The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, a debate over proposed new air quality standards between EPA Administrator Carol Browner and industry lawyer Boyden Gray, an update on the refugee situation in Central Africa, a Tom Bearden report on keeping secrets in cyberspace, and a look at Major League baseball's new peace agreement. It all follows our summary of the news this Wednesday. NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The Environmental Protection Agency recommended stricter air quality standards today. The proposals would require cities to reduce ozone or smog levels by 1/3. EPA Administrator Carol Browner said the new measures also target tiny airborne particulates such as soot and sulfate. Browner spoke at a Washington news conference.

CAROL BROWNER, EPA Administrator: I think the science it is clear, it is convincing. The current standards do not provide adequate protection. Where the disagreement exists is about who should be protected and against what, health effects, and that we are asking the American people to give us their judgment on. Are we talking about asthma, are we talking about aggravated cases of asthma, are we talking about respiratory illnesses? We have a judgment, we articulate that to the American people in this proposal in terms of where lines should be drawn, who should be protected against what health effects. Now they will comment to us.

JIM LEHRER: The EPA will take those public comments on the proposals for the next 60 days. Final regulations are expected to be announced in mid June. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. A federal judge today blocked the enforcement of the California civil rights initiative. Proposition 209 would amend the state constitution to ban race and gender consideration in public programs and in college admissions. Nearly 55 percent of Californians voters approved it earlier this month. The judge's restraining order said civil rights groups had a strong probability of proving the initiative is unconstitutional. He's scheduled a hearing for December 16th. Defense Sec. Perry said today the new NATO force cannot guarantee peace in Bosnia. He said the Bosnians, themselves, were responsible. Perry spoke on Italy on his way to spend Thanksgiving Day with U.S. troops in Bosnia. Their mission ends next month, but the U.S. has agreed to send 8500 new U.S. troops to Bosnia next year as part of a 31,000-member NATO follow-on force. This week, the Pentagon notified 26 National Guard reserve units around the country to begin preparing for the new Bosnian mission. The United States will support a Canadian plan to set up a refugee crisis headquarters in Central Africa. The unit would be based in Entebbe, Uganda, or in Rwanda. The State Department spokesman made the announcement.

NICHOLAS BURNS, State Department Spokesman: This mission would be to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the refugees and to facilitate the return of the refugees to Rwanda, which, as you know, is the major goal, one of the major goals of this operation. The United States is prepared to participate in the multinational mission under Canadian leadership, and we will contribute personnel to its headquarters, civil military affairs units, and other support elements, while continuing to plan for potential additional mission tasks as they are defined by a multinational force.

JIM LEHRER: He said the United States contingent would also provide airlift, air control, and other support services. We'll have more on the Central Africa refugee situation later in the program. The government of North Korea today released the American held since August on spying charges. Evan Hunziker arrived this afternoon in Seattle on his way home to nearby Tacoma, Washington. Hunziker had a brief stopover in Tokyo on his way from North Korea. He traveled with the congressman who secured his release, New Mexico Democrat Bill Richardson. Richardson poke to reporters at an air base near Tokyo. He said Hunziker was wrongly accused.

REP. BILL RICHARDSON, [D] New Mexico: He's not a spy. He didn't go there to create any havoc or evil, and I the North Koreans have pushed ahead with a humanitarian gesture, releasing him basically without preconditions, a small fee. There was no quid pro quo on the American sice. We had urged that he be released on a humanitarian basis. That has happened, and we're pleased.

JIM LEHRER: Hunziker said he was on a mission to convert North Koreans to Christianity. Former CIA officer Harold Nicholson pleaded innocent today to charges he spied for Russia. A federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, accepted the plea and approved a gag order requested by Nicholson's attorneys. They argued publicity about the case had jeopardized their client's right to a fair trial. The judge set the trial for next March 10th. In Yugoslavia, there was another anti-government rally on the streets of Belgrade today. The thousands of protesters were upset over new elections today. They were organized by the Milosevic government. It had invalidated the results of earlier elections run by the opposition. Some in the crowd smashed storefront windows. This was the ninth straight day of protest rallies in Belgrade. President Clinton returned to the White House today from his 12-day Asia Pacific strip. And among the first things he did was receive the official Thanksgiving turkey. It was raised in Ohio and presented to the President by representatives of the National Turkey Federation. The turkey was pardoned by the President and will be sent to a petting farm in Virginia. The presentation of this national Thanksgiving turkey has been a tradition at the White House since 1947. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the air quality proposals, a Central Africa update, keeping secrets in cyberspace, and the Major League baseball deal. FOCUS - CLEARING THE AIR

JIM LEHRER: We go first tonight to the new air quality regulations and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: The Environmental Protection Agency today proposed new, tougher air quality standards that would require dramatic new reductions in two types of pollutants. The first target is ozone, often called smog, which is produced when sunlight reacts with substances like car exhausts and smokestack emissions. The agency wants to reduce the current ozone target levels by another 1/3. The second target are so-called particulates, very small, airborne particles generated by a variety of sources, including manufacturing, construction, transportation, and agriculture. The EPA wants to start regulating the smallest of these particles, 75 percent smaller than the particles they've regulated in the past. Today's action is just the beginning of a process that will include public comment and congressional review, but it has already sparked sharp debate. For that debate, we're joined now by Carol Browner, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and C. Boyden Gray, a former counsel to President Bush. Mr. Gray works for Geneva Steel, a Utah manufacturer, and also represents the Air Quality Standards Coalition, a group of companies fighting the new regulations. Good evening, both of you. Ms. Browner, tell us why the EPA thinks these new standards are necessary.

CAROL BROWNER, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator: We conducted "the" most extensive scientific peer review in the history of the agency. We began this process three and a half years ago, six thousand studies. And what the independent scientific peer review panel found is that the current standards leave far too many Americans at risk, particularly children. What we're talking about are premature deaths. Otherwise healthy elderly senior citizens died because of air pollution. We're talking about aggravated asthma attacks in our children. Asthma is now the single largest cause of hospitalization for young children in this country-- bronchitis, respiratory illness, people not able to go to work, or kids miss school. The health effects are clear and convincing.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Gray, why are you opposed, and the industries you represent opposed?

C. BOYDEN GRAY, Air Quality Standards Coalition: Well, we don't think the health effects are anywhere convincing at all. We think the evidence, indeed, is quite thin. And our position is that since these pollutants are all being driven down rather dramatically by the current Clean Air Act and will be so driven down well into the next century that there is time for EPA to do some more research to be sure that we are targeting the right pollutants to deal with the right health problems. EPA has told us on the PM, on the particulate matter issue, for example, that they really don't have enough data and don't have enough research to know what or how to regulate, but they need to put a standard out there in order to generate the data and do the research. And we say no, why don't you put the monitors out, gather the data, find out what's going on, and then put a standard in. You can still regulate in time to catch up with the current Clean Air Act. There are many provisions in the Clean Air Act which have not yet been implemented, and we have a long way to go to see--in our effort to see these pollutants reduced under the current statute.

MARGARET WARNER: How solid do you think the scientific evidence is?

CAROL BROWNER: The science is overwhelming. I think it's also important to understand what the law says. The Clean Air Act has said for the last 26 years--it was reaffirmed by President Bush just in 1990--that the public's health must be protected with a margin of safety. It requires EPA at least every five years, sooner if appropriate, to review current public health standards, to look at available science, and to make that determination, and that's what we're doing.

MARGARET WARNER: So what has changed since the last time EPA promulgated standards, both in ozone and with these particulates?

CAROL BROWNER: Well, people at EPA have wanted to do this for some time. Unfortunately, prior administrations essentially blocked that. They wouldn't allow EPA to undertake the extensive review to make the kind of proposals that we make today. What has changed is the science. The health effects have been far better documented. They are far more compelling than they have been previously. Some of these studies that we reviewed, that our independent scientific panel reviewed, literally involved hundreds of thousands of people, trips to hospitals, there's demonstrations that under certain whether conditions, certain pollution conditions people are becoming sick. Our children are suffering.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Gray, are you contending that these health effects haven't been documented enough, or they simply aren't there?

C. BOYDEN GRAY: Well, I think it's a bit bizarre to say that the Bush administration blocked review of clean air, since he put through the most sweeping environmental statute ever adopted. The question is: What has surfaced in the science since 1990, when the Congress adopted this very sweeping statute, which is only now beginning to be implemented? And we don't know of what--of what Carol Browner is--Ms. Browner is talking about. There are only two studies on PM 2.5, for example.

MARGARET WARNER: Those are particulates.

C. BOYDEN GRAY: That's right. The particulate. There are only two studies that have been conducted. They are quite thin in terms of their research, and we think a lot more work needs to be done, and, in fact, EPA has acknowledged that they need to do work and have said that they have to go abroad to study PM, because the ambient levels of PM, particulate matter, in this country are so relatively low. And we think there's plenty of time to get this straight. If, for example, on asthmatics, which EPA says is not a problem with PM, particulate matter, it's the problem with ozone, they say, if, in fact, it is outdoor ozone which is causing this, that's something we can--we have time to find out. But if EPA is wrong about that and the problem relates to indoor air pollution, smoke, cooking, allergens, cockroaches, other things that go on indoors, if that's the problem, then we will have wasted quite a bit of money, billions of dollars, and about ten or fifteen years when we could have done better for our children. These pollutants, these problems are being driven down very dramatically now under the current Clean Air Act. There is ten years at least to figure out precisely where we should go in the future.

MARGARET WARNER: I want to get back to you, Ms. Browner, but let me just ask Mr. Gray to clarify something for us. Are you saying the science isn't conclusive on the levels of this particulate matter, or ozone, or are you saying the science isn't conclusive about what health effects it has?

C. BOYDEN GRAY: The science isn't conclusive about either, about both. The science is inconclusive. We--on ozone, for example, the science advisory committee has said that they cannot see any significant additional health benefit from reducing a standard--

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let me get Ms. Browner to respond just to that.

CAROL BROWNER: I think it's important to set the questions here. The science is overwhelming. Sixteen thousand studies were reviewed. The scientific peer review panels agreed that current standards leave far too many Americans at risk. What is at debate, I think the debate here is about who do we protect and what do we protect against. I think some in industry are suggesting that asthma cases made more severe are, quite frankly, not worth protecting against. We don't agree with that. We've put forward a proposal that would provide protection to asthmatics, to children, to our seniors, and we're asking the public to comment on it. But to suggest that the science isn't there I think is really to distort the debate. The debate is about and there's a public policy debate about who we decide to protect in this country and against what health effects.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you want to weigh back in on that point, or should I go into the cost issue?

C. BOYDEN GRAY: I'd like to say that if we're talking about the elderly, for example, take Chicago and the big heatwave two or three summers ago, when Mayor Daley was faced with that, he didn't call up the local utility and tell them to shut their operations, he called them up and said crank it so we can get more air conditioning. If the problem of the elderly has to do with indoor ventilation, fans, air conditioning, heat versus humidity, versus cooler air, we may be diagnosing--may be coming up with a mis- diagnosis here. And since these pollutants again I repeat are all coming down very dramatically and will continue to go down well into the next century, there is time to do more research. There is very little data about PM, fine particulate matter in this country. There are only a handful of monitors throughout the country. We don't know--nobody knows what the ambient levels are in this country and what those ambient levels are doing.

MARGARET WARNER: Tell me this, Ms. Browner, what about the point he made that the Clean Air Act, as it was written, hasn't even been fully complied with? Why wouldn't EPA say, all right, let's fulfill that first and then move on?

CAROL BROWNER: The Act is very clear. Congress has been very specific for the last 26 years. President Bush reaffirmed that commitment. EPA at least every five years determined whether or not the public's health is being adequately protected. That is what the law says. It says then once you've made that determination, look at how best to meet the standards. We agree that there are things underway, there are things about to come online that are very important in reducing pollution. We believe that 70 percent of the areas where the air might not meet tougher standards will be able to do so through currently available or about-to-be-available technologies. But I think this argument that somehow or another there aren't studies that we don't know is just confusing the public. The real question is how many asthmatics do we want to protect, how many seniors do we want to protect. EPA has articulated a position, but we are asking for the public's comment.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Mr. Gray, what about the cost issue, how much do you think it would cause for industry to comply with both of these new proposals?

C. BOYDEN GRAY: We haven't had a chance to study the proposals as they're just being made today to know exactly how much it will cost, but we do know that the ozone proposal would roughly cost in Chicago alone 3 to 7 billion dollars. And that's typical for a city of that size. That's a lot of money. And that doesn't even get into what the particulate matter rules would cost. It's very difficult at this point to say what they would cost, but we do know is that utility bills would be higher for individuals, it would be harder to get air conditioning, harder to get heating in the cold winter. But we do know that it would be more expensive. Gasoline, it might be 3 to 5 to 8 cents more per gallon, like a 5 or 8 cent gasoline tax. We know that gasoline is getting cleaner. We have been through one phase of reformulated gasoline which the California Air Resources Board just a month ago said was responsible for reducing ozone, peaks some 40 percent. Phase 2 will kick in, in the next few years, both there and in some other major cities in the United States. Let's let that go into effect and take more time to study what needs to be done after that is completed sometime early next century.

MARGARET WARNER: What's your assessment of the cost?

CAROL BROWNER: First of all, I think it's important to understand that some in industry, quite frankly, are putting forward horror stories. They're absolutely positively not true. There's a long history under the Clean Air Act of industry, government working together to find common sense cost effective solutions. Every single time we have sought to strengthen the public health protections to reduce air pollution in this country, the actual costs have been far less than anyone projected, including EPA. We project costs on the order of 6 to 8 1/2 billion dollars. We project benefits--benefits--of $120 billion. I think it is important again to understand that this phase of the process is about the public's health. It is about who we protect and what kind of protection we provide them. That is where the discussion is now. That is what we solicit comment on. We will work with industry to find cost-effective, common sense solutions, as we have done to reduce or ban chlorofluorocarbons, as we have done to address the acid rain problem very successfully.

MARGARET WARNER: Boyden Gray, will the--very briefly before we go, will your industry groups be working with EPA to try to modify these standards, or is your objective to just stop them outright?

C. BOYDEN GRAY: Our objective at the moment is to try to make sure we're doing the right thing. That's what the comment period is about. But, of course, we'll work with EPA; industry always has, and it's always done its best to comply with these rules. My only point is we're flat out right now trying to meet the current law and will be so flat out well into the next century, and let's try to make sure we've got it right before we overlay yet another set of requirements.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Well, thank you, Boyden Gray and Administrator Browner. Thanks for being with us. UPDATE - AFRICAN CRISIS

JIM LEHRER: Now an update on the Rwanda and Zaire story, most particularly on how many refugees are still unaccounted for and possibly facing starvation. Charlayne Hunter-Gault has that story.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: The latest Central African crisis began over a month ago along the Zaire-Rwandan border. The Rwandan government, together with rebels in Zaire, moved to seize control of a slice of Eastern Zaire. Their objective was to drive away the Hutu militias who were using the refugee camps around Goma and Bukavu as a base for attacks against Rwanda. The refugees clustered in those camps were caught between the warring factions. Two years ago, more than a million, mostly Hutu refugees, escaped from Rwanda to Zaire. Among them were militia men and soldiers, who had participated in the massacre of more than 1/2 million minority Tutsis in 1994. They were avoiding retribution from the Tutsis, who had seized control of Rwanda after the massacres. As the recent fighting escalated, aid supplies were cut off. Defying the Hutu militias and soldiers, hundreds of thousands of the refugees, with little food or water, abandoned the camps and fled into the mountains and rain forests. Meanwhile, relief workers with emergency supplies struggled to reach other desperate and hungry Hutus still trapped in the camps. Faced with the possibility of mass starvation in Zaire, several nations, led by Canada, proposed an international force to cover relief and refugee aid. The United States agreed to help, mainly with airlift and logistical support. It also provided an advanced force to assess the situation. Then in mid November, the rebels succeed in driving off the Hutu militia men and soldiers in the camps. Suddenly, the remaining civilians, mostly women and children, began moving. An estimated 1/2 million refugees abandoned the camps and poured back into Rwanda. But there are reports that three hundred to seven hundred thousand are still hiding in the mountains and forests of Zaire. Estimates as to the size and locations of these missing refugees vary wildly. With the dramatic change in the refugee situation over the last two weeks, western governments began taking another look at the need for an international force. This emerged Monday, after a meeting between the U.S. and Canadian defense ministers.

DOUGLAS YOUNG, Defense Minister, Canada: Two weeks ago when we really moved into high gear in trying to marshal some support for humanitarian aid to the folks in Zaire, I don't think anyone would have dreamt that we'd have over 500,000 people back in Rwanda, without having had to deploy anyone or fire a shot.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: On the NewsHour yesterday, Secretary of State Warren Christopher said the Clinton administration is reassessing the need for a military mission.

WARREN CHRISTOPHER, Secretary of State: We're trying very hard to get our hands around the changed picture to see if there is some equally urgent humanitarian reason that caused us to go before, but we need to take time and get it right and not barge in there on a mission that's been not well thought through.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: One issue holding up a decision on an international force is determining exactly how many refugees remain in Zaire and their condition. Meanwhile, as refugee agencies and others struggle to get an accurate count, the Rwandan government is arguing against an international force. They contend that there are no more than 200,000 refugees still displaced.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: We get four assessments now. Soren Jessen-Petersen is the director of the New York Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Bill Garvelink is deputy director of foreign disaster assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Lionel Rosenblatt is president of Refugees International, a private humanitarian organization, and Jeff Drumtra is an Africa policy analyst at the U.S. Committee for Refugees, a private refugee advocacy group. And starting with you, Mr. Garvelink, what is the situation on the ground as we speak, starting in Rwanda?

BILL GARVELINK, U.S. Agency for International Development: Well, I think the return of about 1/2 million refugees worked fairly well. The NGO's, the UNHCR, and the donor community worked very effectively with the government of Rwanda to move those people back through Goma, to Ginsenyi, the weigh stations, and to their communes. The question now, or the difficulty now is resettling this large group of people into the communes that they came from.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: I'm sorry. The last part of what you said was--

BILL GARVELINK: The communes where the people originally came from are now expanding rather dramatically as these populations come back, and there are shortages of water, food, sanitation, shelter, and the relief community is focusing now on these communes to provide these resources as these refugees resettle again at home.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Do you have anything to add to that, Mr. Jessen-Petersen? You have people on the ground there, the UN?

SOREN JESSEN-PETERSEN, UN High Commission for Refugees: Oh, we have a lot of people on the ground, and in particular we have them out their in the communes, because we have a fairly big international presence to monitor the safety of these returnees, work with the authorities to make sure that nothing go wrong.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Is there a question about the safety? Because these people initially feared going back because of possible retribution, has there been any evidence of any of that?

SOREN JESSEN-PETERSEN: No. I think so far I think they have been received very well. It is evident that we will have to continue monitoring that, and there is in particular, the issue around property and health and which would become very explosive, that is probably "the" potential tension.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: You mean, returning to the houses that were once theirs and now that they've gone back, they're occupied by others?

SOREN JESSEN-PETERSEN: Well, they're occupied by those refugees who came back two years ago, who are now living in their houses, and for them to vacate, you will have to find other housing for them. If not, you are creating a lot of tension down there, and that's what has to be watched closely.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Drumtra, do you have anything to add to that?

JEFF DRUMTRA, U.S. Committee for Refugees: Well, I think Rwanda, inside Rwanda bears close scrutiny over the next couple of years. It's a post genocide society. It's a society that we're asking people to live together again, and we in the international community don't have a lot of experience in what happens in a society that has experienced a genocide. There's a need for large numbers of human rights monitors inside Rwanda to really pay close attention to make sure that these people who have come home are safe, as well as everyone else.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Are they there now, human rights monitors?

JEFF DRUMTRA: There's about 120 human rights monitors, but--

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: For 1/2 million people?

JEFF DRUMTRA: And there are plans to expand that to about 200 in the next couple of months and to 300 by next year.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Rosenblatt, what can you add to that, I mean, especially in terms of condition of the people, are they in good shape? I mean, because they went without--they went on this long march. How long was it?

LIONEL ROSENBLATT, Refugees International: There are two groups. The first group that we all saw about a week ago come out of Goma came from a relatively short distance away from the Megunga camp, and there weren't that many miles to traverse, and they had had food recently. The group that's still out in Eastern Zaire is much more problematic. They've been cut off from food for three or four weeks now. They've had a much longer move. They've been in high level elevations, where malaria is a threat, so this is a much different group that we're looking at now still to come out of Eastern Zaire.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: And the group that's in Rwanda now, what about the disease element there, their physical condition? Because there were reports of cholera and some other things. Are they okay?

BILL GARVELINK: It's my sense that the population that is in Rwanda is in relatively good health. As Lionel says, they came from a short distance. They had been fairly well fed for the past two years. There's been cases of cholera but not dramatic, and they seem to be under control.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: And the Rwandan government, what is the reaction of the Rwandan government, who are Tutsis, for the most part, right?

SOREN JESSEN-PETERSEN: They have said that these people could come back. They have welcomed them back, and I think until now, they have made a wonderful effort in trying to receive them in the most orderly, and in the most dignified way.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: And the agencies don't have any trouble with access to these people?

LIONEL ROSENBLATT: I think, by and large, it's gone smoothly. I think that one of the keys will be to get the aid that used to go for the refugees across the border in Zaire to be funneled back at that same high level, so that the Rwandans get an idea that as people come home, that support will continue and not be diminished.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Is that a problem now?

LIONEL ROSENBLATT: It's a potential problem. We'd like to see a long-term projection of that aid, so that the Rwandans can count on it for some time to come.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: But there's no obstacle to the aid physically getting from one place to the next, from one country to the other?

LIONEL ROSENBLATT: At the current moment, no.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Now let's go then back to Zaire, where there is still--well, we don't know the dimensions of the problem. Do we have any idea, Mr. Jessen-Petersen?

SOREN JESSEN-PETERSEN: Well, we certainly have an idea, and we know that hundreds of thousands of people have been cut off from assistance for now more than three weeks. We know that they must be in fairly bad shape. We have no access to these people. We don't know where they are, and for that reason we do not know exactly how many there are, but we know that there are hundreds of thousands of people in desperate need.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: How could that be, not knowing where these people are, Mr. Garvelink?

BILL GARVELINK: Well, I think the conditions--it's a conflict situation, so populations have been moving in different directions. There's a mixture of Rwandan refugees, Burundi refugees, and displaced Zaireans, who've been scattering in all different directions as fighting has gone on in North Kivu, around Goma and in South Kivu around Bakavu.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Which is where the camps were? Are any people still in those camps?

BILL GARVELINK: Most of the camps are empty, and the populations have moved into the woods, into the forests, so they're very hard to detect.

SOREN JESSEN-PETERSEN: Let me say that all the camps I entered now, there are no more refugees in any of the camps there.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Drumtra, what's your sense of why it is that these people--even if it's a hundred thousand people, or two hundred thousand, the range goes up to seven hundred thousand- -why is this so difficult to know how many there are? If there were a million that went in and a half a million that went back, why is the number in dispute about who's there now? Wouldn't it be five hundred thousand?

JEFF DRUMTRA: Well, part of the problem is that the refugee leaders over the last two and a half years have not cooperated with efforts to do the right kinds of census, especially in the Goma area. UNHCR made an effort to do a census in 1995, and refugee leaders who want to inflate numbers commit fraud during the census. In '96, in September, UNHCR tried to do another census and was blocked from doing it. There was violence in some of the camps. So UNHCR has been prevented in some cases from doing the really accurate counting that it would normally do in a lot of these emergencies.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Rosenblatt, are your people--what are your people telling you? I mean, because some of the people have been--there have been groups of say 50,000, 25,000 in the last couple of days coming out of places, are these part of those missing people, and are they saying anything about where their fellow refugees are?

LIONEL ROSENBLATT: Indeed, there are survivor reports which indicate that there are very large groups missing. Our take on thenumbers is that it's clear that several hundred thousand people are missing in Eastern Zaire, cut off from their UN supply of food and water. It makes it clearly the largest refugee crisis in terms of potential deaths that any of us have ever encountered.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: What are people doing to try and find them?

LIONEL ROSENBLATT: Well, the finding has to do with some aerial photography, and now some access by the UN agencies and the International Red Cross on the ground. But I hope in the next 48 hours we're going to learn a lot more in terms of access on the ground to where these people are, because they've been in heavily forested terrain.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Is that why you couldn't see from the air--

LIONEL ROSENBLATT: That's why it couldn't be seen easily from the air. There was cloud cover also that inhibited photography, and I think that we're going to learn a lot more. I know from interviewing survivors just a couple of days ago that they said people had traveled up and down the roads hoping to find a way back into Rwanda, were foraging, selling everything they own for food and water, and were running out of supplies, so we know their situation is quite desperate by now.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Petersen--

SOREN JESSEN-PETERSEN: Yeah. I think the problem is the longer the wait, we wait, the fewer we'll find, because they will simply just disappear.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: You mean, they'll--

SOREN JESSEN-PETERSEN: And that's why it is so urgent.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: What do you mean, they'll disappear, they'll go somewhere, or they'll just die, and--

SOREN JESSEN-PETERSEN: There is a limit to how long you can go without food and water. These people have run into the forest, into the plantations. They are cut off, and they might simply disappear in front of us.

BILL GARVELINK: But I think there are some encouraging signs right now. In the past few days, in Goma, the UNHCR and the NGO's have been granted access to a town 30 kilometers away, where there's twenty to thirty thousand people.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Granted access by--

BILL GARVELINK: By the rebel groups. Also in Bukavu in the past couple of days, the NGO's and the UN agencies have been allowed in and asked to do assessments. They've been told they have free access within 30 kilometers of the town. If they have to go further out of town than that, they need to give notice to the rebel groups, but they have access--or they can do that. And we've heard that, I think, beginning tomorrow, UN agencies will be cleared to visit Uvira for the first time. So I think there are encouraging signs that the authorities in Eastern Zaire are allowing the UNHCR, the NGO's, and the International Committee of Red Cross access to these populations.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Drumtra, is the fighting still going on among the various militias and so on?

JEFF DRUMTRA: There are reports that in some areas the fighting is still going on, and the aspect of this that has to be made clear is this is not just a humanitarian urgency which is great enough. This is a military and political situation on the ground in Eastern Zaire. Many of these refugee leaders who have controlled and intimidated their own followers--

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Primarily Hutu.

JEFF DRUMTRA: Yes. Who still have weapons, the militia that committed genocide in Rwanda two and a half years ago, they still are controlling the movement of some of their own followers, and that is part of the problem. Some of these people may want to be found, and some of these leaders may not want to be found, and that is complicating the situation on the ground. It's a political situation, not strictly humanitarian.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Garvelink, maybe you can clarify this for us. The Clinton administration has at least endorsed the concept of supporting air drops but has not yet committed to participating in this force that may be based in Entebbe, led by the Canadians, is that right?

BILL GARVELINK: That's my understanding. It's not my area of expertise, but it seems as the change occurs in the refugee population and their location, I think the military planners are evaluating the best way to assist in the humanitarian effort. And I think all options should be pursued. I would focus, though, on the International Committee of the Red Cross and UNHCR and the NGO's who are gaining access as the first--as the best option to reach these people with large amounts of assistance.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Why? What would be wrong with the air drops?

BILL GARVELINK: Nothing wrong with the air drops, but it's a tactic that's very short-term. It's still not going to assist the people to return her to Rwanda. So the relief agencies need access on the ground.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Jessen-Petersen, what do you think about the air drop idea?

SOREN JESSEN-PETERSEN: Well, as a last resort, we would at this stage, because the situation is desperate, we would welcome any measure that could save lives, but I fully agree. The best would be access on the ground. That is very difficult. The problem with the air drop is that air drop, we have tried it before in Bosnia- -to be effective, you need a presence on the ground to sort of target the drops and to ensure distribution. The very problem is that we do "not" have access on the ground, so, therefore, we cannot guarantee that they land where the needs are, the largest, nor that they reach those people who need them. In fact, they may fall into the wrong hands, so to speak, the ex-military, the militia. So it is a last resort. We welcome it as a last resort, but we still hope that other options are also being pursued.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Do you agree with that, Mr. Rosenblatt?

LIONEL ROSENBLATT: Yes. It is a last resort. The welcome thing about it is we recognize now there's a grave humanitarian urgency, and that's where you bring air drops in, because it's better than nothing, but a last resort.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Yeah. But how much time do you have? I mean, aren't you in the last resort stage?

SOREN JESSEN-PETERSEN: That's why we welcome it, why other options are being pursued, just as we discussed earlier. We are gaining a little bit more access every day. We are reaching a few more people, but we cannot wait, sit down and wait, so meanwhile, let us try to do something. Let us try to save as many lives as possible. There, air drops could provide some help.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Do you agree with that, Mr. Drumtra?

JEFF DRUMTRA: Air drops are a last resort, at best. They have a long history of falling into the wrong hands. And as we just discussed earlier, if you understand that there are people on the ground who have weapons, who are holding some of these refugees hostage, those are the folks who are most likely to get the air drops, unless you know exactly who you're targeting, who's on the ground, and who is in control of these refugee populations.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: But you all agree that something has to be done very quickly, or you're going to lose upwards of 1/2 million people?

LIONEL ROSENBLATT: That's right. And this is where that force, I think, can also help if it deploys to the area to provide some protection for the U.N. agencies. I think that's a positive thing to do as well.

BILL GARVELINK: The other side of the coin here that we haven't discussed is we've talked a lot about access from East--through Eastern Zaire. Some of these people are beyond the control of the rebel forces and are far West of that, and those people have to be reached from Kinshasa. The government of Zaire has to assist in reaching those people, as well.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: And, in fact, the president of Rwanda says he prefers to have it come from Kinshasa than coming from Entebbe. Anyway, well, thank you all for joining us, and we'll watch with hope.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, secrets in cyberspace and the big baseball deal. FOCUS - CYBER SECRETS

JIM LEHRER: Now, the fight over how much information can be kept secret from the government. Tom Bearden reports.

OM BEARDEN: There's an old motel just outside of Washington, D.C., that's been converted into an unusual museum. Inside is a display of what were some of the most jealously-guarded secrets of the Second World War. Visitors can tap the keys of a crude-looking device called Enigma. It used rotating wheels and electrical plugs to turn plain text into code by transposing letters according to a complex mathematical formula. The Germans and the Japanese used these machines to encrypt their messages during the war. They thought the code was unbreakable. They were wrong. The allies built this machine and broke the code. The ability to read much of the enemy's most secret communications may have literally saved the free world in the 1940's. Just down the hall are more modern code-breaking machines like a Cray supercomputer. This is the National Security Agency's cryptologic museum. It's a testimonial to the once super secret agency's almost legendary ability to crack ever more complicated codes. But that capability may be coming to an end. Companies are now producing software and hardware devices that have the ability to encrypt computer and voice messages and render them virtually unbreakable. William Reinsch is the undersecretary of commerce.

WILLIAM REINSCH, Undersecretary of Commerce: The government has national security interests. We have public safety law enforcement interests, anti-terrorism, drug dealers, things like that. The ability of people like that to communicate using encryption technology or to store data that's encrypted makes it much more difficult for us to deter the violence or the crimes that they might commit.

OM BEARDEN: So the administration has been fighting a running battle to prevent the export of high-strength encryption technology, even to friendly countries. Authorities cite the World Trade Center bombing as an example of why that's necessary. One of the conspirator's computers had encrypted data in it that the government eventually decoded, but newer software might have put it out of reach forever. Three years ago, the Clinton administration tried to impose a single encryption standard, the so-called "clipper" chip. People could have used the chip to send coded messages, but the government would have held the keys and would have been able to decode any message simply by getting a court order. Any other encryption method would have been illegal. Industry and the public went ballistic.

WILLIAM REINSCH: I think we learned with the clipper-chip approach of several years ago that if you try a top-down market forcing, one-size-fits-all technology, you're going to get the response that you've described.

OM BEARDEN: The quandary lies in the fact that even government concedes that business needs strong encryption to protect the privacy of transactions and to prevent computer crime. A recent congressional report underlined that need when it revealed that computer systems in six out of every ten major U.S. corporation had been attacked by hackers or competitors in the last year. Every day, more and more business is conducted in cyberspace via the vast telecommunications networks that girdle the planet. Banks and governments exchange billions of dollars, yen, marks, and francs. Companies and individuals exchange electronic mail, everything from birthday greetings to confidential business plans. Jeff Truehaft works for Netscape, a leading Internet software company in San Francisco. He showed us how it's possible to open a checking account while online, giving the bank your address, Social Security number, credit references, and other personal information on the Internet, instead of in person.

JEFF TRUEHAFT, Netscape: So these are some very sensitive things that obviously I'm not going to want the different people out there on the Internet to be able to see. So I'm going to make sure that when I enter this information, it gets transmitted across the Internet securely.

OM BEARDEN: And people can see them if they make a determined effort. The only way to protect privacy is encryption. Jerry Berman is director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington privacy rights group.

JERRY BERMAN, Center for Democracy and Technology: The Internet is our future, and we're taking the most sensitive data, our bank records, our financial transactions, our medical records. We're communicating, sending E-mail, sending classified and important documents across the Net. Citizens and users need privacy to conduct commerce, to protect themselves.

OM BEARDEN: Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy has introduced legislation to address privacy concerns.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY, [D] Vermont: We should err on the side of privacy in this country, and if there's any country in the world that should be showing it's going to protect privacy, it's the United States. It should be the--very much the exception to the rule when you're allowed to go in and violate that privacy in the same way that we do wire taps.

OM BEARDEN: Government and industry have been trying to come to a compromise that would protect the privacy of international business and protect national security. The President recently signed an executive order that will allow the export of moderately strong encryption, provided the users agree to turn over the keys to a third party. It's called Key Escrow. The government could get the keys with a court order.

KENNETH DAM, University of Chicago: They would like to be able to get the keys to an encrypted conversation or encrypted E-mail message or an encrypted fax message.

OM BEARDEN: Kenneth Dam is a law professor at the University of Chicago. He headed a national research council committee that studied encryption policy. Dam thinks Key Escrow could address law enforcement concerns but could also lead to even bigger crimes.

KENNETH DAM: It's just like the key to your house. If you give it to somebody you don't know, you're more vulnerable than if you keep your key to yourself. And Key Escrow agent which had thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of keys would be an inviting target for a criminal, for example. It would be open sesame. You would get not only into one, one block, you would get into many messages, and that could have catastrophic effects, if these are bank transfers or if you're getting into something else that involves very valuable intellectual property.

OM BEARDEN: The export policy would have no effect on encryption software available in the U.S.. And, in fact, programs twice as powerful as those the administration would allow out of the country are readily available in any software store.

JERRY BERMAN: The irony of this is that terrorists and criminals can get strong encryption in the United States down at Radio Shack. They can get it on the Net. They can download it, and they will have it after law that's passed that creates this government scheme of a key recovery system.

OM BEARDEN: But Undersecretary Reinsch says the policy will work because criminals will still have to deal with the outside world.

WILLIAM REINSCH: Sooner or later, they have to, if you will, dip into the normal commercial sector. They have to deal with conventional banks. They have to use, you know, ordinary telephones, even if they're pay phones. They can't operate solely in their own internal network, which they can insulate from law enforcement. They have to step outside. When they step outside, if we have a world of key recovery technologies and key recovery devices, then we'll have a means of dealing with them. It won't be perfect, but it isn't perfect now.

OM BEARDEN: Some computer hardware companies have endorsed Key Escrow. Hewlett-Packard has received approval to begin exporting a multi-tiered system they call the International Cryptography Framework.

DOUG McGOWAN, Hewlett Packard: The idea behind ICF is to create a crypto-engine, a piece of hardware that we can make as cheap as possible and make it freely available to put in appliances and to computers and to other environments around the world, as customers need, and then download the particular crypto-policy that's commensurate with the user's needs and local government regulations, both U.S. and foreign governments.

OM BEARDEN: But many software companies remain bitterly opposed, saying Key Escrow will only hurt their ability to compete overseas.

JEFF TRUEHAFT, Netscape: Well, in some sense, the cat is out of the bag, whether it's software that was manufactured here in the states that's been put up online, or whether it's just those companies actually creating their own software programs that do use strong security. There's cases in Europe. There's cases in South America, South Africa. There are cases in Japan, where vendors have provided complimentary software to ours that does offer a high level of security, much higher than we're able to offer that marketplace, and thereby taking an advantage away from an American company.

OM BEARDEN: No export policy will work unless America's trading partners agree. Sen. Leahy says they won't cooperate if an executive order is the only thing on the table because that order could be changed with the stroke of a pen.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: You're not going to do it by administrative fiat, even though some in the administration want to. The problem is I don't think that they fully understand what's required. But secondly, it can be done with legislation and with executive action, but it's going to mean the Congress and the administration is going to have to cooperate a lot more than they have.

OM BEARDEN: Even the strongest advocates of Key Escrow concede it's only a temporary solution. Governments are finding themselves extremely challenged to keep up with technology that moves much more quickly than their ability to write laws to control it. FINALLY - PLAY BALL

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, the big baseball agreement. Major League baseball has had a tough last few years, a players' strike, a canceled World Series that brought on drops in attendance, revenue, and public love. Yesterday, club owners accepted a new labor contract that is being heralded as a big step toward a comeback. Sports author and commentator John Feinstein is here to help us understand that. John, it's a five-year deal. Now, does that mean, labor, peace, and baseball guaranteed for five years?

JOHN FEINSTEIN, Author: Well, actually, it's guaranteed for four years, because the deal is five years retroactive to the start of this season, so we've already completed--

JIM LEHRER: The first year.

JOHN FEINSTEIN: One year to five years. There is an option at the end of it on the players' side to go a sixth year, but we do have guaranteed labor peace and baseball through the year 2000 because of this contract.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Some of the details. On salaries, what does this new contract do? What are your salaries?

JOHN FEINSTEIN: Well, it raises the minimum salary from a hundred nine to a hundred fifty thousand dollars, but most significantly, it creates a luxury tax and a payroll tax. Now, the luxury tax will start when any team next year has a total salary for all its players of $51 million. If you go over that, then you will pay a 35 percent tax on anything over. In other words, the New York Yankees had a $60 million payroll this year. They would pay 35 percent of $9 million. So they would pay a payroll tax of whatever 35 percent of $9 million is. If you go--the next year, it goes up to $55 million as the cap and then $59 million. There's also a payroll tax for the players of 2.5 percent for every player, except those making the minimum.

JIM LEHRER: And that is designed to do what, to hold down the costs, or to kind of even the playing field?

JOHN FEINSTEIN: It'll do both, because the owners have always wanted a salary cap. In other words, you can't go over $51 million. This way, you can go over $51 million, but you will pay if you do so. So that's a way of policing the owners, having the owners police themselves. The payroll tax, same thing, because the players will give a little bit of money into the revenue-sharing program, which is also significant and we'll get to in a second. But the other thing it does is because the owners don't want to go over the $51 million, it brings them closer to the teams with the lower payrolls in terms of how much they're paying the players.

JIM LEHRER: And that's the revenue sharing. That leads us to the revenue sharing, which is a real breakthrough, is it not?

JOHN FEINSTEIN: Revenue sharing is very significant because baseball has gotten to the point where the haves are dominating, the teams in the largest markets with the most money. This year, the final four teams who were still playing were four of the top five paying teams in terms of total payroll. You've got a situation in Pittsburgh where without this agreement, there would not be baseball in Pittsburgh anymore.

JIM LEHRER: Why not?

JOHN FEINSTEIN: Because they simply cannot afford in a small market where they don't get the TV moneys and radio moneys and the revenue that New York gets, that the Atlanta Braves get, that Chicago gets to pay players. So what they've done in Pittsburgh, they're trading all their high salary players because they want to get their payroll down. Last year, their payroll was $14.5 million compared to the Yankees' $60 million.

JIM LEHRER: Wow!

JOHN FEINSTEIN: Now, you can't compete that way, and fans aren't coming, and so the team is headed downhill. All the small market teams needed help, and now they will get help.

JIM LEHRER: And because the--where will this money come from?

JOHN FEINSTEIN: Well, it will come from several things. It will come from the luxury tax money that have to be paid, and the top 13 teams in net revenue will have to pay money into a fund. There's already $70 million in the fund, and they will begin adding to it now next season.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Inter-league play. That's a small item to everybody except real baseball fans.

JOHN FEINSTEIN: Right.

JIM LEHRER: This is not--teams in the American League will play teams in the National League, and they will count.

JOHN FEINSTEIN: Exactly. In a regular season--

JIM LEHRER: What's the deal? Why did they think that was a good thing?

JOHN FEINSTEIN: Well, I think in every other sport, every team plays every other team. There's no division during the regular season. The Washington Redskins can play the Oakland Raiders. The New York Giants can play the Houston Oilers. Every team can meet during the regular season. The same is true in hockey and in basketball. Only baseball has there been this schism where half the teams don't play the other half of the teams. And one of the things that does is if you live in Atlanta, you never get to see Ken Griffey, Jr., or Frank Thomas play. If you live in--

JIM LEHRER: Because they're in the American League.

JOHN FEINSTEIN: Because they're in the other league, and they never come to your town. Now they'll be coming to your town on a limited basis. It will be fifteen or sixteen games a year per team of inter-league play next year, and it's only guaranteed for one year. The other thing they must do is they've got to figure out one set of rules, because when you're playing in American League parks, there will be a designated hitter. When they're in National League parks, no designated hitter.

JIM LEHRER: Meaning in the National League, the pitcher bats; in the American League, he doesn't.

JOHN FEINSTEIN: He doesn't bat.

JIM LEHRER: The hitter hits.

JOHN FEINSTEIN: Exactly. It'd be like in football if you said, well, when you're playing in the American Conference, you can kick field goals, but when you're playing in the National Conference, you can't.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Now, there are also--under this new deal, they're going to add two new teams, or they can add two new teams.

JOHN FEINSTEIN: They have the option--

JIM LEHRER: Brand new teams.

JOHN FEINSTEIN: --to add two teams as early as 1999 to begin play in 2002. The reason that's significant to the owners is because that's just found money. They'll charge the expansion teams 250 million dollars a pop. That's $500 million. You divide it by 30 teams. That's sixteen, seventeen million per team just for allowing them to play.

JIM LEHRER: John, the goal of all this is to bring baseball back from these bad last four years. Does this at least have the prospect of doing that?

JOHN FEINSTEIN: This is a very, very big step, Jim. You know, baseball reached a nadir in 1994, when there was no World Series, and it reached yet, it maybe even went lower than that during replacement ball, when they were willing to bring in scab players to replace the striking players early in '95. It began to come back when Mickey Mantle died and people remembered what baseball meant to them in the past, and then when Cal Ripken broke Lou Gehrig's record, they saw what baseball still could be. We had a great emotional post season in 1996, but we needed closure on the collective bargaining situation for baseball to go forward. Now we have it. We've got four years of guaranteed peace and guaranteed baseball. They had to have it because attendance was still down 13 percent this past season.

JIM LEHRER: In spite of having a great post season.

JOHN FEINSTEIN: Great regular season and a great post season. It was still down 13 percent from the pre-strike levels. Now not all the fans will come back, because some of them have gone away forever, but more fans will be willing to come back to the parks.

JIM LEHRER: John, thanks a lot.

JOHN FEINSTEIN: Thank you, Jim. RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed new, stricter clean air regulations, the U.S. Government endorsed a Canadian plan for an international refugee center in Central Africa, and an American held by North Korea on spy charges since August returned home. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. Have a nice Thanksgiving day. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.