We have to defend against these things. reduce the likelihood of the big, big-scale attacks. and then be really resilient. and we ve heard that from people, first responders and bystanders about how they re not going to let them affect their lives. this is a tragedy. but we shouldn t take this as the system has failed, we re not safer. we are. but things are still going to get through and we re going to have tragedies like twe saw today. one of the things, one of the only ways we as civilians can help frustrate the aims of people who do things like this is to show how resilient we are and this won t change our lives in fundamental ways. that we ll press on. michael leiter, former director of national counterterrorism center. good to have you here. thank you, sir. thank you, rachel. i want to tell you the fbi has set up a phone number for anybody to call with information on today s attack. they are describing their call for tips in terms of people who may know anything about what
Attacks. leaving a backpack in a crowded place on a day like this in boston is almost unstoppable. i thing we can control, though, is how we respond. remember, the goal of any bomber, whether it s a lone wolf or group is to create fear, create terror, havoc and to cre havoc and panic. there s been education as to the dialogue the public is having with the people who does these things to us. i think part of it is something, what do the british call, keep calm and carry on. the brits have learned a lot of these lessons. i think we re learning that too. to say, all right, we re not going to change our basic character. the way we handle big public ven events like this. we re going to try to remain true. i think that s challenge now.
Wolf individual, someone who s motivated but not necessarily trained, again and again we see 100 people who can t shoot straight for one timothy mcveigh or one nidal malik hassan. though it seems like gettinging a is ses to a gun or bombs is very easy, why don t we see more of these if we have motivated individuals? it s scary, people do have access to tease weapons. i don t think because of the bomb, itself, it s this type of group or this type of individual. honestly i think the weapon, itself, is not so sophisticated. that makes the net quite wide in terms of who s a potential suspect. in terms of boston s resilience, a big part is how boston bounces back. yeah. do we know anything about how good a counterterrorism operation boston law enforcement is? well, i think we re probably finding out right now to some degree. thankfully, boston, it s a place where some of the 9/11 hijackers came from. in terms of actual attacks in the city, there have been a number of false starts or
With it for enough time. hearing the calls from off duty police officers to please report to their district, essentially all hands on deck, if you re involved with public safety at all in the boston area, everybody is at work, everybody is on this. in that kind of an environment with a large city like this, large police department, obviously the first responders on the scene are race volunteers. runners, themselves. passersby. and, of course, boston police officers and firefighters and emts. how does it work practically to have the fbi in charge? the fbi is coordinating this investigation. what does that mean in practical terms when they re dealing with such a large local set of resources? well, first of all, this situation, although new in being a real attack, is not new to the city of boston, the state of massachusetts and the federal authorities up there. back in 2011, just over 2 years ago and previously before that, the federal government in conjunction with boston did
In terms of no information being too insignificant. no potential lead being too small. if you do have information that you think might be of help in the investigation into what happened today in boston, the number to call is easy to remember. it s 1-800-call-fbi. 1-800-call-fbi. which translates to 1-800-225-5324. all right. we are live at mass general hospital in boston. stay with us here on msnbc. we ll be right back. [ coughs ]