Terror Warning for the Holiday Weekend
BROWN: Welcome back. Well, you will be seeing a lot more police out on the streets at landmarks and at tourist sites this July 4th holiday weekend. That's because law enforcement officials are ramping up security around the country. The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are worried right now about homegrown, lone wolf attacks by ISIS sympathizers right here in the U.S. And officials say there is a lot more concern surrounding this Independence Day compared to last year. Let's bring in our CNN justice reporter Evan Perez, who has been following this story for us. Hey, Evan, good morning to you.</s>EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Good morning, Pam.</s>BROWN: So, break this down for us. Officials are saying there's no specific credible threat. So why are counterterrorism officials more concerned about this year's 4th of July?</s>PEREZ: You know, that's actually the point. The fact that they don't have a specific plot that they know of and, frankly, that makes their job a lot -- a lot -- a lot harder. If they knew of a plot, it's -- you know, the FBI's very good at disrupting plots if they know about it in advance. And so what they don't know is what is concerning to them because they know that ISIS has called for attacks on the west during the month of -- the holy month of Ramadan, which is what we're in right now. And they also know that there are hundreds of ISIS supporters across the country that they're keeping an eye on and they're worried that there's some that they're miss -- that they're missing frankly because of what happened in Garland, Texas, just a few weeks ago, where you had someone who was being watched by the FBI but wasn't on the 24 hour monitoring and they didn't know that he was on his way to carrying out an attack. And if they knew, they would have stopped it.</s>BROWN: Well, it's interesting too, you know, talking to officials, they say sometimes the ISIS sympathizers don't even necessarily have a premeditated plan when they're going to act out.</s>PEREZ: Right.</s>BROWN: It could happen at any moment. And that's what makes their job so difficult. Evan, we've seen these arrests in New York and in Boston of these groups of alleged ISIS sympathizers, but is the predominant concern still the home grown violent extremists?</s>PEREZ: That's right. I talked to a counterterrorism official yesterday who said, you know, they have -- some of these guys are sitting in their basements, they're consuming this ISIS propaganda, and really they're just looking for an excuse to be operational. And so that's the issue is that they don't know when that will happen. The terrorist -- the plotter really has all the advantages on his or her side simply because they know when they want to do something. The FBI doesn't. The law enforcement does not.</s>BROWN: And the old forms of communication that was easier to track aren't around like they used to be. Really quickly, you had reported -- broke the news that there was more security around this 4th of July. What can people expect to see?</s>PEREZ: Well, you know, in -- especially down in Manhattan downtown, for instance, you're already seeing more vigorous security. You'll see a lot more uniformed police. You'll see more guards at places like -- prominent places like that. The New York Police Department says that they're deploying a lot more resources, including dogs, radiation detecting machines. The Los Angeles Police Department says they're doing the same thing. So we expect that here in Washington and other places, where large crowds are going to be gathering to watch fireworks, to do celebrations, you're going to see a lot more police.</s>BROWN: And they're certainly not taking any chances here.</s>PEREZ: Absolutely.</s>BROWN: Evan Perez, thank you so much for breaking it down for us. We appreciate it.</s>PEREZ: Sure.</s>BROWN: And still to come right here in NEWSROOM, Donald Trump in the middle of a firestorm over his remarks about Mexico. But he keeps climbing in the polls. So what's the appeal? We're going to talk about it after this break.