Couple That was Held For What Was Believed to be a Bomb Talk About Their Experience
CONNIE CHUNG, HOST: Good evening. I'm Connie Chung. Tonight, how does a boot plus batteries plus a note equal a bomb?</s>ANNOUNCER: The real story behind a feared terrorist threat.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On an X-ray, it looked very much like an explosive device.</s>ANNOUNCER: What one man put inside his suitcase that landed him and his wife in jail. The brothers Gibb mourn the loss of Maurice, but did he have to die?</s>BARRY GIBB, MAURICE GIBB'S BROTHER: We will pursue every factor, every element, every second of the timeline for the final hours of Maurice's life.</s>GOV. GEORGE RYAN (R), ILLINOIS: How many more cases of wrongful conviction have to occur before we can all agree that this system in Illinois is broken?</s>ANNOUNCER: Convicted killers walk free, and death sentences commuted, while the families of their victims are outraged.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He is, if anything, a coward and a liar, and that's what he'll be remembered as in the state of Illinois.</s>ANNOUNCER: Supermodel Niki Taylor was on top of the fashion world. But it all came to a screeching halt in a near-fatal car crash.</s>NIKI TAYLOR, SUPERMODEL: The surgeons saying that they were holding, like, my liver in both hands.</s>ANNOUNCER: Tonight, Niki Taylor in a rare TV interview tells Connie how she's battled back, beating the odds. Another scene-stealing role by Oscar winner Kathy Bates. (</s>BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "ABOUT SCHMIDT") KATHY BATES, ACTRESS: People used to raise their eyebrows because I breast-fed him until he was almost 5, and I say, well, you just look at the results.</s>ANNOUNCER: Tonight, she tells Connie about her latest role. This is CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT. From the CNN broadcast center in New York, Connie Chung.</s>CHUNG: Good evening. In a time of terror alerts and fears about our safety, why would someone go to so much trouble to, well, make trouble, or were Paul Donahue and Teresa Wood just trying to make a point about the price of our safety? Last week, they were arrested at Mineta San Jose International Airport for transporting what police considered a false or facsimile bomb in their bag.</s>STEVE DIXON, SAN JOSE POLICE: It was a boot. On top of the boot, there were some -- a large power strip with about five or six plugs, right directly on top of the boot. The power strip cord was extended, and at the end of that cord, was a package of batteries. And it looked very much, as I say, on an X-ray, it looked very much like an explosive device.</s>CHUNG: In addition, the bag contained a note, reading, quote, "To the uniformed puppet opening this bag, congratulations! You've just brought this once free nation one step closer to becoming a fascist police state." Prosecutors disagreed that the boot, batteries and power strip constituted a fake bomb and they dropped the charges. Still, some questions linger, which is why we've asked Paul Donahue and Teresa Wood to join us tonight. Thank you both for being with us. Mr. Donahue, what were you thinking?</s>PAUL DONAHUE, PUT "FASCIST" NOTE IN AIRPORT LUGGAGE: In putting the note in the bag? My wife and I travel quite a bit and I has been concerned since 9/11 that we were watching, one, our freedoms disappear one by one. We are being asked to wave more of our rights as citizens here in this country. And since I travel often, I am concerned about what happens to our bags once they're checked in. For us, this was going to be the last straw. We decided that this was going to be our last flight. And I've spoken to Transportation Security Administration officials when I had the chance, and since I was not able to speak to these officials in particular, and this was the first time our bags were going to be checked in such a way, I was going to make sure that they understood the strong feelings I have about this issue.</s>CHUNG: And what you are talking about is your bags would be checked outside of your presence? In other words, after you check the bag, it goes through and a baggage handler can look inside. Now, the Transportation Safety Administration does have actually a reply to you. What the administration believes is that you are just playing games with the system and that you were trying to get a rise out of the system. In fact, you were trying to create a fake bomb.</s>DONAHUE: Well, that may be their feeling. I actually didn't ever see the image that was on the cat scanner. They waved it around a lot at us; I'll take their word for it that it looked like a fake bomb. It may very well have.</s>CHUNG: Did you intend to make it look like a fake bomb?</s>DONAHUE: Oh, no. No. It was nothing like. And you know, to tell you the truth, I think if it looked like a bomb to them, they should have done their job and opened the bag. They would have been remiss not to have. But we had four bags, four pieces of checked luggage, and the same identical note was in all four bags. And I've heard numbers up to 30 percent of bags are going to be opened with this system because the machine does have a lot of false alarms. And I figured with four bags, the odds of at least of them being opened were fairly good.</s>CHUNG: Teresa, didn't you say to Mr. Donahue that this is just, you know, it's crazy. We're going to get in trouble, and if anybody finds any of this it's just going to seem like this some terrorist plot?</s>TERESA WOOD, ARRESTED FOR LUGGAGE CONTENTS: No. I never thought it was a terrorist plot. And the whole -- never in a million years I ever thought there would be any kind of bomb thing. It was just to be a note. Someone that the inspector might get irritated and hopefully think about what Paul is saying. I didn't think that there would be any big trouble like there was.</s>CHUNG: You didn't think there would be any repercussions? Go ahead.</s>WOOD: No. It wasn't a threatening note. And no, I didn't think there would be repercussions.</s>CHUNG: Well, it was written on the side of a cereal box. And I think it, you know, might have looked very suspicious to the baggage handler and to those who eventually arrested you. How many days did you spend in jail?</s>WOOD: Three.</s>CHUNG: Three days. And you, Mr. Donahue?</s>DONAHUE: The same. A few hours more, but basically the same amount of time.</s>CHUNG: Well, this is another thing that the Transportation Safety Administration said, and I want to get your reaction. They said, well, you know, if you think this is a joke, the 9/11 families certainly are not laughing.</s>DONAHUE: Oh, I don't think it's a joke at all. I think that security is a big issue and I fully support them screening bags. I think it's a good idea and I have no problems with them screening the bags and opening bags when they see suspicious objects. My only complaint is that, and I think many Americans would share this, that passengers would like to be present when the bags are searched, the same as with the check of the hand luggage. I think that's perfectly reasonable. I've submitted to that many, many times and had no problems with that.</s>CHUNG: Well, sir, there's another side of the story, of course, and we're going to get it now from Robert Johnson. He is spokesperson for the new Transportation Security Administration, which oversees the nation's airport security. Mr. Johnson, thank you for being with us. Now, this couple believes that it really is an invasion of privacy. What do you have to say to that? Because there are many people out there who I'm sure believe that it is an invasion of privacy.</s>ROBERT JOHNSON, TSA SPOKESPERSON, WASHINGTON: Well, Connie, we do our best to try and balance all of those issues against what happened on 9/11. You know, we're not sitting there developing programs just on a whim. Congress responded to what happened a year and a half ago and decided that there were a number of loopholes that needed to be closed to terrorists, one of them was checked baggage and that's why our screeners did exactly what they should have done that night, last Tuesday night in San Jose. That image looked like a bomb on the screen and it's their job to resolve that. When they opened the bag, they saw the boot with the various pieces of electrical wiring and other things inside and made that information available to local law enforcement, which then took the action that you've been talking about.</s>CHUNG: Now, felony charges were dropped. Do you think that they should have been prosecuted?</s>JOHNSON: We absolutely think that there should have been more consideration given to the notion of the recklessness, if you will, that occurred. If nothing else, that in and of itself is a problem. You know, you don't make jokes about hijacking an airplane or a bomb in your bag when you're at an airport, and the same ought to apply for people who are carrying things that are assembled in such a way that they could lead someone to believe that there is an explosive device inside. It's a fine line you have to walk between trying to maintain the right of privacy, which this administration obviously supports, and making the flights safe, you know? Nobody wants to be on a flight that has a bag underneath that's got a bomb in it. And again, our screeners did the right thing. They pulled that bag over, they took a look. When they found the, quote/unquote, hoax inside, they pointed that out to law enforcement, and then from there, the job goes to the local police department to determine what should be done next.</s>CHUNG: Mr. Donahue, Mr. Donahue, why didn't you just write to your congressman or why didn't you hold up a placard up at Capitol Hill, or, you know, do some other type of protest, because indeed wouldn't you rather have your plane safe than have a terrorist plant a bomb on it?</s>DONAHUE: I am fully supportive of screening the bags. I have no problem with that whatsoever. The only complaint I have is that the passenger should be present when that happens so that they see what's happening with their bags.</s>CHUNG: I see. Well, Robert Johnson, what about that?</s>JOHNSON: Well, Connie, actually, we do about two million bags a day. It's a huge number of bags to screen to make sure they're all safe, but they're all being checked with a variety of methods that Congress approved for us. And in most cases, those bags are being screened in front of passengers. The airports are pushing...</s>CHUNG: Yes, I know, but what about the bags that aren't screened in front of passengers? Would that be possible?</s>JOHNSON: Well, they are screened outside of some passengers' view. Most airports, as I was about to say, are pushing to put those systems behind the scenes because they don't like the equipment in the lobbies. So we're in the process now of dealing with those issues on an airport by airport basis, and eventually, I think most airports would like that work done elsewhere.</s>CHUNG: What do you mean elsewhere? Outside of the site...</s>JOHNSON: Well, yes, outside of the lobbies in a new facility or something that's behind the ticket counters after passengers drop those bags and go on down to the gate. So we are going to work our way through that. There are a lot of issues still to determine. We just don't think this was exactly the right way to make the point.</s>CHUNG: All right, Robert Johnson, thank you. Teresa Wood and Paul Donahue, thank you both as well. Coming up, beating the odds in a rare one-on-one interview, supermodel Nikki Taylor talks about almost dying, waking up from months in a coma and her struggle to come back. Stay with us.</s>ANNOUNCER: Next, convicted murderers, condemned to death walk free in Illinois. Was justice served? Depends on who you ask. CONNIE CHUNG TONIGHT will be right back.