[Carol Costello, Cnn Anchor:] Let's get right to that breaking news now. Within the hour, an audiotape was posted on an Islamic Web site. It's said to be from terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. CNN investigative producer Henry Shuster is at the CNN center in Atlanta. He has more for us now. Good morning.
[Henry Shuster, Cnn Investigative Producer:] Good morning, Carol. The tape appeared about an hour ago, as you said, on Islamic Web sites. There are some things we know about and what we don't know about. We know that the tape focuses on Saudi Arabia. In it, Osama bin Laden, who is a native of Saudi Arabia, has some harsh words for the regime in Saudi Arabia. He says that the instability inside Saudi Arabia is due to the royal family and not to the militants there. What we have not heard yet, as we've been listening through this tape and it's a very long tape; it's well more than an hour is whether it has any references to last week's attack on the U.S. consulate in Jeddah. That's an attack where five embassy employees were killed and four of the terrorists who stormed the compound were killed. We're listening to it. So far, what we've heard are references to the royal family, attacking them for corruption, saying that millions are living in poverty in Saudi Arabia, while millions of riyals that's the Saudi currency are going into the hands of the royal family. Bin Laden also says that the struggle in Saudi Arabia, while it may appear as an internal political struggle, is also an important part of the worldwide struggle between Islamists and unbelievers. But, again, we have not heard any specific references to the Jeddah attack in here. That's obviously what we're looking for. Now, as you may remember, right on the eve of the U.S. elections, we had the videotape from Osama bin Laden, and that clearly had some date markers in it that let us know he was alive. And we actually saw him. This audiotape, as yet, we can't tell when it was made, whether somebody decided it would be a good idea to put it out now even though it might be older, or whether it was made after the attack.
[Costello:] Well, Henry, tell us about the quality of this audiotape. And why were I guess we're not certain yet. But, I mean, is it Osama bin Laden? Do we know that for sure?
[Shuster:] Well, we...
[Costello:] Can we?
[Shuster:] There are ways of verifying it. Obviously, the CIA will listen to it later today and try to verify it. We have a number of people on our staff and people who have listened to the tape who have listened to hundreds of hours of bin Laden audiotapes and videotapes, and they are pretty good at recognizing his voice. As well, we'll be talking to other people that we know who were friends of Osama bin Laden and ask them to listen to it and see if they can verify it for us as well. The one thing to point out is that this is a very, very bad audio recording. The audio is muddy. It's just not easy to listen to. But from what we've heard, it sounds like him. The rhetoric sounds like him as well.
[Costello:] Well, you know, in comparison with the quality of the other audiotapes that he supposedly put out, how does this compare?
[Shuster:] It's worse.
[Costello:] I don't know if that tells us anything at all about where he is and where he's hiding or...
[Shuster:] Well, and that's...
[Costello:] Are things getting more difficult for him?
[Shuster:] That's a fair question. I mean, I think one of the more interesting things is that this audiotape went directly to a Web site. Now, some of the previous audiotapes and the most recent videotape went to Al Jazeera or other Arab networks. But they don't play those usually in their entirety. What we saw recently with the most recent videotape from bin Laden is that a couple of days after it appeared on Al Jazeera, a version of it appeared on the Internet in full. And the audiotape here appeared in full in an hour and 18 minutes. It's fair to say that is this tape had been handed to someplace like Al Jazeera, you might have heard maybe one minute of sound byte or two minutes of sound byte, and obviously they're interested in getting their message out, you know, for propaganda purposes. They're interested in getting their message out and hearing having people hear it in its entirety.
[Costello:] Henry Shuster live from Atlanta. Thanks for filling us in. I'm sure we'll hear much more about this in the minutes and hours to come on CNN. Social Security is tops on the agenda today at President Bush's economic summit. And what is laid out today could affect your retirement in a big way. Would you like to invest your own Social Security money or at least part of it? CNN's Kathleen Hayes runs down the president's economic agenda.
[Kathleen Hays, Cnn Correspondent:] President Bush came out swinging on day one of his economic summit, kicking off an aggressive PR campaign to sell his ambitious second-term agenda to the American public. At a morning press conference the president was adamant. Any plan to reform Social Security must allow workers to start investing some of their own retirement money in the markets.
[George W. Bush, President Of The United States:] I believe one way to help make sure the system meets the needs of a younger generation is to allow younger workers to take some of their own taxes and invest in a personal savings account under certain conditions.
[Hays:] Vice President Dick Cheney kicked off the summit, saying that Congress must make the tax cuts of Bush's first four years in office permanent. Not to do so would damage the U.S. economy. And the president is dead-set on simplifying the mammoth U.S. tax code so that small businesses can file more cheaply and easily, and even average Americans can do their own taxes. In an afternoon appearance, the president was passionate on the need to reform the nation's legal system, because he believes it's crippling businesses of all sizes and especially driving up the cost of medical care.
[Bush:] I intend to take a legislative package to Congress, which says we expect the House and the Senate to pass meaningful liability reform on asbestos, on class-action and medical liability.
[Hays:] No naysayers at the summit. The panelists selected all shared the president's vision, but Democrats were quick to take shots at the president's agenda, starting with Social Security.
[Gene Sperling, Former Clinton Adviser:] And what really upsets me is that President Bush calls for this more risk in Social Security and pretends that individual accounts is what is going to make Social Security solvent.
[Hays:] Other powerful groups are also lining up to oppose Bush's plan to set up private Social Security accounts, like the AARP, which represents millions of retired Americans, and organized labor, headed up by the AFL-CIO. Kathleen Hays, CNN, Washington.
[Costello:] You know, our e-mail question to you this morning was about Social Security. Most of you said things like this: "Social Security. What's that? At 30, I've long kissed that idea good-bye. We sure will have one heck of a home security team, though." We got a lot of e-mails just like that. But are we being too pessimistic? Let's head live to Washington and our political analyst, Ron Brownstein.
[Ron Brownstein, Cnn Political Analyst:] Good morning.
[Costello:] You know, I most people do believe that Social Security won't exist anyway.
[Brownstein:] Well, there is a lot of concern about that. There is a poll out this morning, NBC"Wall Street Journal," reaffirming that there is reason to be concerned to a point. The Social Security actuaries, the people who are paid to look at this way into the future, say there is a shortfall over the next 75 years of about $3.7 trillion, a large amount of money. On the other hand, there are many analysts who argue that you can close that shortfall with relatively bearable changes in the system, taxes, changes in retirement ages. But the administration believes more fundamental changes are needed. The president, as the report said, wants individual accounts as part of that, and that's the debate where we begin the year in Washington.
[Costello:] Well, let's talk about those individual accounts, because this is from Carolyn. And she writes: "I am terrified if Bush is able to privatize Social Security, because I think most people won't invest wisely. Just look at the number of people who withdraw their 401 [k] s to invest in a house and such."
[Brownstein:] Well, this is I mean, that is really part of the concern. The question is: What is Social Security designed to do? Is it designed to help people invest and create ownership, as the president says? Or is it designed to provide a guaranteed safety net of retirement? The part that most people don't understand is that almost any plan to create individual accounts, as the president is proposing, reduces, some significantly reduce, the guaranteed benefit under Social Security. The idea is that the individual account, what you earn in that would help you make up for a reduced guaranteed benefit. And, Carol, it's that reduced guaranteed benefit, not the individual account, that ultimately closes the financing gap that we were talking about.
[Costello:] Oh, it's so controversial, though. And the president says he wants to reach across party lines to get this thing done. Is it possible that we'll see part of the president's plan being put into action anytime soon?
[Brownstein:] Well, that will be a key question, whether he can get any Democrats to come along with him in the Senate. As you know, you need 60 votes in the Senate to break a filibuster. The Republicans have 55 votes. And it's not clear that all of them will vote for a Social Security reform plan that includes the private accounts, in part because any plan like that would require massive borrowing over the next several decades. And some Republicans may resist adding that much to the national debt. Now, the big question then will be: Can he get any Democrats? It's not going to be easy. Democrats are very reluctant to have a plan that diverts part of the payroll tax into these individual accounts, fearing that it would endanger the fundamental safety net that Social Security provides. Whether this will be, I think, the biggest test we have seen of whether the president can reach across party lines, which has not always been his strength. He's been more effective at consolidating the Republican base in general.
[Costello:] All right, Ron Brownstein reporting live from Washington analyzing, things, I should say, for us from Washington. Thank you, Ron.
[Brownstein:] Sure.
[Costello:] "CNN Security Watch" continues this morning, and Soledad O'Brien joins us from her office here in New York on the set of "AMERICAN MORNING" to tell us what's ahead on her show. Good morning Soledad.
[Soledad O'brien, Cnn Anchor:] Hey, good morning to you, Carol. In fact, yes, we're very busy on this, this morning. We're going to talk this morning with Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. As you well know, he has been very critical of what's going on in Washington, D.C. He says, in fact, that the alert system is confusing. Well, this morning, he's going to tell us about his plan. Essentially, it's having people on the front lines, the EMS guy, the guy who reads your meter, being sources of information. Is that spying on people? We're going to ask him. We're also going to ask him about the fact that his state is among the worst-ranked when it comes to preparations for bioterrorism. Shouldn't he be putting his thoughts and his money into that? That's all ahead this morning when we talk with Governor Mitt Romney from Massachusetts. Back to you Carol.
[Costello:] All right, thank you, Soledad. We'll see you in 20 minutes. Britain's highest court has issued an important ruling in the war on terror. Unlike the United States, the court says the British government cannot detain terror suspects indefinitely without trial. For more on the impact of this ruling, let's head live to London and CNN's Diana Muriel. Hello Diana.
[Diana Muriel, Cnn Correspondent:] Hi, Carol. Well, it's being seen here in Britain as an historic ruling. The ruling was by nine law lords sitting in the House of Lords this Thursday morning, who ruled 8-1 against the government, upholding an appeal that had been brought by nine prisoners being held in Belmarsh Prison in East London. It's been dubbed the British equivalent of Guantanamo Bay. They were appealing against a piece of legislation that was brought in by the British government in response to the September 11 attacks. It was brought in on the 14th of November, 2001. And a section within that act made a provision that it was possible to indefinitely detain foreign nationals suspected of terrorism without trial. Now, the law lords had found that is illegal; illegal on two counts. First of all that it was not legal for the British government to step outside the European Convention on Human Rights by declaring a technical state of emergency in the aftermath of September 11, and by way of doing that sidestepping the right to a fair trial. And that it was also illegal to single out foreign nationals as opposed to British nationals for this kind of treatment. The British government has several options to it now. It may just decide to ignore it, although that is very unlikely. It is likely that they will have to change the legislation here in Britain Carol.
[Costello:] Diana Muriel reporting live from London this morning. Thank you. Does Santa have an iPod on his list for someone in your house? Well, naughty or nice may not matter this year. Could there be a shortage? We'll tell you in our business buzz. And the real awards for swiping plastic during that last-minute shopping trip. But first, here's a look at what else is making news this Thursday morning.