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Unemployment Down But Report Is Lackluster; Jeff Zients To Help Obamacare Web Site; Berry and Dejesus To Write Book About Captivity; New Leads in Florida Forged Documents Prison Escape; Rights Groups Claim Possible U.S. War Crimes in Drone Attacks; Cee Lo Green Faces Criminal Charges, But Not Rape; New Apple iPads on Way; Facebook Lifts Violent Vid Ban

Aired October 22, 2013 - 15:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Bottom of the hour, I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Let's talk about the nation's rate of unemployment here. It did tick down again in September, but the number of jobs created here has analysts not necessarily all pleased today.

In its monthly look at the jobs picture, the Labor Department says the economy created 148,000 new jobs. That is a bit less than average here for the past 12 months.

The rate of unemployment did drop, you see the number there, to 7.2 percent. But the findings may have been skewed by the recent government shutdown.

His name rhymes with science, so that can't be that bad here. The Obama administration announcing that Jeff Zients is coming onboard to manage Obamacare enrollment.

Zients is considered to be a tip-top management expert, and early next year, he is to become the head of the White House national economic council.

Meantime, the administration says it's got experts burning the midnight oil, running 24/7 here to try to repair the Obamacare Web site.

Casey Wian has the latest on that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Way more glitches than I think are acceptable.

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Glitches?

KATHLEEN SEBELIUS, U.S. SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: The Web site launch was rockier than we would have liked.

WIAN: Rockier? OBAMA: We're working out the kinks in the system.

WIAN: Kinks?

By now it's clear that stronger words are needed to describe the Web launch of Obamacare.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: It's been a fiasco.

WIAN: The White House struggled to answer questions about what many have said was inadequate testing prior to the launch of the Web site.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know whether the Web site was beta tested?

JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: In terms of the types of testing and -- I would -- I just don't want to pretend to be an expert.

What I can say is that the system has not worked as effectively and efficiently, obviously, as we wanted it to. The president, secretary, anybody wanted it to.

WIAN: The secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, says the online insurance marketplace need five years of construction. In reality, she said, quote, "We had two years and almost no testing."

Catherine Srekovich is an executive of Navigant Consulting, a contractor hired to help set up the healthcare exchanges.

CATHERINE SREKOVICH, MANAGING DIRECTOR, NAVIGANT: I think it's not so much a surprise initially. I think the fact that there seems to be so much ongoing problems noted is more of the surprise.

WIAN: The largest Obamacare contractor is CGI Group, a Canadian firm that developed much of the website's architecture.

In a statement, CGI said it and other contractors, quote, "are working around the clock toward the improvement of healthcare.gov, a system that is complex, ambitious, and unprecedented.

"We remain confident in our ability to deliver continuous improvement and system performance and a more positive user experience."

But that's not enough for some critics.

MCCAIN: Send Air Force One out to Silicon Valley, load it up with some smart people, bring them back to Washington, and fix this problem.

WIAN: Matt Mullenweg is one of those smart people from Silicon Valley who founded WordPress, which says it hosts one in five Web sites.

MATT MULLENWEG: You know, in software, they say you can have it fast, cheap or good. Pick two out of three. And it sounds like they went for the fast and cheaper.

The launch date was probably picked politically, and the software and everything else was backed into that.

WIAN: Casey Wian, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Coming up, big news for two of the women kidnapped and kept hostage for a decade in Cleveland, they are writing a book.

But they won't be doing it alone. We have some details for you today.

Plus, a former federal inmate tells me just how common these forgery scams are, you know, the one that two convicted killers used to leave prison.

Wait until you hear his answer.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Two of the three survivors of Ohio kidnapper Ariel Castro are now writing a book about their nightmarish ordeal. They're Amanda Berry and Gina Dejesus. They will be co-authoring this memoir. We're getting that news from their attorneys.

And reps for these ladies say that the women decided to write this book because, so far, they say, no one has been able to accurately tell their stories about what happened to them inside that Cleveland house of horrors.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Mary Jordan of "The Washington Post" will help write it. She is a Cleveland native.

And so she has agreed to come on the show tomorrow to talk about this kind of project, and I'll ask her about the process of writing such a gut-wrenching piece of nonfiction.

To Florida now where new leads are still coming in to who may have helped these two convicted murders use forged documents to get out of prison.

Investigators now just trying to figure out how Joseph Jenkins and Charles Walker used phony paperwork that allowed them to walk free just a few days apart.

They were taken into custody Saturday at this Panama City motel.

The state's top law enforcement officials say there will be more arrests in this case.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GERALD M. BAILEY, COMMISSIONER, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF LAW ENFORCEMENT: Jenkins and Walker are already serving life sentences. They have very little to lose.

But those who helped them have very much to lose, and I urge those of you who may have helped them to come forward, talk to us before we find you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: We talked about this case here with a man by the name of Larry Levine. He's a former federal inmate, the founder of Wall Street Prison Consultants.

And one of the questions I asked was, exactly how much access do high- security inmates like these two really have to the outside world?

This was his response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LARRY LEVINE, DIRECTOR AND FOUNDER, WALL PRISON CONSULTANTS: Access to a telephone, I don't know how many times a week or how many minutes they get in Florida to call.

They also have access to visiting, so they will have contact with people on the outside.

BALDWIN: What about the Internet, Larry?

LEVINE: Well, they should not have any access to the Internet.

I mean, in the federal system, you have access to e-mail where you can e-mail things back and forth, but there's no pictures, there's no documents.

And I can't see them jumping on Google browsing something, not inside the prison.

BALDWIN: So then why would prison officials seize the computer? Just for internal documents and things of that nature, maybe planning on this computer?

LEVINE: Well, it's possible that they used the computers inside the law library to research case law and such, to send e-mails to someone on the outside directing them as far as what they wanted to do.

But I could go into any prison law library in the United States as an inmate, create my own documents on a typewriter just using other inmates' paperwork with a little bit of Wite-Out, and I could have created this order myself to get these guys out.

BALDWIN: Wow. So when we hear about this forging of paperwork, that was clearly successful in this case, have you heard of this happening before?

LEVINE: Well, I'll give you an example. I was in a federal prison in El Paso, Texas, La Tuna Federal Prison, and some of the inmates there had outstanding warrants. They had detainers that were preventing them from being released.

I drew up paperwork and sent it in to the court back in California, where they had their detainers out of, and mistakenly, the California state court system looked at the paperwork that I sent in and actually lifted the detainers on these people.

And the federal prison was ready to release them, just based on something that I manually created on a typewriter and sent in.

So, yeah, I'm real familiar with this.

BALDWIN: Wow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Larry Levine, thank you.

Two state agencies are offering rewards up to $10,000 for any information leading to the arrest of anyone helping those two convicted killers escape.

Coming up, Apple unveiling its new iPad, find out what's different about this one.

And Grammy Award-winning artist Cee Lo Green isn't charged with sexual assault, but he is charged with slipping ecstasy to a woman.

How can police prove one thing but not the other? We're going to debate that with my legal panel, coming up here.

But, first, Enrique Iglesias is asking fans to save a life by becoming a marrow donor. Here's how the singer is making a difference in this "Impact Your World."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ENRIQUE IGLESIAS, SINGER: Hi, I'm Enrique Iglesias, and we can make an impact on people in need

Love Hope Strength is a rock 'n' roll cancer organization.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So this is just the eligibility.

IGLESIAS: They're getting people to register for bone marrow transplant. It's extremely easy. All it takes is one of these and one person. You just get a swab and that's it.

So that's how simple it is. And that's how you can save someone's life.

I think part of the mission on this tour was that we get different ages in our shows and different ethnic backgrounds, and I thought a lot of people would sign up.

I think it comes a point and you reach a certain age where you feel responsible.

Are you ready to get crazy?

You have a certain level of power, and by power, I mean you can communicate to your fans, especially nowadays over Twitter, with Facebook.

I feel like I can do something that's positive. It's a good thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: The U.S. getting blasted today, it's all because of drones. This damning report from Amnesty International has new details today on U.S. efforts to attack insurgents in both Pakistan and Yemen and the deadly toll of drones on civilians.

Jake Tapper, our chief Washington correspondent and host of "THE LEAD," tackling this one on your show.

What do we know about the accusations in the report, and what does Washington have to say?

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, there are two actual reports today.

There's one from Amnesty International called "Will I Be Next?" which is looking at drone strikes in Pakistan, and one from Human Rights Watch called "Between a Drone and al Qaeda," which is looking at drone strikes in Yemen.

Both organizations looked at six drone strikes in Yemen and nine drone strikes in Pakistan and tried to come to terms with how many of the people killed were actual enemy fighters, whether Taliban or al Qaeda or related foreign fighters and how many were civilian, and it's a very method logical study.

Both studies are, in which they conclude ultimately that bad guys, for want of a better term, were killed in some of these strikes.

But in other instances, civilians were killed in violation, according to these groups, of international law.

We'll be talking about this on "THE LEAD" today with both a representative of amnesty international and also the former chief of staff of the CIA and Pentagon and we'll be discussing the use of drone strikes.

The basic response today by the administration is what you get any time you ask about this, which is that the administration takes great care to make sure that the risk to civilians is as little as possible.

But in some of these examples, some of these stories, the only people killed were civilians, and there's no repercussions as there might be if a civilian is killed, for instance, in Afghanistan by a U.S. soldier.

There's no way to go -- nowhere to go to get justice.

BALDWIN: Huge issue. We tackled it a number of times on this show.

We'll be watching that conversation with those guests of yours. Jake Tapper, we'll be watching you 12 minutes away on "THE LEAD."

Meantime, singer Cee Lo Green is in trouble with the law, but it could be worse. The star of "The Voice" faces a charge of furnishing a controlled substance to a woman.

That same woman accused him of a worse crime, sexual assault. Green's lawyer says the district attorney made the right decision not charging him with rape.

CNN legal analysts Danny Cevallos and Sunny Hostin, here to walk through this.

And, first of all, Sunny, to you, we know that Green's accuser says she woke up naked in his bed. Prosecutor said they didn't have enough evidence to charge him.

What do you make of that?

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: You know, that happens oftentimes, Brooke. It's not necessarily what happened, when you're a prosecutor, unfortunately. It's what you can prove in court.

And these prosecutors have said, listen, not necessarily that they don't believe the victim, but that there is insufficient evidence to go forward on a rape charge.

They're saying that they can't prove up her level of alleged intoxication, and they also can't prove up that he knew or should have known her level of impairment.

So that tells me perhaps there was no blood test taken. Perhaps the forensics just aren't there to prove up what she is saying, not necessarily that they don't believe her, but they don't have enough evidence to prove up what she's saying beyond a reasonable doubt.

So, you know, it's sort of a win for Cee Lo, although he's facing up to four years in prison in terms of exposure on this other count.

So, you know, it's just something that prosecutors face, Brooke, each and every day.

BALDWIN: I was going to get to that four years in a second.

But, Danny, this charge, furnishing a controlled substance, what does that really mean?

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: So in California, if you possess -- this is otherwise just a simple possession case, but in California, like with many states, once you -- the word is "furnish" it, basically give it to somebody else, that ups it to a felony, and that is a much more serious charge than say a misdemeanor or a lesser charge.

But in this case, this is a fascinating case because the entire proof must be had by the uncorroborated testimony of a complaining witness, not a police officer. A lot of drug cases are -- the only witnesses are police officers who are doing surveillance. This is the uncorroborated testimony of a witness, a civilian, that the prosecutor already decided is not credible enough to bring a sexual assault case.

HOSTIN: I disagree with that. That's -- wow, Danny. Wow.

BALDWIN: Why, Sunny? Why do you disagree?

HOSTIN: You know, Danny's saying that they have determined that she's not credible. That is not accurate.

Prosecutors make decisions again all the time, not necessarily based on whether or not they believe a victim, but whether or not they can prove up what the victim is saying.

So I don't think that it's fair or accurate to indicate that the prosecutors don't believe this victim, that they don't find her credible.

They simply can't prove what she is saying in a court of law beyond a reasonable doubt which is a very high burden.

CEVALLOS: Sunny, it's just logic. The inference to be drawn is, if she is the sole witness and the prosecution has decided not to prosecute, the only inference we can really draw is they believe she will not be credible at trial.

They're not calling her a liar.

HOSTIN: That's not true.

CEVALLOS: They're not saying she's a bad person.

HOSTIN: That's not true, Danny.

CEVALLOS: You said it yourself, Sunny. Sometimes they feel they can't prove it up, and in this case, that's the case.

HOSTIN: Doesn't mean they think she's a liar.

BALDWIN: So, what does this mean, though?

CEVALLOS: I never said that.

BALDWIN: I'm hearing both sides.

And, Sunny, you point out if found guilty, he could face four years in prison. Sunny, to you, do you think it's likely he would serve all that time?

HOSTIN: Not in California. Not in L.A. I don't think so.

We know that there's a crowding situation. We've seen things like Lindsay Lohan and others that spend five hours in prison and then leave. But then you also have Conrad Murray, who spent a lot more time in prison and is still in prison, so it's hard to tell.

This is a case that screams to me of a plea deal. Maybe Danny as a defense attorney can speak better to that. But I doubt that we'll see Cee Lo Green in prison for four years.

BALDWIN: Do you agree, Danny? Just quickly, plea deal likely?

CEVALLOS: Quickly, I don't know his prior record. I don't know what his priors are, but if he's clear on the priors, this is a potential deal.

He may choose it just because he's a celebrity, doesn't want it out in the media.

BALDWIN: Danny Cevallos and Sunny Hostin, thanks to both of you, both sides there.

Coming up, Apple, big day for them, unveiling the new line of iPads, but they're not the only company showing off the new tablet on this Tuesday.

Plus, breast feeding videos on Facebook, no. Marijuana, nope. Beheadings, yes. It's OK.

We're going to explain this new policy with Facebook and the backlash they are facing, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right, you gadget lovers. The new Apple iPads are on the way. Not too long ago, they upgraded now versions of the tablet, lighter, thinner, faster.

That is how Apple describes its newest iPad. It also has a new name, the iPad Air.

Apple also unveiling a new iPad Mini that comes with a higher- resolution display.

The iPad Air goes on sale November 1st. As for the Mini, you do have to wait a little longer. They say that is expected to come out just a couple of weeks later.

And outrage today as Facebook decides to lift its ban on violent videos, including ones that show beheadings, so that means that users as young as 13 could have a decapitation video pop up on their News Feeds.

CNN correspondent Samuel Burke joins me now. And I know there was a temporary ban, went into effect in May, lots of complaints over one very gruesome video.

What happened about that? SAMUEL BURKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, it was just a few months ago that Facebook's own users flagged up a video of a woman being beheaded, and now that video has resurfaced in the past couple of days on Facebook.

I want to show you just a still from that video, not the actual video. We've decided to blur the woman's face that appeared in this video.

Now, in this picture, she's on her knees and a man is holding her hair which you see right there. That man later cuts off her head in the video.

Facebook users, outraged, demanded that Facebook bring this video down, but Facebook told them that it no longer violated their policies.

That's when we all realized that Facebook had lifted that temporary ban and that these type of violent videos can go on the social network.

BALDWIN: So why? What is Facebook specifically saying to turn this ban around?

BURKE: I spoke to somebody from Facebook last night and this representative told me that Facebook wants to walk the line between allowing people to show images of the violence that happens in our world and images that glorify violence.

In a statement, Facebook went on to say that "Facebook has long been a place where people turn to share their experiences such as human rights abuses, acts of terrorism and other violent events.

"People share videos of these events on Facebook to condemn them. If they were being celebrated or the actions in them encouraged, our approach would be different."

So now Facebook will be deciding what's glorifying violence and what's not.

That answer did not satisfy many on social media, Brooke, including the prime minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron.

He took to Twitter early this morning and said, "It's irresponsible for Facebook to post beheading videos, especially without warning. They must explain their actions to worried parents," he said, Brooke.

BALDWIN: So we here at CNN, we have to, when we play videos that are tough to watch, we say, listen, this is a warning, get the kids out of the room.

Is Facebook doing anything like that? Or is this just one click away?

BURKE: And, of course, we would only show a portion here on television. CNN.com airs text before warning people.

Facebook told me that they are working on a system like that that would warn viewers and give them a few seconds to click off, but that is just in beta testing right now, Brooke.

You're not going to see that across the social media network. It's only a few users who are seeing that currently.

BALDWIN: Samuel Burke, thank you very much for joining me.

And thank you for being with me. I'm Brooke Baldwin at the CNN World Headquarters here in Atlanta. I will see you tomorrow.

In the meantime, let's go to Washington. "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.