Drones vs. Interrogations; Sony Reeling after Epic Computer Hack; NSA Expects "Traumatic" Cyber Attacks
DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: But the same thing is sort of happening. There are no rules and regulations about drones internationally as in combat situations as we're now using them. But one day other nations are going to have drones of their own. What if they start targeting Americans here? It's going to be in America's interest to get some sort of legal protocols about how drones can be used for warfare purposes. At the moment, we're out there pretty far in front of anybody else using them. And I think they're going to grow in importance from the conversations because of the numbers who are being affected. Here's what's interesting, Poppy. The -- all the C.I.A. torture reports and everything like that were about 119 people who were detained by the C.I.A. over time, of whom 39 were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques; these harsh techniques, some called torture. Many called torture with good reason. If you look at drones, we don't know the numbers precisely, because the government won't tell us, but there are organizations out there and I've been counting up in Pakistan, and there are as many as 2,500 to 3,500 people who have been killed as terrorists, but there are as many as 400 or so who are civilians who have been killed. In other words, there have ten times as many civilians killed in Pakistan, according to reports, as the number of people who were harshly interrogated by the</s>C.I.A. POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. It's going to become an increasing conversation and also what legal sort of guidelines there are going to be, David, also.</s>GERGEN: Right.</s>HARLOW: What the President, the administration may be legally-held responsible for down the road.</s>GERGEN: Right.</s>HARLOW: Thank you for having -- coming on this evening. We appreciate it.</s>GERGEN: Thank you. It's good to see you again.</s>HARLOW: All right. Breaking news into CNN -- We are receiving word of a possible hostage situation in Sydney. Take a look at this video. This is video from just moments ago outside the Lindt Chocolate Shop in Martin Place -- this is a pedestrian mall in Sydney's central district. Looks normal -- looks like nothing is going on. What the authorities are very concerned about is what may be going on inside that shop. Very little information at this time including how many hostages there may be or how many people they may be holding if this is, indeed, a hostage situation. What I can tell you is that we have spoken with the New South Wales police media unit. Here's what they tell us. Quote, "all we can confirm at this time is that there is a police operation taking place. We are recommending that no one goes near the area. We are trying to establish exactly what is happening." I can also tell you our affiliate there, News 7 in Sydney, says there are two gunmen on the scene. We have not independently confirmed that yet. Obviously we're working our sources on the ground there and will bring you the latest as soon as we have it out of Sydney, Australia. Also this, Sony Pictures is starring in its own nightmare right now. The celebrated studio is in full damage control mode after hackers exposed embarrassing e-mails, salaries, secrets. And now they are threatening -- the hackers -- this $8 billion company with a so-called Christmas gift that promises to put Sony, quote, "in its worst state". Joining me with some insight on all of this: CNN national security analyst, Bob Baer; also Jamie Dettmer, who's a contributor for "The Daily Beast". Thank you both for being here. Bob, let me begin with you. There has been so much talk about who this group is, the GOP group of hackers, whether they're directly in cahoots, if you will, with the North Korean government or just independent of it. A lot of people tying it to North Korea -- what's your take?</s>BOB BAER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: First up, I've got to say that I have an interest with this because I have two contracts with Sony related to movies -- so once we're through that. This sounds like it's very sophisticated. It looks like it's revenge for this movie coming out. This -- it was done -- it was launched from multiple locations. And Sony has a very good cyber security. They saw this coming four, five months ago and they tried to improve their security and these guys are good, whoever they are.</s>HARLOW: Interesting we got this letter this afternoon, or the "New York Times" received a letter, CNN has not yet, from Sony -- from the attorney for Sony, David Boies warning media outlets telling them, Jamie, they should not report on some of this private information that has been leaked saying it is stolen information. Again -- CNN has not received that letter yet. Are you surprised by that?</s>JAMIE DETTMER, CONTRIBUTOR, "THE DAILY BEAST": No, not really. I mean -- although I think it's an impossible request. Once this information is out, even if mainstream organizations at the beginning of the report, it goes out on Twitter, it goes out on Facebook pages, then some of the new Internet startups start reporting it and eventually the rest of the media have to follow. So I think that Sony should have been better at guarding their secrets rather than making requests now for information not to be shared.</s>HARLOW: Bob, when you talk about information such as celebrity phone numbers, e-mails, et cetera, exposed, private embarrassing e-mails, this breach forces change, but this is -- it is a fact, a security fact, it seems, that every single company is vulnerable to this now, no matter how good or how poor their walls are.</s>BAER: Anybody who goes on the Internet with a computer is hackable. The only computers that are not are standalones. Intelligence communities have figured out this long time ago. They have to be separated physically. They in no way could ever access the Internet because every computer is vulnerable. And they're vulnerable in other ways, too. They send off emanations, it's called Tempest. So if you have a secret to keep, don't put it on a computer, don't put it on a smartphone. Write it on a piece of paper -- whisper it in somebody's ear. Nobody is safe.</s>HARLOW: Exactly. You said it -- any big company is vulnerable to this. And if you insert any big company name in its place, it would spell trouble for their companies, their credibility, their stock. Online security experts say it is a guarantee hackers will hit the corporate world again and again. Our Deborah Feyerick took a fascinating look at this. Let's watch her piece and then come back on the other side.</s>DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Cyber attacks against Sony, Target, Home Depot, JPMorgan Chase, Google, e-Bay, and virtually every business sector have allowed criminals and bad actors to steal millions of Americans' personal data, credit card numbers, as well as corporate secrets. Now imagine if similar cyber attacks made your lights go out or cut off your water supply. Imagine if a critical infrastructure we rely on every single day simply shut down. The threat is not only very real, it's inevitable.</s>ADMIRAL MICHAEL ROGERS, NSA DIRECTOR: It is only a matter of the when, not the if, that we are going to see something traumatic.</s>FEYERICK: Admiral Michael Rogers heads the NSA and cyber command.</s>ROGERS: We have seen individuals, groups, inside critical U.S. infrastructure.</s>FEYERICK: That's right. Power plants, banking systems, air traffic control, subways. All are vulnerable.</s>REP. JIM LANGEVIN, (D), RHODE ISLAND: Years ago, what could have only been accomplished through a kinetic attack using missiles or bombs now can be done with a few key strokes where they could wipe out, you know, a whole sector of our nation's electric grid not just for days or weeks but potentially for months.</s>FEYERICK: According to the Department of Homeland Security, adversaries from China, Russia, and elsewhere are inside hundreds if not thousands of U.S. critical infrastructure computers. It's not just about getting information it seems, but it's also the ability to control those sectors.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is something that we worry a lot about.</s>FEYERICK: CNN was given rare access to the DHS' heavily protected cyber security center known as NCIC (ph). It's run by the DHS undersecretary Suzanne Spaulding who oversees teams of federal investigators analysts and private infrastructure experts scrutinizing real-time cyber breaches.</s>SUZANNE SPAULDING, DHS UNDERSECRETARY: The thing that keeps me awake at night is knowing that there is the potential there for adversaries to get into those control systems -- those systems that really run machinery, whether it's gates on dams or parts of the electric grid.</s>FEYERICK: Isn't this an act of war?</s>TOM PARKER, CTO, FUSIONX: Well, that's the million-dollar question. What the Chinese are doing is really preparing the battlefield -- if that day were to arrive then they would have significant advantage.</s>FEYERICK: Cyber security expert Tom Parker showed us just how easy it is to shut down something like a power grid.</s>PARKER: Here we have the hacker's computer and the hacker has already broken into the electric utility and now we have access to the electric utility's network. We've reverse engineered the codes which are running, the operation system that's running on this device which is controlling the electric grid in this scenario.</s>FEYERICK: Once inside the system, the attacker waits to strike and then watch as the lights go off in less than a second. More than three quarters of the nation's critical infrastructure is privately-owned. Critics say those companies are not doing enough to safeguard their own systems.</s>LANGEVIN: They don't want it coming out of their bottom line.</s>FEYERICK: Congressman Langevin says the threat is akin to knowing about the hijackers pre-9/11 and still doing nothing.</s>LANGEVIN: We know that there's a glaring vulnerability and we're not moving with all urgency to close it.</s>FEYERICK: Deborah Feyerick, CNN, Washington.</s>HARLOW: All right. Let me bring back in my guests. Bob, you're a national security expert. So it's more than clear that big companies from Target to Home Depot to Sony are vulnerable to the attacks. But realistically, how vulnerable are our power grids, our financial networks?</s>BAER: Poppy, absolutely the bank -- we've seen them hit banks before and they can again.</s>HARLOW: JPMorgan.</s>BAER: You can hack into a car and control the speed of the car. It's sort of whatever you can imagine, they can do. And the Russian Mafia is very good at this. The North Koreans as we now know. And we simply don't have the defenses in place to stop this sort of thing.</s>HARLOW: So, Jamie, given what Bob said --</s>DETTMER: I'll also add there --</s>HARLOW: Yes, please. Dettmer: I'll also add there, it's not just state actors. We know that al Qaeda and ISIS have been looking at this for years. Al Qaeda chiefs have been talking about this being a potential other Pearl Harbor if they can get inside critical infrastructure computers in the United States and the systems. They've talked about trying to bring banks down. They'd like to do another 9/11 -- a financial crash, if you want. ISIS in particular has got a whole generation of new young computer programmers who have been working with them. We've seen evidence on this on online activity and conversations going on. So it's not purely Moscow and Beijing we have to be concerned about, but other non-state actors as well.</s>HARLOW: So Jamie, given that --</s>BAER: Jamie is absolutely right.</s>HARLOW: Go ahead, Bob.</s>BAER: They are very sophisticated. They beat NSA at their game and they've been very sophisticated in the fight for Mosul using mobile Wi-Fi, defeating the National Security Agency. They can easily take this sort of technology and hit our banks and I think it's just a matter of time. Jamie is absolutely right.</s>HARLOW: Yes, and it begs the question, how are we going to fight this new war on that front? And how are we going to beef up our skills on that front to defeat it? Guys, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Wish we had more time. We have breaking news into CNN. Jamie and Bob -- thank you. All right. This breaking news just in to CNN. We have new video of a possible hostage situation. This is all unfolding in Sydney, Australia. You're looking at video shot moments ago from the Lindt Chocolate Shop in Martin Place. That is a big pedestrian mall downtown in Sydney's central business district. It's a popular spot for tourists and also people going to work. You think, you know, Monday morning there. There is very little information at this time. What we don't know -- how many possible hostages are there? How many people could be holding them at this point in time? The New South Wales police tell us this. Let me read you this quote. "All we can confirm at this time is that there is a police operation taking place. We are recommending that no one goes near that area. We're trying to establish exactly what is happening." We also have an affiliate, News 7 on the ground there in Sydney. They say there are two gunmen involved, and CNN cannot independently confirm any of that. We're checking and I'm also hearing we're getting new information coming from our affiliate. Our affiliate on the ground telling us that around 9:44 a.m. local time, remember, it's Monday morning there, a woman right there in Sydney's central business district saw a man with a blue sports bag. She thought it was a gun. She called the police at that point in time. She said a man entered the Lindt Chocolate Shop there -- this is what that eyewitness is saying, and says this then turned into a hostage situation. What we also know at this point in time, according to seven networks, CNN's affiliate on the ground in Sydney, is that civil aviation is shut in terms of the airspace above Sydney -- shut down right now. And our bureau, the bureau for the affiliate, News 7 in Sydney, is located right near that area. Let me recap this for you. What you're looking at is video shot just moments ago in Sydney, Australia, where it is Monday morning. This is from the central business district there. Concerns about a possible hostage situation in the Lindt Chocolate Shop there, in a pedestrian mall that is heavily traveled. Here's what we from our affiliate on the ground. Around 9:44 a.m. local time, a woman say a man with a blue sports bag. She thought it might be a gun. She called the police. The man then entered that Lindt Chocolate Shop. That is when we are told that it possibly turned into a hostage situation. Also as a precautionary measure, we're told that the airspace above Sydney has been temporarily closed. We are obviously monitoring this incredibly closely, working with our sources on the ground. As soon as we have more information, we will bring it to you right here. Quick break -- we'll be right back.