TSA Failures; Interview With Former New York Governor George Pataki
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, grave concerns about the ability of airport screeners to detect hidden explosives or weapons. Deadly cruise disaster. Hundreds are missing after a tornado hits and flips a passenger ship. We're following the frantic rescue operation under way right now. And disturbing video, a car explosion and fire, captured by a police dash camera. Stand by for details. We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in</s>THE SITUATION ROOM. ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.</s>BLITZER: The breaking news tonight, stark new evidence that ISIS has its tentacles here in the United States, recruiting and influencing would-be terrorists. Sources tell CNN a man shot and killed today by Boston police was being tracked around the clock as part of a broader terror investigation. It's believed 26-year-old Usaama Rahim was radicalized by ISIS. Police say he brandished a large military-style knife when he was approached by police officers. Republican presidential candidate former New York Governor George Pataki, he is here. We will talk about the terror threat and much more. And our correspondents and analysts, they're also standing by, as we cover all the news breaking right now. First, let's go our national correspondent, Deborah Feyerick. She has the very latest on what happened in Boston -- Deb.</s>DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, authorities are questioning two men they believe were in contact with the knife-wielding suspect. And the suspect's own brother is disputing the official version of what happened.</s>FEYERICK (voice-over): The shooting occurred just before 7:00 a.m. in a CVS parking lot in a Boston disturb. Investigators from the Joint Terrorism Task Force approach suspect Usaama Rahim, sources say, to question him about threats he had made against police officers.</s>WILLIAM EVANS, BOSTON POLICE COMMISSIONER: The level of alarm brought us to question him today. I don't think anyone expected the reaction we were going to get out of him.</s>FEYERICK: Authorities say investigators did not have their guns drawn when Rahim pulled out a large military knife and began moving towards the officers.</s>EVANS: They kept retreating, verbally giving commands to drop the weapon, drop the weapon. And, at some point, the individual, proximity came close that the officers were in danger. Their lives were in danger. And then two officers discharged their weapons.</s>FEYERICK: The suspect was shot twice, once in the abdomen, once in the torso. He died of gunshot injuries at a nearby hospital.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The prophet of Islam is a prophet of mercy, not bombs.</s>FEYERICK: Rahim's brother, a well-known Boston imam now living in California gave a different version of events. Posting on Facebook, Imam Ibrahim Rahim says his brother was waiting for a bus to go to work when he was confronted by three officers. He writes his younger brother -- quote -- "was on his cell phone with my dear father during the confrontation, needing a witness. His last words to my father, who heard the shots, were, I can't breathe." A law enforcement official says Usaama Rahim appears to have been radicalized online by ISIS and other religious extremists. He was recently put on 24/7 surveillance after FBI agents noticed a change in his behavior and decided to question him.</s>VINCENT LISI, FBI: There was no arrest warrant for him. There was no intention to arrest him at that point.</s>FEYERICK: Investigators were questioning two of Rahim's associates, the head of Boston's FBI saying the threat appears to be contained.</s>LISI: We don't think that there is any concern for public safety out there right now.</s>FEYERICK: And Rahim's brother, the Boston imam, has been a vocal critic of ISIS. He told CNN's Brian Todd back in 2013 that he would not even officiate at Tamerlan Tsarnaev's funeral because the Boston Marathon attack was so contrary to the principles of Islam. We did reach out to a local mosque, the spokesperson there saying that they're hoping to get a lot of answer to a number of outstanding questions -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: I'm sure they have tons of questions. Thanks very much. Also tonight, Homeland Security officials are investigating new bomb threats against commercial airliners here in the United States. At least four flights were targeted today after a series of threats about a week or so ago, all this coming amid new controversy surrounding the TSA and serious revelations about failures by airport screeners. Our aviation correspondent, Rene Marsh, has the latest information for us. Rene, what is going on?</s>RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: It's a taxing situation for local law enforcement, this morning alone, multiple airlines dealing with bomb scares, a United flight to Chicago targeted, a Delta plane to Atlanta targeted, a U.S. Airways flight to Philadelphia also targeted, and a fourth plane after it left Portland, Oregon, headed to Mexico, also received a bomb threat. We do not know at this hour the source of these threats, but law enforcement now investigating. In all of these cases, passengers were deplaned, and the aircraft checked. Nothing was found. Of course, this comes on the heels of multiple threats to New York-bound planes during the Memorial Day weekend. That also included an Air France flight. Coincidentally, the series of bomb scares come as we are learning more about TSA failures in detecting prohibited items like weapons at airport checkpoints, and now a major shakeup at the top of the agency.</s>MARSH (voice-over): Acting TSA Administrator Melvin Carraway out after embarrassing news. An undercover operation designed to test TSA's ability to detect explosives and weapons at airport security checkpoints yielded a 95 percent failure rate.</s>REP. JASON CHAFFETZ (R), UTAH: If in a test the TSA is failing 95 percent of the time, they're failing the American people.</s>MARSH: CNN has learned undercover teams who smuggled weapons and fake explosives past security were not weapons experts, security or law enforcement. They were regular staff with the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General's Office. They performed 70 tests. TSA officers failed 67 times, a poor performance not even recently retired TSA head John Pistole can defend.</s>JOHN PISTOLE, FORMER ADMINISTRATOR, TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION: This is very disconcerting, completely unacceptable to have a high rate of failures like that.</s>MARSH: Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson now wants screening procedures revised, more training for TSA officers and screening equipment reevaluated.</s>CHAFFETZ: They have invested over the years billions of dollars in stuff that doesn't work. Remember the puffers, those whole body imaging machines? Those things don't work.</s>MARSH: TSA has a work force of 46,000 screeners. Billions have been spent on training and equipment. The agency has been dogged by controversy for years from backlash against revealing full body scanners to pat-downs many find intrusive.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're harassing a kid?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.</s>MARSH: The focus now, preventing terrorists from exploiting vulnerabilities undercover teams exposed.</s>PISTOLE: TSA has failed in terms of its ability to detect in this particular circumstance. The good news is that millions of prohibited items have been found over the years, I mean, thousands of guns, tens of thousands of knives and other stun guns and things like that.</s>MARSH: Well, today, we heard the president's thoughts on all of these -- all of this. He believes the American people should feel confident traveling because he says there are multiple layers of security, but, Wolf, he is urging Congress to confirm his nominee for TSA head. Of course, TSA has been without a permanent leader for the last five months. So that's a pretty long time and counting.</s>BLITZER: Yes, Jeh Johnson, the secretary of homeland security, which oversees the TSA, he has got to make sure that it works. A lot of passengers out there are hearing this, and they're going to be nervous.</s>MARSH: Exactly.</s>BLITZER: Rene, thanks very much. We have more breaking news we're following now in the fight against terrorism. Just a little while ago, the U.S. Senate approved a bill to reform domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency. The measure now heads to the president's desk, almost two days after at least some NSA powers expired, and after weeks of political wrangling. Our chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bash, is up on Capitol Hill. Dana, after all the debate, the vote to approve was overwhelming in the Senate, as it was earlier in the House. It now goes to the president for his signature, right?</s>DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. It wasn't even close, Wolf, but 67 senators voted to approve it. And the president actually just released a statement moments ago tweaking the Congress, saying, after needless delay and inexcusable lapse, he is gratified that he is finally going to get this bill. The bottom line of what happened is that you had this very unlikely alliance of the president of the United States, House Republicans, who are usually his chief opponents on so many issues, supporting him in passing this Patriot Act with these controversial programs, but with reforms. Many in the Senate agreed. The person who disagreed was the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, who you're hearing right now. He thought these reforms weakened the program, made this country less safe. That's why he was trying to change it. And, at the end of the day, he did not prevail. Having said all that, Wolf, this all could have and should have been done a long time ago. It went right up to the wire, even over the wire. At the end of the day, that was primarily because his junior colleague from Kentucky, Rand Paul, as we all know, launched a filibuster, or waged a filibuster. And he kind of bested the majority leader on tactics and on the politics of this. And he certainly has been effectively running on this issue on the campaign trail for president.</s>BLITZER: All right, Dana, thanks very much, Dana Bash up on Capitol Hill. Let's talk a little bit more about homeland security, the threat of terrorism to the United States. Joining us now, the Republican presidential candidate George Pataki. He was the New York State governor, including during and after 9/11. Governor, thanks very much for joining us.</s>GEORGE PATAKI (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Good evening, Wolf. Nice being with you.</s>BLITZER: Thank you. You have said that now is probably the most dangerous time for Americans since September 11. Why do you say that?</s>PATAKI: Well, that's right. Just listen to the news you just had on about the Joint Task Force killing someone they had been -- believe had been radicalized by ISIS here in the United States. We had the incident a couple of weeks ago in Garland, Texas, where American citizens who had been radicalized, they -- ISIS says by them -- were about to conduct a mass attack against American citizens, and but for what Texas cop, that would have happened.</s>PATAKI: Let me just give you one other point, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Go ahead.</s>PATAKI: After that attack in Garland, Texas, the FBI director said there are hundreds of people out there like these attackers, probably thousands. We don't know who they are. We don't know where they are. We have a weakened intelligence law now, sadly. And we have no strategy against ISIS. This has got to change.</s>BLITZER: Had you been in the Senate today, how would you have voted on this compromise legislation?</s>PATAKI: I would have voted for this law, but I think it would have been better if it had been amended so that the phone companies were required to keep phone records, so that in appropriate cases NSA could access them. Look at Boston today. If in fact the person who was killed by the task force had been radicalized, had been communicating with others about attacking Americans, I would like our intelligence to be able to go get a court order and find out who he was talking to here in the United States who might want to carry out attacks. I'm not sure that could happen now.</s>BLITZER: Because, under the new law, the compromise version of the -- that was passed today by the Senate, earlier passed by the House, phone companies like AT&T, Verizon, they're supposed to keep all these records that could be accessed. But it's unclear how long they have to keep them for.</s>PATAKI: That's right. And they're not required to keep them for any period of time. And that's an amendment to the USA Freedom Act that, if it hadn't been for this filibuster, I believe the Senate would have passed and the House would have ultimately agreed to. And I think it's just unfortunate, in these very dangerous times, we have weakened intelligence, at a time when we need enhanced intelligence. And, as I was saying, all of these incidents point back to ISIS. And instead of degrading and destroying ISIS, they grow stronger because we do not have an effective strategy. And that has got to change.</s>BLITZER: So, if you were commander in chief, president of the United States right now, give me two or three things you would try to do immediately.</s>PATAKI: Right. Immediately, I would begin providing arms and training directly to the on-the-ground troops fighting ISIS, the Kurdish, Peshmerga, Sunni sheiks who are anti-ISIS. I would put American advisers with them. Right now, three out of four of our Air Force launches, our air sorties result in us not dropping any bombs because they can't tell the good guys from the bad guys. We need observers to provide that. I would ramp up the bombing attack. And, if necessary, I would do what we did two weeks ago, launch a quick strike, destroy their training and recruitment centers, and then get out. That's against ISIS. Here, I would look to strengthen the USA Freedom Act. I would require those utility phone companies to keep the records for some time. I think it's hasn't that NSA have the ability to access those records.</s>BLITZER: How worried, how concerned are you that the -- this conference that is going on in Paris right now by the coalition, all these countries fighting ISIS, that the central Iraqi government, the prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, is there, but he didn't invite any representatives from Kurdistan, from Northern Iraq, from the Kurds to come participate? And, as you know, the Peshmerga that you want the U.S. to arm directly, they're fighters.</s>PATAKI: Right.</s>BLITZER: They're fighting ISIS. But they're not even represented there.</s>PATAKI: Absolutely. I'm very concerned about that. But that has been the problem. One of the problems is our administration insists that all military assistance go through the Baghdad government. The Baghdad government is not getting that to the Peshmerga, to the Kurds. They're not getting it in Anbar to the Sunni sheiks who are anti-ISIS. So, we have got to provide that directly, stop doing it through the Baghdad government, have more observers and advisers on the grounds -- on the ground, working with them, so that, instead of having Iranians telling the Baghdadi forces what to do, we will have Americans having them act to actually take out ISIS' ability to attack us here.</s>BLITZER: All right, Governor, I want you to stand by. We have more to discuss, the war against ISIS, your options, some other issues coming up in the presidential campaign. Much more with Governor George Pataki when we come back.