snow, CNN, New York.</s>WHITFIELD: Several controversial provisions of the PATRIOT Act expire this fall. Both houses of Congress have passed renewals but key differences must still be worked out among the House and Senate version. Federal agents say they need the PATRIOT Act to fight an enemy who hides in plain sight. Justice correspondent Kelli Arena takes a look in this CNN security watch report.</s>KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Reporter: it was here in Florida in a variety of small towns that September 11th hijacker Muhammad Atta rubbed shoulders with his American neighbors. He apparently didn't do much to raise suspicion and lived among us in virtual anonymity. Could there still be terrorists as dangerous as Atta living here? The answer, according to law enforcement experts is yes.</s>PAT D'AMURO, GIULIANI SECURITY AND SAFETY: We know there are home grown individuals here in this country that have the potential of causing damage to our national security.</s>ARENA: D'Amuro should know, he was a senior counterterrorism official with the FBI Until a short time ago. Our sources tell us there are at least 1,000 people under FBI surveillance at any given time that investigators believe could pose a threat. They're in big cities and small, all across the country in places like Phoenix and Falls Church, Virginia. The FBI has tapped their phones or is looking at their email or they are physically being watched. (on camera): In some cases, investigators are hoping that the surveillance will lead to more information. In other cases, if there is a reason to charge someone, they will. (voice-over): Take, for example, the story out of Lodi, California. FBI agents admitted to surveilling individuals there for three years before arrests were made. Agents allege some of those taken into custody were planning to set up a terror training camp.</s>KEITH SLOTTER, FBI: We believe through our investigation that various individuals connected to al-Qaeda have been operating in the Lodi area in various capacities including individuals who have received terrorist training abroad with the specific intent to initiate a terrorist attack in the United States.</s>ARENA: Individuals come to the attention of investigators through a variety of ways.</s>D'AMURO: Telephone numbers. Internet communications, email communications, chat rooms, anonymous phone calls, source information, cooperating witness information, actual leads coming out of conducting other investigations.</s>ARENA: But what has officials even more worried are the people they don't know about.</s>ROBERT MUELLER, FBI DIRECTOR: Finding them is the top priority of the FBI but it is also one of the most difficult challenges. The very nature of a covert operative trained not to raise suspicion and to appear benign is what makes their detection so difficult.</s>ARENA: It's important to point out that officials say there is no intelligence to suggest there are al-Qaeda cells here waiting to strike. And none of the individuals taken into custody over the past few years has been caught in the middle of a terror plot. You may remember the group of men arrested in Lackawana, New York for attending al-Qaeda camps. Some government critics refer to them as terrorist wannabes. The feds didn't see it that way.</s>PETER AHEARN, FBI: When you have a group of individuals that are in contact with known terrorists that makes it very dangerous.</s>ARENA: The FBI has been pretty aggressive taking suspicious people in on immigration violations if no other charge can be brought. But law enforcement leaders say there is still much more to do both on a federal and local level. John Timoney is Miami's police chief.</s>CHIEF JOHN TIMONEY, MIAMI POLICE: Unfortunately, we in the United States have not done a very good job of intelligence gathering, in developing agents who speak Arabic and other languages or bringing, if you will, Arabic Americans into federal and local law enforcement.</s>ARENA: The FBI acknowledges it has too few Arabic speaking agents. But it has tried to foster closer ties with the Arab community. Mike Mason, who heads up the FBI's Washington field office regularly meets with Arab leaders.</s>MIKE MASON, WASHINGTON FIELD OFFICE: If people come to this country intent to do harm, typically those people will try to embed themselves in a community with which they're familiar with, the customs, the culture, the religion.</s>ARENA: But as we learned from the first London bombing, sometimes terrorists hide their plans from even their closest family and friends. So what, then, is the bottom line?</s>D'AMURO: This is not something that has a quick solution, an easy answer. It's going to be something that's going to be with us for sometime to come. And the country has to realize that.</s>ARENA: And al-Qeda remains as committed as ever. Recently threatening the U.S. with an attack even worse than we saw on September 11th. Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.</s>WHITFIELD: One other security note, five weeks after the London bombings, the U.S. is lowering the threat level for the nation's subways, rail lines and other mass transit. The alert goes down a notch from orange to yellow or elevated. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says state and local officials should still, however, be vigilant. CNN is the place to turn for the latest information on your security and safety around the clock. New Mexico's governor has declared a state of emergency along his state's border with Mexico. Governor Bill Richardson says there's an urgent need to deal with border crimes. Richardson says there's a 54 mile stretch of border that's particularly out of hand. Richardson says he takes this step reluctantly but must do so to protect the people he represents. He notes he is the nation's only Hispanic governor and says New Mexico is a state that's been very good to legal migrants.</s>GOV. BILL RICHARDSON, (D) NM (video clip): It has practical benefits. We have 180 mile of border with Chihuahua, Mexico, New Mexico does and the situation is out of hand. I declared a state of emergency basically to free up close to a million and a half dollars that will be used for law enforcement, overtime pay, equipment, mainly because the federal government and the Congress are doing nothing and in New Mexico, we've got border smuggling of people, we've got smuggling of drugs, we've got kidnappings, murders, we've got cattle destruction and there's very little response from the border patrol. They're doing a good job but they don't have the resources.</s>WHITFIELD: In reaction, Mexico has released a statement saying this - "It is important to point out that the government of Mexico has been working consistently along the entire border, together with the governments of the federal border entities in dealing with various problems linked to criminal activities." This week's Tennessee jail escape case captured national attention. Now, we'll tell you how the two fugitives plan to make their case to stay in Ohio. Plus, was he guilty after all? Our legal eagles take a look at some jurors who say they think they made a mistake in the verdict.