Congressman Peter King accuses the White House of 'stonewalling'

CNN

The ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee accused the White House of "stonewalling" Thursday by blocking its top social planner from testifying at a hearing on a security breach.

New York Rep. Peter King was angered by the administration's refusal to let Social Secretary Desiree Rogers speak at a hearing examining how a Virginia couple was able to enter the White House for a state dinner last week, even though they were not on the guest list.

Rogers' office planned the dinner.

Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan testified Thursday that there was a lone agent at the initial checkpoint where Tareq and Michaele Salahi entered the White House grounds. He acknowledged that if someone from the social secretary's office had been there, the couple may have been stopped.

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Aid agencies say young women are being forced into prostitution around the world – including Russia's capital.

Tanya M. Acker
AC360° Contributor
Attorney

At the Women’s Conference hosted by Governor Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver last week, I listened to Somaly Mam, a human rights activist who has made the liberation of girls from sex slavery her life’s work, describe her experience of being sold into sex slavery in Cambodia at 10 or 12-years-old. (Ms. Mam did not know exactly how old she was when she was first imprisoned in the brothel, as she lost all conception of time during her confinement.)

She talked about the fact that child sex slaves are raped sometimes 20 to 30 times a day and also described the horror of watching her best friend murdered, an event which ultimately prompted her to attempt a successful escape.

I then heard Ms. Mam and Nicholas Kristof describe the widespread tragedy that is the global sex trade in girls and how in many cases, as these girls are valued by their brothel masters at only a few hundred dollars a person, those brothel owners often think it efficient to execute the “recalcitrants” publicly in order to send a lesson to the others.

And then, as I listened to Lisa Ling correctly point out that much of what passes for “news” these days consists of talking heads yelling at one another, I thought about how, as one of those talking heads, I have spent more time arguing with right wing anchors about such inanities as whether the President is simultaneously a socialist and fascist who wants to impose his own version of martial law, than I have discussing the plight of these girls.

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Editor's Note: We’ve spent some time recently exploring the problem of bystander apathy and the battle against the “stop snitching” culture. While we continue to hold community leaders accountable for keeping us safe, we took a moment to talk to two of our safety experts about some of the most basic ways individuals matter.

A 15-year-old girl was gang raped on the campus of Richmond High School in Northern California.

AC360°

AC360°'s Alyssa Caplan asked Phil Messina, President of  Modern Warrior Inc., and Lou Palumbo, Retired Law Enforcement Agent & Director of Elite Intelligence and Protection Agency, for their thoughts on the topic.

We all saw the disturbing story play out this summer of two police officers following their intuition leading to the release of kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard. We’ve also recently seen a catastrophic failure of human behavior in the sickening gang rape that took place a few weekends ago at Richmond High. Everyday, in every corner of the country, people’s worlds collide in big and small ways. What are some simple steps the average citizen can take to be a "Good Samaritan?"

LOU: Be vigilant; be aware or mindful of your environment and those in it. Be prepared with a plan to react to an incident, for example, understanding the need to call 911 immediately, employ the practice of yelling “FIRE”…..it always attracts attention. Remember to use your cell phone to help identify those involved in an incident.

PHIL: SPEAK UP! Be a great observer, notice details. If you’re on the fence about what to do, ask yourself, “If not me, then who; if not now, then when?” Learn how to protect yourself and in doing so, you learn how to protect others and from there on in, the choice is yours. We have a saying at Modern Warrior: “Your Survival Begins And Ends WithYou.” It’s the first thing we tell the students who come to our school. It comes down to making a choice – are you going to put your destiny in the hands of others or are you going to keep it in your own?

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AC360°

The DNC is targeting Sarah Palin directly, encouraging supporters to attack the former Alaska governor on Facebook in order to "debunk her lies."

On its new web site, the DNC asks supporters to call out Palin when she uses Facebook to transmit what the committee says are falsehoods.

Check out the DNC's new website - and its campaign to 'Call 'em Out' - on the site.

Editor's Note: This article continues our series excerpted from AC360°'s contributor David Gewirtz's upcoming book, How To Save Jobs, which will be available in December. Over the next few months, we'll be excerpting the first section of the book, which answers the question, "How did we get here?". Last week, we discussed A short history of jobs This time, we'll look at riots, massacres and the transactional nature of work. To learn more about the book, you should follow David on Twitter @DavidGewirtz.

Protesters in the United Kingdom gathered outside an oil refinery this summer, after hundreds of striking workers were laid off.

David Gewirtz | BIO
AC360° Contributor
Editor-in-Chief, ZATZ Publishing

In today's civilization, it's virtually impossible to survive without money. One-hundred-and-fifty centuries ago, if a Natufian wanted to build a hut, he'd find an empty spot of land and dig. But, today, if an American wants to build a house (or even a hut), land has to be bought. If you want to live inside a structure, a transaction of some sort has to take place and that requires money.

It is the transactional nature of a job that creates its complexity in terms of the rest of society. If you want to work for someone else (and have them pay you), you have to convince them that employing you will meet their needs. If you're self-employed, you have to convince prospective clients and customers that hiring you will meet their needs.

In other words, getting a job or getting a gig requires some level of marketing to make someone aware you're there to do the job and some level of sales to convince them you're the right person for the job.

Over the centuries, the nature of work evolved to eventually result in the world of employment we've all come to know and love. There's now always someone buying work and someone else selling it.

The transactional nature of work has also led to all sorts of power imbalances. When there's too much work and not enough workers, it's a seller's market and the workers have more power over what jobs they accept and at what pay level.

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Debris clutters a road in Pago Pago, American Samoa, after a devastating earthquake and tsunami last month.

Drew Griffin | BIO
CNN Investigative Correspondent

It’s New Orleans all over again. Just 2,600 miles south of Hawaii, so nobody is noticing.

American Samoa IS an American territory, but in some parts, it looked to me like the third world. Children rummaging through broken scraps of what once was a house, a woman making the family meal on an outside counter made from a broken door. A three- year-old, yes just three, walking barefoot through a debris field filled with nails. And where was any sign of government help? Nowhere.

After a devastating tsunami rocked the territory on September 29th, we got a tip by email.

The email told us American Samoa had a grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to build a tsunami warning siren system. The system was never built. Thirty-four people died. And it's now the subject of an FBI investigation.

But the trip also uncovered much more: American Samoa’s government has been unresponsive to the needs of its hardest-hit villages. Billions of dollars in U.S. government handouts to this island show little to no signs of doing any good, and despite all the money taxpayers send here, very few federal officials have bothered to find out where it has been spent.

You will see the first of our reports tonight. When you watch, ask yourself what I kept asking: is this really America?

Dr. Reef Karim
Assistant Clinical Professor, UCLA
Director, Control Center (for Addictions)

Sex Addiction, also known as compulsive sexual behavior or hypersexual disorder, is characterized by inappropriate or excessive sexual behaviors or thoughts that lead to subjective distress or impaired functioning. Sex Addicts have an inability to regulate their own feelings and act out sexually in order to deal with their negative feeling states.

Behavioral Addictions like sex addiction, pathologic gambling, compulsive shopping, internet/videogame addiction and disordered eating appear to be growing due to our higher paced society and the internet. Our treatment must keep up with our technology.

For more information go here...

Program Note: Watch Randi Kaye's full report – including her interview with David Martin tonight on AC360° at 10 p.m. ET.

A photograph of Cameron Todd Willingham.

Randi Kaye| BIO
AC360° Correspondent

I came to Texas this week to look deeper into a story I’ve been covering for a few years now for AC360°.

It’s the story of Cameron Todd Willingham, a father of three who was executed in February 2004 for setting a fire that killed his three daughters. But what if he didn’t set it? What if he just got a lame defense? Is it possible?

We wanted to know why he was convicted of “arson homicide” even though since the trial nine leading arson experts have said the fire showed no evidence of arson. So why was he executed?

We went straight to one of Willingham’s defense attorneys, David Martin, for some answers. We met at his Waco office, hours away from where the fire took place in the tiny town of Corsicana. Martin’s office was true Texas. It felt more like a ranch than a law office. We sat down in a couple of over-sized chairs (everything is bigger in Texas, you know) and talked about the case.

I asked Martin how it was possible that the prosecution put two experts on the stand who said the fire was arson, and yet Martin didn’t put anyone on the stand to refute their arguments. Why no expert to say the fire wasn’t arson in Willingham’s defense?

Martin told me, “We couldn’t find one that said it wasn’t arson.”

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The National Academy of Sciences found that U.S. crime labs lack uniform standards, training and oversight.

Just Science Coalition

Unvalidated or improper forensic science is a leading cause of wrongful conviction in the United States.

As a result, forensic analysts sometimes testify in cases without a proper scientific basis for their findings. Testimony based on forensics can therefore lack basic scientific standards. Even within forensic disciplines that are more firmly grounded in science, evidence is often subject to dispute.

In 2006, Congress appropriated funds to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to thoroughly study the fundamental underpinnings of forensic science and its applications in our criminal justice system.

A NAS panel was formed – including scientists, academics, a retired federal judge, and other notable experts. Over a period of 18 months, the group conducted comprehensive research on forensic disciplines and released a This Committee on Identifying the Needs of the Forensic Sciences Community released its final report, Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward, in February 2009.

As outlined in the report, many forensic disciplines have evolved primarily through their use in individual cases and have not been scientifically validated or standardized.

Take a look at the report’s 13 key recommendations.

Editor's Note: An investigation into the deaths of two people who spent up to two hours inside a "sweat lodge" at an Arizona retreat last week has been elevated from an accidental death investigation to a homicide inquiry, Yavapai County Sheriff Steve Waugh told reporters Thursday.