Sensedo believe i share a of optimism for americas future that today is eroding for too many of our people. Sense in this a country today that somehow our best days are behind us and that doesnt have to be true. Best days lie ahead if were willing to do what it takes now. Greatest maybe my weakness is i trust people too much, im too trusting. Hen they let me down, if they let me down, i never forgive. Hard to very, very forgive people that deceived me. Probably in terms of the applying for a job of president , the weakness would be not really myself in that position until hundreds of thousands of people begin to tell me that i it. Ed to do i do, however, believe in eagans 11th commandment and will not be engaging in awful about my compatriates here and recognizing it is so important, this election, were talking about america for the people versus america for the government. Is here. To koppel e was the managing editor of nightline for 25 years. This is embarrassing to read. Peabody awards in many of the honors of a long, distinguished career. Lights out, s cyber attack. A nation unprepared, surviving aftermath. It considers the possibility of an cyber attack on the u. S. Power grid. Passed its most significant Cyber Security bill yesterday. Cited harry reid koppels books in his remarks last week about the need for this legislation. Three years ago this month the then secretary of defense panetta warned the United States of a potential cyber harbor. Cyber pearl harbor, direct quote. Cyber pearl harbor would be would be a cyber attack on our nations banks, power grid, government and communications network. And it sounds scary. Scary. Because it is cyber terrorists could potentially bring the United States to its knees. Us. Poensality is upon a cyber attack is not far fetched. Ted koppel, the renowned journalist, has written another book. And the author reveals that our grid is extremely vulnerable to cyber terrorism. Imagine the toll of these attacks. Massive power blackouts, no telephone, no internet thats on your cell phones or whatever phones exist. First responders. An pin fra structure system to chaos. Charlie im pleased to have ted koppel back at this table. Hes a great and dear friend and im pleased a, hes written a to that calls attention what is urgently required to do to avoid a cyber attack. What t with the notion of caused you to come to this book . Essentially, what harry reid was talking about there. Smart, important, highranking people from the president on down. I mean, the president has twice warned about the danger of a grid attack on the power in his state of the union address. Nothing in the press the next morning. Harry reid e that defense secretary leon panetta. Heres the secretary of defense talking about the danger of a harbor. Arl the next day charlie meaning a surprise attack on america will not come past. Has in the it will be over the internet. Over the internet and it will infinitely more damaging potentially than pearl harbor was. Response, nothing. I mean, i think there was a the wall street journal. There was a small item in the new york times. Toi just sat down and i said myself, i wonder what plans, if the have been made for civilian population . So i picked up the phone and i called the red cross. Picked up the phone and i called the department of Homeland Security. And i picked up the phone and i called fema. And i got stuck in one phone after another. I mean, my first reaction was, nothing is going on right now. No crisis. If i cant get through to any in a time e agencies of absolute calm panic. in a time of no panic panic. E during a time of exactly. Eventually you get through the phone tree and find a human being. Human being refers you to a website. Website,o look at that and you can do it, any one of your viewers can do it tomorrow. Website for fema. Look at the website for department of Homeland Security, cross. And they cite every possible befall the t could human race. I mean, an earthquake, a tornado, a hurricane, a blizzard. Of the ng but death first born. Is there one word about the attack . Ity of a cyber there is not. Nothing. And every one of these make talks about having preparations for two, two, three of food, days of water, two, three days medicine. Problem is i cyber attack could knock out the power grid for of hs, affecting tens millions of people. We need a plan. Not a partisan issue. I mean, harry reid ought to be able to reach across the aisle talk to the folks. He and Mitch Mcconnell ought to be able to sit down and say, we have to do something. Charlie if theres anything that ought to go beyond it. Tisanship, this would be a threat to the nation. Absolutely, a threat to the nation. And it is. There was ayou knew question. Why are we so unprepared for especially on the electric grid . At that point my question wonder if the federal government has a plan . And so i began talking to people. And charlie you have seen no evidence of it so far . I see no evidence. Started talking to folks, started doing interviews. Of the to every one secretaries of Homeland Security, beginning with tom and going through to jeh johnson. The ones who have left office quite frank to admit, you know something, there is no plan. There is no plan. Acted as though there might be a plan but hes been too busy to really figure out. He sort of gestured to some olders up on the shelf ofs a office and said, im sure theres something in there somewhere. Fundamentally when you say to are you going to recommend to the American Public . It was get some batteries for batterypowered radio. Charlie walk through the process of how it might happen, how would the attack come about, and that would be the one of the if compromised. Ds was well, lets start with the end. One of the electric power there s compromised, would be no light, no cooling, water, no, no flow of in the ing toilets, cities thousands of people would be stuck in elevators but they of the t them out elevators eventually. But it could potentially be i know. You live here in the city, right . Charlie yes. How much food do you have at home . Almost nothing for me because i eat out every night. People in eat many this city eat out or call out for food or have enough food in three days. R two, very few people have enough food to last them for months. So i spoke to the then secretary of Homeland Security for the york. Of new i said, how many how much food do you have . Said, well, weve got probably i think he said or 25 million m. R. E. s, meals ready to eat. The state of for new york, right . Exactly. York, youre ew talking about 8 million people. Lets assume the folks upstate take care of themselves. Million people, 25 meals. Thats three meals per person. Lets say they limit themselves meal a day. Charlie three days. Three days. That . Happens after no plan. There is no plan. Charlie first question though, there any way to stop it . Or is it inevitable that this will take place and we will have to deal with it. Little more nly a than a week ago admiral mike ogers, the director of the nusa. The wally read it in street journal. He addressed a wall street journal conference. Of the, this is the head n. S. A. , is inevitable that cyber going to be a attack against our infrastructure. Austin, to lloyd general lloyd austin, who is the centcom. R of general austin said to me, its not a question of if, its a question of when. Charlie let me just make sure i understand what youre saying here. Its not a question of if, its question of when, in is that there will be a successful attack . On one of our grids. We only have three cyber grids in the United States. Interconnect, texas has its own, and then the west coast. Charlie do we know if people had tried to attack the grids of the United States . Know they are already in the grid. Charlie we know. But they havent pulled the trigger . The ey havent pulled trigger. And those that can do it the good news is, charlie, those who it, chinese, the russians, already have what sort of like cyber land mines in the grid. And essentially by hitting a key computer charlie like a desktop computer. Like a desktop computer. It could be anywhere. It could be someone sitting in ukraine. Someone sitting in can burria. In ould be somebody sitting brooklyn. You dont know where theyre going to be. Charlie and this is in fact the possibility of the internet. The horrifying possibility is twofold. Was never ternet designed to be defended. Designed as one Army Intelligence officer told exchange essors could good ideas. Impossible to completely defend something that designed to be defended in the first place. Designed to act be charlie everything thats been done so for gnat short history internet has been to expand its possibilities rather it. N defend exactly. And in the final analysis, charlie, when you look around, you say wait a second, there re thousands of hacking incidents every day. They target industry. Banks. Rget they target Companies Like target. Target the files of our intelligence agencies. To get into the private email account of the cia director. Charlie cia director. Cia director. Think, careless for anyone to assume we can do all of those things, all of those every that are happening day, but dont worry about what is fundamentally a poorly of ected piece infrastructure like the inevitable. It is the question is why is there no emergency and urgency . Why . Who used to ander, former head of n. S. A. Crude, aid, its kind of but were up to our as in alligators. Alligator. Iciss we have the syria alligator. Alligator. N we have iraq alligator. We have afghanistan alligator and youre coming to me saying got this other alligator over here that hasnt happened yet but it might. Said in the army, we have a special group and a special charge of the n future. What are the potential issues we about . O worry im not all together sure, charlie, we have someone in our system who is tasked with doing the same thing. Woulde but heres what i suggest maybe, it is that its increasing as an priority for them. I mean, Keith Alexander was head of cyber and head command. Those were the two jobs. And mike rogers has those two today. It is a priority for them now. It is a subject of great the chinese and the United States. They certainly do, charlie. The n. S. A. Is in deep trouble in this country. Charlie right. Courtesy of Edward Snowden. Courtesy of Edward Snowden and much of what snowden reported turns out to be accurate. To ask tion we have ourselves as patriotic american citizens is, are we more worried having our privacy compromised by our own agencies or by the intelligence agencies of the theese and the russians and iranians . Charlie and what do they want to do with the information . Exactly. And in the time analysis i think we may have to come to the to lusion that we have got give the n. S. A. A little bit of space. Now, you spoke charlie the balance between security . D absolutely. And you know, the irony is groups like google, for example, there saying wait a second, dont try and control do with the information that we gather from your lap ops that you punch into your laptops because you dont really think about the fact that the you put into at that laptop is then being used of these private companies to do what . To make money. To other it then merchandisers. Charlie of course they do. Apple makes a big point about that. Argument, they dont sell information. They sell product. Hats apples argument to try to separate themselves from google. On the other hand the government and f. B. I. Is very concerned because they encrypt the products in which they cannot access them. No backdoor. No backdoor. Nd yet one of the interesting things as you heard at the black hat conference, usually takes place in las vegas. Hackers go and delight in pointing out to the companies, siemens, or example, has all of these skatia systems they create. Scata stands for supervisory acquisition. Ata essentially they run the that keeps our energy grids in balance. A perfect have balance between the production consumption ofhe energy. So siemens makes a lot of these systems. Essentially the same scata system is sitting in california in tehran. Ng theyre sold all over the world. We have this s password hackproof that only siemens technicians an get into with these scata systems. And at one of these black hat conferences, one young man gets and explains this and says his is what siemens says and heres that password and he proceeds to give it to them. O siemens had to send people all over the world to get into heir backdoor and change the password. Charlie rechange the password, yeah. Charlie obviously, have you heard a word about this in the Political Campaign so far . I heard one word from jim webb, who, of course longer a candidate. No longer a candidate. He made a passing reference to Cyber Attacks and nobody paid any attention to him whatsoever. Of course, hes not in the anymore. Charlie one other question we always ask president s, potential the famous, what if you got a call at 3 00 in the orning, which was part of the democratic debate in 2008, when hillary and president obama. You outlined before we began what rogram a sense of would a president do and how would he have to respond . You know, the be, presentation to a president if there had been an attack . The right ctly question to ask. If we go back into the 1960s, what we were worried about was the potential of a nuclear attack, we would have known where that newell lar attack was coming from. The president wouldnt have had much time. Someone would have called the president and said, mr. Minutes. , we got 28 they Just Launched the oviets Just Launched however many Nuclear Missiles and they will be impacting here in the next 28 minutes. 28 minutes the president would have then had to make a decision as to whether he wanted to launch a retaliatory attack. But he would have known exactly attacking and where the attack was coming from. Charlie today . Theoday somebody walks into president and says, mr. President , someone has just the texas power houston, dallas, san antonio. Theyre all in the dark. Beforebe weeks or months we can get it up again. And the president says, well, do idea who did it . We have , we believe 57 certainty it came out of the ukraine. Wait a president says, second, youre telling me youve got 57 certainty. I supposed to do with that . And who exactly in the ukraine it . Ou think did and are you absolutely confident ukraine, riginated in or when you start back channeling here, are you going o find out actually it didnt originate in ukraine. It was just passed through it came from chile. Charlie or pakistan. Chile, it came from islamabad. And before islamabad, someone some connection with this in brooklyn. And now the president says, and are you tly recommending that i do and against whom . Briefers sort of look at one another and say, well get president. , mr. Just remember charlie make sure you get back to me within within how much time . Just remember how much time it when north korea hacked into sony pictures. Months before the f. B. I. Could say with any certainty. Came from at it china or from north korea. And even then, when they realized it had come from north do . Ea, exactly what did we we targeted a few individuals in the north korean hierarchy but think anything that the United States did at that point i dont know what they privately is going to discourage north korea from doing it again. Charlie in all of the people you talked to in writing the best plan had hat ought to be implemented today . Well, the only people who really have a plan didnt form late it because of the danger of attack against the u. S. Power grid. And many rmon Church Mormons in this country are about as well disaster or anything as anyone could possibly be. Why that . Because they have been kicked from the political posts the past 200 years. They were kicked out of new york of new york into ohio and from ohio into in utah. Ending up ending up in utah. And throughout their history, hey have been told by their leaders, by their prophet, you worst. O be ready for the you have to be prepared. It may be a natural disaster. T may be that your husband dies. It may be that you and your both lose your jobs at the same time. Back log of food and many, if not most, mormon country have at least a threemonth supply of food. Harlie the president said in one of his statements we dont want to wake up in ten years and we do something. It is one of the things the president has said. Indeed he has. Seems the d it president is the person ultimately responsible for doing it. In his state of the union address. Should he be held accountable for not doing something, just talking about it . Poor man has a lot on his plate. Charlie oh, stop that. A lot on his plate. Like the people you want to talk to saying im busy, i dont have the time. Busy. Esident is im giving him a pass. Im not giving him a pass. Im giving you the answer you from the administration, the president has a lot on his plate. What is being done, for example, there is a required threestar working together with a colleague. Him got a few paragraphs on in the book. Charlie right. And their theory is its more than a theory. They say look, the u. S. Navy has een using the Small Nuclear generators on navy ships for the not 50 years and we have had a single accident. Hy dont we put these Nuclear Generators on military bases round the country so that, a, the military has a guaranteed supply of electricity . B, the surplus of electricity that they produce support n be used to hospitals and all kinds of infrastructure in the local community. Wonderful idea. If indeed it is approved, it ten years to implement it. Hasnt been approved. Today. E you should start they should have started yesterday. Im s what im hoping hoping that we will get a National Debate started, charlie. Debate. A a conversation. Charlie let me just talk about you. How do you view nightline in your life . In my life . Charlie yeah. Well me doe here you are, let this. One, born in england. To stanford. Ended up as a radio reporter for abc, was it . Was. T charlie and television, correspondent. You said some wonderful things about Henry Kissinger because well. Overed him you and marvin calb and others was secretary of state. Then we