they do work in both places. and the clinical work, the fact that our doctors do clinical work and if your veteran, isn't it nice to have someone work with you who actually has to teach what they are doing because that you are sure they know it. it is a great system and privatization is not the answer. >> that was just part of what ronald mcdonald -- robert mcdonald have to say. sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern. >> ted koppel, when we talk a grid, what electric are we talking about?

mr. koppel we are actually talking about three grids. thes has its own grid in west coast has its own grid. by large, we are about three grids. >> how are they simple? -- assembled? partsppel: there are 3200 to it. whereas in the old days we used to have vertically emigrated companies that produced power and then downloaded it to the various customers. these days, you have 3200 countries. some of which produce power and

others which deliver power. from a commercial point of view, that works out very well. it means the consumer gets a better deal because power can be purchased from wherever in the country it is not needed. for sample, when her florida does not need as much electricity as it needs in the summer. chicago needs more than it does at other times of the year so you can take power from florida and you can transfer it to chicago. usebig problem is the power and consumption in the production of power has two remain imperfect allen's. the only thing that is capable of maintaining a perfect balance among 3200 companies is the internet.

the internet was never designed to be protected. honorable tonet is a hacking attack. theme of this, likes out, is that there are people out there who are already inside our grid. the chinese and russians are. the iranians are probably. quitekoreans maybe not but they can probably get in at some point. it takes years of mapping. entity can getor in. the potential damage to the united states of america to our economy, to our survival, is a must existential. >> where are the susceptible

points in the grade for these attacks -- the grid for these attacks? ted koppel: there is something scda -- scadar -- system. it -- it is like a huge balloon. as long as you have perfect balance, the balloon stays perfectly inflated. so too with our electric power system, if you can get into the , and they can and they

have, it is automatic. >> how are they getting in? bmp -- emp no, and is an electric magnetic pulse. it would be generated by someone device, for nuclear example. would knock out all of our electric power systems. i'm not talking about that. i touch on it briefly in the book, but only briefly. one of the reasons there is so much concern about the north koreans, having nuclear record weapons is because that is the kind of attack that they could launch.

unlikely, i talked to the former secretary of homeland herrity and she says not in top 10 list. when i asked her about the likelihood of a cyber attack, she put it at about 80%. >> that is more of a malware thing, correct? ted koppel: that is. there are all kinds of things that you can fiddle with inside our grid. system would probably be the most damaging. out,"your book, "lights you visited all for department of homeland security secretary's . what did you hear from them? ted koppel: jeh johnson and

michael chernoff have the same suggestion to the public at large. let's say for the sake of argument this can happen. and the president can -- has warned that it could in two of his state of the union addresses. janet napolitano warned that this could happen. these are not third and fourth ranking bureaucrats. these are the very top people in our government warning that it could happen. so what is the plan, i asked? they essentially had the same plan which is i would get yourself a battery powered radio. i then replied, ok, what is it you're going to telling me that you cannot share now?

neither one of them had a good answer. ted koppel: tom ridge had a more nuanced approach. reactivehat we are a society. we're not very good at preemptive action. look at everything that we did in the wake of 9/11 and you can see that once we aroused to action, there is almost no limit to what we do. american menyoung and women are dead. ofdreds of the thousands iraqis and afghani's are dead. $2.5ve spent nearly trillion.

it would be another thousand years from today before that business have lost one footing dollars. we have expended way and excess of $2 trillion in 15 years. that is a lot of money. >> tom ridge, after 9/11, we were talking about batteries and duct tape. how naive was that or was it naive? ted koppel: i was one of those who made fun of it at the time. i've become a little more accepting and understanding of what he was trying to do at the time. sometimes, simply motivating people to any kind of action at all is a step in the right

direction. even if it turns out wrong later. motivated that you was totally unsuited. for sample, i was born in england. ii, the world war british government prepare the british people for gas attacks. hundreds of thousands, if not millions of gas masks were and passed out. nurses were trained in dealing with the aftermath of poison gas. for reasons that no one has totally understood. they were never attacked with gas. there was a massive bombardment of great britain. but the gas attacks didn't happen. even so, the mobilization of british society in 1939 in 1940 was enormously helpful when

those calming attacks began. it was an attack totally the similar from what had been expected. the fact that society had been mobilized, the people were ready for action, even if the action they anticipated were -- was not helpful. the fact is these days, most are not prepared for any kind of disaster. some are. as you know from the book, i spent a lot of time with the mormons. they are prepared for a must any kind of disaster as individual families and as a church culture. it is worth studying their example to see what can we learn. >> what would you recommend?

what can we learn? ted koppel: the first thing is going to be is we are going to run out of food there quickly. we have no electricity. a city like new york city. state of new york has or at least had when i was researching the work, 23 million meals ready to eat. that sounds like an enormous amount of food. people in new york citalone, that food would the con in four days. what are you going to do on day five? i would first recommend that the orernment invest 50 million $100 billion in freeze tried food. stock arnment does not huge quantity of mr ease -- mr''

s because they have a shelf life of five years. freeze-dried food has a shelf life of 20 years. it would be available for any disaster, a hurt plane -- hurricane, cyberattacks, earthquake. it doesn't matter. i would recommend that we have a plan for evacuation. right now, any talk of evacuation for city like new york, chicago, or philadelphia is totally ludicrous. where would you go with these people? where would you take them? the hapless doing that europe is dealing with 2 million refugees. there is no plan for the mass evacuation of people in this country and while we assume that

states still have power, they would happily welcome hundreds of thousands of their fellow americans. i don't have to believe that is true. i know at least one state where the governor has a plan in the event that large numbers of people from neighboring cities come swarming into his rural state. he has a plan to have the police and national guard waiting with a bottle of water and sandwich for each heart and a map showing them where the nearest gas station is an telling them i'm sorry we didn't have the support youre to here unless you have a local resident who is ignorant, you have to keep moving. i fear that would happen on a people mostecause likely to leave some of most

likely to run, are going to be people who have nothing. they will be the poorest among isand let's be frank, this still in many respects, a society in which race plays an important part. if you have hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands of african americans, hispanics, people of color from heading to the role states -- rural state that are almost uniquely white, it could be problematic or if i'm saying could be. i think we need to make a plan. if we make a plan, i don't think there will be a problem. but the time to make a plan is before this happened. >> who is responsible for the grid? ted koppel: well, the power companies have been insisting that they are. years, ist couple of

believe more and more power companies are coming to the conclusion that they cannot do it on their own. when you ask who's going to help defend them, it is going to have to be organizations like the national security -- apple with its iphones and the fbi. the notion that you are going to give our control of the defense of your industry requires that you give up an awful lot of information. a lot of these companies do not want to give up. there was a bill passed last has privatew industries willing to pass on information to the government. have sanitized it, which takes some time.

the agency to which they going department ofthe homeland security. sanitizedthen further this information and then, presumably pass it on to the nsa. we're doing with a form of attack with -- which happens in milliseconds. of responding will take days, if not weeks. that is not a very good plan. becomer security has kind of a big business has in it? ted koppel: yep. >> that's all i got. ted koppel: you're going to leave it to me, aren't you? is clearly one of the questions we have to consider. this comerree is all

station about cyber security and the dangers of a cyber attack to what degree is that a function of people who have been in the cyberss of dealing with warfare. by coming up defensive mechanisms that silence implies may not even be needed. is i have looked at the -- that the danger israel. real. are people going to get rich? there always has

been people who have gotten rich from the defense industry. the difference between getting rich by creating omissions or helicopters or bombers or who are than people trying to find solutions to cyber warfare and hacking. say, alexander likes to and he is the former head of the nsa, he likes to say there are only two kinds of companies in the united eights today. those that have been hacked and those that don't yet know. in other words, everybody. and he's probably right. maybe a slight exaggeration, but probably right. you mentioned at the beginning of the discussion, that both russia and china are already in our grid. how do we know that and how did they get in? ted koppel: the only reason i know it is because people --

high-ranking people who were in the nsa told me so. i think they are in a position to know it. on the flipside, we are in the chinese great. we are in the russian grade. anything they can do to us, we can do to them in spades. however, the difference between the danger of a nuclear attack in the danger of a cyber attack is -- in the case of a nuclear attack, when the missiles are headed to the and it dates, a question of attribution -- retribution is not even arise. we know where they came from. in the case of a cyberattacks, we may not know for months. so, it becomes virtually -- once you are a few

months down the road, what's the situation on the ground here at home. the great fear that i have is that those who are most capable of launching a cyber attack against our infrastructure are probably the least likely deterred. china, russia. as you go down the scale of capability, you get down to the iranians. you get to the north koreans, capability might be marginal. but two years from now, three years from now, they have a lot of money and can get expertise.

isis ever has the capability to launch a cyber attack against conflict greatd pain and suffering, they will do it. there is no doubt in my mind about it. even with some of the others, like the koreans, like the rainy iranians, they are more likely to do that than they are to launch a nuclear attack against the united eights. in the case of a nuclear attack, we would know who did it and the response would be devastating. --the case of a cyber attack -- yone

>> in the knowledge that of your out" you wrote -- it seemed possible. ted koppel: as i mentioned to you earlier, the president has twice mentioned in state of the union speeches, the secretary of homeland security and secretary of defense have mentioned it. beingemember sort of daily interested. if they are right and if it is true, what would be consequences and if the consequences are several sitting as a think they're going to become a what is the plan? knowspicious reporters only there is no plan and i'm

even more convinced of that today. have you done anything in your personal life to prepare for such an attack? yes, we have freeze-dried food. all of mysure that children and grandchildren have freeze-dried food. and, beyond that, i've acquired a few things that operate on solar power. , there's times when needs oxygen enemies something to run that piece of equipment, so i have a's malt solar power generator that would do the job. i haven't done much. she was talking about getting a gun. i'm a little reluctant to do that. for the people who come for the

freeze-dried food. at this stage in my life to my don't think i want to do that. -- ted koppel: no more fair than it was in the 1950's. new i'm saying is when a weapon system exists in enough evolved in terms of developing a means for creating a balance of terror, as we did with our mutual assured theruction programs between russians and us, we simply sayingsitting back and if it happens it happens, and maybe it won't happen. me many people have told

that the chances of it happening are considerable. i'm trying to get a dialogue started. i'm only wishing that i could inject this subject into what has been a silly political campaign season so far. that has to be up to the candidates. we live in an age of the internet. the internet was never designed to be defended. keep thinking about that. so, the fact that it has now evolved into potentially a weapon of mass destruction means that we are living in a time and we have made very

to deal with this that givesnstrument .s so many benefits to think about the later. only years i often wonder what would have happened if someone have been able to show our forefathers and mothers. if you keep going with this new invention, this automobile you call it. the day will come when you have 50,000 fatalities a year on your highways just in the united

states of america. are you willing to give up that many for this convenience? once they have enjoyed the benefits, come to the american public and say give up your cars and they will they are you out of your mind? we've come too late to the conclusion of things that are of great value and of great danger. >> who is george kotter? ted koppel: he was chief of staff of the nsa and he is a man that i believe in his early 80's, still has all his marbles. very sharp. ofis outraged by the failure the power industry in congress to do very much to prepare for the dangers of a cyber attack. pleased to say'm was enormously helpful to me and understanding some of the issues and dangers. working inifetime of u.s. intelligence with physical emphasis for the last years that

he was at the nsa on cyber security. i think he is well-placed to be someone we need to pay attention to. >> a lot of people know you from run -- iran -- i hostage reports. no more than the bombing of nagasaki and hiroshima. clearly -- from the japanese viewpoint, those were the most horrific weapons ever used in the history of mankind. there are many people, who became -- who leave it --

you have to understand when you let the genie out of the bottle, what you have done is made cyber offare and acceptable form dealing with your adversaries. it is not going to be very impressive for the u.s. government to take that position that you can't do it to us. we did it to someone else first. delayingfective and the iranian nuclear program, but -- pandora's box. cyberattacks, nation unprepared. out," k, "lights