The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer; April 11, 2007

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ADM, we like the idea that we know stopping him now. ADM, resourceful by nature. And by Chevron, Pacific Life, the Atlantic Philanthropies,

the National Science Foundation, and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations, and this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. The US Army extended the tours today for all active duty units in Iraq and Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Gates called it a difficult, but necessary, interim step. For now, Army units will have to stay 15 months instead of 12. The new policy lets the Army keep current troop levels in Iraq for another year. Gates said it also ensures 12 months at home between deployments. Without this action, we would have had to deploy five Army active duty brigades sooner than the 12-month at home goal. I believe it is fairer to all soldiers

that all share the burden equally. In the end, I believe this new approach will allow the Army to better support the war effort while providing a more predictable and dependable deployment schedule for our soldiers and their families. The new policy does not affect Marines or the Army National Guard or Reserves. White House officials confirmed today they're considering naming an overseer of both wars. They said the goal would be to improve coordination by different parts of the government. The Washington Post reported at least three retired generals have refused to consider the position. A White House spokeswoman had this response. It would be a little bit like putting the car before the horse if we were to say that that is a done deal because no one's been offered the job. We've been consulting widely to find out what people think about the possibility of having somebody of a higher caliber. I'm sorry, a higher profile come in and have that position. The new position, if it's created,

would report directly to the president and the national security advisor. An outside review blames funding trouble and Pentagon neglect for problems at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. A blue ribbon panel reached those conclusions and a draft report. Defense Secretary Gates commissioned the review of poor conditions for outpatients. The panel said the problems most likely extend to Army Hospital's nationwide. Two more U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq in the last 24 hours. That word came today. As the U.S. military said there's fresh intelligence, Iran is promoting the violence. Army Major General William Caldwell claimed again, Iran is training Iraqi militants to use armor-piercing roadside bombs. We know they'll be in fact manufactured and smuggled into this country and we know that training does go on in Iran for people to learn how to assemble them and how to employ them. And we know that training has gone on as recently

as this past month from detainee debriefs of some personnel that we've picked up. In another development, the International Red Cross issued a grim report today on humanitarian needs in Iraq. The agency said more than half the country's doctors have fled, leaving hospitals to struggle with daily casualties. It also cited growing malnutrition, poverty, and power shortages. Red Cross officials said things are worsening despite the security effort in Baghdad. At least 30 people were killed today in two bombings in Algeria, al-Qaeda in North Africa claimed responsibility. The attacks hit targets in the capital city, al-Jears, including the Office of the Prime Minister. We have a report narrated by Nick Peyton Walsh of Independent Television News. We know that if anything today's war comes to a city that thought its troubles were over, a suicide bomber drove his car into the Prime Minister's offices here, tearing a huge hole in the heart of government.

This is al-Jears, not Baghdad. Yet 12 people were killed and over 100 injured. These mobile phone images hauntingly silent show the immediate aftermath. The blast's power bent the steel gates as al-Qaeda proclaimed its spread across North Africa. For numbers grew, the tactics perhaps by now familiar, another blast moments later hitting this police station to the city's east. The timing's no coincidence said observers. Government troops in the midst of a push in the east of the country to try and wipe out these men. Behind a recent spate of ambushes, but now hunted down with helicopters and night vision, posting today their claim to the al-Jears' blasts together with pictures of the three martyrs behind them. They also claimed, yesterday's blasts in Morocco, their three men blew themselves up

and another was shot dead after being cornered by police in Casablanca. The Islamic insurgency in Algeria began in 1992 and the resulting violence killed and estimated 200,000 people, but military crackdowns and anasties led to several years of relative calm. China urged Sudan today to accept UN an African Union peacekeepers in Darfur. The Chinese had been criticized for not using their leverage as a major buyer of Sudan's oil. In Washington today, US envoy Andrew Natsio said, US sanctions on Sudan would be delayed at the UN's request. We'll have more on this right after the news summary. North Korea may miss a Saturday deadline for shutting down its nuclear reactor, but it's ready to let UN inspectors back in now that a standoff on frozen funds is ending. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson reported that today. He spoke in Seoul, South Korea,

after a four-day visit to the North, officially known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The North Korean government told us that with that issue resolved, the DPRK would move promptly within a day after receiving the funds. And therefore, within that day, invite the IAEA to Pyongyang and inspector or inspectors to drop the terms for shutting down the Young Boon Reactor. The Democratic presidential candidate said the North Koreans told him they wanted to push back the deadline by a month. He said he told them that was too long. The U.S. Senate neared approval of a stem cell bill today. It would expand federal funding for research on embryonic stem cells. Supporters said it could lead to treatments for many diseases. President Bush promised a veto of the measure. He said it would encourage destruction of human life. He rejected a similar bill last year. The only veto of his presidency so far. Charges of sexual assault were dropped today

against three Duke University lacrosse players. It was the end of a racially charged case that gained national attention. Jeffrey Brown has our report. North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper made the announcement this afternoon in Raleigh. There is insufficient evidence to proceed on any of the charges. Today, we are filing notices of dismissal for all charges against Reed Selicman, Colin Fennedy, and David Evans. The result is that these cases are over, and no more criminal proceedings will occur. The three Duke University students had been accused of sexually assaulting a stripper at a team party in March of last year. The alleged victim was a 27-year-old African-American student at North Carolina Central University. She told police that at the party at this off-campus house, she was beaten, choked, and raped by three white members of the lacrosse team.

During County District Attorney Mike Niphong, spearheaded a very public investigation but his case unraveled amid shifting stories and DNA evidence that did not match that of the accused. The State District Attorney's office took over the case in January after Niphong was accused of ethics violations by the State Bar Association. We approached this case with the understanding that rape and sexual assault victims often have some inconsistencies in their account of a traumatic event. However, in this case, the inconsistencies were so significant and so contrary to the evidence that we have no credible evidence that an attack occurred in that house on that night. Attorney General Cooper was harsh in his criticism of District Attorney Niphong, who faces a trial in June on charges of withholding evidence and other violations.

Lately this afternoon, the three young men spoke in Raleigh. I'm excited to get on with my life. It's been a long year. Longening you could ever imagine, but I hope these allegations don't come to define me. I hope that the way that I could be remembered is sticking up for my family and for my team. David Evans graduated from the university the day before he was indicted. The other two students have so far declined offers to return to campus to finish their degrees. More companies pull their ads from the Don I'm Us Radio Show today. It was the latest fallout from a racial and sexual insult. He aimed at the Rutgers Women's Basketball team. American Express, Staples, Proctor and Gamble and General Motors, said they're withdrawing their ads indefinitely. The IMS program is to be suspended for two weeks, beginning next Monday. It is also simulcast on MSNBC. City Group announced plans today to cut 17,000 jobs.

That's about 5% of its workforce. The company said more than 40% of the jobs being lost are in the United States. Nearly 10,000 other jobs will move to lower cost locations worldwide. It's part of a broad restructuring plan to cut $4.6 billion in costs by 2009. Most of the moves were set to happen this year. The nation's largest student loan provider agreed to a settlement with New York State today. SLM Corporation, known as Sally May, will stop offering gifts to influence college officials. It will also pay $2 million into a fund to educate students and parents on financial aid. Last week, City Bank settled on similar terms. On Wall Street today, stocks fell on new concerns about interest rates. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 89 points to close at 12,484. The Nasdaq fell 18 points to close at $24.59.

And that's it for the news summary tonight. Now, the DAR4 tragedy continues. The McCain presidential campaign, cell phone tracking, and the carbon tax proposal. The DAR4 story, we begin with a report on the fighting that has spread from the Western area of Sudan to the neighboring nation of Chad. Jonathan Miller narrated this report for independent television news. First, the Russian-built Heine de Taek helicopter swings in. The Sudanese military providing top cover for pickups piled high with Arab militiamen armed by cartoon. Then comes the cavalry. These are extremely rare pictures, the Janjaweed in action, filmed within the past couple of months just inside Sudan, on the volatile Western border with Chad.

The contagion of cleansing of African farmers by Arab nomads has spread into Chad. This year's killing season has opened with what the UN's described as an apocalyptic attack by the horseman. No video footage, but these pictures show the remote villages in southeastern Chad raised to the ground 10 days ago. Up to 400 dead, the UN says, in brutal cross border attacks, 9,000 survivors from 31 villagers now being fed by the UN. For many, it's not the first time they've been forced to flee. Here, villagers attempting to salvage what wasn't destroyed by the raiders, some drifting back home. This is the African village of Tiero that sits next to a wadi running east towards Darfur. We filmed here less than a year ago. Tiero was one of the villagers burned to the ground. These people now displaced, like they're two and a half million cousins in Darfur

just over the frontier, the violence, reaching ever further west into Chad. The Sudanese ginger weed and their nomadic Arab allies and the Chadian side have reached as far as 100 kilometers in now. They leave a charred wasteland of abandoned villages in their wake. The UN says that after the latest raids, decomposing corpses also led to the ground together with rotting carcasses of animals. Mustafa Bako is the head man of one of the villagers burned down last month. Ruzidevas Bako. They attacked on horseback at 5 a.m. He says the ginger weed gave weapons to all the local tribes. He says they made a pact and then they killed us and they chased us. 13 villagers were burned down in one day alone. They want to wipe us out. He says that the Arabs of Sudan and Chad can have the land for themselves. The ginger weed don't want any more blacks. The small hospital in Goshbader, a district

capital in southeastern Chad, which itself has been attacked. These children, wounded by grenades, one of which landed in a school playground inside the refugee camp. About 80 wounded people are thought to have survived what is now being referred to in aid agency circles as the massacre 10 days ago. Most are now in this hospital. We don't know where to expect to attack. They come at night. They menace and attack the local people and then they're gone. Just the Chadian army has proved hopelessly unable to protect its own people. They're remit to fend off attacks by rebel groups backed by and based in Sudan. In one attack yesterday, Chad says it routed the rebels, killing 17. Today, Sudan said the 17 were its soldiers killed inside Sudan. Our response will be strong, warned Khartoum. All at war could happen any time. And this is the man who could stop it all.

Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir has rebuffed all international demands to allow a joint UN and African Union peacekeeping force of 22,000 troops in Darfur and along the board of Chad. This week, China, the U.S. and today the South African president all pressing the message face to face that the time has finally come for the slaughter to stop. Unprecedented pressure may be but four years after it started, it's just getting worse. And the Darfur story in Washington, Margaret Warner reports. As the crisis in Darfur continues unabated, the Bush administration has threatened for months to crack down on the Sudanese government with an unspecified plan B. Today, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee summoned the U.S. special envoy to Sudan, Andrew Nutsios, to testify about what that plan might be. And both senators and both parties expressed in patience.

This determination. Committee Chairman Joseph Biden. In December, the ambassador told a group of senators that Khartoum had until the end of the month to agree to the deployment of UN peacekeepers. That deadline has long since passed with no agreement by Khartoum to accept the peacekeepers and no reaction from the United States or the international community to its refusal. Today, this committee expects to hear from the ambassador a concrete plan of action. New Hampshire Republican John Sonunu. We need to understand exactly what the reasons are for the slow pace of progress. And I think we need to be very frank if there are disagreements within the State Department or within the administration about the path we should be pursuing. We need to know about that. Since fighting began in Sudan's Darfur region in 2003 and estimated 200,000 people have died and some 2.5 million have been driven from their homes. The Sudanese government in Khartoum stands accused of aiding the Arab-John Jewied militias who are perpetrating much of the violence.

Nutsios said today, the administration does have a plan B. It includes sanctions on Sudanese companies trading in American dollars, plus travel bans and foreign account freezes on Sudanese government officials. But the administration postponed imposing those sanctions, he said, after UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon asked for another two to four weeks to negotiate with the Sudanese. As a courtesy to the Secretary-General, we've agreed to that delay. But there is a finite limit to it and if we continue to see stone-walling, then those measures are going to be implemented. That's up to the President. It's his decision to make. But I know where he is on this. He's as angry as all of us are on this and wants action. But the Secretary-General requested it. He did it publicly. It's not a secret. And we've agreed to wait a short time while we left the negotiations that he's undertaking now take their course. There are currently some 5,000 African Union monitors

on the ground in Darfur, but they are outmanned and outgunned. The UN last fall authorized a more robust hybrid force of 17,000 additional African Union and UN peacekeepers. But the cartoon government has refused to approve their entry. Plan B's delay frustrated some senators like New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez. I listened to you carefully. 101 days ago, you on behalf of the administration announced Plan B. Now, two to three weeks more. What does it matter if it takes a little time? If I was sitting in those camps, I could not stand the councils of patience and delay. And I hope we get to the point that we understand that. I understand about multilateral action. But at some point in time, we must lead. I agree with you. Biden said he didn't understand why the administration wasn't going further and pushing for the use of military force. I met with the NATO commanders in Europe. I then spent time with the Supreme Allied commander

of Europe prior to General Jones leaving. I was told that we had the physical capability of essentially shutting down the judge we now. That it would take somewhere around 2,500 troops that if we were to argue strenuously, within the confines of NATO for such a force and the imposition of a no-fly zone, we could radically change the situation in the ground. That does not get you a settlement. But it does have the ancillary benefit of stopping thousands upon thousands of people of being slaughtered and or left to be slaughtered. Matsios wasn't given the time to reply on that point, but he predicted that President Bush will have something to say if the four weeks pass without movement from the cartoon government. Still coming tonight, cell phones as tracking devices,

a conversation about carbon tax, and an update of the McCain campaign for president, Judy Woodruff has the McCain story. For Senator John McCain. In an effort to generate momentum for his struggling presidential campaign, Arizona Senator John McCain gave a vigorous defense of the Bush administration's Iraq war strategy today, with the knowledge that a majority of the GOP voters he needs to win the nomination also supported. We who are willing to support this new strategy and give General Petraeus the time and support he needs have chosen a hard road, but it is the right road. It is necessary and just. The four-term Senator and 2,000 presidential candidate is hoping that a major PR offensive in the next few weeks will reintroduce him to voters and make up for several recent setbacks that have put his campaign on its heels.

In the first quarter fundraising race, McCain finished dead last among the top six major party presidential candidates, collecting 12 and a half million dollars. His recent trip through a Baghdad marketplace became an embarrassment when he claimed that it was safe enough to stroll around in, despite being protected by 100 soldiers and helicopter gunships overhead. McCain later admitted he misspoke. National polls also have been unkind. Gallup's latest survey found that despite being in second place, McCain had only 16% support among Republican voters for the nomination. Far behind former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's 38%. It's been quite a ride for the man once considered the inevitable nominee in 2008. McCain burst onto the national scene during his 2,000 primary race with then candidate George W. Bush,

wowing audiences with his trademark straight talk and pulling off an upset victory in New Hampshire. After a bitter loss in the South Carolina primary forced him to withdraw, four years later, McCain campaigned heavily for President Bush in his race for a second term. Since he is largely stuck by the administration on the war, despite its increasing unpopularity and the president's sinking approval ratings. At his speech in southern Virginia today, McCain also turned the spotlight on his Democratic opponents, accusing them of putting politics ahead of national security. I would rather lose a campaign than a war. Following several other policy addresses over the next two weeks, McCain will formally announce his candidacy, April 25th, in New Hampshire. For more on the challenges facing the McCain campaign, we turn to Dan Ballts, a veteran political reporter at the Washington Post.

He joins us from the post newsroom. And from New York, Ed Rollins, a long time Republican strategist who is currently not affiliated with any presidential campaign. Ed and Dan, thank you very much for being with us. Dan, to you first, you've read the transcript of what John McCain said, you've seen portions of it. What are your thoughts? Well, Judy, I thought this was a very strong speech by Senator McCain. In some ways, he is capable of making a stronger and more articulate case on behalf of this policy than President Bush is. And that was also the case back in 2004 when he spoke at the Republican National Convention. I think the difference is that he faces a very, very skeptical American public. Yes, Republicans continue to support the war and continue to support the president. But the rest of the country does not. And so he is fighting an uphill battle in trying to persuade people that this is the right policy. And, Rollins, what's your take? You agree with what Dan said? I totally agree with Dan. I think he performed well today.

And I think the speech, obviously, articulated his views. But it's nothing new. It's people have known John has been one of the strongest supporters of the president and the Iraq action for several months of what he did say today is the very significant mistakes have been made. And that's part of the reasons why we're here. But I don't think what's happened to John is people don't see a vision of where he's going to take the country. And he's been running longer than anybody else. And I think to a certain extent, he's got to have an enthusiasm. And he's got to basically recreate what he had in 2000, which was people saw him as a significant leader. I think one of the advantages Giuliani has is people have received him as a strong leader because of what he did in New York and what he did post September 11. And right now, they don't view McCain in the same way. Well, Dan, on what McCain did today in essence, saying this is an historic choice. It's going to affect future generations. He's lashing himself to the Bush policy in so many words. Why is he doing this?

Well, he's been lashed to this policy for a long time, Judy. I think, first of all, he believes in it. I think one thing about John McCain in this war is he supports the war. He's been quite critical of the way it was managed for a long time, but he supports the goals that the president has laid out. And so I think to change course at this point would be even more risky for him. So he stuck to this policy. The problem, as Ed suggested, is that he has become totally identified in terms of his presidential campaign with this war. And at this point, that is not necessarily going to be a winning strategy. He does need to do something to reinvigorate, to get people to look at him in a new way. And that is very difficult for somebody who has been running as long as he has. Ed, you don't see that he had any choice other than to continue to support the war, as he has. I think he obviously has continued to support the war. I just wouldn't make it front and center. I think everybody across the country today who watches McCain or the other candidates realize he supports the president's position. As does Giuliani and as does Romney,

and I'm sure every other Republican, the critical thing here is what's going to be different in a McCain presidency. This is not the third term of George Bush. And if it is, and if that's what it's about, then you're going to lose and lose badly to one of the Democrats. I think he's got to articulate not only his war strategy and what he's going to do to fix the military. What is his foreign policy strategy? Where are we going to go in the Middle East beyond Iraq? And equally as important, what are we going to do domestically to control spending that he's always been an advocate of in the past? There's a lot that John can lay out. But I think the critical thing here today is people don't see the old John, the old fire that he had. And he's got to renew that fire and reinvigorate his own troops. Dan Bolt, what happened to the John McCain campaign? He went into this campaign. Many people considered him automatically the front runner. He ran in 2000, won the New Hampshire primaries. We said, what's happened this year? Well, a couple of things, Judy. One is he can't run the same kind of campaign. He ran in 2000.

He lost that campaign as he said many times. He has to do something different. And he has to reach out to Republicans. He's made a series of strategic bets over the last couple of years. One, obviously, is on Iraq. A second was to try to become, in essence, the inheritor of the Bush network fund raisers, consultants, organizers, and that sort. He has had some success on that, but it has not really paid dividends. His fund raising so far, as you said, has been anemic. The third thing he sought to do, and we saw this earlier last year, was he sought to make himself more acceptable to the conservative, hardcore conservative base of the party. He reached out to Jerry Falwell, had a reproach mount with him. That has not solved his problem with many on the right, who still are quite skeptical of him. So at this point, though he has built a pretty good organization in many places, continues to get endorsements, those bets have not paid off in the way he had hoped by now. Ed Rollins, we know certainly polls aren't everything. We did cite some polling problems. John McCain is having.

There's another poll that came out today. Late this afternoon, the Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg News poll has McCain coming in third. After Giuliani at 29 Fred Thompson, the former Republican Senator at 15 McCain at 12, what's your take on how McCain ended up here? I think the bottom line is the expectations were too high. John and his people assumed he was the inevitable nominee. And John doesn't like to go out and do the kinds of things that you have to do. He likes to go out and give speeches. Public policy speech today. He likes to write around it as bus. He likes to go off to Iraq. The hard, mechanical part of campaign is this fundraising, which you have to do. Hundreds of these fundraising events, John doesn't like to do that. Equally as important, John has been on television more than anybody else, and it's getting to be a tired message. He needs a new message. Why can I lead this country effectively as a man in my 70s? What is my vision for the young people? Where are we going to take this country? How do we basically come out of the morass that we're in as a both as a party and as a nation?

And it's not just about throwing rocks at Democrats. Obviously, the Democrats have a right to take their position on the war. That's where they campaign on this last election and won majorities in the House and the Senate. But we as Republicans, and he is one of the significant Republicans, asked our articulated direction for this country that's different than the Bush direction, which obviously people think has been fairly leaders for a while. Dan, I would ask you to pick up on that. And also this reporting we're seeing more of. There was another story today in the New York Times that Republicans themselves are saying they're not satisfied with the field of candidates out there. Well, I think the one area where John McCain may be able to take some hope is that this is a very unsettled race for the Republican nomination. I talked to a leading Republican yesterday who said it is ironic, but after three hard months of campaigning, this race is more wide open than it was at the start of this year. So while Senator McCain obviously has some problems, neither Mayor Giuliani nor former governor Romney has a leg up in a significant way. I mean, all of them have flaws and question marks,

and that has made interest in Fred Thompson's campaign quite interesting. He revealed today, of course, that he has been diagnosed with form of lymphoma, but it's in remission. That was taken as a sign that he is quite serious about getting into this race. So we have a very unsettled environment in the Republican field. And Ron's, how do you see the field? Your fellow Republicans, what are they saying? Well, I totally agree with everybody's looking for another Reagan, and there's not another Reagan out there. And I think, to a certain extent, Ronald Reagan today is viewed as a very significant leader who had a very clear vision of where he wanted to take the country. And I think Giuliani has basically moved into that leadership role, even though his positions, obviously, alienated a lot of Republicans. I think the race is wide open. I think equally as important. It's a race, Dan, and I've been around this business as a viewed duty for a long time. This is an election cycle we've never seen before. We're going to have a national primary. We're going to basically have an unprecedented amount

of money being spent by these front-running candidates. So there's a long ways to go, and I think the polls are bounced back and forth. But at the end of the day, I think Republicans are going to choose someone they think and win, and equally as important, someone that can lead the country out of the morass that we've been in for the last several years. Thanks for reminding us all, Ed, that we've been at this for a long time. Dan, in terms of what John McCain can do to turn things around, he's got what two more policy speeches he's giving in the near term. Well, he's got two more policy speeches. Then he will do a quote-unquote formal announcement where he'll formally launch his campaign. I think the first thing he has to do is demonstrate that he can really raise the kind of money that he and his campaign had set out to raise. I mean, I've told that the amount of money that he has on hand is not very good, that the campaign may be financially strapped. He's got to really get to work on the fundraising, first of all. And the second is, I think, as Ed suggested, he has to find an energy and a vision and be able to articulate beyond the issue of Iraq, what he wants to do as president to lead the country.

Sounds like he's not going to be getting much sleep. OK, Dan Bolts in Washington, Ed Rollins in New York. Thank you both. Thank you, Judy. Now, using cell phones to track the whereabouts of children and others, Newzauer correspond at Lee Hochberg of Oregon Public Broadcasting Reports. Here you are. Put it in your back, there you can have it. Tommy Fritz of Suburban Seattle made sure that his five-year-old Parker had crayons in his backpack and his cell phone with its global positioning system on his backpack. We got to go, and we're going, Dan, he got to go. Joel Fritz configured his own cell phone so he could track his son throughout the day. Using Verizon Wireless' chaperone service, he called up a map showing Parker's school, and he set his phone to alert him if Parker strayed too far from school.

So I think today is a writing day. It's the new location-based technology through which parents like Fritz can keep 24-hour watch on their children. We've been with them through his whole life, up till age four, we've been in preschool with them, and this is the first time we're, you know, we haven't been with them, then, I mean, I know where he is. Hey, what do we get? Love you. Who's on that? Bye. Global positioning system, or GPS chips, are in an estimated 100 million cellular phones. They're there, so 911 dispatchers can quickly locate cell phone callers. But now, the average cell user can do the same thing. Lock onto another cell user's GPS chip, and pinpoint that phone's location. I can zoom in, depending on what I want to see in a map. Verizon spokesman, say the product has become very popular. Customers pay 10 to $20 a month for it, sprint with its family locator,

and Disney mobile offers similar services. The technology has also been embraced by law enforcement. Colorado authorities found an accused serial rapist by tracking the cell phone he stole from a victim. But there are hints that widening access to people's personal location data has a dark side as well. It's like being a prisoner, in a sense. Sherry Peak says she didn't know much about GPS. But after separating from her husband last summer, the Seattle area mother of two began noticing him wherever she went. I would go to the grocery store, and there would be his car in the parking lot. I would be driving down the road, and he would drive by me. I would be approaching an intersection, and he'd be sitting there. I would be running errands, and see him in my rear view mirror. After several months, local police agreed to examine her car.

So the police ended up removing this last and final portion of the dash, and when they opened this, the phone was tucked in over here. With the GPS, he was tapping into finding out where I was all the time. Her ex-husband was convicted for stalking. Peak got a chilling lesson about GPS technology. This guy can barely hook up a computer. That's why I was so surprised, in the wrong hands, technology can be used against you in horribly threatening dangerous ways. The bottom line is if information is collected, it will be compromised in one form or another. Evan Hendrix examines privacy issues in his internet newsletter privacy times. He believes hackers will steal people's location data, or cell companies will share it with government or businesses. As soon as you create a record, that record can be obtained by other people

for purposes that you've never imagined. A bad apple in Verizon can be selling it out the back door, and it can be used by just commercial interests, or it could be sold to a stalker, if someone's particularly interested in a certain Verizon customer. Verizon Wireless says that worry is unwarranted. You cannot track it. We don't store that information anywhere. Regional President Kelly Kurtzman says the chaperone system's location data goes only to password protected Verizon subscribers. So there's no way for a hacker to be able to go in and get it to get the information. As we developed this system for the chaperone, we were thinking about those bad guys because we know they're out there, so we don't capture those records. Anywhere, we don't cache the information, we don't store the information. So once the request has been completed, that information is deleted, so it's no longer available. But Verizon's other location services may be more vulnerable. Its fleet administrator service

allows Verizon business customers to track the locations of their delivery personnel. That information is stored in Verizon data banks. Fleet administrator tracks the routes the company's drivers take, their driving speed, even how many times their ignition's been turned on. Map display also verifies that all vehicles are doing what they're supposed to be doing. Let's check in with vehicle number two. There he is. Verizon says it's not an infringement on privacy. The company can say, as an employee of this company, our expectations that we can track your truck, track you on the job, and the employee has to agree to that and check the box, yes, we agree to that. In fact, some cell phone users intentionally beam their locations over the internet, using software that can be installed on Sprint's next cell phones. Computer programmer Chuck Fletcher has sold 30,000 copies of his program, MOLO GoGo, to next-sell subscribers. An example here is Taney babe 17,

and is using our service and has shared her location basically with the public. Fletcher says he and his partner wrote MOLO GoGo, so customers could let their friends know where they were. To his surprise, 900 of them, like candy babe, allow themselves to be tracked by anybody. We can see a couple places that she's been around town in the most recent place. So candy babe, her most recent spot is right along Route 75 there. In Florida, maybe where she lives. Fletcher showed us real-time locations of subscribers all around the country. There was this man off Bernwood Drive in Florida. And we can kind of zoom in and see this guy. So his username there is founder one. He looks like a middle-aged gentleman with a suit and tie there. And simple grin in downtown Seattle. So right now, simple grin is right here at five. And whatever these roads are, fourth avenue

or something like that. Yeah, so he's right there. He was philosophical about the risks of people's location that he's being widely available. I think there's a huge amount of benefit to be able to take advantage of sharing more information. We still have to see how much if there's going to be the negatives are going to outweigh that. Or we're going to have a cyber mafia a few years from now, maybe criminals will get smart and take advantage of things like this. It's never really designed as a stalking tool. But it's possible that someone could look at this and say, oh, I want to go, this person's online. Right now, and they were just there. I want to go find them if you want to do a people hunt. And whether that's for good or bad purposes, let me say. But that's this person's choice to make their information available. Ultimately goes to how creepy does all this make you feel. Privacy advocate Hendrix fears, in the end, access to location data won't be driven by personal choice,

but by political and economic pressures. He notes after 9-11, the Bush administration asked phone companies for billions of private phone records. Federal law forbids turning them over without a court order. But most phone companies did so anyway. Verizon's landline division was hit with a $50 billion consumer lawsuit for doing so. Verizon wireless emphasizes it withheld its phone records. Absolutely. Absolutely, we were asked. But we said, no, we would not give that information. Again, trying to protect the privacy of our customers. We take that very seriously. Still, the company says it doesn't believe its location information is actually covered under federal privacy law. Hendrix says the industry really wants to sell that location data to stores, which will use it, to target market, sell users. Data about us and where we go and our choice is so valuable that there's always

going to be sides of the company that are saying we, you know, if we can just use this information, we can increase our revenue growth by this percent. Usually the marketing people within the company win those fights. Verizon acknowledges it's looking at that market. I think the opportunity is huge out there. And certainly if the customers are saying, gosh, I'd like to be notified when I'm near Starbucks or where the next gas station might be or whatever. Those are information, those are services that we're certainly looking at potentially offering in the future. But we're not looking to sell cart blanche, our customer information to say, gosh, we can make some money on this. Whoever makes money off of it, it's clear, a most important feature for cell phone users and sellers will become like in real estate, location, location, location. Finally tonight, the second of our conversations on climate change. Last night, Ray Suarez talked about a cap and trade

system to reduce emissions. Tonight, it's about a different kind of idea. One proposal for reducing greenhouse gases is to tax carbon dioxide emissions. It's often referred to as a carbon tax. How would it work? For that, we turned to Daniel Rosenbloom, an environmental attorney and co-founder of the Carbon Tax Center in New York City, a group advocating taxing all CO2 emissions in Daniel Rosenbloom, who would pay it and how would you impose it? Everybody would pay it. It'll be a tax that's imposed on carbon and the carbon content of fuel. So if you have more carbon content of fuel, content of fuel like coal, you pay a higher, privy to your price. It'll be passed through to the ultimate customer is what it'll be imposed at the top of the supply chain. So whenever the refiners or the oil companies sell oil into the pipeline, there'll be a tax imposed there. When you take coal out of the ground,

it'll be taxed as it goes into commerce. The cost will then be passed onto the ultimate consumer. So when I buy electricity, when I buy gas from my car, I'll pay the tax then. How would that eventually reduce the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere? There are costs, society incurs when carbon is emitted and nobody pays for it right now. Because it's free, nobody cares about it. So we put a price on carbon and people start to use less, how electric generation, electric generators will use less coal, more gas, more wind, more solar, in order to pay less tax. In order to avoid the tax on the coal, individuals will probably get a more efficient car, they'll drive less, they'll do whatever they can to avoid paying for the carbon tax on their gasoline. So we're starting about a fairly low starter tax. We're talking about a $37, a ton of carbon tax, which

would equate to roughly 10 cents a gallon of gasoline or average across the country, maybe 0.72 cents per kilowatt hour, less than a penny a kilowatt hour. And then we propose increasing the tax each year by that same amount. So it's gradually phased in. One major advantage of that is it gives people time to adapt. And it gives people time to plan. We're talking about a very clear trajectory. So businesses trying to decide what to do with their future investments will say, well, we know prices are going up like this. So it makes good sense to invest in a high efficiency motor. So it gives them sustainability, which they wouldn't do, otherwise they need that predictability and a carbon tax gives it. Well, how do we know then that raising the tax will actually decrease usage or decrease emissions? Just in the past few years, we've seen gas go from 99 cents a gallon to 350. And it hasn't had too big an impact on the way people drive or how many miles they drive.

You expect to have gas and consumption rise with GDP as the economy grows, gasoline consumption grows. Gas and consumption has not grown as much as the economy. And that suggests there hasn't fact in a very real impact of higher prices. Now it goes back and forth, and people are subject to kind of wide changes in the market recently. But when you have a very clear trajectory going up, you're going to have a different message to consumers. Right now they don't know if it's going to go up and half a dollar next week and down a dollar next week, a week after. Under a carbon tax, they're going to know. They're going to know that carbon tax is going up and up and up and up. There's no getting around it, so they're going to know they're going to have to respond to it. And they haven't had that information. Tax is in 21st century America, a pretty dirty word. How would imposing a tax be the most efficient way of setting the market loose to use the energy more efficiently? Well, can I girth for a minute and talk

about what a tough word it is to deal with? Because it's a T-word. And people have very, very frightened of it. And people say carbon tax, it may make very good sense, but politicians aren't going to want to vote for a tax. Well, we're talking about it's called Progressive Tax Shifting. So we're talking about a tax with the revenues used to offset payroll taxes or to be used to provide a rebate to all Americans. So it'll be a revenue neutral tax, a tax, but individuals won't pay any more because of it. So it's actually not something that you can relate to as a normal tax. Do you have plans for that revenue? Is there something that that money collected for burning inefficiently gets spent on? Oh, yeah, this is a revenue neutral tax. We're proposing that all the monies that are received from the carbon tax go back to all Americans, either by offsetting the payroll tax or through a rebate to all Americans, kind of like the Alaska Permanent Fund, Alaska rebates all the oil royalties they got.

So in fact, most customers, most people who use fuel for a home or for driving will end up coming out ahead. But the economy benefits under other programs, for example, cap and trade. Cap and trade also has a price signal. It puts a price on on carbon. The big difference there is under cap and trade that money doesn't go back to the people who are painted. It's going to go to the people in the market. It's going to go to the lawyers of the consultancy economists who are all trying to make the market work. So it's a big difference. But in a carbon tax, even though it has a tax word, the money actually goes back. It's called progressive tax shifting. Raise one tax, reduce another. You tax the bad. You tax pollution instead of productive work. But don't you have to set up a fairly complicated machinery in order to get that money back into people's hands? Oh, in a contrary. No. Like I said, you can use it just to offset payroll taxes. And that's very easy.

You just reduce the payroll taxes. That's just changing a couple of numbers in what business is pay. And a rebate, it's been done in Alaska. It's not a difficult project. How do you set the level of tax? Because if you set it too high, that might just chase people to places where there is no tax. We're starting national. And there is the issue of leakage or the border issue that people will try to avoid it by going across state lines if it's the state tax or to another country. For example, industry may prefer to try to produce in another country without a carbon tax. So global is the goal eventually. But is there any indication that the rest of the world is ready to sign on to this? A sort of, if you do it, then I'll do it kind of a relationship? Not yet. There is more and more of a recognition that we have to do something to reduce carbon emissions. And there, I think, are very good arguments that it's a whole lot easier to do a carbon tax than to do a cap and trade program, for example,

internationally. And the important point is you have to put a price on carbon. Does this work quickly? Or are we looking at a decades-long process of putting this into it? There's more of a response to price over the longer period, because it takes a while to start to turn over your set of appliances, your car fleet. So over a period of years, yeah, you're going to have a very real effect. We're thinking of about 4% the first year. And going up from there. Daniel Rosenblum. Thanks for joining us. My pleasure. Thank you very much. We'll have more conversations about climate change in the coming days. You can find transcripts of the previous ones on our website at pbs.org. And again, the major developments of this day, the US Army extended the tours for all active duty units in Iraq and Afghanistan by three months. And late today, MSNBC announced it has permanently

dropped its similar cast of the Don I'm As Radio Show, the move followed a firestorm of criticism over his racial and sexual insult of the Rutgers women's basketball team. And the US Senate voted to expand federal funding for research on embryonic stem cells. The president has said he'll veto that bill. We'll see you online. And again here, tomorrow evening, I'm Jim Lara. Thank you and good night. Major funding for the news hour with Jim Lara is provided by. Each person has a unique way of seeing the world. That's why, for over 135 years, Pacific Life has offered the power of choice. Pacific Life provides a full power of financial and estate planning solutions to help you achieve your vision of your future. Pacific Life, the power to help you succeed.

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On the news hour tonight, the news of this Wednesday, then an update on the never ending, ever worsening genocide in Darfur. And enter a look at the ups and downs of John McCain's presidential campaign, a news hour report on using cell phones as tracking devices, and another of our conversations on what to do about climate change. Tonight, a carbon tax. Major funding for the news hour with Jim Lehrer is provided by. What will be their internet? How far will their network stretch? Will their whole world be wireless? Wherever they lead us, we're building a company now where data, video, voice,

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