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Campbell Brown
Sarah Palin: Fact and Fiction; Single Moms and the U.S. Military
Aired November 17, 2009 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAMPBELL BROWN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Fact, fiction and Sarah Palin, her bestselling book, a searing indictment of the McCain campaign. Did they really bill her for her own background check? Did they really badger her into doing "Saturday Night Live" and that infamous interview with Katie Couric? Tonight, we put her claims to our truth test.
Plus, the great fire wall of China -- a high-profile visitor gets lots of attention here at home, but in China not so much. How does the Chinese government manage to control information and squash dissent, and how many American companies are accepting Chinese censorship as just the cost of doing business?
Also, should a military mom be forced to choose between her duty and her child? A soldier and single mother says she's being punished because she couldn't find anybody to care for her baby.
RAI SUE SUSSMAN, ATTORNEY FOR SPECIALIST ALEXIS HUTCHINSON: Put her in this horrible of having to choose between abandoning her child or disobeying her superiors.
BROWN: Some 30,000 single moms are in Iraq and Afghanistan. How big a problem is this for the military?
Also tonight, could you create a new identity and just start over? This reporter tried it and challenged his readers to track him down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was amazed at how much information those people were able to dig up about me without any professional training. They gathered this huge dossier of information about me. And that really shocked me.
BROWN: Our special series, "The End of Privacy."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is your only source for news. CNN prime time begins now. Here's Campbell Brown.
BROWN: Hey there, everybody. We're going to start, as we always do, with the "Mash-Up," our look at the stories making an impact right now, all of the moments you may have missed today. We are watching it all, so you don't have to. And we begin in Beijing, the beginning of another busy day for President Obama. He will talk trade with the Chinese premier and save some time to see the sights. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: President Obama playing tourist in China's Forbidden City.
JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: His day in Beijing, a state banquet and a quick tour of the Forbidden City, next stop, the Great Wall of China.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Oh, it's beautiful, and what a magnificent place to visit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But after hours of meetings where little progress was made, the two leaders put their wide differences on display. One of President Obama's top priorities here was to prod China to open its markets to U.S. goods.
OBAMA: This will lead to increased U.S. exports and jobs.
DOUGHERTY: China holds $800 billion in U.S. debt. That limits Mr. Obama's ability to pressure China. But he thinks Beijing is holding the value of its currency, the yuan, artificially low. That hurts U.S. exporters, and the president wants China to let the value of the yuan rise.
OBAMA: And I was pleased to note the Chinese commitment, made in past statements, to move toward a more market-oriented exchange rate over time.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: In just a few hours, the president sits down for a round of television interviews, including one with our own Ed Henry. And you will be able to see that tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING."
The president's visit happening under the watchful eye of the Chinese government. And coming up, we're going to tell you exactly how they are trying to control the flow of information on this trip.
Also tonight, fear and confusion over a new breast cancer screening guidelines from the federal government. The word from on high, as we all heard all day today, women don't need to get mammograms until they're 50 years old. And, of course, that's very different from what we have been led to believe, sparking a lot of debate.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The new, more relaxed screening guidelines come from some of the most respected authorities in the country, but it's clear today many women are just not buying it. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The task force says routine mammograms for younger women are not effective and that when screening starts at 40, there are more false positives, leading to unnecessary biopsies.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: People whose diseases were caught by this screening really find this horrific. They say, I'm a living example of how these screenings work.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The scientists who conducted the study acknowledge that this is turning conventional wisdom upside down, but they stress that's exactly what good science does. It takes what we think we knew and it rights the course.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: The American Cancer Society disagrees with the new government guidance. It is still recommending that women get regular mammograms after age 40.
To Capitol Hill now and an often contentious hearing on the H1N1 vaccine, CDC officials facing some skeptical senators demanding an explanation for delays in the vaccine's distribution. Among the complaints, obviously, that there's not enough, and doses that should go to hospitals and doctors have instead gone to private health clinics. The CDC's response, not our fault. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CLAIRE MCCASKILL (D), MISSOURI: It's the state health department that's making this decision?
REAR ADMIRAL DR. ANNE SCHUCHAT, SCIENCE AND PUBLIC HEALTH PROGRAM, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: Absolutely.
MCCASKILL: It's not being made at HHS? It's not being made at CDC? It's not being made at the Department of Homeland Security?
SCHUCHAT: Absolutely. No, it's...
MCCASKILL: The state health directors are deciding where the dosage that's going to their state is actually landing?
SCHUCHAT: Yes, that's right. And a lot of them have been updating their plans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Dr. Schuchat admitted that the government hasn't done a very good job of explaining the situation to the public.
With the president overseas, Sarah Palin ruling the political stage here at home. And tonight she flexed her foreign policy muscles, weighing in on the war in Afghanistan. And she spoke to Barbara Walters of ABC News about that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BARBARA WALTERS, ABC NEWS: What should the U.S. goal in Afghanistan be?
SARAH PALIN (R), FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: To listen to McChrystal, to listen to the appointee that President Obama asked for the advice from. McChrystal gave the president the advice and said, we need essentially a surge strategy in Afghanistan, so that we can win in Afghanistan. That means more resources, more troops there.
WALTERS: With what goal? What should be our ultimate goal?
PALIN: Afghanistan, the people there, the government there should be able to take over and to have a more peaceful existence there for the people who live there without American interference, if you will.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Of course, Palin still couldn't escape one question: Does she really still feel Russia's proximity to Alaska gives her significant foreign policy experience? Her answer, still yes. And we're going to have more on Palin's book, a fact-check, coming up.
Turning now to Utah and a guilty plea from one of the kidnappers of Elizabeth Smart. Smart, of course, was kidnapped seven years ago from her Utah home. Today, 64-year-old Wanda Eileen Barzee pleaded guilty to the crime. She also apologized to Smart, saying -- quote -- "It is my hope that you will be able to find it in your heart to forgive me."
Elizabeth Smart was not in the courtroom today. Her father, Ed, was.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ED SMART, FATHER OF ELIZABETH SMART: I certainly believe that Wanda was a victim to a point, but she chose to be that victim. And so, you know, I think that that's -- that was her choice.
QUESTION: And what did you make of her apology?
SMART: I just hope that it was sincere and that, you know, she will continue on that track and prove that through the rest of Brian Mitchell's trial or whatever happens.
QUESTION: Did you feel it was sincere?
SMART: I felt it was sincere.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Barzee agreed to testify against her husband, Brian David Mitchell. She faces up to 15 years in prison.
Moving to Capitol Hill now, where lawmakers were in a nautical frame of mind, their great debate, a bill restricting the kind of paint used on shipping hulls. Really. Check it out, people. This is your Congress at work.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Many stories have been told of ships and the men who sail them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I strongly support HR-3618, the Clean Hull Act of 2009. Under the bill, use of toxic tin-based antifouling paints would be prohibited.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The sea beasts and the men who hunt them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's causing shell deformation in oysters.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There she blows.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And it's caused female dog whelks, a type of snail, to begin developing male sexual characteristics.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're to look for the white whale.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's been found in the fatty tissue of whales and dolphins and sharks and other sea creatures. It just goes on into the food chain.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Ah, the epic tale of the female dog whelk. But there was a happy ending to the sea tale. The Clean Hull Act of 2009 passed, and the dog whelk is safe.
That is your Congress at work.
And that brings us now to the "Punchline," courtesy of all those late-night guys anxiously awaiting the return of Sarah Palin.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONAN O'BRIEN, HOST, "THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH CONAN O'BRIEN": Sarah Palin is everywhere right now. Have you noticed that? This week, Sarah Palin is going to appear on "Oprah," "Good Morning America," "ABC World News," "Nightline," "Sean Hannity" and 20/20.
Yes. During all her appearances, Palin will talk about how the media won't leave her alone.
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID LETTERMAN, HOST, "THE LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN": The category, top 10 surprises in the Sarah Palin book "Going Rogue."
Number eight, nearly had to pull out of campaign after spraining her winking muscle. Number four, it's a science fiction romance about moody teenage vampires.
(LAUGHTER) JIMMY FALLON, HOST, "LATE NIGHT WITH JIMMY FALLON": Hey, last week an 11-year-old boy shot and killed a black bear that wouldn't leave his family's front porch. Right after that, Sarah Palin asked if he wanted to be her running mate in 2012.
(LAUGHTER)
FALLON: He's thinking about it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Sarah Palin, every comedian's very best friend. And that is the "Mash-Up."
So, how much of Sarah Palin's book is fact, how much is fiction? We're going to put it to our truth test tonight.
Plus, a military mom says the Army is forcing her to choose between her duty and her baby. And now she has hired an attorney to fight back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SUSSMAN: The reason why she was scared enough to not go and get on her plane was because she thought that they would take her child from her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Tonight, Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue" is number one on Amazon.com's bestseller list. And it's no wonder with the media blitz surrounding the book. Just one day after a sit-down with Oprah Winfrey, Palin was on ABC's "Good Morning America" today. Listen to what she said to Barbara Walters about the criticism that she has faced.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALTERS: No candidate was picked on and made fun of as much as you were.
PALIN: Oh, there's so much bullcrap out there about my family, about my record, about my state. And it really hurts when I hear the negativity about the state of Alaska and, of course, my family. So, a lot of bull.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: So, you hear there Palin taking her critics to task for what she is calling bull. But just how much of her book is actual fact, how much is fiction?
We're going to put it to the truth test tonight. We have got CNN's Tom Foreman, and Bill Adair, who is editor of the Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact.com. They have been digging on various parts of the book for us tonight.
Tom, I'm going to start with you here. A lot of claims that John McCain's campaign is right now refuting, so let's just go through them, and, first, Sarah Palin's claim that the McCain campaign made her pay for vetting. I mean, she writes about going through about $500,000 in legal bills earlier this year.
And I'm going to read the quote here: "A large chunk of those bills -- nearly $50,000 -- was courtesy of the campaign. It was our portion of the bill for having been vetted."
Is that true?
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Senator McCain says no. He responded to that claim last night. He told the "Hill" newspaper that the $50,000 Palin is referring to was not for vetting. It was legal bills related to that Troopergate investigation. Remember, she had a trooper who was fired. He was connected to her family and there was a question of whether or not it was proper or not.
They're saying that's what that was all about, not about her paying for her vetting as such. And they don't know that they billed her for any legal expenses related to that vetting -- Campbell.
BROWN: All right, Tom, I'm going to raise another one here, Sarah Palin taking a number of shots in the book at McCain staffer Nicolle Wallace. And Palin writes that Wallace pressed her to do that now infamous interview with Katie Couric, because, as Palin recounts, -- quote -- "'She just has such low self-esteem,' Nicolle said. She added that Katie was going through a tough time. 'She just feels she can't trust anybody.'"
Tom, the truth there?
FOREMAN: I talked to Nicolle Wallace about this. She found it both kind of amusing and dismaying. She makes a blanket denial of Palin's account here. She told us that, "Not a single thing quoted under my name is anything I said or would say in a million years."
She also told NBC that the conversations about the Couric interview, as well as conversations Palin recounts about her clothing, are fabricated, and neither Palin nor anyone on her behalf contacted her about any fact-checking. We went over all of that with her, Campbell. And she just basically says this is all pretty much made up when it comes to the stories about her.
BROWN: And, Tom, there is also Palin giving her side of the story about the Tina Fey "Saturday Night Live" impression of her that became also so infamous during this campaign. Let's listen to what she told ABC's Barbara Walters today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PALIN: I think that there was a blurred line there between what Tina Fey was parodying and saying and what I ever said. Let's take, for instance, she's saying, "I can see Russia from my house," pretending that she was me.
TINA FEY, ACTRESS: And I can see Russia from my house.
(LAUGHTER)
PALIN: Well, of course, I have never said that. And yet the line was blurred. And I think people, because it was repeated so often, perhaps believed that I had said such a thing. I think she was funny, though. And I think she was very talented and spot-on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Now, Tom, in the book, she writes that even after those impersonations began to air, that she was still gung-ho to appear on "Saturday Night Live." And she writes -- quote -- "Let's do this, I said. Let's go on and neutralize some of this and have some fun."
So, what's been the response to that?
FOREMAN: Well, I can tell you, Campbell, you can see from my little earmarks on my book from where I read the whole thing yesterday. I know that's exactly what she said. That was the tone of it.
But, according to "The Huffington Post," McCain campaign staffers provided e-mails to them that they say contradict this account of the former governor's. The e-mails show an exchange dated October 14 between Sarah Palin and McCain staffer Steve Schmidt.
The subject line is "SNL." And Palin writes: "Still not thrilled with the idea, not after seeing clips of what they have been playing re: my family. These folks are whack. What's the upside of giving them any celebrity venue a ratings boost? That's Todd's input also" -- Todd being her husband of course.
Schmidt's response at the time, according to the e-mail, he said she didn't have to do it, but if she didn't want to encourage it, but he wanted to consider it, he said: "It gives you an opportunity to fly above all this. The American people will see someone who can laugh at themselves, which has always been a trait they admire. This will be funny, but you have to decide."
Campbell, in the book, Sarah Palin does refer to this back-and- forth haggling over whether or not to do the show. But at least according to the e-mails, she initially expressed some doubt about appearing on "Saturday Night Live." Her book gives a very clear impression that she was all for it.
BROWN: All right, Tom Foreman, don't go away, Tom.
I do want to bring in Bill Adair to talk about some of the policy stuff as well.
And, Bill, Rush Limbaugh said "Going Rogue" one of the most substantive policy books he's ever read. And you have been fact- checking some of the policy in it. And let's start with the economy. Palin writes -- quote -- "Ronald Reagan faced an even worse recession. He showed us how to get out of one. If you want real job growth, cut capital gains taxes and slay the death tax once and for all."
So, to that point, did Ronald Reagan face a worse recession than Barack Obama, true or false?
BILL ADAIR, EDITOR, POLITIFACT.COM: False. We give that one a false on our Truth-O-Meter on PolitiFact .
What we did was, we talked to a bunch of economists on both ends of the spectrum and came up with some measurements to look at both the Reagan recession and the current recession. And by nearly every measurement, the current recession is worse. So, we rated that one false on our Truth-O-Meter .
BROWN: All right, and, Bill, in fairness, some of the items you have looked into do check out, including Palin's critique of President Obama's cap and trade policy, energy one of her signature issues. And on that she writes -- quote -- "The president has already admitted that the policy he seeks will cause our electricity bills to skyrocket."
So did the president say that, Bill?
ADAIR: You know, this is one of those statements, you hear it and you think, oh, Obama wouldn't have said that.
Well, he did. And, indeed, in a conversation with "The San Francisco Chronicle" editorial board, that's exactly what he said. So, we rated that one true on our Truth-O-Meter.
BROWN: All right, Bill Adair, many thanks to you and Tom Foreman for all the digging over the course of the last 48 hours. Really appreciate it, guys.
ADAIR: Thanks.
BROWN: And, when we come back, our special investigation, "The End of Privacy." Even if you tried to disappear in the digital age, it wouldn't take a detective to track you down.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Without any access to special databases, without any law enforcement power of subpoenas or anything else, they gathered this huge dossier of information about me. And that really shocked me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: President Obama gearing up for his final day in China. What we want to know tonight is how many American companies accepting Chinese censorship as the cost of doing business there? What's really going on during this trip? We have answers on that.
(NEWS BREAK)
BROWN: A single mother taking on the U.S. Army. She defied an order to go off to war because of her baby boy. The Army says it's not that simple. And now the mom has hired a lawyer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SUSSMAN: Put her in this horrible of having to choose between abandoning her child or disobeying her superiors.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: A U.S. soldier who is also a single mom is confined to her Army base in Georgia tonight. Specialist Alexis Hutchinson was arrested for refusing to join her combat brigade heading to Afghanistan. And her reason, she couldn't find anybody to take care of her 10-month-old and she refuses to leave him to go off to war.
Well, now Specialist Hutchinson could face court-martial. Is she really caught between serving her country and protecting her child?
Well, earlier, we spoke with Hutchinson's attorney, Rai Sue Sussman. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Rai Sue, why don't you walk us through what has happened over the last few days.
SUSSMAN: About a week ago, Specialist Hutchinson missed a plane to Afghanistan because she had no one to care for her 10-month-old baby. When she voluntarily turned herself in less than 24 hours later, her command arrested her, put her in jail on the base and placed her baby with child protective services.
BROWN: Who is taking care of her baby now?
SUSSMAN: Her mother is now taking care of 10-month-old infant baby Kamani Hutchinson.
BROWN: Now, just so our viewers understand, the Army requires you to have something that they call a family care plan. And that basically says that in the event that you're deployed, you will have someone ready to take care of your kids. And you sign a piece of paper saying you promise to do that. So, what happened with her? Why didn't all of this work out?
SUSSMAN: She actually had had -- her mother had agreed to take care of Kamani for her deployment, and she placed him with her mother a month before in anticipation. After a week of caring for Kamani on her on, her mother felt overwhelmed and backed out. BROWN: So, what did she do? Presumably, she called her superiors and said, what, I'm having a crisis here.
SUSSMAN: She informs them that she -- that her family care plan had fallen through, that her mother was no longer able to take care of her child, and she would -- and her mother returned her child to her. Her command had indicated to her that they would give her an extension, and as is normal under the regulations for a situation when a family care plan fails.
However, the day before her unit was supposed to deploy, she was told that she was not getting that extension after all and she would need to be on the plane. And that's when it put her in this horrible situation of having to choose between abandoning her child or disobeying her superiors.
BROWN: So, with 24 hours, I mean, what did the military suggest that she do with her son?
SUSSMAN: She told me that they did not give her any options. They just told her that her duty was to get on that plane and whatever the situation.
BROWN: OK. But nobody is suggesting you're going to leave a 10- month-old sitting there on the runway. They must have said something. They must have had a conversation about it. Can you give us any sense for that?
SUSSMAN: The sense I got from her and I think that the reason why she was scared enough to not go and get on her plane was because she thought that they would take her child from her. And when she did miss her plane and then voluntarily returned, they arrested her and took her baby from her.
BROWN: Rai Sue Sussman tonight -- appreciate your time, Rai Sue. Thank you.
SUSSMAN: All right, thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: I want to bring in our senior legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, to try to put this in perspective for us.
I guess bottom-line it for me. Does she have a case?
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: You know, I don't think she has much of a case, as sad as this story is. You know, tens of thousands of soldiers and members of the military have similar situations. They have to go overseas, but they have young children.
This story is played out time after time. But part of the responsibility of being a soldier is to put a plan in place. And the army does offer a variety of services to help you put a plan in place. But ultimately, if you're going to join the service and you have a child, you have to make provisions for being sent away, because that's what it means to be in the military.
BROWN: So could they press charges?
TOOBIN: You know, they could. And obviously, she was held in custody for part of the weekend. The U.S. Army does not exist to put its own soldiers in prison.
BROWN: In prison.
TOOBIN: They don't want to do this. What they want is to have Specialist Hutchinson to put a plan in place to take care of her child so that she can serve her country, which is what I assume she wants to do. But it's incredibly difficult. I mean, this is -- Michelle Obama has made this her cause, military families. It's extremely difficult. But the -- unfortunately, the answer is not simply to say, well, I can't go, I'm not going.
BROWN: Well, and you wonder, too -- I mean, obviously, this is not the best publicity in the world for the Army right now.
TOOBIN: Right.
BROWN: But at the same time, you point out of how many people are in a similar situation and they're not likely to want to set sort of precedent by making a kind of deal with her or anything, right?
TOOBIN: I saw one statistic that said over 100,000 of these soldiers who have served in the service since 9/11 have had children they've had to leave. I mean, it's an enormous issue. The Army has dealt with this many, many times. But unfortunately, they can't allow individual soldiers simply to say, I can't go. That's -- it's not that kind of job. When you sign up for the Army, that's one of the things you sign up for.
BROWN: All right. Jeff Toobin for us tonight. Jeff, thanks.
And we'll be back. A whole lot more right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: President Obama is in Beijing tonight, as we told you, preparing for his sit-down with the Chinese premier. Now, earlier on his trip, the president held one of his trademark town meetings with college students. The kind of event usually guarantees a media frenzy, but not in China.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): It's Mr. Obama's first official visit to China and it began in Shanghai with some nontraditional diplomacy. The American president speaking to Chinese students and playing to his strengths at a town hall meeting.
DAN LOTHIAN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Obama's most pointed answer came not from a question in the audience but from the Internet delivered by the U.S. ambassador. JON HUNTSMAN, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO CHINA: Should we be able to use Twitter freely?
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes. In the United States, information is free. And I have a lot of critics in the United States who can say all kinds of things about me. I actually think that that makes our democracy stronger, and it makes me a better leader.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The White House said the rebuke was aimed at China's leaders but if they were watching it on TV, most Chinese were not because the government allowed it to run on only one local channel in Shanghai. In the rest of China, they aired a soap opera.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: So how exactly does Chinese censorship work? What kind of information is off limits? Just a little bit ago, I talked to Andrew Lih. He's a China expert and the author of "The Wikipedia Revolution." Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAMPBELL BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Andrew, how would the Chinese government prepare for a high profile visitor like President Obama to try to make sure that the message that gets out is the one they want out?
ANDREW LIH, AUTHOR, "THE WIKIPEDIA REVOLUTION": Well, certainly the Chinese government has a lot of controls on the media, the telecom infrastructure and also the Internet content. So, certainly, they have their censors and folks ready to react to any type of content the government wants to make sure it doesn't propagate too far.
But in general, they're probably going to cover most of the American visit like a standard type of foreign head of state visit. But they'll be very ready to look for certain key words or key phrases or certain parts of speeches that shouldn't be propagated on the air waves or over the Internet.
BROWN: So to that point, expand on that a little bit.
I mean, how do they decide what to censor?
LIH: Well, for example, on the Internet, they have, at every major Internet corporation that does news and media content, they actually have a team of folks who are responsible for getting rid of certain content or making certain certain types of conversations are taken off of certain bulletin boards.
BROWN: So -- so...
LIH: And this...
BROWN: I mean they really, really do have this sort of team of censors standing by looking for, like you say, those key words or things that -- that set off red flags?
LIH: That's right. I mean you do have the same type of thing at Yahoo! and Google for certain types of illegal content, but on Chinese firms, the team is much bigger. The scope of what they look for is beyond just pornography or illegal content, but actually about politically sensitive comments -- comments or different types of content the government doesn't want to have too much on the Internet there.
BROWN: And, Andrew, you mentioned Google. A lot of American companies, like Google, have been complicit in censorship.
What have they done to collude with the Chinese government on this?
LIH: Well, some companies like some American companies, let's say, in the dot-com space, have been accused of, you know, thinking too -- well, cooperating too much with the Chinese government in terms of turning over private information or to censor the searches over there.
To Google's credit, though, they have chosen not to host private data of individuals over there. They do, however, filter their search results so that they are actually in compliance with some of the filtering that's going on in China.
BROWN: And -- and is there a limit to what the Chinese government can do? Because earlier this summer, I know they wanted to place software in every personal computer to try to screen for content, but then they ended up backing off of that.
I mean why?
LIH: Well, that's interesting. There was a piece of software called Green Dam. And for a while, they were going to mandate that every single personal computer have it shipped as a piece of software that you can install on your computer. You didn't have to install it, but it was going to be shipped with every computer.
And what happened was the government backed off after there was a popular revolt against it, because a lot of individuals said, well, it's one thing if you filter content on Web sites, but once you put that filtering software on my personal computer, that's going a little too far.
And that just shows that there is this delicate balance between the government, who wants to clamp down on certain types of information, but also the citizens, who are actually granting the government the ability to do that.
BROWN: Interesting stuff.
Andrew Lih for us tonight.
Andrew, thank you.
LIH: You're welcome.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: And a heads up for you. CNN's Ed Henry sitting down with President Obama for a one-on-one interview in Beijing. Watch it on CNN's AMERICAN MORNING. That's starting at 6:00 Eastern Time.
Tonight in our special series "The End of Privacy," you're going to meet the man who tried to drop off the face of the earth. And whoever found him was in for a big payday. In the age of instant information, can somebody simply disappear?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EVAN RATLIFF, WRITER, "WIRED" MAGAZINE: I dyed my hair and wore fake glasses. I actually had three different pairs of fake glasses. I had a fake wedding ring. I had a variety of hats and sunglasses. My best disguise was shaving the top of my head.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Tonight, we continue our special series, "The End of Privacy." With more than 300 people in this country -- or excuse me, with more than 300 million people in this country, you would think it would be easy to just disappear. But trying to find one person is like looking for a needle in a haystack, right?
Well, not quite. Nearly everything we do in the digital age is tracked and there is nowhere to hide. Recently "Wired" magazine issued a challenge to its readers to one of their writers, Evan Ratliff. His assignment, get lost in America.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
EVAN RATLIFF, WRITER, "WIRED" MAGAZINE: I would disappear for up to a month and there would be a kind of bounty on my head where $5,000 would be awarded to the person who found me in person.
BROWN: (voice-over): If readers caught him, they'd get a prize. If he remained hidden for a month, Evan would win.
RATLIFF: You see all those movies -- and I love those kind of movies. They show you the sort of sexiest aspects of that, but they never show you the kind of daily details of how does this guy keep getting money, where does it keep coming from? He always has an endless supply of cash. What happens if his phone battery dies?
The main thing that I did was I tried to set up my new identity. My fake persona was -- his name was James Gatz, which is actually the name from the "Great Gatsby." He had his own Facebook account. He had a Twitter account and business cards.
BROWN: Once Evan had his fake identity, he was ready to disappear and keep on the move. RATLIFF: I started in San Francisco. I drove to -- through a little bit of a circuitous route to Las Vegas and that's where I sold my car. Then I took a Greyhound bus to Los Angeles. I went out and stayed in Venice Beach for the better part of a week.
It was sort of a spontaneous community that grew up around what was essentially a contest, you know, for them to find me. And they especially online, they got on to Twitter and Facebook and social networking sites. They made maps. They made Web sites. They made wanted posters. One guy made a tip line.
I was flying from Salt Lake City to Atlanta and I was stopping in Denver. One of the people who was following me, just a normal person, had a friend at the airlines, at Delta, which is what I was flying. And actually got that person to reveal my flight information that I was going all the way to Atlanta. So by the time I arrived in Atlanta, there was a post online that said, he's on this flight, he's arriving at this time. Somebody go get him.
BROWN: Evan narrowly escaped and concocted a variety of disguises.
RATLIFF: I dyed my hair and wore fake glasses. I actually had three different pair of fake glasses. I had a fake wedding ring. I had a variety of hats and sunglasses.
My best disguise was shaving the top of my head. I had this sort of businessman kind of middle, you know, manager persona that I used with that. I was completely paranoid, and I thought that people were right behind me. I thought that they were a step ahead of me. At one point I thought that they were chasing me in a helicopter.
And there was a guy named Jeff Reifman (ph) who lives in Seattle. He tracked me actually from Salt Lake City to Denver to Atlanta. And then I took a train from Atlanta to New Orleans which is where I had settled in and I was living in an apartment. And he pinpointed that I was in New Orleans using this Internet address. And then from there, he actually enlisted people on the ground to go and find me.
BROWN: Evan was finally caught three weeks into the experiment on his way to get a pizza.
RATLIFF: I was amazed at how much information those people were able to dig up about me. Without any professional training, most of them. Without any access to special databases, you know, without any law enforcement power, subpoenas or anything else, they gathered this huge dossier of information about me. And that really shocked me.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: So he's here with us now, Evan Ratliff. Welcome.
RATLIFF: Thank you.
BROWN: So the people who finally got you, nabbed you, what was the digital clue that did you in? RATLIFF: Mostly, it was the Internet address of my computer. So the IP address it's called.
BROWN: Right.
RATLIFF: So they basically tracked that. When I logged into certain Web sites, they found out it was me logging in. They tracked that to my computer. And then at that point, this guy Jeff Reifman (ph) in Seattle was on to me and he knew basically where I was.
BROWN: What was the most surprising of -- you know, you saw all these examples. You just went through of how people were able to trace you. Were any just sort of mind-blowing to you?
RATLIFF: Well, there were a couple. One was, well, just generally, the way that people were able to get information kind of the old-fashioned way, which is they took things they found online and then they called someone up and basically asked them without trying to trick them --
BROWN: Fast and effective work, right.
RATLIFF: Just to ask them what do this IP address, what does it correspond to? What address does it correspond to or where did this FedEx shipment go and who signed for it?
All those things they were able to get sort of people to tell them, and that was surprising. And then I did have one professional private detective who found a completely unlisted brand new phone number that I had. And that -- that kind of freaked me out at the time.
BROWN: Were you -- I mean, these weren't -- apart from the private investigator, by and large, these were average people, average Joes. Did you, going into this, think that that -- that the average Joe would be that creative about how they would go about it? Or was that surprising to you?
RATLIFF: It was. I didn't expect -- I expected them to get really into it, but I didn't expect two things. First of all, that they would be able to gather so much information that I didn't realize was out there. Because I scoured my own history pretty carefully.
BROWN: Right, even before. Right.
RATLIFF: Even for months before I left. But then also that they would actually form this community that would allow them to find me on the ground because they could enlist one person in one place and another person in another place...
BROWN: Right.
RATLIFF: ... to go out and actually physically look for me.
BROWN: Yes, teaming up on you. It's so unfair.
RATLIFF: I know.
BROWN: So what did you learn from this?
RATLIFF: Well, I mean, I learned that you leave these digital footprints everywhere. We all kind of know that now.
BROWN: Right.
RATLIFF: But we kind of assume that it's mostly things that get left in databases when we use credit cards, when we use phones. But there's a whole other class of information, which is the information you're actually volunteering about yourself on Facebook...
BROWN: Right.
RATLIFF: ... when you review restaurants online. And then a lot of things that you feel are anonymous, you pick an anonymous name. As soon as someone untangles it, they have this collection of information about you.
BROWN: So are you convinced now it's impossible to be anonymous in the digital age?
RATLIFF: I don't think it's impossible. I think that if you're going to do it, you have to go all the way, which means you have to go off the grid. To some extent you have to stop using credit cards. You have to stop putting information about yourself online.
BROWN: Right.
RATLIFF: Or ultimately you have to go all the way. You have to basically flood the Internet with information, so much information about yourself that no one could ever figure out what was real.
BROWN: Right. Do you miss your friends and family?
RATLIFF: I did. I did. I'm glad to be back.
BROWN: Yes, finally, you were glad it was --
RATLIFF: It wasn't as much fun as I actually anticipated.
BROWN: Yes, as you thought.
RATLIFF: Yes.
BROWN: It's really interesting. Evan Ratliff. And we should tell people your story, of course, appears in "Wired" magazine next week, right?
RATLIFF: Yes.
BROWN: It's good to have you here. Evan, thanks.
RATLIFF: Thanks a lot. BROWN: And here's one way you can actually protect your privacy or at least try to help protect your privacy. Don't Google yourself. Find out why at CNN.com/Campbell. Look under online privacy tips.
Now tracking you with a computer is one thing. Watching your every move with a camera quite another.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When you're going into a gay bar, when you're going into the psychiatrist's office, when you're going into a gynecologist's office, who knows what? When you're passing by a triple-X store because it's on your way to work, those pictures can be captured and used by anybody for any purpose. Sometimes it's the government who captures the pictures. Sometimes it's private entities, but there are no limitations on what anybody can do with those images.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And that is part three of our special investigation "The End of Privacy" tomorrow 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
"LARRY KING LIVE" starts in just a few moments. His special guest, Pastor T.D. Jakes. And up next, tonight's "Guilty Pleasure." Our Mike Galanos takes on the CNN challenge. See if you can outsmart him.
Let's give you a taste of it right now. I think the question we have for you right now, what important vaccine was released in 1955? Was it polio, smallpox, flu, measles? The answer when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Larry King starts in just a few minutes. But first before the break, we played a little bit of the CNN challenge. We asked you a question here. What important vaccine was released in 1955? Polio, smallpox, flu, measles? The answer, polio.
Somebody here in the control room has it right. This is all part of tonight's "Guilty Pleasure." Mike Galanos is going to tell us more -- Mike.
MIKE GALANOS, HLN PRIME NEWS: Hey, Campbell. CNNchallenge.com. A lot of fun. I'm up to round three.
BROWN: Yes.
GALANOS: Larry King is walking. He's walking me through this one here. So lightning round, 90 seconds to answer the most questions. And you're -- you were part of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" so I'm phoning you as my friend here if we have any trouble. Let's get it going here.
Let's begin. First question, first of five, clock ticking. Here we go. Who opened the leadership academy for girls in South Africa? Oprah.
BROWN: That's easy.
GALANOS: Easy one. Yes, there we go. We'll take that one, one in the bank. All right.
Question number two, who was the name of Michael Jackson's pet chimp? Come on, Campbell.
BROWN: What?
GALANOS: Michael Jackson.
BROWN: Bubbles. Bubbles.
GALANOS: Bubbles. There we go, let me punch it in. B-U-B-B-L- E-S.
BROWN: Sorry, that was the cameraman. That wasn't me. You guys get credit.
GALANOS: I love it. That's a team effort.
All right. Number three, 65 seconds to go and counting. When did Prince Charles and Princess Diana divorce? It's got to be in the '90s.
Campbell, help me. '92, '96? "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," phone a friend.
BROWN: '92.
GALANOS: '92? Ooh, Campbell.
BROWN: Oh, what is it?
GALANOS: I think it's '96. All right. Next up.
BROWN: '96?
GALANOS: Where's the volcano Mount Vesuvius located? Italy, Greece. My dad is Greek, mom's Italian.
BROWN: Italy. Italy.
GALANOS: Italy. Yes, for momma, I love it.
Thirty-eight seconds left. Let's see what we got? Why were four gold medals awarded in Olympic pairs figure skating 2002? It was the corrupt French judge.
Thank you very much. Is that it? There you go. Lightning round wraps it up
BROWN: You won. You win. Go, Mike!
GALANOS: Four out of five, Campbell. Princess Di, that tripped us up.
BROWN: Yes, it did.
GALANOS: Here we go. A lot of fun. 1200 --
BROWN: But much of the credit goes to our crew here in the studios. They were feeding it to me.
GALANOS: I know. Bubbles.
BROWN: There you go.
GALANOS: The Bubbles question.
BROWN: Always Bubbles, isn't it?
GALANOS: Good stuff. CNNchallenge.com., a lot of fun.
BROWN: All right. Mike Galanos. Mike, thanks.
GALANOS: OK.
BROWN: As we mentioned, Larry King with Pastor T.D. Jakes at the top of the hour. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We leave you with some new tape tonight of our old vice president, Dick Cheney. He's been out of office for nearly a year now. Apparently some conservatives dreaming of a comeback.
Cheney showed up in Houston tonight to endorse Kay Bailey Hutchison's run for governor of Texas, and she wondered allowed if he had something else in mind.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON (R), TEXAS: I wasn't sure, however, if after I saw Liz Cheney on TV on Sunday if this was maybe the announcement of Cheney 2012?
DICK CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No chance.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: No chance. You heard it here first, people. By the way, Cheney also unhappy with the president's bow to the Japanese emperor during his Asia trip. He's telling "Politico," quote, "There is no reason for an American president to bow to anyone. Our friends and allies don't expect it. Our enemies see it as a sign of weakness."
Apparently, Cheney forgetting about some of those photos of former President Bush holding hands and bowing.
That's it for now. You can follow me on Twitter any time. Thanks for joining us.
"LARRY KING LIVE" starts right now.
