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Campbell Brown
New York Governor Abandons Reelection Bid; Broken Government
Aired February 26, 2010 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAMPBELL BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Hey there, everybody.
The third major snowstorm in a month wallops the East Coast, stranding thousands of travelers.
And that story topping the "Mash-Up" tonight. We're watching all of it so you don't have to.
Parts of the Northeast tonight seeing more than two feet of snow, and, yes, right now, it is still coming down.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My goodness, there is no way that those plows are going to be able to keep up plowing the roads or a snowblower with it coming down that hard, two, three, in cases four inches of snow per hour. That is amazing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For the past 36 hours, man has been battling, but nature has been winning.
KATIE COURIC, HOST, "CBS EVENING NEWS": Travel is difficult and dangerous. At least three deaths are blamed on the storm so far.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For just the fourth time in six years, New York City public schools were closed.
BRIAN WILLIAMS, HOST, "NBC NIGHTLY NEWS": By one estimate, there are one million Americans without power over a several-state area, over 1,000 flights canceled, and in the thick of it, hundreds of people were stranded on one stretch of New York highway overnight.
JIM AXELROD, CBS NEWS: And it very well may not be over. Another storm could hit the East Coast on Tuesday. Not to be the bearer of bad news, but nobody should be putting away their shovels just yet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: The snow is expected to taper off by the end of the weekend.
In New York, Governor David Paterson announced today that he is abandoning his reelection campaign in the face of a growing scandal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: The last New York governor resigned in disgrace amid a sex scandal almost exactly two years ago, and now Eliot Spitzer's successor is tarnished by a different kind of scandal.
DIANE SAWYER, HOST, "WORLD NEWS": Paterson, who is blind, reportedly became entangled in suppressing a domestic violence incident.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In a case involving David Johnson, one of the governor's top aides, the case, an alleged assault by Johnson of a former girlfriend.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Johnson's ex-girlfriend told the judge in the case the state police had put constant pressure on her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: State troopers kept calling and harassing me to drop the charges. And I wouldn't.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But the day after Paterson himself called her, she failed to show up in court and the case was dismissed.
COURIC: Today, he firmly denied any wrongdoing.
GOV. DAVID PATERSON (D), NEW YORK: I have never abused my office, not now, not ever.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Paterson said today he had to be realistic about politics and said it was what he called an accumulation of obstacles that led him to his decision.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And we're going to have much more on this fascinating political story coming up tonight.
In Washington, one of the president's most glamorous and controversial aides is calling it quits. Social Secretary Desiree Rogers is heading back to the private sector.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAN LOTHIAN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: she did come under fire when the Salahis managed to get into the state dinner for the Indian Prime Minister and his wife. After that she came under fire, there were calls for her to resign. She declined to go up on Capitol Hill when there was a hearing looking into the security breach.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A longtime personal friend of the Obamas from Chicago, Rogers was an accomplished businesswoman and Harvard MBA when tapped to run the White House Social Office, famously telling "The Wall Street Journal": "We have the best brand on Earth, the Obama brand. Our possibilities are endless."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With high-profile photo shoots for "Vogue" and other magazines and a splashy trip to Fashion Week, Rogers also drew criticism internally for making a job about the first family into one about herself.
COURIC: Over 14 months, she has planned more than 330 events and was criticized for just one, the November state dinner that was crashed by a Virginia couple.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: In an e-mail to CNN, Rogers says it was incredible to help set the foundation of the White House for this historic presidency.
Meantime, Obama administration alum Van Jones speaking out about the controversy that cost him his job. Jones was the president's green czar, you may remember. He resigned amid an uproar over a petition that he had signed calling for an investigation into whether 9/11 was a government plot. Jones explained himself in an exclusive interview with CNN's Suzanne Malveaux.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: First of all, the petition that you signed in 2004, the 9/11 truthers, in which they call for an investigation of Bush administration officials, may have indeed deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war.
You signed this petition, and then you said you never believed in the statement. That didn't reflect your views.
Which is it?
VAN JONES, FORMER SPECIAL ADVISER FOR GREEN JOBS, ENTERPRISE AND INNOVATION, WHITE HOUSE COUNCIL ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY: Well, first of all, just let me be clear what my actual beliefs are.
I do believe that 9/11 was a conspiracy by Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and nobody else, to hurt America. That's what I believe.
I learned a tough lesson on this one. I never saw that language. I never signed anything. A group came up to me at a conference six years ago, and they said, we represent 9/11 families. And I said, OK. What's going on? How can I be helpful? They said, we need your help. Will you support our cause? I said, sure.
They then -- I did not know their agenda. They then went and put my name on the most abhorrent, crazy language alleging stuff that I don't believe, would never have signed on to. And it just sat there on this obscure Web site for years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: The NAACP honored Jones today with an Image Award.
In Orlando, SeaWorld announced it is resuming whale shows tomorrow while it investigates the death of a trainer. And yes, new safety rules will be in place. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And Tilikum, the whale that killed Dawn Brancheau in front of an audience this week, will -- quote -- "remain active." That is according to the president of SeaWorld, Jim Atchinson.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Atchinson says Tilikum will stay part of the SeaWorld team.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We would never advocate punishing an animal of ours. That is something we won't entertain, we will not do. It is not part of our DNA.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tourist video like this shot moments before Dawn Brancheau's death are an important part of the investigation. As the show comes to a close, Brancheau is seen lying in a shallow pool next to Tili, something the man who brought Tili to SeaWorld in 1991 says no one was supposed to do with this whale.
THAD LACINAK, FORMER HEAD TRAINER, SEAWORLD: She laid down. She got comfortable rubbing him down. Her ponytail drifted in the water. And he simply opened his mouth, grabbed her ponytail and pulled her in the water.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: SeaWorld says it is way too early to say whether the trainer had violated any protocol.
And we end tonight with the "Punchline." This is courtesy of Jon Stewart, his take on yesterday's much-hyped health care summit. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN OLIVER, "THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART": Today's summit introduced a new spirit of unity. It went so well that, afterwards, Republicans and Democrats took the unprecedented step of going out together. In fact, Chuck Schumer passed out, which was a big mistake. Big mistake, John.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And that, of course, was John Oliver on "Jon Stewart," everybody, that being the "Mash-Up" tonight.
When we come back, a governor under fire speaks out about allegations of misuse of power -- the fallout when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Today, New York Governor David Paterson told a news conference -- quote -- "I have never abused my office, not now, not ever."
It has been a bumpy ride that ended with him now dropping out of the race for a full term as governor.
And our own Mary Snow has a closer look right now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PATERSON: There are times in politics when you have to know not to strive for service, but to step back. And that moment has come for me.
MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That moment came a day after a front-page story in "The New York Times" suggested Governor Paterson and the New York State Police may have pressured a woman to keep quiet about a domestic violence incident involving one of Paterson's top aides.
"The Times" says last fall Paterson aide David Johnson choked, stripped, and threatened a woman who shared his apartment. "The Times" reported she sought a protective order and repeatedly claimed the New York State Police were pressuring her to drop the complaint. The complaint was dropped, says "The Times", after she had a phone conversation with Paterson and then failed to make a scheduled court appearance the next day.
PATERSON: I give you this personal oath. I have never abused my office, not now, not ever.
SNOW: Paterson became governor in March 2008, when then-Governor Eliot Spitzer resigned after admitting that he had frequented prostitutes.
He is New York's first African-American governor, the country's first legally blind governor.
PATERSON: I never expected to have the honor of serving as governor of New York State, but our constitution demands it.
SNOW: Paterson's troubles started almost immediately. He preemptively admitted his own marriage infidelities and past cocaine use.
PATERSON: We all have problems, but, in this particular case, I just felt that this -- some of this information apparently was out there. I didn't want to be compromised. I didn't want to be blackmailed.
SNOW: Paterson survived politically, but then bungled the appointment of a Senate successor to Hillary Clinton. Caroline Kennedy was President Obama's choice. Paterson picked Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand instead, an awkward political fumble.
The governor has spent the past year fighting with state lawmakers, and losing. He was ridiculed on NBC's "Saturday Night Live." (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Come on, I'm a blind man who loves cocaine, who was suddenly appointed governor of New York. My life is an actual plot from a Richard Pryor movie.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SNOW: Paterson blamed his troubles on racism.
PATERSON: We're not in the post-racial period.
SNOW: By January, a new round of whispering had started, rumors that "The New York Times" had uncovered a scandal that would be Paterson's political death blow. Paterson kept insisting he had done nothing wrong and was eagerly seeking reelection.
PATERSON: Let me let you know this. The only way I'm not going to be governor next year is at the ballot box, and the only way that I will be leaving office before is in a box. Thank you.
SNOW: Mary Snow, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: And joining me right now is Mark Halperin, who is of course senior political analyst and editor at large for "TIME" magazine, and "New York" magazine contributing editor with me as well Chris Smith.
So, Chris, did Governor Paterson really even have a choice here? Does he have any supporters left?
CHRIS SMITH, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, "NEW YORK": No.
Politically, this moment, we couldn't have predicted the exact details, but a lot of things have been leading in this direction for quite a long time. Governor Paterson has abysmally low poll numbers, almost no money in his campaign account, and a steadily deserting group of supporters and allies.
Even friends have been saying for a long time that he shouldn't be running for this election. This scandal is just the last blow.
BROWN: And this idea of using state police for private matters, this isn't the first time. There is like a track record here of New York governors doing this.
SMITH: Yes. Unfortunately, we have a bad history, recent history, dating back to Governor Pataki, escalating with Governor Spitzer, who put the state troopers in the middle of his war with the state senate majority leader.
And now Paterson, it's still a little murky how they got drawn into it. It's hard to believe that the state troopers intervened on their own in this domestic abuse case. The head of the state troopers is a guy who was essentially given a job because he's close to one of Paterson's closest aides.
And, yes, it's an abuse maybe legally of power, certainly of political judgment by far.
BROWN: Mark, you saw a bit of the highlight reel there. This is a government who has had quite an interesting tenure, to say the least.
MARK HALPERIN, SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST, "TIME": Well, he's an accidental governor. And he started off on strange footing, the way he got the job, the things he did the day he got the job.
And Chris is right. He was never going to be elected, not reelected, because he assumed the job when Spitzer stepped down. And it's embarrassing for New York, because we have now had two straight embarrassing governors.
I think based on just the facts we know, there is a lot of questions that need to be answered about this circumstance and some other brewing controversies. And I think, if you were wagering, the governor said some things there -- we saw one at the end -- that he was definitely going to run for reelection. He's saying he's definitely serving out his term. We will see.
BROWN: Well, I was going to say, do you think he can stick it out? Or...
HALPERIN: Based on just the facts we know and the status of things, I bet he doesn't.
BROWN: Do you, Chris?
SMITH: Well, he's handed over the investigation to his primary -- or now erstwhile political rival, State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who is going to find out...
BROWN: And that's a sticky situation, handling this investigation, if he is the leading contender to be the next governor.
(CROSSTALK)
SMITH: Yes. Intervening in a criminal matter as governor is a serious, serious allegation. If, A, there is any proven truth to that, Paterson could very well be impeached.
BROWN: And a matter of time before Cuomo gets in this race?
HALPERIN: Well, not just a matter of time before he gets in the race, but he's now the most likely person far and away to be the next governor of New York.
This is -- with all due respect to most of the other 49 states, this is a big deal. It's been a political mess for a long time. Andrew Cuomo is now in position, even if it's a big Republican year, to become the governor of New York, a job his father held, and to be, as we say euphemistically, a leading national figure.
So, he probably almost certainly would have beaten Paterson. Now he's going to be able to do this without the complexities of taking on an incumbent, an African-American incumbent, in a state with a large African-American electorate. It makes it much stronger for Andrew Cuomo to come into this office and to start looking national right away.
BROWN: Mark Halperin tonight, and, Chris Smith, good to have you here as well. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
SMITH: Thanks for having us.
BROWN: Coming up next, the top 10 list that you're going to want to see, the dumbest things your government did in the past year with your money.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Tonight in our special series "Broken Government," we have put together the top 10 flops of last year, courtesy of your elected officials in Washington and beyond.
CNN's Joe Johns calls them out one by one.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Number 10, the $787 billion question. No need to rack your brain about whether the federal stimulus package was a masterstroke or a boondoggle. Just figure out what you could have done with the money if someone sent you your share -- $787 billion is enough to write a check for $2,623 to every man, woman and child in the U.S.
Number nine, for the banks, is this a great country or what? Where else can you bring the banking system to the brink of collapse by your own greedy decisions, get hundreds of billions of dollars from the taxpayers to rescue you from those decisions, then pay your top people huge bonuses, even though your sector of the economy created the crisis in the first place?
Number eight, is this a great country or what for the health insurance companies? Health care costs so much that the administration goes after the health insurance companies. Some of them respond by jacking up rates through the roof. Now the health insurance reform bill is on life support and the companies are laughing all the way to the bank.
Number seven, justice delayed is justice denied. For the third year, Congressman William "Dollar Bill" Jefferson makes our list, not just because of what he did, but also because of how he got caught, $90,000 of FBI sting money in the freezer, cold, hard cash. Now he's appealing his bribery conviction. But don't laugh. He's still eligible to get his congressional pension. The law was changed to prevent that sort of thing just before Jefferson got indicted. But the new law doesn't apply to him or any other member who might have committed crimes before the law was changed.
Number six, never say pork doesn't pay. Just ask the man formerly known as the king of pork. Former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, once the master of funneling earmarks to his home state, the Justice Department tried to take him down with an indictment for allegedly lying on his disclosure forms.
But as soon as President Obama's new attorney general, Eric Holder, assumed office, he threw out the whole thing, after hearing proof prosecutors had failed to turn over to the defense required documents favorable to Stevens. Stevens lost his bid for reelection, but he didn't go to jail.
Number five, the buck definitely doesn't stop here. When the Ethics Committee admonished powerful Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel for going to a business conference in the Caribbean which may have been underwritten by corporate interests, in violation of House rules, Rangel said it wasn't his fault, that his staff at the time knew about the funding problem, but didn't tell him. Rangel also said he didn't notice any of the corporate banners or logos at the conference.
Number four, pushing his own jobs program. Senator John Ensign, what the heck was he thinking anyway? Having an affair is one thing. It happens all over Washington. But it's something else entirely to be accused of hooking up your paramour's spouse with a job and then steering clients his way, ostensibly to keep the whole situation quiet.
Oh, and some of the clients turned out to be campaign donors. You get the picture. Ensign denies wrongdoing.
Number three, MIA, or missing in Argentina. Once upon a time, Mark Sanford was one of the voices in the wilderness trying to shrink the size of government and return power to the people. Today, he's known as the love gov for slipping off to see his Argentine mistress in Buenos Aires.
It just goes to show, there's only so much passion we want in our politicians.
Number two, let them eat cat food. Our national leaders from both parties look at problems that need fixing and see, well, a reason to get reelected. But the current thinking has them so busy toeing the party line, they can't figure out compromises to help the people who need it most.
So, if you know someone who is eating cat food or taking some other desperate measures trying to survive, Washington might as well be saying, bon appetit. And number one, change you can believe in. When Barack Obama the candidate talked about health care reform, he promised to make the process open and transparent. And, finally, his health care summit even went on TV.
But when congressional leaders got working on the final versions of their bills, they went behind closed doors. Why? Because Congress already knows you can't possibly have open and transparent government conducted in front of the cameras. That might ensure true democracy, which is a little bit different from the Washington version of let's make a deal that's been in place for decades.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JOHNS: And it's the third time we have done this at CNN. Obviously, it's not an all-inclusive list, by any means.
We would love to hear from you. If your favorite "Broken Government" story didn't make the list this year, reach out to us at CNN.com/Campbell. We're always looking for new material.
BROWN: Yes, no shortage there.
(LAUGHTER)
JOHNS: You've got that right.
BROWN: Joe Johns, good stuff.
Joe, thanks very much.
A CNN special investigation when we come back -- just how did officials get the alleged Christmas Day bomber to spill his secrets? We're going to show you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Now a CNN special investigation into the politics of terror.
The Obama administration is urging Congress not to try to block trials of terror suspects in federal court. Many in Congress want military courts, rather than civilian, to handle accused terrorists. At the heart of the debate, the suspect in the Christmas Day bombing plot and how the FBI got him to spill some of his secrets.
Drew Griffin has our report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The criticism began almost as soon as the FBI arrived to interview Umar Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian who tried to ignite explosives in his underwear on a Detroit-bound plane Christmas Day, conservatives saying the Nigerian should have been handed over to the military, instead of the FBI, some even hinting he should have been forced to talk. KARL ROVE, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BUSH: We had a chance to take this guy, sweat him, and find out the chain of command up the line that activated him, trained him, prepared him, equipped him, and sent him into action.
GRIFFIN: The FBI won't talk, but former FBI officials will, like CNN contributor and FBI special agent in charge of foreign operations Tom Fuentes. He says the idea of turning him Umar Abdulmutallab to military interrogators instead of the FBI is just political theater.
TOM FUENTES, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: The military is the greatest war- fighting machine that is known to man, ever. But they are not the greatest investigative agency known to man. And they don't have a demonstrated, successful history of the investigation and gathering of evidence, preparation of a prosecution.
GRIFFIN: Fuentes points to one case, the interrogation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed by the military, in custody since March of 2003, water-boarded 183 times. The so-called mastermind of 9/11 claimed to be Osama bin Laden's right-hand man, knowledgeable of upcoming plots.
Fuentes says it was just words from a man tired of being tortured.
FUENTES: What he did give us and what we did know, much of it was false. And, also, he failed to identify other al Qaeda operatives throughout Europe -- and they're rampant in virtually throughout every capital of Europe -- throughout Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. And he had been in many of those countries.
GRIFFIN: For Umar Abdulmutallab, the FBI took a different approach.
Stephen Miller, a former terrorism task force member and Department of Defense investigator, says the immediate emergency demanding gaining Abdulmutallab's trust, not threatening him with enhanced interrogations.
STEPHEN MILLER, NCCU DEPARTMENT OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE: Immediate intelligence, there's a shelf life on this. And immediately they needed to know, was he the only one on that plane who had a bomb?
GRIFFIN: Fifteen minutes after arriving at a Michigan hospital, Abdulmutallab was met by two of the top counterterrorism interrogators in the nation.
CNN has learned the lead investigator heads the Detroit joint terrorism task force. He is a 15-year Vietnam veteran and a former senior executive in charge of counterterrorism, at his side, an FBI agent specializing in investigating terror suspects who had twice been to Iraq and Afghanistan to interview militants in the field.
According to Fuentes, it worked. In 50 minutes, with no Miranda rights read, the agents determined Abdulmutallab was lying when he said another bomb was on board the plane, was also lying when he said others were in the air. It was only after Abdulmutallab stopped talking, after a five-hour surgery and recovery that agents read him his Miranda rights and offered him a lawyer. But the real value of his information came later. Sources say Abdulmutallab talked about his orders from Yemen and revealed as many as 20 others were being trained to be suicide bombers. And he gave the names of the terrorists in Yemen who trained him.
TOM FUENTES, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Over the course of time, as the rapport was building up with the FBI agents doing the interviewing, he started to stop lying as much and give more accurate information.
GRIFFIN: FBI agents then went to Nigeria to ask his family to help persuade the young man to cooperate. It worked. But the political sniping over how the case was handled goes on and that has to put Abdulmutallab's family which tried to help the U.S. in danger. It was a week, most likely from the White House, that members of the family had been secretly flown to Detroit to persuade Abdulmutallab to talk. It was a broken promise of anonymity.
(on camera): But I think that was a mistake.
FUENTES: It was a mistake. They are in danger. And Al Qaeda does have a presence in Nigeria.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): Even after it was announced Abdulmutallab was cooperating, providing actionable intelligence, Republicans critics were not persuaded.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll put him into military custody. That way we could have had more thorough investigations.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRIFFIN: These experienced investigators and other counterterrorism investigators we talked to, Campbell, say you really need to rely on the experience of the investigators in the field. There's no one right one way to do this, and those experienced professionals need to decide while the suspect is in front of them if they should threaten or pressure that suspect, coerce that suspect, or perhaps gain the suspect's trust like they did in this case, in order to get the information they need. These decisions, they say, need to be made in the interrogation room, not in Washington.
CAMPBELL BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Drew Griffin for us tonight. When we come back, if I said the word Chatroulette, would you know what I am talking about? Well, if you have kids, you need to know what I'm talking about, especially if they are on the Internet. We'll explain right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Tonight, the newest on-line sensation that's taking social networking to extremes. It is called Chatroulette. For some, it is a high-tech game of peek-a-boo. In fact, that's why this site is something that every parent should know about. All it takes is a web cam and an appetite for the unusual, the outrageous and often a tolerance for obscene video chats with a series of strangers. We asked two members of our staff, Graham Flanagan and Liy Hayden to to check it out. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LIZ HAYDEN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I'm scared. What are you doing?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. I'm (INAUDIBLE). How are you?
HAYDEN: I don't really know how to respond to this. I feel that he's picking me up.
GRAHAM FLANAGAN, CNN ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: What's up ladies?
Where are you from? Do you speak English?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you English?
FLANAGAN: Just we, American.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: America? Oh, yes.
FLANAGAN: All right. Let me do one more round here. Oh, God. So the first guy I got was doing something inappropriate to himself.
FLANAGAN: So I just "nexted" him, that was it. Oh, I don't want to repeat what I just saw.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: OK, I can't wait to hear what that was. Liz Hayden and Graham Flanagan are joining me now, along with high-tech expert Katie Linendoll who is going to explain to us what is going on here.
But, Graham, I'm going to start with you, because I don't think people fully understood what was just happening, what you guys were seeing. Explain what this is, how it works. You go, the site is free, you log on, and then what happens?
GRAHAM FLANAGAN, CNN ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: It's pretty much off to the races. You log on, and it says, press play to begin. You press play, someone pops up in a little video box.
BROWN: Right.
FLANAGAN: And you can chat with them. But if you're not really feeling it, if you want to try somebody else or if they're not really your flavor, you can click next and it automatically moves on to another person, thus the roulette.
BROWN: OK. So you basically people are just sitting there sort of hitting next and next, seeing who they might want to engage with.
FLANAGAN: Right. I got "nexted" quite a bit.
BROWN: Quite a bit.
FLANAGAN: Pretty consistently. BROWN: OK. You also, I mean, in theory this is supposed to be a way to have a pen pal, sort of meet new people around the world. And in fact, it's like half the stuff you see is really obscene, right?
FLANAGAN: A lot more than half, I would say.
BROWN: Is it that bad?
FLANAGAN: It's pretty bad. I would say one out every five or six people are doing something inappropriate. So, yes, I mean, I saw the Martin Scorsese film "Shutter Island" the other night, this horror film, and I had trouble getting to bed. The next day I played Chatroulette and I saw some things that made "Shutter Island" look like one of these horror --
BROWN: OK. Liz, what was your experience like?
LIZ HAYDEN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I definitely saw my fair share of disgusting things, as you saw. I won't repeat what I saw, but there's some graphic, obscene images, but I also kind of made friends. I think that being a female helps. There's definitely more guys on it, and so I think being a girl, people were less likely to next me. And then once I finally found girls, I actually was talking to them. I found these 20-year-olds from France who I had a really great conversation with.
BROWN: OK. Katie, let me turn to you on this, because I just -- you've been following this since it first came around, right?
KATIE LINENDOLL, TECH EXPERT: Right.
BROWN: And the idea here was sort of a modern day pen pal kind of thing when it was first launched.
LINENDOLL: Yes.
BROWN: They didn't expect it to turn into sort of insta-porn Web site, right?
LINENDOLL: Right. Well, basically, it's kind of taking the whole concept of the old AOL chat room, where you went in but it was strictly text-based and you're never going to see this person again, but you got to chat with somebody across the globe, which is kind of cool. But now what you have here is an entirely different dynamic. You have a web cam and a microphone, which really humanizes the entire experience. But the scary part is it's skewing younger, and that's where the scare is. And of course, on the front page of the site, the only page on the site, there is a disclaimer that says you need to be 16 but there is absolutely no way to enforce this, and that's where the scare comes in. And to Graham's point and Liz's, my retinas are still burning from the experiences of one in five of every experience I've had has been graphic content.
BROWN: And let me just be clear, just in fairness to the site --
LINENDOLL: Yes. BROWN: -- there is a section that, as you say, outlines rules, says you must be 16, you can't use obscene, offending, or pornographic material. If you violate the rules, you'll be blocked. But, Graham, let's go back to this, because you actually tried to report somebody who was doing obscene stuff and it was almost impossible, right?
FLANAGAN: Right. Because your first impulse when you see somebody doing obscene is to click the next button, like, oh, God, I don't want to look at this anymore. But if you move on, there's no way to report them because there's no record, there's no paper trail. So somebody was doing something wrong, I clicked the report button while they continued to do it, but then they clicked next on me. So I don't think that -- so they didn't give me a chance to complete the form.
BROWN: So clearly, Liz is the one who's going to go in and file these reports. No, I'm kidding.
FLANAGAN: You're absolutely right.
BROWN: But, I mean, it sort of defeats the purpose if you really -- there's no way you can block anyone, basically.
LINENDOLL: Yes.
BROWN: So if you're a parent, I mean, if I'm a parent and I have teenage kids around the web, I'm freaking out right now. Or not even teenagers, I mean, 10, 11, 12 years old. What do you do? How do you protect your kids?
LINENDOLL: Right. Well, it's very tricky because obviously kids now all have laptops. And with a situation like this, a web cam is usually embedded into laptops. So I always say, you know, experts out there are saying use the web cam only in a very central location like the living room, but there is no way to 24/7 monitor your child or hover over them every time they're on line. So (INAUDIBLE) in the state in the know of social networking sites, know about this, but know about Twitter, know about MySpace, know about everything that's coming out to better protect. That's the only way to do it.
BROWN: And I was reading the founder of this site, it's some 17- year-old kid who lives in Moscow? Right? He's Russian.
LINENDOLL: He started this site with a web cam, a $10 web cam and just a few lines of code. And it's kind of phenomenal because you think about the Internet as one giant laboratory and who knows what experiments are really going to take off. Who knew the impact that this site would actually have to have a 17-year-old create such a dynamic piece of work.
BROWN: I just in closing got to ask you guys, I mean, would you, I made you go on for this little segment, but would you -- would you like go and do this just for fun?
HAYDEN: I have to say there's something pretty addictive about it. BROWN: Really.
HAYDEN: I know that's really sick to say, but there's like something about waiting for that next person to pop up. You don't really know what you're going to see, and there's something really oddly addicting.
BROWN: OK, Liz.
HAYDEN: But I don't want to go on it again. I'm not going on it again.
BROWN: Graham, did you agree? Yes or no?
FLANAGAN: I'll never visit this Web site, and I advise people -- I would advise people.
BROWN: And you've been scarred by this experience?
FLANAGAN: Hopefully not for too long, but, yes, this has been a tough week.
BROWN: I should just note, Graham, it wasn't that bad. I said no, we did reach out or tried to reach out to the folks at Chatroulette for comment, asked them to appear on the show. We have yet to hear back from them.
But anyway, this is really important I think for parents to know. I really appreciate you coming on and talking to us about it, Katie and Liz and Graham, for enduring that experience. Many thanks to you as well.
When we come back, for the thousands of people who lost their live savings in Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, the road back is not easy, but we're going to talk to one woman who actually found a silver lining.
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BROWN: Coming up, the story of a woman who went from being a top magazine editor to losing it all, thanks to Bernie Madoff. First, though, more must-see news happening right now. Mike Galanos here with the "Download."
Campbell, first off, a family judge has granted jenny Sanford's request for a divorce from her husband Mark, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. The Sanfords have been separated since last summer after the governor fessed up to an affair with an Argentine woman he had called his soulmate.
Well, somehow this one scared a lot of people. An inmate serving three life terms for attempted murder conned his way out of a Baltimore prison. Correction officials say he posed as his cellmate who was scheduled to be released. Raymond Taylor is his name. He was caught without incident. Now his cellmate who was set to be released, could have been on it charged with conspiracy, could face 10 more years.
Well, one week after Tiger Woods finally broke his silence, another sponsor is now dropping him. Gatorade officials say they no longer see a role for Woods in its marketing efforts. Now this follows similar moves by AT&T and Accenture.
Well, in a classic comic book showdown, it's Batman versus Superman, and Batman wins, just three days after a copy of the very first Superman comic sold at auction for $1 million. The first comic that included Batman broke that record going for $1,075,000, so Batman winning there.
In our next story, not a bad joke, a British study has revealed some real people with some funny, intriguing names. Thebabywebsite.com has come up with some of these gems. Here they are and they are real. Justin Case, Barb Dywer, Stan Still, Paige Turner, Hazel Nutt, Mary Christmas, Anna Sasin. How about this one? Les Plack -- he's a dentist in San Francisco. And the list goes on. Stan Still said that name has been in albatross around his neck his whole life. By the way, a little add on.
And one more for you. Shock TV, that's what some people are calling a new advertising campaign meant to stop people from smoking. Does it go too far, Campbell? I think I just stole your lines.
BROWN: No. We're going to talk about that, actually, coming up a little bit in just a few minutes.
GALANOS: A got a roll in there, I'm sorry.
BROWN: No. Hey, stay with it. Mike Galanos for us tonight. Mike, as always, thanks very much.
GALANOS: OK.
BROWN: And we will talk about that ad campaign when we come back right after this.
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BROWN: While Bernie Madoff, billion-dollar Ponzi scheme, serves a 150-year sentence in federal prison, his victims are still, many of them, still picking up the pieces. One of them is Alexandra Penney, a successful magazine editor. Her life was turned upside down when she got a phone call telling her that Madoff was a crook and her life savings gone. She wrote a book about her ordeal in "The Bag Lady Papers: The Priceless Experience of Losing It All." I talked to her a little bit earlier.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: So you got to tell me you have every penny that you saved with this man, Bernie Madoff. Tell me about the day that you found out this was all a scam.
ALEXANDRA PENNEY, AUTHOR, "THE BAG LADY PAPERS": I'm cooking dinner, having friends over, making a souffle, the meatloaf is in the oven, the phone rang. My best friend calls me. She said, you know, I know you have all your money with Madoff. Savings -- these were my savings.
BROWN: Yes.
PENNEY: And she said, he's been arrested. My cell phone clicked. It was my son. And he said, mom, Madoff -- he lives in California -- Madoff has been arrested. You can come and live with us. Just like that.
BROWN: So how much money did you have in your checking account in the bank to live on?
PENNEY: I had a couple of months' worth of bill paying amount in the checking account.
BROWN: Right.
PENNEY: Somewhere around $4,000, that I would pay mortgage, you know, credit cards, everything, and that's all I had. And I'm a photographer, and the art market had tanked so I wasn't making any money.
BROWN: So in your book, you write about the fact that you tried to track Madoff down. You went to his office, to the courthouse. What exactly were you going to do if you found him?
PENNEY: I wasn't thinking. When you have the rug pulled out from under you, which is really what I'm basically writing about, how do you survive? How do you -- so I went over there to his office not knowing what I was really doing.
BROWN: Right.
PENNEY: And then I called -- because it was early in the morning, I called my agent whom I hadn't spoken to in 20 years who was in London. And I said, I need work right away.
BROWN: You still had real estate, though? That was your saving grace.
PENNEY: They were highly mortgaged. One sold, gone, and the other is rented, and I hope to sell it just ASAP.
BROWN: So explain the bag lady thinking, because this is a real -- this is a fear that was pretty deep seated well beyond Madoff, right?
PENNEY: You know, it's very interesting. A lot of women who work have this fear, and what the fear really is, it comes from early childhood, but what the fear really is you're going to be alone, abandoned, cold on the streets, no one to take care of you and you're going to lose your independence.
You know, we're working people. And I don't want to be dependent on anybody. I don't ever want to have to ask for a dollar. I never will. I don't know what I'd do before that, but it's a fear of losing your dignity, of losing your identity. It's a really deep fear.
BROWN: So you did get some work, I should point out, right afterwards.
PENNEY: Yes.
BROWN: Tina Brown, who is the founder of the "Daily Beast," had you write a blog right away about your experience.
PENNEY: That was six or seven hours later I started writing this blog, again, because anxiety -- I had this little thing, the AAAs -- anxiety alleviates -- activity alleviates anxiety. And I started writing immediately. And then what happened was there was this enormous, vitriolic response, and --
BROWN: People were not very sympathetic, right?
PENNEY: Some were and a huge amount weren't. They said, you know, this rich witch, she's had it all, too bad she's lost it. Or not too bad she's lost it, you know, fine. I understand that's about rage in the country of people who have it. I'm enraged at the bankers and the SEC that didn't follow it through.
So -- but what I found out also was I didn't want to waste time on anger, on self-pity and on negative thinking and that was the hardest thing I learned, how to sort of control my racing brain.
BROWN: Well, it's a fascinating read. The book is called "The Bag Lady Papers." Alexandra Penney, great to have you here. Appreciate it.
PENNEY: Loved it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: And coming up next, tonight's "Breakout." An ad campaign that proves sex sells.
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BROWN: Tonight's "Breakout" is proof that sex sells, but we warn you, you may not want your kids to see some of these images. CNN's Jim Bittermann has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Like others in Europe, the French have tried anything from smoking bans to tax hikes to snuff out cigarettes. But still, 30 percent of the people here continue to smoke nonetheless. So the Association for Nonsmokers Rights decided to try a different tack with a brazen ad campaign meant to shock. And with photos of young people that link smoking with sexual slavery, the association may have more than succeed. In fact, even before its graphic posters go up, family organizations here want them banned.
CHRISTIANE THIERRY, FAMILIES OF FRANCE (through translator): It is stupid. It makes no sense. An advertisement, even a provocative one, must be decipherable and understandable. It should create a message, convey a message. Here we are talking about a message that's more about the idea or gives the impression of being more about sexuality than about anti-smoking.
BITTERMANN: The anti-smoking group denies that.
REMI PAROLA, ASSOCIATION FOR NONSMOKERS RIGHTS: (through translator): The message is not sexual. The message is a preventive message about smoking. The idea with the communication agency with which we worked is to say that the traditional anti-smoking campaigns don't work anymore with young people.
BITTERMANN: Those behind the proposed ad campaign admit that they don't have a budget to pay for placing the ad, and are depending on media coverage of their campaign along with free public service message based on billboards to get their posters out. And when you talk to smokers about the campaign, opinions are a bit mixed, to say the least.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm against this. It's horrible to see the picture in the streets. It can shock children. And, no, I don't like it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think at least everybody speaks about this ad. So maybe it really has an impact.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm a smoker and now I will smoke a little bit than before. OK?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the only winner on this campaign is the communication agency.
BITTERMANN (on camera): It remains to be seen whether or not the anti-smoking campaign will actually ever appear on billboards here. An advertising watchdog agency wants it banned immediately. But in the end, just by proposing the ads, members of the anti-smoking group have gotten far more media attention than they probably ever could have imagined.
Jim Bittermann, CNN, Paris.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: That's it for us. Have a great weekend. "LARRY KING LIVE" starts right now.
