Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Craigslist Adult Services "Censored"; Earl's Impact on East Coast; Infidelity & Income

Aired September 04, 2010 - 19:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN ANCHOR: It has been called the Walmart of sex trafficking. But now, the adult services section of Craigslist is gone. What happened?

Earl has disappeared from the East Coast. But just when you thought it was safe, Jacqui Jeras is here to tell us why you should still stay out of the water this holiday weekend.

And there is no single answer for why married men cheat. But there is a new study that says they're five times more likely to stray if their wives make more money.

(MUSIC)

FOREMAN: A massive shakeup at Craigslist today -- the popular online classified service which has been hammered by accusation that it promotes prostitution and child trafficking. Across the country, users trying to access the adult services section are instead finding the word "censored." The Craigslist's folks are not yet explaining the changes but the business and social implications are huge.

The pressure has been growing. Last week, the attorneys general in 17 states called on Craigslist to take just such an action and Connecticut attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, says Craigslist made this move on its own.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, CONNECTICUT ATTORNEY GENERAL: Craigslist either cannot or will not effectively screen out the ads. And so, Craigslist really voluntarily did the right thing, as a result of our job owning and talking to them. But I think that it can be a model for other sites that may either, enable or encourage prostitution ads.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOREMAN: This is undeniably affecting millions and millions of Internet users.

Leading our investigation into all of this has been Amber Lyon.

Amber, you join us now. What do you know about the latest?

AMBER LYON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good evening, Tom. Victims' advocates now are just praising Craigslist for this latest decision. If you go to any part of Craigslist, any city in the U.S. and scroll down to where the adult service's section used to be, you're now greeted with this black bar that says "censored" and you cannot access the section.

We've been trying to get ahold of Craigslist to find out if this is permanent. We have not been able to get ahold of them so far. But one thing is for sure, this section on Craigslist has caused a ton of controversy with victims' advocates and attorneys general for the past several years saying that women and children are being sold like sex slaves on this portion of the site against their will.

So in May of 2009 -- here, I'll give you a little history -- Craigslist came out and said, "You know what, we're going to manually screen these ads to protect these women and children."

So, here at CNN, we conducted an investigation to kind of put a check on Craigslist, see if they were doing what they were promising the public they were doing and we posted, we created this ad where we clearly wrote $20 an hour that we are charging a price. Also, we put these words, "sweet," "innocent," "new girl" -- which could indicate that this was a minor being sex trafficked.

Now, despite the fact that this ad broke all of Craigslist's rules, it was still posted online anyway and we brought the results of our investigation to the founder of Craigslist, Craig Newmark.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LYON: One of the big things going on with Craigslist right now is that they are saying that they're monitoring all these ads that come through on adult services to check to see if any of these girls are under age or young. So, we put some words in here: "sweet," "innocent," "new girl." We're going to see what happen. We'll see if Craigslist kind of let her ad post. We'll also see, you know, what kinds of calls we get.

(PHONE RINGING)

CALLER: I saw your ad on Craigslist.

(PHONE RINGING)

LYON: Hello?

CALLER: Yes. What's your donation for an hour in-call?

LYON: So, what is that now? We've had 15 calls. And the ad's only been out for three hours -- 15 calls in three hours.

(voice-over): Craigslist says its staff manually screens all of these adult service's ads and will reject any that make it look or sound like you're selling sex. That may not be easy but when we looked through the ads, most of them are pretty blatant.

The FAIR Fund investigates juvenile trafficking.

ANDREA POWELL, FAIR FUND: And most of the young people that we've worked with has exploited on line. Talk about Craigslist, I'm not talking about the other sites, Craigslist is like the "Walmart" of online sex trafficking.

LYON (on camera): So, we're here at George Washington University and we just found out that Craig Newmark, he's the founder of Craigslist, is going to be speaking here today at a tech conference. He doesn't know we're coming and he's been very media shy lately about all of these allegations against him. This is guy the Craig in Craigslist. It's his list.

So, can people trust that children are not being sex trafficked on Craigslist?

CRAIG NEWMARK, FOUNDER, CRAIGSLIST: I think we explained that pretty thoroughly, no doubt.

LYON: That's where Jim Buckmaster says that you will immediately contact law enforcement if you suspect any ads --

NEWMARK: Jim does a great job showing that we do more than anyone in this area -- pretty good for a community of 50 million people.

LYON: This is Inspector Brian Bray with the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. He's also in charge of the prostitution enforcement unit.

In Craigslist's blog, they say that they're going to immediately contact law enforcement any time they see a suspicious ad and you say you've never been contacted by them.

BRIAN BRAY, DC METROPOLITAN POLICE: That's correct. If they're -- if they're notifying, I'm not sure if they're notifying the right people because we're not getting the call.

LYON: What are you guys doing to protect these girls?

You guys say in the blog that you will remove any ad that looks like the person might be suggesting they're going to offer sex. Look at this ad. It says, young, sexy, sweet and bubbly. Clearly here, she writes, $250 an hour. I mean, what do you think she's selling in her bra and underwear, a dinner date? And she's in her bra and underwear.

NEWMARK: Have you reported this to us?

LYON: What are your guys doing?

But you guys say you screen all these manually on your blog.

NEWMARK: I've never -- I don't know what this is. Have you reported --

LYON: In Jim Buckmaster's blog, he says these are being screened.

NEWMARK: Have you reported this to us? LYON: Why do I have the responsibility to report this to you when it's your Web site? You're the one posting this online. I just want to know, I mean -- OK.

It's just that we've run into a lot of victims and a lot of advocates that pretty much call your site the "Walmart" of child sex trafficking.

(voice-over): In 2008, Craigslist agreed to report any suspicious ads to the Center for the Missing and Exploited Children which works with police to find and rescue trafficking victims. Two years and hundreds of thousands of sketchy ads later, the center says Craigslist has reported fewer than 100.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN: And, Amber, if I understand this correctly, when you did this, when you investigated them this way, Craigslist response to all this was to suggest that somehow, the problem was you?

LYON: Yes. That's right, Tom. It's like, you know, "kill the messenger" philosophy. They tried to shift the focus from the real issue to me and really came out trying to slam my ethics and CNN's ethics. And -- you know, Tom, I always say, you can call me whatever name you want, but, please don't question my ethics as a journalist.

I want to show you something Craig Newmark wrote. He wrote this op-ed for "The San Francisco Chronicle." He calls it, "Amber's Ambush," calling an interview with him an ambush. It was not an ambush. And he also says that we approached him after an event where he had just spoken about stuff like getting real support for our troops and veterans.

Well, we found a copy of the exact speech Craig Newmark was giving the day we approached him, it's called, "Trust is the new black." Not once in this 10-minute long speech does Craig mention anything about veterans or even soldiers for that matter. You can YouTube it if you want to check it out and kind of see what the meaning was.

In addition to that, we said, he said that we ambushed him. Well, we didn't. After Craig gave this speech, he was inside the building. We approached him, identified ourselves as being with CNN and told him we wanted to speak with him about the topic of his speech, trust. Craig agreed. He casually walked outside with us and we even switched locations at one point because he didn't want the sun in his eyes.

And as you see there, Craig could have walked away at any point. At one point, he did walk away. I didn't even follow him. I let him go. And then he came back to me and that's when I continued to ask him more questions.

So, credibility very important for us at CNN and just want to clear up this point, Tom, that it was not an ambush interview.

FOREMAN: Well, certainly, Amber, we appreciate your work on it. And for the Craigslist's folks, we hope they'll come on with us and explain more thoroughly everything that has been happening over at their site these days. Big news this weekend, of course.

Thanks, Amber. We appreciate having you here.

Speaking of troops -- in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai has taken another step down a controversial path this weekend, announcing he will establish a peace council to promote reconciliation with the Taliban. He has made similar proposals before, but this is his most concrete step in that direction. U.S. military leaders have said the idea of luring lower-level Taliban fighters into a peaceful alliance shows some promise. What's not clear is how or if such a program would work.

If you are spending this holiday weekend on the beach, soaking up the post-hurricane sun, that's fine. Just make sure you stay on shore. Earl is gone. But our Jacqui Jeras will explain why the water is still remarkably dangerous.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOREMAN: Stay out of the water -- that's the warnings up and down the East Coast right now because of rip currents caused by Earl. That hurricane has now weakened to a tropical storm and it's moved on up to the Nova Scotia, Canada, where it's broken a bunch of trees now and left about 200,000 people without power in that province early this morning.

But the big concern now is for folks going to the beach this Labor Day weekend. As we said, Earl is creating dangerous rip currents along the entire Eastern Seaboard that should last through the holiday.

For more on that, meteorologist Jacqui Jeras joins us.

Jacqui, what's going on?

JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, you know, it's hard for some people to believe, I think, Tom. And when you take a look at where Earl is right now, a tropical storm, making its way through New Finland and Labrador and you're saying, things look great up and down the East Coast.

Take a look at our live camera from our affiliate WESH TV. That's a look at Cape Canaveral. The sun is shining. It's absolutely beautiful. But there is danger in the water and let me tell you why. It's called a "rip current," the waves generated here from Earl were very, very strong as it's made its way up and down the East Coast.

What happens is that water, as it gets pushed towards the shore, piles up in this area. Well, the pressure from that becomes so great, eventually, of course, it has to go back out to sea and it will rip through sand bars and create this very fast-moving channel of water. It's not very wide, maybe 20 to 100 feet. But it moves so fast. We're talking eight seconds -- or, 8 feet per second. Even an Olympic swimmer can't really keep up with that.

So, what do you do and what do they look like? Here's a picture of a rip current. You can actually see them sometimes.

If you're at the beach, look other your condo window or trying to take a little assessment of the shore. They're not always quite this obvious but you'll usually see that little channel or part of the water that looks maybe a little dirtier than the rest or maybe it looks like it's moving in a little bit of a different direction from that.

Lots of rescues took place last weekend. This is one from West Palm Beach, Florida, and that was as a result of Hurricane Danielle. Earl is going to have a lot of rescues, I think, this is weekend as well.

So, heed the warning signs. Look for the flags. Don't swim by yourself, swim parallel to the shore. That's what you're supposed to do, Tom Foreman, until you get out of that fast-moving area of water and then make your way back to safety.

FOREMAN: There you go. Good words of warning for you. And, Jacqui, thanks so much.

JERAS: Sure.

FOREMAN: New York City is not the only place with controversy over a proposed mosque this weekend. Federal officials now know what started the fire at this construction site in Tennessee.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOREMAN: Let's check some of our top stories right now.

The fire at a mosque construction site in Tennessee has been determined to be arson this weekend. But so far, no suspects. It happened last weekend on the spot where the new Islamic center of Murfreesboro will stand. Flames destroyed a big earth mover and damaged three other vehicles. The site has attracted protesters this summer both for and against that mosque.

BP plans to install a new blowout preventer to top of its plugged well in the Gulf of Mexico. Everything appears to have gone as planned yesterday when crews removed the original blowout preventer and began slowly lifting it to the surface for analysis -- remember it's massive, massive piece of machinery. BP still plans to complete its relief well and execute a so-called bottom kill to seal that well for good.

Christchurch, New Zealand and surrounding communities are still picking up the pieces from a powerful 7.0 earthquake. No deaths reported by two people, it turns out, were seriously hurt and damage was extensive. A state of emergency has now been imposed while authorities scramble to repair the damage and restore services. A new study raises questions about fidelity and none bigger than this one: why is a man five times for likely to cheat on his wife if she earns more money than he does? And what does money have to do with it? A psychologist and relationship expert will join us next to explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOREMAN: More and more women are making bigger bucks than their husbands these days.

"TIME" magazine just reported that in the country's top 140 cities, the median salary for young women is 8 percent higher than it is for young men. Maybe you can look at Hollywood couples and get some idea of how that might affect things. It's well chronicled. Jesse James cheated on Sandra Bullock, ending their marriage.

Now, a new study examines the science behind sleazy behavior. A researcher from Cornell found that men who bring in no outside income are five times more likely to cheat than men who earn the same amount as their wives or live-in partner.

To understand why, Dr. Wendy Walsh joins us now. She's a psychologist and relationship expert.

Wendy, what is this going --

DR. WENDY WALSH, PSYCHOLOGIST: How are you?

FOREMAN: Well, you know, I don't know what to make of this, because this is about men who are -- are they trying to get back at their wives for being the breadwinner? Do they feel inferior? What's going on?

WALSH: I don't think it's always kind of some repressed anger. I think it's often that men has self-identified by being a provider, a protector or having some kind of sexual prowess. So, if they're not feeling like a big provider, it's a way that they kind of massage their ego. And so, men -- but, you know, part of the study also said that if men make a whole lot more than their wife, then they also are more likely to cheat.

FOREMAN: And women, apparently, who make a whole lot more than their husbands will do the same thing, right?

WALSH: Yes, if the income gap is a lot bigger for either, because it sort of lends us to -- you know, if you think of somebody who climbs the corporate ladder who is an entrepreneur who builds businesses, they're actually -- while they're perceived by most people as having lots of self-confidence and self-esteem, they're usually driven by some kind of underlying sense of security. So, when they finally get to this place of power, then they want to continue to feed their ego with now, sexual conquests.

FOREMAN: I want to bring up a full screen and take a look at it here. It says financial dependence also seems to have an opposite effect on women. Women, who are very financially dependent on their partner, were found to be 75 percent less likely to cheat than women who were the breadwinners. Now, why does financial dependence played that big of role for women?

WALSH: I like to say, you know, we know when not to mess with the gravy train. We're pretty smart.

(LAUGHTER)

WALSH: The truth is that women can divert sexual energy, repress it, put it aside, if they're -- if it's having to do with their survival and extracting resources from the environment. And, you know, we're seeing now fewer and fewer women who are completely dependent on their husbands because since the recession, a lot of very expensive male employees were laid off. So, there are plenty of households where women are making more than their husbands and this is their concern. If they're making more than their husbands, is this going to beat up his self-esteem and make him more likely to be a cheater?

WALSH: I think --

FOREMAN: Yes, men (INAUDIBLE) being referred to as "the environment," by the way.

Let me ask you one quick question before we go, and very quick on the answer here. How much might this have nothing to do with psychology? What if it just has to do with opportunity? People who are complete slackers have time to cheat and run around. People who have a lot of money have the money to cheat and run around.

WELSH: Well, I think it's both. I mean, I think that psychology is, what, the environment? Meaning, biological predisposition. So, I think, yes, opportunity is something that plays into our psychology. But, you know, I think, also, money is power and people use money in a powerful way.

FOREMAN: All right. Wendy, thanks for joining us and breaking it down a little bit there. We'll see you next time.

WALSH: Thank you.

FOREMAN: We want you to join us tonight at 10:00 Eastern for the latest news. We'll have all the late-breaking stories.

Next on CNN, though, please stay tuned for a special presentation of "Martina, My Toughest Opponent." She may be the greatest woman tennis player ever. Now, she's in the fight of her life. She talks about her new battle against cancer. Martina Navratilova -- that's next.