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CNN Live Saturday

Chile's First Woman President; American Hostage Tom Fox's Body Found In Iraq; Third Anniversary Of U.S. Invasion Of Iraq; Bush's Scheduled Speeches Planned To Defend War In Iraq; Anniversary Of Fulton County Courthouse Murders; Slobodan Milosevic Dead; Social Networking Online And Teen Safety; Avoid Getting Scammed Online

Aired March 11, 2006 - 12:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN NEWS ANCHOR: Authorities in the Netherlands are investigating the death of Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president was found dead in his cell at The Hague where he was on trial on war crimes charges. An autopsy was ordered. Milosevic led the former Yugoslavia during its bloody breakups in the 1990s. A full report straight ahead.
Iraqi police tell CNN American hostage Tom Fox appears to have been tortured before he was killed. Police found Fox's body two days ago in a Baghdad neighborhood. He had been shot in the head. Fox and three other Christian peacemaker activists were kidnapped about 3-1/2 months ago. More details on that story coming up.

President Bush is focusing on Iraq as the war's third anniversary approaches. At the White House this morning, Mr. Bush met with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and top military commanders. Monday he starts a series of speeches aimed at reassuring Americans concerned about the ongoing violence in Iraq. A live report from the White House straight ahead.

Republicans are expressing shock over the arrest of a former trusted adviser to President Bush. Claude Allen, Mr. Bush's former top domestic political adviser faces charges in Maryland for allegedly swindling two department stores out of more than $5,000 in a refund scam. Allen abruptly resigned from the administration last month. We'll hear what President Bush has to say about his arrest in 10 minutes.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in Chile this hour. She attended this morning's inauguration of that company's new president, Michelle Bachelet. Rice calls the swearing in of Chile's first woman president a triumph of democracy.

To our top story now. An investigation is underway this hour into the death of former Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic. The man known as the "Butcher of the Balkans" was found dead in his prison cell in The Hague. Milosevic was on trial for alleged war crimes. CNN senior international correspondent Brent Sadler joins us from Beirut, Lebanon. Brent covered the Bosnian war.

And Brent, how is this news being received from people you know?

BRENT SADLER, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Talking to political analysts and politicians in the post Milosevic era in Belgrade, this death has many ramifications. First of all, Mira Markovic, the widow of Slobodan Milosevic, has said from Moscow, she told CNN in a very brief statement The Hague tribunal has, quote, "killed my husband." And Mira Markovic telling us that she intends to ask The Hague authorities to have the remains of her husband transferred as soon as possible to Moscow for an independent postmortem examination.

No plans have been revealed about where Milosevic will be buried, but to have him buried in Serbia will be a tremendous embarrassment for the parliamentary majority that came into power after the end of Milosevic's bloody era as the head of the power structure in that country.

So really, in terms of immediate reaction from Belgrade, a lot of satisfaction, obviously, from those who suffered at the hands of Milosevic. Also concerns there'll be no closure in the sense that Milosevic he was never convicted of the war crimes he faced by the many victims throughout the former Yugoslavia -- Fredericka.

WHITFIELD: Now, is Mr. Milosevic's wife objecting to any kind of autopsy to be taking place there in The Hague or in the Netherlands before a decision is made about transferring the body?

SADLER: No, we understand that The Hague authorities are already undergoing, as one would expect that, their own postmortem examination, but defense team lawyers I spoke to in Belgrade, and Milosevic never had his own defense team in The Hague, he did it by remote control through former party acolytes in Belgrade, itself.

And really the plan is for Mrs. Milosevic says the vice president of the socialist party of Serbia, a close aide once upon a time to Milosevic, that in the end she might decide to have Milosevic buried in Russia because if she went back to Belgrade she, too, would face immediate imprisonment on a whole rack of crimes, alleged crimes, not the least corruption and other matters.

WHITFIELD: And much of the family there being in Russia now. Brent Sadler, thank you very much from Beirut.

Milosevic was considered the prime instigator behind the ethic and religious horror that swept Yugoslavia after communism ended. In Bosnia, Serbs loyal to him tried to move non-Serbs out, a notorious policy that become known as "ethnic cleansing." Villages and cities were bombed, markets were shelled, and snipers targeted men, women, and children. The violence peaked with the Bosnian-Serb attack on the village of Srebrenica. Thousands from there are still missing.

Well, today Yugoslavia is no more. The former communist state is now broken up into several independent states, including Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Macedonia.

Well, coming up in 30 minutes, CNN's Christiane Amanpour takes a look at Milosevic's legacy of horror.

And we have new information this hour about the death of an American peace activist held hostage in Iraq. The body of Tom Fox was found Thursday wrapped in a blanket in Western Baghdad. Iraqi emergency police tell CNN he had been shot in the head and the body showed signs of torture. CNN's Gary Nurenberg joins us from Fox's home base in McLean, Virginia. Fox's friends have just held a live news briefing, carried live there on CNN as well -- Gary.

GARY NURENBERG, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Well, good afternoon, Fredricka. We're at a Quaker meeting house, ironically, just a two or three minute drive from CIA headquarters just outside of Washington where Mr. Fox served for years.

Lauri Perman has been doing projects with him for 15 years now. And I know this is a very hard time. We thank you for joining us. What legacy do you think Tom leaves?

LAURI PERMAN, REGIONAL QUAKER OFFICIAL: I think Tom has inspired millions of individual people around the world to work for peace. He certainly inspired all of us who knew him closely.

NURENBERG: You had a difficult conversation with your son last night.

PERMAN: Yes. He came home about 10:00 and I had to tell him that Tom had died. He'd known Tom. Tom was his third and fourth grade teacher at our annual gathering, and Tom had also been a frequent chaperone at our youth high school events. He knew him well.

NURENBERG: As I listened to you this morning, it seems to me you think that although this is a sad time that there is some good that may come of Tom's death. What good could there possibly be?

PERMAN: Tom has set a wonderful example of how an individual person can ask himself or herself, what more can I do for peace in my family, in my community, and in my nation, and he's shown us that an ordinary person can make a difference. And we all need to ask that question. We all need to ask, what more can we do for peace?

NURENBERG: As we were speaking a few minutes ago, I know that there's a message you would like heard in Iraq today following Tom's death.

PERMAN: I think we want the Iraqi people to know that we're concerned not just for the American hostages but for also all the Iraqis who have been detained by coalition forces and are held by Iraqi forces. And we would like all of those who are separated from their families to be returned home.

NURENBERG: Ms. Perman, thank you very much for taking the time to help us out. Fredericka, we've talked to other members of the community here, and as the day progresses, we'll be meeting them as well.

WHITFIELD: All right, Gary Nurenberg, thank you so much.

Turning now to the fight for Iraq. A new poll show the majority of Americans are concerned that sectarian violence in Iraq will take a turn for the worse. In the A.P.-Ipsos poll, 77 percent say of the respondents say it's likely that civil war will break out in Iraq; 17 percent say it is not likely.

Well, just days before the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, President Bush is making a new move to bolster support for his policies on Iraq. At the White House this morning, he was briefed by top U.S. military commanders and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Monday he kicks off a series of speeches about Iraq. We check in now with CNN White House correspondent Elaine Quijano -- Elaine.

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon to you, Fredricka. And that briefing this morning centered on the problem of IEDs, or Improvised Explosive Devices. A senior administration official says that those devices have become almost as exclusively the weapons of choice for insurgents and people trying to incite sectarian violence in Iraq.

So today, here at the White House, we did see President Bush sit down for a briefing on IEDs. He was joined by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and also a retired army general, Montgomery Meigs, to get an update on how the U.S. military is trying to counter the threat of those devices.

Now, this really is part of the larger effort, by the White House, to continue trying to drive home to Americans that the White House does, in fact, have a plan for victory in Iraq. Now, the president, as you mentioned, is going to be delivering a series of speeches this month on Iraq. The first one will be on Monday focusing on security. We're expecting him to talk about the problem of IEDs as well, but look for other administration officials to join in this renewed push, Fredricka, including the vice president -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Meantime, Elaine, the president expressing real shock about some charges involving a former adviser in his administration. What did the president have to say about Claude Allen?

QUIJANO: Well, that's exactly right. The president was asked about this after that briefing this morning. And Claude Allen, we should tell you, is a former domestic policy adviser to President Bush, of course a high-ranking official here at the White House.

Now, he was arrested Thursday in Maryland. And authorities there allege that Allen illegally obtained about $5,000 in refunds from two department stores through fraudulent returns. Now, the president said that if those allegations are true, that Allen did not tell officials here at the White House the truth.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If the allegations are true, something went wrong in Claude Allen's life. And that is really sad. When I heard the story last night, I was shocked.

(END VIDEO CLIP) QUIJANO: Now, the president went on to say that he was sad for Claude Allen's family. Now, I should tell you that just a few minutes ago I spoke with Claude Allen's attorney, Malian Snider (ph), and he said this really is a misunderstanding. He wouldn't elaborate about the nature of what he called the misunderstanding, but what he said was that he is convinced that when everyone sits down and looks at all of this, that, in fact, this will be resolved.

He said he tried to do that sitting down with the merchants, looking to see if they would perhaps show what evidence they might have on videotapes. He said he never got any cooperation, but he is confident, he says, that in the end this will all be chalked up to a misunderstanding -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, Elaine Quijano, thanks to much from the White House.

Well, here's what we've got slated for you for the rest of this hour on CNN. Teens and screams, the webs is full of strangers out there. How do you keep your child from danger? One girl's story and tips from our guest, coming up.

A virtual thief can pick your pocket faster than can you say dot- com. We'll feature on web scams and how to avoid trendy rip-offs these days.

And 26 hours of terror, Ashley Smith recounts her time as a hostage after the Atlanta courthouse killings. A look ahead to tonight's all new "CNN Presents."

But first, your "Cold and Flu Report" for this Saturday, March 11.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hi, everyone, I'm meteorologist Reynolds Wolf with the "Cold and Flu Report." If you happen to be living along the Eastern sea board, and if you've been sneezing and coughing and wheezing, well, that's not unheard of.

It looks like conditions there are pretty widespread for the flu. If you look out towards the four corners, especially into Utah, into Arizona, New Mexico, things are somewhat better, just sporadic in that spot. All right folks, that's the very latest on your "Cold and Flu Report." Enjoy the rest of the weekend if you can stop sneezing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Stories we're watching "Across America" this weekend. Flights at New York's LaGuardia Airport are running smoothly today, but not so Friday. Authorities cleared a terminal and halted outbound flights after a man left a screening area. A machine indicated traces of explosives on his shoes. Authorities never found the man. Republican presidential hopefuls face an early test in Memphis today. The Tennessee Republican Party is holding a straw poll. Nine names are on the list among them Senator John McCain and Bill Frist, Governors George Pataki of New York and Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and former New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani.

Former Atlanta mayor, Bill Campbell is facing possible prison time. A jury says he is guilty of tax evasion, but the panel cleared him on racketeering and bribery charges. Campbell was Atlanta's mayor during the 1996 Olympic games. He says all he's guilty of is, quote, sloppy record keeping.

And more prison time for Charles Cullen, the one-time nurse faces an additional seven life sentences in Pennsylvania. A New Jersey judge has already sentenced him to 11 consecutive life terms. Cullen claims he was an angel of mercy, who killed as many as 40 patients to end their suffering.

Well, it may be tax time, but there's someone else out there who wants to get your money, and they're posing as the IRS. We'll tell you what to look out for straight ahead., but first, here's Gerri Willis with this week's "Energy Tip."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GERRI WILLIS, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): You can get federal tax credits for making your home more energy-efficient. Installing items like insulation and energy efficient windows and upgraded heating and cooling systems can save you as much as $500 this April 15.

To learn more, go to energystar.gov and click on tax credits. And remember these improvements may also qualify you for state tax rebates or insensitive from your local utility company. So, be sure to contact your state's energy office as well.

(on camera): Of course an energy efficient home means lower energy bills over time, and your house will be that much more valuable when it comes time to sell. I'm Gerri Willis with "Your Energy Tip."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Gunfire shatters a quiet Atlanta courtroom setting in motion a 26 hour ordeal and a massive manhunt for a killer unfolds right outside our doors, here at CNN. The tragedy, one year ago, lingers for hundreds of courthouse employees haunted by the memory. CNN's Kyra Phillips recalls the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): It should have been a day like any other at the Fulton County Courthouse, business as usual. It would be anything but.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police are everywhere. There are sheriff deputies flying around. What we know is two people have been shot, one is a deputy, the other we believe may be a judge. This is just a chaotic scene with emergency vehicles flying everywhere.

PHILLIPS: March 11, 2005, 33-year-old Brian Nichols is transported from jail to the basement of the county courthouse. Nichols is on trial for a second time in as many weeks on charges of rape, burglary, false imprisonment.

ASH JOSHI, FMR. PROSECUTOR: I was quite confident Nichols knew the trial was not going well. It was the forth quarter and we were up by a few touchdowns and I think he was concerned.

PHILLIPS: Faced with the very really prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison, police say Nichols takes matters into his own hands. At 8:49 a.m., he's escorted up to the holding cells on the eighth floor of the new courthouse. There he assaults and overpowers Deputy Cynthia Hall.

RICHARD MECUM, U.S. MARSHAL: He locked her out. She had a key on her that unlocked the gun box, and so he unlocked the gun box, which is in the holding cell and took her gun out, also got her radio.

PHILLIPS: As Nichols makes his break, Judge Rowland Barnes is presiding over a civil matter on the eighth floor of the old courthouse. Court reporter, Julie Brandau is next to him.

(on camera): By now, Nichols armed with Cynthia Hall's handgun is calmly walking away from the holding cell, but instead of easily escaping, he's making his way across this sky bridge to the old courthouse.

MECUM: The judge was already on the bench with the court reporter, and when Brian Nichols came through that door, he then shot the judge and the court reporter.

PHILLIPS (voice-over): Judge Barnes and Julie Brandau are killed instantly. Nichols then turns his attention to the prosecution table, but there were no prosecutors. Instead, he locks his eyes and his gun on Attorney Richard Robbins.

RICHARD ROBBINS, ATTORNEY: A lot of thoughts went through my mind. He just killed a judge, now he's going to kill the prosecutor, then he's going to kill everybody else. And I'm sitting at the prosecutor's table. So I decided at that point that I needed to get out of that courtroom, and I wasn't going to let him shoot me straight in the chest.

PHILLIPS: Judge Barnes' wife, Claudia, also works at the courthouse and remembers all too vividly the chaos that followed the shootings.

CLAUDIA BARNES, JUDGE BARNES' WIDOW: One of my good friends came and got me, and at that point I knew something was wrong with Rowland, so we went over to his courtroom, they had already taped it off.

PHILLIPS (on camera): They wouldn't even let you in the courtroom?

BARNES: Oh, no.

PHILLIPS (voice-over): In a matter of 12 short minutes, so many lives are changed forever at the Fulton County Courthouse, and it's about to get worse. Brian Nichols is on the loose.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Kyra will have much more from witnesses and family members impacted by the shooting rampage. Watch "26 Hours of Terror" the untold story of the Atlanta courthouse shooting, tonight and Sunday at 7:00 Eastern, right here on CNN.

This morning Slobodan Milosevic found dead in a cell at The Hague, called a butcher by some, a hero by others. A look into the life of the former Yugoslav leader.

Plus, a hot new cell phone being pulled off the market. We'll tell you why when CNN LIVE SATURDAY returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Here are the latest developments. Former Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic has died. He was found in his cell at the U.N. War Crimes tribunal at The Hague in Holland. He had a number of health problems. Officials say an autopsy will be performed to establish the exact cause of death.

A U.S. hostage in Iraq has been killed. Tom Fox was kidnapped with three other Christian peace activists in November. Police say Fox had been shot and his body showed signs of torture. Fox was from Virginia.

Cell phone callbacks, Cingular wireless and T-mobile have temporarily stopped selling the popular Motorola Razr phone that's because of a technical glitch that causes some phones to drop calls or shut down completely. Motorola say only a very limited number of phones are being affected and availability should be back to normal by next week.

The FBI warns that college basketball games during this March madness could be targets of terrorism. But the agency says it knows of no specific threats. The warning is based on an internet posting encouraging terrorists to attack sporting events.

Reaction to the death of Slobodan Milosevic is coming in from around the world. The former Yugoslav leader was found dead today in his cell at The Hague where he was on trial for war crimes. Milosevic had a number of health problems. His family accuses the war crimes tribunal of murdering Milosevic because it refused to allow him to go to Russia for treatment. In an interview last hour here on CNN, Richard Holbrooke a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations had this to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD HOLBROOKE, FMR. U.S. AMBASSADOR: I'm not going to shed any tears for him. He was a sociopath; he had no real emotions about people. By the way, both of his own parents committed suicide. He was a communist, opportunist, and he became an opportunistic nationalist.

He -- his actions led to the deaths of over 300,000 people, four wars, the destruction of stability in Southeastern Europe, the creation of criminal gangs. Let's talk about the victims of his actions. He was never going to see daylight again, and that was appropriate. And now he's gone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Holbrooke calls Milosevic "a monster, a war criminal who wrecked southeastern Europe." CNN's chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour tells us more about the tragic legacy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Slobodan Milosevic became president of Serbia in 1989. The Yugoslav wars would start two years later. Milosevic, the chief architect of carnage that had been unseen in Europe since the second world war.

It would take the next decade to stop his murderous Vulcan rampage, to arrest, extradite, and try him on charges of genocide at the International War Crimes tribunal in The Hague.

LOUISE ARBOUR, WAR CRIMES CHIEF PROSECUTOR: I presented an indictment for confirmation against Slobodan Milosevic and four others, charging them with crimes against humanity, specifically murder, deportation and persecutions and the violations of the laws and customs of war.

AMANPOUR: Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, throughout the 1990s, Slobodan Milosevic's policies, his paramilitaries, and his armed forces incited violence and ethnic hatred that would destroy Yugoslavia.

Hundreds of thousands of people were killed, millions forced to leave their homes and wander the world as refugees. Civilians were the primary targets in this bid to redesign Yugoslavia along purely ethnic lines.

The term ethnic cleansing became synonymous with Bosnia as Serb forces there, loyal to and paid for, by Milosevic tried to carve out a separate state by forcibly moving the non-Serb civilian population. They did it by bombarding towns and cities like Sarajevo with heavy artillery, besieging villages and massacring civilians. Snipers targeted men, women and children.

Markets full of people shopping were shelled. And in scenes unknown in Europe since World War II, there were concentration camps, mass rape and the forced prostitution of women and very young girls. This orgy of violence peaked with the Bosnian Serb assault on the tiny Muslim village of Srebrenica. To this day, the International Red Cross says that about 7,000 Muslim men and boys remain unaccounted for.

The top Bosnian Serb leaders controlled by Milosevic were Radovan Karadzic, and his military chief Ratko Mladic. They were twice indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity for the horror they brought to Bosnia and to this day they remain at large.

In 1995, after NATO conducted bombing raids to stop the Bosnian Serbs, Slobodan Milosevic became the west's partner in the peace that was forged at Dayton that year, but he was as poor a peace partner as he was a war maker.

Having lost both Croatia and Bosnia in 1998, Milosevic launched one more military campaign, this time in the tiny Serbian province of Kosovo. It would prove his undoing.

NATO again went to war to stop him. After 78 days of bombing, Milosevic finally capitulated. Now NATO forces and the U.N. administration took over Kosovo. Hundreds of thousands of deported Albanian residents came home and survivors started looking for their dead. Now, the war crimes tribunal was able to start on site investigations.

But ever the master of miscalculation, barely a year after losing Kosovo, Milosevic called new elections. After supporting him for 10 bloodied years, the Yugoslav people had now had enough. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets to celebrate his downfall and the end of what many called their nightmare years.

Next, came Milosevic's arrest and by April 2001, only a few hundred diehards mustered the will to protest. With Milosevic in Belgrade Central Prison, Yugoslavia's new government accused him of everything from corruption, political killings and election fraud, to money laundering and recently even war crimes.

In June 2001, the new government in Belgrade sent him to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. His trial there started in February 2002.

MILOSEVIC: I consider this tribunal forced tribunal and ....

AMANPOUR: He never recognized the tribunal's authority and insisted on defending himself. If he had been found guilty on the more than 60 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and other war crimes, he could have faced several lifetimes behind bars.

Christiane Amanpour, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: A surprising discovery this week when one group of teens actually nabbed a sexual predator all because of a fake profile they created on a popular Web site. What you need to know -- what you need to know, rather, to protect your children from dangers online. That's straight ahead.

Plus, avoiding fraud. There are brand new scams out there to get your money. We'll tell you what they are and how to avoid them when CNN LIVE SATURDAY rolls on.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: California police are giving this group of teens credit for an arrest. The boys created a profile for fictitious girl on myspace.com, a popular social networking site. The Myspace page was meant to be a prank on a buddy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just made up this girl's name Stacey, at first just a real random name, and then we started getting these messages from this guy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Police say the messages came from this guy, 48-year- old Michael Ramos. They arrested him after he allegedly showed up at a park for sex with this fictitious girl.

Well, that case and plenty of others highlights the perils kids can find on Internet social sites and blogs. I'll talk to an expert about that in a moment, but first, CNN's David Mattingly shows us one teen's decent -- or rather, descent, into her secret online world.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She was only 15, but for years, Caeli, had been living a double life. To her parents she was the typical smiling teenager, but in the secretive world of blogging, she was known as a partier.

CAELI, TEEN BLOGGER: Everyone who has a blog does sort of live this separate life because by making a blog, you create this whole image of yourself and most of the time, it's not actually, you know, what you come off as or who you seem to be. But online you can be anybody.

MATTINGLY: Online Caeli was blogging about real life experiences of smoking pot, getting drunk and passing out. She found plenty of others who claimed to be doing the same, validating her own destructive behavior.

CAELI: It sort of desensitized you to it, especially when you're reading about a million other people doing it. You don't look at it as something that's so uncommon or bad anymore, because you see everybody else doing it.

MATTINGLY: And her parents had no idea. It is a password- protected, no grown-ups allowed party, where 60 percent of online teens say they share personal information they would never share with their parents. With dozens of blogging sites to pick from, a teen can choose to be faceless, anonymous, and almost untraceable by the people closest to them.

(on camera): How easy is to it hide from your parents in here?

CAELI: Really easy.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): The Pew Research Center estimates four million teens have a blog, eight million teens read them, and three million read the blogs of strangers.

Before 18-year-old David Ludwig allegedly murdered the parents of his 14-year-old girlfriend Kara Borden, police in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, believe the two developed a relationship while blogging on a church network.

SUSAN BARTELL, PSYCHOLOGIST: Because it's unsupervised and because there's no guidance from adults, the kids don't really necessarily make the right decisions when it comes to the people that they're meeting through their blogs.

MATTINGLY: Studies find most teens become interested in blogs as early as the seventh grade. Caeli was 13 when she started. By 15, she was spending up to four hours a day online, blogging, messaging and withdrawing from her family, all the while reading about the darkest exploits of her circle of friends.

CAELI: Drugs and drinking and just parties and stuff that went on at school, like, you know, people -- girls like having sex and all this stuff, just all like the really bad details of high school life.

MATTINGLY (on camera): About half of parents in a recent national survey say they electronically monitor their children's access to the Web. But if Caeli's mother hadn't decided to investigate last year by clicking on one of her daughter's open journals when she wasn't looking, then Caeli's substance abuse could have remained a secret.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The worst thing was when I found in a journal that she wrote online that she and a bunch of kids had gone to -- one of the kids' had a boat, his family had a boat out on the bay and it was February.

And apparently, she was so drunk she passed out and they tucked her in on a bed on the boat and then they all left her. I just couldn't believe, you know, how terrified I was when I read that. And I thought, my God, she could have died.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): And the confrontation that followed was traumatic. Caeli's parents were devastated by the years of deception. Caeli herself felt betrayed by the intrusion into her private world.

CAELI: She made me go to the therapist in my town and then she printed out my whole journal and highlighted everything and gave it to my therapist, and that's when I got really mad. MATTINGLY: The family then agreed to some changes. Now 16, Caeli's in a new school and her online activity is closely monitored at home. Pot and alcohol are in the past. But the blogging, she shows us, is as feverish as ever, giving her parents still plenty of reasons to worry.

David Mattingly, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: So what can we do to protect our kids, especially when they are online so much?

Michelle Collins is a director at the National Center For Missing and Exploited Children. She joins me now from Washington with a few good ideas. Good to see you, Michelle.

MICHELLE COLLINS, CTR. FOR MISSING & EXPLOITED CHILDREN: Good to see you. Thank you.

WHITFIELD: So first off, so many recent cases, are you getting a lot of calls from parents who want to know what they should be doing?

COLLINS: We're getting a tremendous amount of phone calls from parents and from law enforcement alike asking what exactly they can do in order to protect children online, especially when the teens are really giving out an awful lot of information about themselves on these personal sites.

WHITFIELD: So it would seem that the Internet is making it a lot easier for child predators. Is it just that simple?

COLLINS: It really is that simple. If you consider these social networking sites where the kids are putting so much information about themselves online, it's almost a target-rich environment for somebody who looking to meet a child for bad purposes.

At this point, using these sites, they can narrow down on a specific city, a particular age range that they're looking at, and then they can read through the profiles and read through the information the kids are putting out there to find a child who would probably be easiest based on vulnerability or things that they're sharing that really kind open the door for a predator to talk to them about.

WHITFIELD: So for a lot of kids who are still saying, you know what, it wouldn't happen to me, I know how to avoid trouble, I know how to identify trouble, what do you say to the parents, you know, what do you recommend the parents really do to be really hands-on to try to find some of these red flags or check up after their kids when they get off the Internet, any of those things?

COLLINS: Well, actually, all of those things. It's difficult for parents at this point because you're really kind of dependent -- particularly with the social networking sites, you're dependent upon your child telling you whether or not they actually have one because they're very difficult to find.

So really it seems the most simple answer, but it's the most important answer, is to have open communication with your children. And let them know -- ask them whether or not they have one of these sites.

Ask them if they have a profile and ask them if you can look at it because that's going to tell you whether or not they're giving too much information online or if they're engaged in activities or their friends are that they shouldn't be.

WHITFIELD: So you're not necessarily recommending to these parents to tell their kids, you know what, stay off. We don't even want you to be involved in that Web site, but instead, let's talk about it, let's talk about some of the things to look for, how to be safe, how to be careful?

COLLINS: I think what parents need to do is s they need to educate themselves on what the technology is and how kids are using it, and then they can make the best decision.

WHITFIELD: How do they do that? Because, boy, a lot of these kids are a lot more savvy on this technology and computer use than their parents. So what do you recommend parents need to do in order to find out how to be, you know, proficient ...

COLLINS: Right. That's a great question.

WHITFIELD: ... at getting into these parents?

COLLINS: Well, I would first recommend that parents go to a Web site that we actually created with the Boys and Girls Club of America, and it's netsmartz -- with a Z -- .org.

When parents go there, they can find a lot of helpful hints and talking points, which they can sit down with their kids, they can go through the computer with them and they can try to engage them. And this program actually will give parents some clues as to what questions they should be asking when so much of the technology is kind of foreign to them.

WHITFIELD: And sometimes aren't you finding that parents can be really naive, too, thinking, you know what? My child wouldn't possibly get themselves involved in something like this, so I can't even imagine having to do any kind of checks on my kids, you know, on the Internet because they just wouldn't do something like this.

COLLINS: Well, I think that's more parents than actually not. And we know that this generation of teenagers has grown up with the Internet, and we have to recognize that they are going to be using it.

However, we want to encourage kids to be a big part of their online safety and give them the tools they need, because it doesn't matter how much we teach them. Unless the kids are actually implementing the tools, they are putting themselves at risk. WHITFIELD: Any other last minute advice for parents to become a little bit more at ease with computer speak and language and use so that they know what their kids might be up to?

COLLINS: That's a great question. Well, we would recommend that the parents go to netsmartz -- with a Z -- .org to learn more how they can protect their kids, and I would like to ask that if parents or teachers over suspect that there's somebody who is looking to target a kid, that they report the incident at cybertipline.com and we'll make sure that we pass it on to the appropriate law enforcement agency.

WHITFIELD: Michele Collins with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the director of that group, thanks so much.

COLLINS: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: Well, next, point and click pickpocket. How to negotiate the Internet without getting caught in the Web of fraud and deceit out there.

And spring is right around the corner, but here comes the snow.

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WHITFIELD: You work hard for your money, so don't let sticky fingered cyber crooks get away with your loot. The latest "Reader's Digest" delves into the hottest Web scams and rip-offs. Donna Banks is the features editor from the magazine, she joins me from New York.

It's astounding that there are so many scams out there and they seem to be multiplying and morphing by the minute. Why?

DONNA BANKS, "READERS DIGEST": Absolutely. Crooks are very devious and they're trying to get at your money and your identity.

WHITFIELD: And they're doing it in some really simple ways, too. Let's begin with some of the things you profiled in your article, starting with your kids. Your kids' Social Security numbers are just as valuable as yours might be, given that you've got bank accounts and credit card access, et cetera, but there are people out there who are willing to take advantage of your kids' Social Security numbers, right?

BANKS: That's absolutely. And that's because our children don't have criminal records and they don't have bad credit. So once the crook assumes this child's identity and has a clean I.D., they can commit other crimes, they can rack up huge debts, they can even sell them to illegal immigrants, to other criminals, and even to terrorists.

WHITFIELD: What does this mean? Once your kid gets a Social Security number, how do you check on whether anybody has stolen his or her identity?

BANKS: You need to make sure you keep them locked up, and you need to understand that two-thirds of these cases are perpetrated by family members.

WHITFIELD: Oh, my gosh.

BANKS: And then you need to -- if you even suspect your child's identity has been compromised, contact al three credit reporting agencies. If the report doesn't come up clean, and it should, call the police and also the identity theft resource center.

WHITFIELD: Wow! and these days so many people are distributing their resumes online. Come to find out, even that could put you at risk. In what way?

BANKS: Absolutely, absolutely. Just as you and employers are online, so are the crooks. You put out your personal information along with your e-mail address. They contact you, saying they're representing a money laundering service and they'd like to hire you to test their money wiring services, so they send you a check, ask you deposit it into your own account, take out a commission for yourself of 5 to 20 percent, and wire the rest back to them.

Of course, that check is bad, and now the bank wants you to make good on the money they wired at your request.

WHITFIELD: So are you more likely to become a candidate for a scam like this than somebody else because of the information you have on your online resume?

BANKS: Not necessarily. You just need to know this is a classic -- if is sounds to good to be true, scam, it is. Don't give out your personal information unless you initiate the phone call.

WHITFIELD: I don't think too many people would be suspicious of a jury duty notice, and you say now you have to be. What do you look for?

BANKS: Here you get a call saying they're from the local court, they have a warrant out for your arrest because you failed to show up for jury duty. You say it's got to be a mistake. They assure you we can clear it up by checking the records and they need your Social Security and your date of birth.

Don't do it. This is a case of the courts, real courts, correspond by mail and they don't need your Social Security number.

WHITFIELD: No matter what, when -- any time someone asks you for Social Security information or a checking account or credit card information over the phone, you've just got to hang up, right?

BANKS: Pay attention.

WHITFIELD: Never a legitimate reason for that.

BANKS: Very rarely.

WHITFIELD: Now the IRS, here it is, tax time, you're expecting some correspondence from the IRS, but even then now you have to be careful. What do you look for?

BANKS: You get an e-mail saying it's from the IRS, and you've got -- you either do a refund or you have tax problems. They want you to click on a link, and within that URL address, that link, it has irs.gov so it looks official, but if you click on it, it sends you to a look-alike site where they can capture your information. The IRS does not correspond by e-mail. They don't need your passwords and PIN numbers and Social Security numbers so, again, pay attention.

WHITFIELD: Donna Banks, some great information, and we didn't even go over all of it that you have feature in your "Reader's Digest" magazine, so people need to pick it up, especially the one that's about being protective of your ATM information, because folks might be using their cameras on their cell phones. More of that kind of scam info in your "Reader's Digest."

BANKS: The March issue. Thank you.

WHITFIELD: Well, if you think you've been ripped off on the Internet, help is out there. Contact your state attorney general's office or call the Federal Trade Commission at 877-382-4357. There are the numbers on your screen. You can also click on fraud.org. That will take you to the National Fraud Information Center.

Meantime, I know it feels like spring out there for a lot of folks, but guess what, a white blanket is covering the Golden State this morning. What brought on the late winter snow? Our CNN new meteorologist Reynolds Wolf joins us with an explanation when CNN LIVE SATURDAY continues.

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(WEATHER REPORT)

WHITFIELD: So much more ahead on CNN LIVE SATURDAY. "IN THE MONEY" is next. Here's a preview.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Coming up on "IN THE MONEY," America's secret work force, and it's a big one. We'll check out a new report on the country's illegal workers and how big a part they play.

Plus, the black sheep in the White House. See if President Bush is upholding traditional conservative ideals or perhaps betraying them.

And fat chance, you're not the only one who's confused by all those studies about what to eat, what not to eat. Find out why the science just doesn't add up sometimes.

All that and more coming up right after a quick check of the headlines.

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