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Campbell Brown
9/11 Trial in New York; Sarah Palin on the McCain Campaign
Aired November 16, 2009 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: CNN Primetime, begins right now.
CAMPBELL BROWN, HOST: Tonight, here are the questions we want answered. Will the government be forced to reveal battlefield secrets when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is tried in a New York courtroom which is blocks from ground zero?
BILL GAVIN, FMR. FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: These individuals now have all the rights of American citizens in the courtroom. It will turn it into a three-ring circus and they'll have all the time in the world to do what they want to do.
BROWN: And what security steps will New York have to take during the trial of one of the world's most dangerous terrorists?
Plus, President Obama in China. In just a few moments, a welcoming ceremony in Beijing, we'll show you live. The president trying to convince the Chinese what's good for America is good for China.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That China's rise is something that can work with the United States. It doesn't necessarily have to work against them.
BROWN: How the economies of our country are so intertwined.
Also tonight, Sarah Palin tells Oprah John McCain would have lost no matter what, with or without her. Is she settling scores with the campaign? And what did she tell Oprah about 2012?
Plus, your privacy online. Does such a thing even exist?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ten years from now you're going to have a choice of getting used to minimal privacy or subleasing you and all those stuff. That's going to be your two choices. The fact of the matter is, there's nowhere to hide.
BROWN: Our series "The End of Privacy" begins tonight.
ANNOUNCER: This is your only source for news. CNN Primetime begins now. Here's Campbell Brown.
(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: Hey there, everybody. We're going to start tonight, as always, with the "Mash-Up." Our look at all the stories making an impact right now and the moments you may have missed, we are watching it all so you don't have to.
And our top story tonight is President Obama in China. Later this hour, we're going to see him in Beijing. An elaborate welcoming ceremony at the Great Hall of the People. Earlier the president kicked off his trip in his venue of choice, a town meeting.
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JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: It's Mr. Obama's first official visit to China and it began in Shanghai with some nontraditional diplomacy. The American president speaking to Chinese students and playing to his strengths at a town hall meeting.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: His most pointed answer came not from a question in the audience but from the Internet. Delivered by the U.S. ambassador.
JON HUNTSMAN, JR., U.S. AMBASSADOR TO CHINA: Should we be able to use Twitter freely?
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes. In the United States, information is free. And I have a lot of critics in the United States who can say all kinds of things about me. I actually think that that makes our democracy stronger. And it makes me a better leader.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The White House said the rebuke was aimed at China's leaders. But if they were watching it on TV, most Chinese were not because the government allowed it to run on only one local channel in Shanghai. In the rest of China, they aired a soap opera.
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BROWN: High stakes for the president working to renew America's relationship with this huge economic power. We're going to have a whole lot more coming up on China tonight.
Turning to a major reversal tonight on the recommendations for breast cancer screening. For years, we've been told that women 40 years and older should get regular mammograms. Well, today, an influential government panel declared 50 is the new 40.
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BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: The panel said today that most women do not need mammograms in their 40s. It also says they should start having regular mammograms every two years starting at age 50.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: These new guidelines challenge long- standing guidelines for detecting breast cancer. They come from a respected panel of government medical experts which regularly makes recommendations on how to prevent disease.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: One of the most high-profile organizes to disagree with the new guidelines is the American Cancer Society, which still recommends routine annual screening.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The reason we make that recommendation is we know that that's been successful. What we don't know is whether this new recommendation is going to be as successful as the old one.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The new guidelines would save money and resources. But even by the task force's own calculations, these changes would result in more deaths from breast cancer.
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BROWN: So obviously not the end of the debate over screening there. Breast cancer is the second leading cause of deaths in women.
And we have new details tonight about the alleged Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Hasan. Investigators are tracking his movements in the days before the shootings. They're now looking for clues into how he may have planned this deadly spree. Take a look.
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: While he was a devout Muslim, CNN has also learned Hasan frequented the strip club near in Fort Hood in the weeks leading up to the shootings.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Right next door to the strip club is the gun store Guns Galore where Hasan bought his semiautomatic pistol and bullets. And what federal investigators was a dry-run two days before the massacre, Major Hasan practiced shooting off more than 200 rounds at this firing range near Fort Hood.
Investigators say Hasan purchased and lined up 10 targets and then emptied round after round into them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He seemed like he was new at it.
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BROWN: Hasan, as we know, was apparently afraid of being sent off to war. Well, President Obama, of course, still reviewing exactly how many new troops he will send to Afghanistan. In the meantime, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton making it crystal clear the U.S. mission is not about nation building. It is about getting the guys who got us, and she spoke this with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News.
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HILLARY CLINTON, SECRETARY OF STATE: We're not interested in staying in Afghanistan. We have no long-term stake there. We want that to be made very clear. We came to do a mission. Unfortunately it was not achieved in the last eight years. In fact, the mission was changed because it could not be achieved or no longer was the primary goal that was expressed in the prior administration. Well, our goal is very clear. We want to get the people who attacked us and we want to prevent them and their syndicate of terrorism from posing a threat to us, our allies and our interests.
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BROWN: Clinton also demanding that Afghan president Hamid Karzai show he is serious about cracking down on corruption. Today, the Afghan government announced a new anti-corruption unit it says will do just that.
And now to Baghdad where troops got a chance to schmooze with governor/action hero, Arnold Schwarzenegger. And the former star told U.S. troops today he came to fulfill a promise, pulling out his favorite movie catch phrases as he has does many, many, many, times before.
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GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), CALIFORNIA: I was here in 2003. Visiting all of you here and before I left, I said "I'll be back." And the terminator always keeps his promise. I have to say that first of all, congratulations for saying hasta la vista, baby.
You firefighters are the true action heroes. And you've got to pump them up. I'm here to pump you up. Don't be economic girly men.
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BROWN: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. It never gets old.
From one larger-than-life politico to another, the Sarah Palin express has arrived. "People," Oprah this afternoon, her book is out. And the reviews in today.
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KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Let's hear some of your "Times" review right now. Palin's book. They call it part cagey spin job, part earnest autobiography, and part payback hit job.
MATT LAUER, NBC ANCHOR: The book isn't out yet but it's already being slammed by former members of McCain's campaign staff.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Already some of those former staffers are fighting back. "It's just fabricated. I never saw her take a note and she never contacted me for any fact-checking, nor did anyone on her behalf.
BOB SCHIEFFER, CBS ANCHOR: This is Sarah Palin's turn to get even, as it were. She came under this intense criticism all during the campaign and now she's giving her version of why she didn't succeed as a candidate.
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BROWN: Sarah Palin in her own words, coming up in just a little bit. All the choice morsels from her Oprah interview and inside info on the reaction from McCain world.
And that brings us now to the "Punch Line," courtesy of "Saturday Night Live." answering the big question, when Barack Obama leaves town, what happens to Joe Biden? Take a look.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Before the president left we talk policy. Mainly, the policy about the oval office and how I'm not allowed in it. So why am I here? Because Joe Biden follows his heart, not instructions. That's right. That's why I thought I would do something nice for the president.
So I'm going to take one of the things, one of the major problems facing this administration and fix it before he gets back. Yep. Just knock it out. I said it once, I'll say it again. The stimulus is working. Now I know that might be tough to swallow if you're unemployed but look at me, the stimulus is working.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: "SNL's" Jason Sudeikis. Everybody, that is the "Mash- Up."
The Obama administration is bringing the alleged 9/11 mastermind to New York for trial. And the big questions tonight, can prosecutors protect American secrets on -- or of the war on terror? And just how will law enforcement protect New York itself with the trial just block from ground zero? Tonight we're going to talk with two experts who have the answers.
Plus, your privacy at risk online. And we're not talking about handing over your credit card or your Social Security numbers. The danger is a lot greater than that. We're going to show you exactly why when we come back.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have a window into your soul. I know what you believe. I know what you think, I know who your family is, I know who your friends are. I know your politics.
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BROWN: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, will soon stand trial here in New York City just steps from ground zero. And it has set off a political firestorm both in New York and in Washington, D.C. Critics say it's too risky to hold a 9/11 trial here while the Obama administration defends the decision.
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DAVID AXELROD, WHITE HOUSE SENIOR ADVISER: These folks should be tried in New York City, as you say near where they're heinous acts were conducted. In full view, in our court system which we believe in. We've had, you know, since 2001 about 195 terrorism cases in the courts. And we've been successful 91 percent of the time.
SEN. GEORGE LEMIEUX (R), FLORIDA: Why are we bringing the 9/11 terrorists to a criminal court in New York? These are not bank robbers. These are people...
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BROWN: And just a few moments ago, New York governor David Paterson weighed in on the controversy as well. Take a listen.
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GOV. DAVID PATERSON (D), NEW YORK: It's very painful. We're still having trouble getting over it. We still have an unable to rebuild that site. And having those terrorists tried so close to the attack is going to be an encumbrance on all of New Yorkers, but that is a decision that the federal government has made.
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BROWN: So we're going to talk now about whether or not New York is really under threat. What security steps may be taken during the trial. This is man, of course, believed to be one of the world's most dangerous terrorists.
And joining me right now to talk about this is David Kelley who prosecuted Ramzi Yousef for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. And Bill Gavin, who is former assistant director of the FBI in New York who investigated that same case, with us as well.
And, Bill, I know you share some of the concerns that we just heard expressed there about holding the trial here in New York. Give me your sense. Is it a security risk? Why do you think it's a security risk and what can law enforcement do?
GAVIN: Campbell, I believe it is a security risk. But I also believe that New York, unlike any other city in the whole world, is better equipped to handle whatever fate may throw at it and adapt to whatever they haven't anticipated in such a rapid fashion that it will protect the city.
With that said, though, there are a number of things that are going to happen in that city in terms of tightening up the security. They can harden and steel the courthouse, and it's in pretty good shape right now. But, you know, with the intelligence agencies in New York City, with the federal agencies that are there, and most importantly with the presence of the best police force in the world, the New York City Police Department, the city will be protected.
The biggest thing that you have to remember is you don't know what you don't know. Things happened in the past that made -- that were uncomfortable and things happened in the past that were catastrophic. And they may very well happen again.
BROWN: But having been this -- having been through this in 1993, I mean, were there experiences that you guys learned from? That they can and will adapt to this scenario?
GAVIN: Yes, absolutely, Campbell. What things will happen now, we learned what they did and we changed some things, changed our attitude, changed the way we do things at the year forth. I think we now have to think about train stations, bus stations, underground subways. All those kinds of things have to be rethought.
BROWN: But you...
GAVIN: They're in the course of...
BROWN: Yes, I was going to say do you think all of that in New York City is going to be on heightened alert throughout the trial?
GAVIN: I don't think there's any thing -- any doubt about it. It'll be (INAUDIBLE) in the alert scenario. What I mean is that, you know, there'll be a greater presence of uniformed people and a greater presence of non-uniformed people. But if there is a credible threat that says something is coming into New York I think New Yorkers have to be prepared to have their city slow down. If there's some threat to the tunnel, they're going to stop the traffic. To the bridge, they're going to stop the traffic. It happens.
BROWN: All right. Let me go to David and talk about some of the legal issues, David. Probably, the biggest concern you hear on the legal side is what's going to happen during the discovery process of the trial when the prosecution has to share its evidence with the defense and obviously you've been down this path before.
Explain to us the kind and type of information that gets shared and what measures are there to protect really sensitive stuff?
DAVID KELLEY, FMR. U.S. ATTORNEY: Well, for starters, in criminal discovery, the defendants are entitled to all sort of documents and recordings and so forth that the government will use at trial. Insofar as that material is going to be classified, there's also procedures in the classified information procedures act that will help to preserve or protect the integrity or the classification of the secrets, if you will, of that material.
So there's a lot of that -- those measures in place. What I've heard a lot of people are very concerned, I think you start at the opening of your show talking about, you know, battle ground secrets being released. And I don't think that those critics who have voiced that concern have taken the opportunity, as I'm sure the Justice Department has, to really parse through the evidence, to determine what it is that have that they can make admissible evidence and what it is that they have that will compromise any sort of intelligence or national security.
Our experience has been -- go ahead.
BROWN: No, I'm just saying, I -- you're right. Most of us are not privy to all that kind of information. But I think we look at it sort of simply, you know? You think if the defense lawyers get to see that kind of information, then presumably Khalid Sheikh Mohammed himself would be reading those documents?
He's a highly educated man who speaks English. You know? He went to school in North Carolina. That...
KELLEY: Right.
BROWN: That's unnerving to a lot of people.
KELLEY: Well, that's -- just look at what the words you he used. That type of information. A lot of that type of information that's going to be viewed is just in large measure somewhat innocuous. Oftentimes, there's material out there that people think is very volatile or very highly classified.
But when you take a look at it, a lot of it is -- you look at him and say, why is this even classified? Everybody knows this. And I think that there is also a loss of evidence out there that people will look at this and say, you know what, this isn't really a danger at all to release this. And this isn't something that will compromise national security.
And my guess is, is that the Justice Department combed through this very carefully to make sure that they weren't going to be releasing that type of information, that if it wasn't -- if it was of any concern from a classification standpoint, that the classified information procedures act would protect it. And if not, they probably would walk away from that bit of evidence. So we have yet to see what the government intends to use as evidence in this case.
BROWN: David, let me also ask you, the rulings in this case in terms of evidence, testimony, they're all in the hands of sort of whichever judge ends up presiding over the trial, right? They're randomly chosen. Am I accurate about that?
KELLEY: I think the judges in the southern district of New York are, you know, amongst the best judges in the country. A lot of them have dealt with these issues before. They're keenly attuned to what's at stake. And I think it will be handled as well as it could possibly be handled.
BROWN: All right. To David and Bill, appreciate your time tonight, gentlemen, thank you both. Appreciate it.
Sarah Palin, back on the road in the Lower 48. She's promoting her new book which basically trashes her former handlers on the McCain campaign. Hear what they have to say about it, coming up.
Plus, the boss made a pretty big boo-boo over the weekend. What Bruce Springsteen said that maybe he shouldn't have, when we come back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: President Obama is in Beijing tonight about to meet face to face with the president of China. We're going to discuss the stakes of those talks coming up in just a moment. But first more must-see news happening right now and Mike Galanos has tonight's "Download."
Hey, Mike.
MIKE GALANOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Campbell. First off, there's new doubt about how effective a widely prescribed cholesterol drug really is. Zetia, made by Merck, went head to head against a prescription form of vitamin B in the new study. Well, the "New England Journal of Medicine" says the cheaper vitamin was better at clearing clogged arteries. Merck says that research is limited.
The woman accused of abducting Elizabeth Smart from her Salt Lake City home seven years ago plans to plead guilty tomorrow. Until just last month, Wanda Barzee was ruled incompetent to stand trial, stalling the case. Now the next competency hearing for her husband, Brian Mitchell, starts in a couple of weeks.
The space shuttle Atlantis on its way to the International Space Station after a picture perfect launch from Cape Canaveral. Here it is. On board a crew of six and tons of supplies for the station. It is to keep it going after the shuttle stop flying next year.
And we're hearing the story behind Bruce Springsteen's blunder on stage, Friday, this was in Michigan. A fan caught it on camera. Let's watch.
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BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, SINGER: Good evening, Ohio! Good evening, Ohio.
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GALANOS: Yes, Springsteen said Ohio three times before the guitarist Steve Van Zandt reminded him they were in Michigan. Van Zandt tells "Rolling Stones" the boss gets such an adrenaline rush on stage enough to get his attention. The show before that was in Ohio. And Springsteen joked later, he feared his whole life that would happen. It finally did. He's a little intense out there.
BROWN: Hey, yes. When you're on the road that much, I mean, come on.
GALANOS: Yes.
BROWN: It happens. All right. I forgive him. I would forgive him of anything.
GALANOS: Same here.
BROWN: All right, Mike Galanos, thanks, Mike. Appreciate it.
GALANOS: Thanks, Campbell.
BROWN: Sarah Palin tells Oprah John McCain probably would have lost with or without her. And when it comes to settling scores with her old campaign colleagues, she isn't stopping there.
That coming up, and President Obama in China tonight, hoping to convince its leaders that what's good for America is good for China. But is Beijing buying it?
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BROWN: Today, America finally gets a taste of Sarah Palin unleashed. The former Alaska governor kicked off her book tour. And the first stop, Oprah Winfrey's couch. Palin's book "Going Rogue" chronicles her up-by-the-boot straps career and spares no mercy for the people running the McCain campaign.
She trashes them, saying staffers tried to manage her most personal issues, including news of her daughter's pregnancy. And check this out. This is, again, from the "Oprah Winfrey Show."
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SARAH PALIN, 2008 REPUBLICAN V.P. NOMINEE: The message we saw scrolling across the screen on a news channel, first was that Bristol was pregnant and immediately while I'm watching the TV screen, a PR person from the campaign came into the room and said OK, we're going to react, said this, we're going to send out a press release.
And I read it and it was the "we're giddy, happy" basically to become grandparents. And I said no, no, no. Look, here's our opportunity. Let's try to help tackle the problem of teen pregnancy in America.
OPRAH WINFREY, HOST, THE OPRAH WINFREY SHOW: That is what you said.
PALIN: Right. Rewrote it.
WINFREY: But that is not what was put out.
PALIN: Rewrote it and then a couple of hours later, news scroll across the screen and there it is, the message I didn't want sent.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Also during today's show, Palin told Oprah of the campaign's ongoing attempts to clap down on virtually every part of her life, even her diet.
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WINFREY: One of the surprising moments is when you're being coached by one of the members of team McCain who said to you about the Atkins diet. You recall that?
PALIN: I do. Because of all things to worry about while the McCain campaign numbers, we were kind of tanking, President Obama, they were soaring. There were a lot of things that we should have been worried about. What I don't think we should have spent a lot of time on was what I eat. And that was a focus of some of the campaign operatives, which was odd.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And with me now, our senior political correspondent Candy Crowley along with Andy Barr, who is a reporter with "Politico," joining us as well.
Candy, pretty damning stuff there. Give us a reaction from John McCain and his aides.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I can tell you that last Friday John McCain had a conference call with some of his -- with all of his senior advisers from the campaign and said listen, this, too, shall pass.
Do what you can to try not to respond. You know don't go on TV. It will pass more quickly if you let it go. Let's not get into a tit for tat. I can also tell you, though, that Nicolle Wallace who I talked to at length on Friday said listen, not a single quote that is attributed to me did I ever say.
So they are denying on down the line senior advisers, that a lot of this stuff ever happened. And so it has been a back and forth. I think probably the overview of this, if you were to look -- step back, I'm not sure how many people looked out there and go, oh a senior adviser said this and Sarah Palin says that.
But insofar as it begins to make Sarah Palin look as though she's enmeshed in details of the past and trying to settle scores, as one Republican strategist said it just doesn't make her look presidential. So if that's her intent, this may not be leading her down the right road.
BROWN: And, Andy, I know that you and your colleagues at "Politico" also talked to a number of the McCain aides with more specifics about some of the things that she charges.
ANDY BARR, REPORTER, "POLITICO": Well, Candy is certainly right. You know, McCain wants to move on. He told us tonight that he has moved on with his life. He doesn't really want to talk about these issues. But regardless of that conference call, we talked to John Weaver, Mark Salter, Steve Schmidt, they all had negative things to say about Governor Palin's book.
Now, you know, I think, you know, that certainly there's going to be this back and forth. One of the things that a lot of people keep talking about is, you know, whether this is good for Governor Palin's political -- BROWN: Yes, but go back to -- what do they say specifically? You said they had negative things to say. But what are they denying? Where are they? I mean, obviously, I want to try to get beyond the he said/she said.
BARR: Well, you know, Weaver said that they're petty and pathetic. Schmidt said that it was flat untrue. Salter defended Nicole Wallace, who Palin accused of orchestrating this Katie Couric interview which didn't go well for her. So, I mean, they're just flat denying. You know, when you go charge by charge what she said in the book, they're just saying all of it it's untrue.
BROWN: And, I guess, Andy, the big question, of course, is she running for president? And let me play what she said about that to Oprah as well.
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SARAH PALIN, 2008 REPUBLICAN V.P. NOMINEE: My dad's quote I think it sums it up better perhaps that I'm summing up. He says, "She's not retreating. She's reloading."
OPRAH WINFREY, TALK SHOW HOST: Reloading?
PALIN: Yes. She's able to get out and fight for what is right.
WINFREY: Does that mean -- does that mean you're reloading for 2012?
PALIN: I'm concentrating on 2010 and making sure that we have issues tackled as Americans to make sure we're on the right road.
WINFREY: Would you tell me if you're thinking about it?
PALIN: No, I wouldn't. But 2012, Trig is heading into kindergarten in 2012. I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to affecting positive change between now and then. I don't know what I'm going to be doing in 2012.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: So, Andy, are you seeing concrete signs that she may be looking in that direction?
BARR: We're not seeing a lot of signs from them that they're looking in that direction. A lot has been made about some of the states that she's visiting on that book tour, but the reality is that she's not going to states with electoral value. She's going to communities where she resonates.
She's going to Palin country. You know, she's going to talk to the communities where there are big pro-life communities. People, you know, really eat up the Palin routine there. You know, I think --
BROWN: Right. BARR: Yes. But, you know, she is really just going to her base. She's really not making these political moves. I think if this was more of a political book, we would see more talk about policy...
BROWN: Right.
BARR: ... things that she was moving on forward. You know, it's her vision of the future. But really, this is just settling scores and laying out who she is for her supporters.
BROWN: Candy, let's listen to what she said about why the McCain campaign lost.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OPRAH WINFREY, TALK SHOW HOST: Do you think in any way that if you had been allowed to be more of yourself and less scripted that there would have been a different outcome?
SARAH PALIN, 2008 REPUBLICAN V.P. NOMINEE: Not necessarily. I think the reason that we lost, the economy tanked under a Republican administration. People were sincerely looking for change. They were quite concerned about the road that America was on with our economy. They did not want more of the same. They did not want status quo. And I think, unfortunately, our ticket represented what was perceived as status quo.
So, I don't think that I was to blame for losing the race any more than I could be credited with winning the race had I done a better job as the V.P. candidate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And, Candy, I know you've got new polling information here. Is she in good shape if she wanted to run no 2012? Or does she have real work to do out there?
CROWLEY: A steep hill here. Overall, we found that 70 percent of adult Americans that were interviewed in the CNN poll said that she didn't have the credentials in fact to be president, that she wasn't qualified. More troubling is inside those numbers, huge numbers of independents do not think that she is qualified, and 44 percent of Republicans don't think she's qualified. So that's a big hill.
And I do think that if you look back at Sarah Palin, you're talking about signals, and is she running or is she not? That the minute she stepped down from her governor's office and said I quit, I'm not doing this, was the first big signal. If you talk to Republicans, they don't care about the soap operas. They don't care about the tit for tat or they don't care about the father of Sarah Palin's grandchild. They say she quit her elected office. That's the big thing there, and that's really the big signal. And I think this book continues the signal that this is not a woman that is looking to run for another office. She may be looking to be a catalyst within the Republican Party. Right now, I think she's looking to sell books.
BROWN: All right. Candy Crowley for us tonight, and Andy Barr. Thanks, guys, appreciate it.
"LARRY KING LIVE" is going to have a whole lot more on Palin's book on the interview with Oprah and, of course, the tell-all. Will it help or hurt her public image? All that coming up at the top of the hour.
It is a company so powerful its name is now a verb, and tonight we're going to bring you the secrets of the Google empire.
Plus, what could be the end of privacy as we know it. Take a look.
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JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Anytime you hit the send button, your information is no longer your own. Your frequent flyer program, movie account, book purchases, even some searches can be tracked, stored and sometimes sold.
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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Tonight we begin our special series "The End of Privacy." There used to be a clear difference between what's private and what's public. Well, not so much anymore. Nearly everything you do on the digital age can be tracked. You may have already exposed some of your most intimate secrets to anyone who knows how to look for them, and CNN's Homeland Security correspondent Jeanne Meserve shows us some ordinary people who found out the hard way.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dick Hardt put photos on his Hawaiian wedding on Facebook to share with close friends but when he made mention of it on Twitter, he didn't know a link would be attached, giving more than 3,000 followers access to some rather intimate images.
DICK HARDT, PICTURES TWEETED ACCIDENTALLY: We didn't think they were offensive in any way, but my wife didn't prefer for everybody to see those photos.
MESERVE: While his case was embarrassing, others are downright dangerous. Sarah Downey was horrified when a picture of her young daughter was hijacked from her Flicker account and used in a sexually suggestive Portuguese-language on orkut.com, a social networking site.
SARAH DOWNEY, POSTED PICTURE OF DAUGHTER ON FLICKER: It broke my heart. It broke my heart.
MESERVE: Downey posted a translation to warn other Flicker users, but then she says total strangers exploited the Internet to find her phone number and worst, her home address.
DOWNEY: We would go to the grocery store, and I'd wonder has this person seen my daughter? Are they here, you know, trying to find us? Trying to, you know, get close with my daughter?
MESERVE: Since then, Downey has tried to protect her private information. Has it worked? With her permission, we gave her name to Steven Rambam, a private investigator who harvests information from the Internet. In less than 90 seconds, he turns up 100 pages of possible links.
STEVEN RAMBAM, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR: Frankly, anything you'd want to know about this young lady seems to be available on the web.
MESERVE: On sites like YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, more and more Americans are making their private information public. Put it together with public documents like newspaper accounts and property records and a portrait emerges.
Take Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Using free publicly available information on the Internet, a Fordham University law school class came up with 15 pages of information, including Scalia's home address and phone number, even the movies and foods he likes.
JOEL REIDENBERG, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL: If we were willing to spend $100 for the project, we would have been able to acquire far more intrusive, far scarier information.
MESERVE: Private investigator Rambam says anytime you hit the send button your information is no longer your own. He says your frequent flyer program, movie account, book purchases, even some searches can be tracked, stored and sometimes sold.
RAMBAM: I have a window into your soul. I know what you believe. I know what you think. I know who your family is. I know who your friends are. I know your politics.
MESERVE (on camera): Orkut.com says it has updated its policies and tools to find and remove fake profiles like the one of Sarah Downey's daughter. And Google says it gives customers the tools they need to protect their information. Many of us could be more careful.
In addition, some privacy experts would like to see standardized and simplified Web site policies or even government restrictions on secondhand use of private information.
(voice-over): Steven Rambam sees a lot of positives to having so much information on the Internet and says the genie is already out of the bottle.
RAMBAM: Ten years from now you're going to have a choice of getting used to minimal privacy or subleasing the Unabomber's cabin. That's going to be your two choices. The fact of the matter is, there's nowhere to hide.
MESERVE: As Rambam puts it, privacy is dead. Get over it.
Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: And tomorrow, we will meet a guy who challenged ordinary people to track him as he tried to disappear in the digital age.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was amazed at how much information those people were able to dig up about me without any professional training, most of them, without any access to special databases, you know, without any law enforcement power, subpoenas or anything else. They gathered this huge dossier of information about me and that really shocked me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Our special investigation "The End of Privacy," that's tomorrow at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.
And next, we're going behind the scenes to reveal the inner workings of online information powerhouse Google. The Silicon Valley titan is one of the most tightly controlled companies around. But tonight, we're going to talk to the author who was allowed to peek behind the curtain.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Tonight in our series "The End of Privacy," we showed you just how much of your private information may be out there on the web. The Internet, of course, has changed the way we all live and a big part of that change is because of Google. You probably find yourself googling dozens of times a day. But how much do you really know about the Google empire?
Well, just a little while ago, I talked to Ken Auletta. He is the author of the new book "Google: The End of the World as We Know It." Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: We were just talking in our previous segment about sort of the end of privacy, giving what's going on in the Internet. Google actually, you could say, has had something to do with that. It's only about 10 years old, which I think a lot of us don't realize, because we so take us for granted. Talk us through how it actually started.
KEN AULETTA, AUTHOR, "GOOGLED": It started -- these were two graduate students at Stanford, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and they're both were computer scientists. And they came up with the idea for a new kind of search engine. There were other search engines but this was a new one. And they were doing it out of their dorm rooms at Stanford.
They borrowed the Stanford computer system. The system crashes. The professor says hey, don't you think, guys, maybe you want to go into business and do something? And, of course, they did. They went to a garage, and they put a sign up -- handwritten sign, Google worldwide headquarters. BROWN: You write that one of Google's chief goals is to make the world more efficient. That's how they explain it. What do they mean?
AULETTA: What they mean is an engineer basically starts off with an assumption that the way things generally are done are inefficient, so we can make it more efficient. For instance, the newspapers. Why do you have paper and distributions and printing presses all very expensive, all very wasteful for the environment, let's say? What if you went online and do it? Let's have Google news and assemble all the newspapers and magazines around the world.
Let's take advertising. When you do advertising on broadcast television or cable television, you don't know who's watching. Yet the advertisers pay a huge amount of money, they say...
BROWN: Right.
AULETTA: ... what if we can charge less money and tell you who's actually watching it and what if you only get charged by the click, not by who you guess is watching it? That's just one of many examples where they said why can't we do things more efficiently? And as they do that, as they ask that question, they begin to bump up. And this is the narrative of my book, bump up against newspapers and magazines and book publishers and television and advertising and Microsoft.
BROWN: And today, and you write about this, that newspapers, the book business, especially, sort of blame Google in some ways for their downfall, or sort of the spiral they are currently in.
AULETTA: There's a lot of whining. I mean, I found as I did this reporting, I mean, I think it's real important to preserve good journalism. And I don't think the blogosphere can substitute for good investigative reporting or for "The New York Times" for instance.
BROWN: Right.
AULETTA: But for newspapers and television and other traditional media types to sit back and whine and complain, all Google is doing these terrible things to me, this is a story much more of suicide than it is of murder.
BROWN: You talked a little bit about the advertising model being different with Google. But is that how they're making all this money? Because it is a huge company.
AULETTA: Google makes -- generates $22 billion a year in revenues, makes over $4 billion a year in profit. That $22 billion in revenue, 21 of it comes from those -- that gray box on the right-hand side of your search...
BROWN: Right.
AULETTA: ... with those little text ads. That's $21 billion worth of advertising. If you click -- the advertiser doesn't pay unless you click on it, so the advertisers really love this. Now, if you think about it, that $21 billion is equal to all the consumer advertising of all the magazines in the United States. It's equal to two-thirds of all the advertising in all the newspapers in the United States. Those little text ads we pay no attention to.
BROWN: And I also read that they wanted -- they suggested that the guys at Google suggested that you actually take your book, put it online, free on Google for the world to see.
AULETTA: In my second interview with Sergey Brin, the co- founder, he walks in, he rollerblades. And actually, he rollerblades, Campbell, from the gym and he drops his knapsack down. He says, "Ken, I've got a question for you." He said, "Why don't you just put your book out for free on the Internet? I said, oh, really?
Let me ask you a question. I said, I'm on leave from the "New Yorker" to do this book. Right?
BROWN: Right.
AULETTA: A year and a half, a two and a half year project. I said who's going to pay me an advance so I have a salary. How do I live? OK? Who pays for my trips out here? Who's going to edit my book? Who's going to do the index of my book? Who's going to legally vet my book, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera?
And by that point, he goes, oh, change the subject. So he changed the subject but what it tells you is, A, they're young and idealistic and innocent about how the world works. The world of publishing in this case, A. And, B, it suggested a certain attitude about copyright.
BROWN: Yes.
AULETTA: It maybe it's not as important as their, quote, "fair use of my copyright."
BROWN: A great read. Ken Auletta, great to have you here.
AULETTA: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: And tonight, President Obama is in China as we told you before, where a huge welcoming ceremony is about to get under way in the great hall of the people. But can he convince Chinese leaders that what is good for America is also good for China?
And looking ahead, join Anderson Cooper for "CNN Heroes" an all- star tribute on Thanksgiving night on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: You are looking at a live picture. This is in Beijing right now. You are watching the president get out of the car. This is a welcoming ceremony we've been telling you about. He is preparing for these high-level talks with the Chinese. He's meeting with the Chinese president. He will be visiting the Forbidden City as well, a historic place. We're going to see some pictures from there, hopefully soon as well.
A lot of pageantry here. The ceremony includes troops, cannon salutes, national anthems. We're going to expand this conversation a little bit and keep on this live picture.
As many of you probably know, our countries are tied very closely economically. China owns a huge amount of America's debt. And the U.S. is China's biggest customer by far when it comes to everything from toys to shoes. So what is the bottom line for both countries? That is obviously the crux of these conversations that are going to take place between President Obama and President Hu Jintao.
We want to bring right now Victor Cha, who served under President Bush as director of Asian Affairs for the White House National Security Council. Also with us, Ted Fishman, who joined us a few nights ago. He wrote "China Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World."
And, Ted, let me start with you. As we watch again these live pictures coming in right now from Beijing, just explain to people how our economy and China's economy have become so interconnected.
TED FISHMAN, AUTHOR, "CHINA, INC.": Well, there's virtually no transaction in our economy that isn't linked to China in some way. The main reason for that, Campbell, is because China lends us billions of dollars every single day, and they do that to support our spending and everything that we're devoting money to. They do it in the consumer sector, in the government sector.
If they are our banker, they're also our banker's banker. So they inform very much, how much money is available to businesses in America, particularly in small businesses. Right now, who worry whether China will turn off the tap and money will be less available to them as they try and struggle through a hard economic time.
So I would say undergirding the economic relationship is this primary banking relationship. Of course, there's trade relationships that are very, very key to both countries, too. And that is a very important, long-term discussion that the president will be bringing when he talks to the Chinese president.
BROWN: And, Victor, focusing on the economic part of this, who has the upper hand right now? Is it the U.S.? Is it China?
VICTOR CHA, BUSH ADMINISTRATION ASIA SPECIALIST: I think it looks to many as though the Chinese have the upper hand, precisely because, as Ted said, they own so much of our debt, something like $1 trillion in U.S. treasury bonds. But at the same time, it's very much of a mutual hostage situation because China needs to purchase these treasuries in order to maintain a strong dollar. Otherwise, the value of their foreign currency holdings goes down dramatically. And we need China in order to finance a lot of deficit spending that we're doing now.
So it's very much intertwined in the way that two countries in the history of international relations really have not been intertwined.
BROWN: It's interesting, though, because, Ted, Americans don't see it as much as intertwined as a threat. I mean, we've got this new polling out. Seventy-one percent of Americans say they see China's economy as a threat to the U.S. That's not really the right way to look at it, I guess, is it?
FISHMAN: I don't think it's the right way to look at it at all. I mean, if China really were a threat to the United States, we would be feeling the pain far more. The tension would be far, far higher.
You know, the rest of the world, they didn't see the United States as an economic threat as their prosperity grew after World War II as our economy got bigger and bigger. China's going to be one of the chief economic engines of the entire world for a generation or more. Their economy grows faster than any other big economy. It's all of our own jobs to look in our own house and say how can we lasso our fortunes to them and prosper as they prosper.
BROWN: Let me go to quickly to you, Victor. I'm almost out of time here, but what do you think the president's message needs to be? If you can, you know, give us a brief -- your brief view on that.
CHA: Sure. The single most important thing is that he wants to get the Chinese to gradually transform their economy into being much more of a market-based, predictable, macroeconomic policy and exchange rate policy. The Chinese artificially peg their currency to be lower than the dollar, which does undercut competitiveness of U.S. products. Such a single most important thing is the Chinese need to expose their currency and their policies more to the forces of a global marketplace.
BROWN: All right. Gentlemen, we're going to end it there. Victor Cha and Ted Fishman, appreciate your time tonight.
Again, you're looking at those live pictures of President Obama arriving for that welcome ceremony in Beijing tonight. Gentlemen, appreciate it. Thank you.
"LARRY KING LIVE" starts in just a few minutes with reaction to Sarah Palin's tell-all interview. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: And we leave you tonight with live pictures from Beijing. The formal welcoming ceremony for the president in the great hall of the people. Next, the president meeting 101 with Chinese President Hu Jintao. We're going to have a whole lot more on that.
"AC 360" and "LARRY KING" starting right now.
