Could Hit List Be Targeting U.S. Troops; FBI Investigates Threat Against U.S. Troops
BLITZER: A group claiming to have ties to ISIS post an online threat against U.S. troops. The group calls it the Islamic State Hacking Organization. They posted the names, pictures, even the addresses of about U.S. military personnel. How real is this threat and how is the U.S. military and law enforcement responding? Let's go to our Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr. Barbara, what are officials over there saying about this threat? Do they take it seriously?</s>BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, certainly very upsetting to the military personnel and their families on this list. What Pentagon officials are telling me is, yes, they are taking it seriously. All of the military service is now notifying their members who appear on this list. The Navy and Marine Corps say they are doing in-person notifications directly to the people listed. But in the initial analysis, what they also say is they don't see any hacking. What does that mean? They don't believe a military database was cracked into, if you will, by some ISIS-related organization. It appears that most of this information comes off these people's social media accounts. That's what it appears to be, that someone went into, you know, online social media and just started looking for any names and addresses of military personnel. So, once again, the Pentagon is reminding all military personnel to be very careful about any personal data they post online or that they post in their social media accounts, probably good advice for all of us out there in today's cyber world. So, it starts with that, notifying everybody, making sure everybody looks one more time at their social media accounts. They're not being dismissive of it. But, right now, we're being told they don't see a particular imminent threat -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: So, basically, what the threat is, and there's 100 members of the U.S. military, some active duty, some retired, their names are on the list, their pictures, their home addresses. And ISIS, this hacking organization, whatever it is, is basically urging their supporters in the United States, you can't come fight in Iraq or Syria or Yemen or Tunisia. Fight in the United States. Go out and, what, kill these people? Is that their message they're telling their supporters?</s>STARR: Well, it certain -- yes, you know, it certainly seems to be that is the message of these types of things and the message of this account in particular. And that -- I mean, nobody is being dismissive. There's constant concern about all of this. And we have seen the so-called lone Wolf attacks all over the place, haven't we? So, you know, people who are somewhat inclined to engage in this level of violence have plenty of opportunity out there if they want to go look for it. This perhaps underscoring the threat to military personnel that is out there, that they are likely targets for people who want to engage in violence. Right now, no imminent threat but taking it seriously and notifying everyone involved.</s>BLITZER: Are these people being provided extra security? These families? They must be terrified, members of the families of these 100 U.S. military personnel. Is law enforcement providing them protection?</s>STARR: Well, we don't know that. That would be up to the individual military services and they're not discussing any specifics in that regard, at this point. But, Wolf, let me put something else out there. You know, this is, as you say, a list of names and addresses. Military personnel in this country often move, change cities, move to new bases, new locations. There may well be some addresses out there where they no longer live and there may be other people living at those addresses. So, you know, they may have sold their house and moved a year ago. So this becomes a very complicated issue to try and track all these people down and for both the military and local law enforcement in these towns and cities to decide the best course of action.</s>BLITZER: Yes, pretty terrifying situation for these families. All right, Barbara, thanks very much. Let's get back to our panel to talk about this with military analyst, retired lieutenant colonel Rick Francona is still with us. Our intelligence and security analyst, a former CIA operative, Bob Baer is with us. And our terrorism analyst, Paul Cruickshank. Colonel, what do you think, should these family members of these U.S. military personnel and these military personnel identified on this list, their names, their addresses, their pictures, should they be provided security, special protection?</s>LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: The problem with that, Wolf, is, it's a resource issue. There's not enough people to provide the protection that would be needed. And there's probably not that much of a threat to all of them. But as we've talked in the past, it only takes one attack to make the impact that they desire. And there's so many targets out there, almost impossible to secure it. These lone wolf attacks are called that for a reason. It's one person going out and doing something. They're almost impossible to detect ahead of time and then almost impossible to stop. So, unfortunately, this poses a threat or a - more of a risk. One thing I did this weekend was to go on to some of these social media sites looking for this type of information. And although the Defense Department and the Central Command particularly have put out bulletin to their people to watch what they post on social media, to maybe change their names and take other steps to safeguard their private data, it's all out there. I was able to pull probably dozens of people's personal information, where their kids go to school, what athletic events they're going to attend, where they're going to be. It's all out there. It's just data mining. It's not hacking.</s>BLITZER: Yes.</s>FRANCONA: So we have to be very careful and hopefully the service members are going to take these precautions.</s>BLITZER: They should. Bob, this group calls itself the Islamic State Hacking Organization. We don't know if it's part of ISIS, it's not part of ISIS, but it's pretty terrifying because this information is, as Colonel Francona points out, pretty much available online. What do you do about a situation like this?</s>BAB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: Well, yes, Colonel Francona is absolutely right, it's data mining. Any of this stuff I could find your address, you could find my address. You get on the Internet. You get do credit checks. You go to a bank. Any of this stuff is available. But it's even worse on social media where people post this stuff and the special forces, Delta Force, the SEALs, they all keep this off because they know they're potential targets. And what this is, Wolf, is a - is a call to these lone wolves. You know, where it - you know, this is the list we want you to go after. And whether this is actually the Islamic state or al Qaeda, it doesn't really matter. They're looking for that one lunatic to go out there and attack uniformed military personnel. And I would take this very seriously if I were the military.</s>BLITZER: What's your analysis, Paul?</s>PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: I think - yes, I absolutely agree that this needs to be taken seriously. We've seen past attacks on soldiers in the west, in Canada. We saw two Canadian soldiers being killed in two separate attacks last October. In the U.K., on the streets of east London in May 2013, a British soldier being hacked to death right out there in broad daylight on the streets of east London. ISIS are calling on their supporters in the west to target soldiers, particularly American soldiers. And we saw a plot in the United States last May, an ISIS supporter in Rochester, New York, discussing, planning to hit returning servicemen from Iraq in the United States. So there is precedent for this and I think it's of concern.</s>BLITZER: Certainly is. All right, guys, stand by. We have more to discuss. Just ahead, medical students who may be working in hospitals controlled by ISIS in Syria. One lawmaker says they were brainwashed. Our panel is standing by. We'll talk about the lure of ISIS and its ability to recruit medical students to enter their battle.