Uproar Over Airport Security Measures
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And that's got the homeland security officials on the defensive. In Florida, there are nearly half-a-million foreclosure cases, half-a-million. Judges have been hired to cut through the backlog, but critics say they're giving many of those cases just two minutes and giving the edge to banks over homeowners. And grizzly bears, dogsleds, and freshly caught salmon. Sarah Palin's new reality show is bringing in the viewers. Will it also bring her closer to a 2012 presidential run? We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world, breaking news, political headlines and Jeanne Moos all straight ahead. I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM. As we move toward the busy holiday travel season, many air travelers are already furious over the revealing body scans and intrusive body searches now going on at the nation's airports. Homeland security officials today defending the stepped-up security measures, but hint that some adjustments may be made. Our homeland security correspondent, Jeanne Meserve, is here. She's looking into this for us. What's going on, Jeanne?</s>JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, a full-blown grassroots revolt is under way against TSA body imaging machines and the new more intimate pat-downs being conducted at airport checkpoints.</s>MESERVE (voice-over): Traveler John Tyner didn't want to go through the advanced body imaging machine at the San Diego Airport last Saturday, but the option of an enhanced pat-down galled him even more. Audio of his face-off with the TSA has become a YouTube sensation.</s>JOHN TYNER, AIR TRAVELER: If you touch my junk, I'm going to have you arrested. OK, I don't understand a sexual assault can be made a condition of my flying.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is not considered a sexual assault.</s>TYNER: It would be if you were not the government. I would like only my wife and maybe my doctor to touch me there. They have explosives detective equipment -- or explosives detecting equipment that's capable of detecting very minute traces of explosives. So, if that's the major concern, why aren't we using those machines? Why do we have to view people's naked bodies?</s>MESERVE: Some pilots, flight attendants, and travelers rights organizations are up in arms over what they regard as invasive, offensive, over-the-top security measures. One group is telling members to opt out of the full-body scanners during the busy holiday travel period and insist on a private screening with witnesses.</s>KATE HANNI, FLYERSRIGHTS.ORG: Well, many people have concerns about radiation and they're very concerned about the impact, especially of cumulative radiation, and even more people are concerned about having their naked bodies witnessed by a TSA agent in a back room who they can't see and they don't know who they are.</s>MESERVE: But there's a flip side to the story. This is what PETN can do to an aircraft. PETN is what the Christmas Day bomber had sewn into his underwear. The secretary of homeland security says the best available way to find something similar is to use body scanners and enhanced pat-downs.</s>JANET NAPOLITANO, U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: You know, we're not doing this just to do it. We're doing it because we need to keep powders and gels and liquids off of planes that are unauthorized, just as we need to keep metals off of planes.</s>MESERVE: The TSA has not been able to tell us how many complaints they have received about these new screening procedures, but the U.S. Travel Association says since last Wednesday, it's gotten over 1,000 unsolicited comments from travelers complaining about the new screening protocols. Today the secretary of homeland security and the head of TSA said they are listening and they may adjust protocols in the days and weeks ahead. Meanwhile, the TSA is investigating John Tyner for refusing to complete the screening process. He could face a civil fine of up to $11,000. Their concern, Wolf, that people may come to screening checkpoints and probe them and see how far they can get, that terrorists could do that. That's why they have those fines -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: But if somebody doesn't want to go through the procedures, they don't have to let them go through the security gate, right?</s>MESERVE: No. And he didn't. He turned around and left the airport. You have to go through some kind of screening. Now, the TSA says a very small number of people are getting subjected to these pat-downs, these intensive pat-downs.</s>BLITZER: The new, more robust pat-downs.</s>MESERVE: Exactly. It's the people who either refuse to go through the body imaging machines or they find an anomaly in the body imaging machines or people who set off the metal detector or people who are picked for random screening. They say the number is relatively small. It is not every traveler.</s>BLITZER: A lot of people are going to be flying on Thanksgiving holiday, Christmas. How worried should they be that the lines are going to be horrendous?</s>MESERVE: We just don't know. It depends on these opt-out campaigns that are being conducted telling people not to go through the imaging machines, to take a pat-down. These pat-downs, because they're more intrusive, will take a little bit longer. It depends how many they have to do. There's the possibility it could mean longer lines over what will already be a very crowded holiday travel season.</s>BLITZER: Yes. All right. It's not too pleasant. Thanks very much for that, Jeanne. He's been in Congress for four decades, but his political future is on the line. Charged with a long list of rules violations, Representative Charlie Rangel today walked out of the ethics panel trial. His colleagues deliberated for hours over his fate, before adjourning just a little while ago. Let's bring in our congressional correspondent, Brianna Keilar. She was watching what was going on. It's not pretty, what's going on, Brianna.</s>BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No, it's not. And it's going to continue. The Ethics Subcommittee will continue deliberating tomorrow, Wolf. But today, Charles Rangel's flare for the dramatic was on full display. He walked into this hearing room. He was smiling and he was all by himself, no lawyer by his side, because he was there representing himself. And he told the committee in essence he wasn't sticking around. Here's what he said.</s>REP. CHARLES RANGEL (D), NEW YORK: I object to the proceeding. And I -- with all due respect, since I don't have counsel to advise me, I'm going to have to excuse myself from these proceedings, because I have no idea what this man has put together over two years.</s>KEILAR: Now, Rangel said that his lawyers withdrew their representation when he made it clear to them that he may not be able or wouldn't be able to guarantee that he could continue to pay the legal fees. But a spokesperson for the law firm that had been representing him, Zuckerman Spaeder, told a different story in a statement today, saying, "This law firm did not seek to terminate the relationship and explored every alternative to remain as his counsel consistent with House ethics rules prohibiting members from accepting pro bono legal services." Meantime, this trial continued, what's really the prosecution here, the Ethics Committee lawyers detailing the charges against Rangel. And he's facing 13 alleged violations of House rules. One of the most serious has to do with not paying taxes on rental income from a villa that he owns in the Dominican Republic. We have a picture of him on vacation there. Also failing to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets on his congressional disclosure form. Also misusing a rent-controlled apartment as a campaign office and using congressional letterhead and staff to solicit donations for a college center bearing his name. And some of those companies, Wolf, had some business before his committee, the House Ways and Means Committee, which he did chair before stepping down amid all of these allegations, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: If the House Ethics Committee, Brianna, finds him guilty, what's the potential punishment?</s>KEILAR: The worst one, of course, would be expulsion from the House of Representatives. It's seen as unlikely because it normally would happen to a member if they have already been convicted in criminal proceedings, and obviously Rangel has not. But then there's other varying degrees of rebukes from censure to reprimand perhaps to a fine. What this committee will do is it will determine first if they believe that Rangel is guilty. If so, then they will go to the sanctions process. And they can recommend what the rebuke should be. The full House would have the final say on that, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Brianna, thanks very much for that -- Brianna Keilar from Capitol Hill. One of the rallying cries of the Tea Party movement has been a ban on earmarks, those pet projects, spending items which are routinely added to bills in order to get them passed. House Republicans have already pledged to stop the practice and now one of the chief defenders of earmarks, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, is certainly feeling the pressure. He says he thought long and hard about it. Now he's joining that campaign. Listen to this.</s>SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), MINORITY LEADER: Banning earmarks is another small, but important symbolic step that we can take to show that we're serious, another step on the way to serious and sustained cuts in spending and to debt. Earlier this month, voters across the country said they are counting on Republicans to make tough decisions. They gave us a second chance. With this decision, I'm telling them that they were right to put their trust in us.</s>BLITZER: Senate Republicans are set to vote tomorrow in a nonbinding moratorium on earmarks. Meantime, the president says he's all for this trend. In a statement released, he says -- and I'm quoting -- "I look forward to working with Democrats and Republicans to not only end earmark spending, but to find other ways to bring down our deficits for our children." How President Obama should spend the next two years in office, that's a question that's on Jack's mind. And Jack here is with "The Cafferty File" -- Jack.</s>JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Did you just say they're going to vote on a nonbinding moratorium?</s>BLITZER: Correct.</s>CAFFERTY: So what the hell is the point?</s>BLITZER: It's a symbolic gesture, a statement, a nonbinding statement.</s>CAFFERTY: It doesn't mean anything.</s>BLITZER: It means that they're on record.</s>CAFFERTY: Oh, please. To be a great leader, President Obama should not seek reelection in 2012. That's according to a "Washington Post" piece by two pollsters who worked for Democratic presidents, Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen. They write that Mr. Obama needs to decide how he wants to govern for the next two years, and they think the only way he can attempt to fix the serious problems facing this country is by putting national interests ahead of his personal or political ones. By announcing that he won't run again, Mr. Obama -- quote -- "will be able to unite the country, provide national and international leadership, escape the hold of the left, isolate the right, and achieve results that would be otherwise unachievable" -- unquote. Caddell and Schoen write President Obama would not be a lame duck if he foregoes a second term. Instead, they believe it would give him much more leverage with both parties. If the president showed more bipartisanship, the Republicans would be forced to meet him halfway, and Mr. Obama wouldn't be constantly worried about pleasing the Democrats' base either, people like senior citizens and the unions, in order to convince them to vote for him in two years. Could make it a whole lot easier to accomplish something meaningful on the tough issues, like the debt and the deficit. The writers do believe President Obama can be reelected if he chooses to run, but in order to win, they say he will have to carry out a scorched-earth campaign, the kind of divisive campaign President Bush ran in 2004 and that Mr. Obama completely rejected in 2008. Here's the question. Should President Obama not run for reelection in 2012? Go to CNN.com/caffertyfile. Nonbinding, my foot.</s>BLITZER: All right, Jack, thank you. A lot of nonbinding stuff going on. He's a former secretary of state, a retired four-star general. Some people want Colin Powell to add White House chief of staff to his resume. Powell is now speaking out about that. We're going to hear what he's saying. And why hundreds of outraged people escorted a student to middle school.