CNN news 2014-03-14 加文本

cnn news 2014-03-14

CARL AZUZ, cnn ANCHOR: What caused a passenger jet to disappear in Asia? There are a lot of theories, but so far few answers. That mystery leads of today`s edition of cnn STUDENT NEWS. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 took off early Saturday morning from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was carrying 239 people to Beijing, China, but had vanished from radar and tracking records at around 35,000 feet. There was no distress signal, the weather was clear. With nothing found as of last night, rescuers expanded their search area. They are looking for clues in the Gulf of Thailand, between Malaysia and Vietnam. As they are searching from air and sea, Interpol is investigating on the ground. This is an international organization with ties to police from more than 180 countries. And it`s investigating whether people on the flight with stolen passports might have had anything to do with its disappearance.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s one of the biggest mysteries in the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. How in a post 911 world did two passengers board an international flight with stolen passports? Even more surprising, they were in plain sight, among the names listed in Interpol`s lost and stolen travel documents database. One, since last year, the other, since 2012. Both stolen in Thailand. And it appears the two passengers who used the passports of an Italian and an Austrian citizen, bought their tickets together.

TOM FUENTES, cnn LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: When you book your ticket, the airlines isn`t able to actually make an inquiry with Interpol or even the local police about whether you`re wanted or whether the passport has been reported stolen. The country - the government does.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And according to Interpol last year alone, passengers were able to board planes without having their passport screened against Interpol`s databases more than one billion times. The database and Interpol headquarters in France contains an astounding 40 million records of stolen travel documents.

FUENTES: You know, the member countries, the 190 members that belong to Interpol are not charged a fee for accessing any of those databases. So, if the country has sufficient resources and technical capability to wire into - to Interpol`s virtual private network that`s running 24 hours a day. And, you know, they certainly would be able to access that database and check it - it`s just up to the wheel of the country to set it up and do it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said, now we have a real case where the world is speculating whether the stolen passport holders were terrorists, while Interpol is asking why only a handful of countries worldwide are taking care to make sure that persons possessing stolen passports are not boarding international flights.

AZUZ: Edward Snowden says he has no regrets about leaking classified government information to the public. Yesterday, he asked people at the South by Southwest Conference in Austin, Texas, to help fix U.S. government surveillance. Snowden is a controversial man. He`s a former worker for the National Security Agency, the NSA. He`s now living in exile in Russia because the U.S. government wants him to face felony charges back home. It says Snowden broke the law when he leaked secret information about the NSA. Specifically, that the spy agency collects American citizens phone and Internet information. The U.S. government says its programs help protect Americans by preventing terrorist attacks.

Snowden supporters see him as a whistleblower who`s protecting Americans rights to privacy. His teleconference yesterday was the first time he`s directly addressed the American public since he fled the country. He asked developers at South by Southwest to make secure networks for users, so that no one including the government can easily access Americans information.