American Morning
Secret Service probes Facebook poll on Obama
(CNN) - The social networking site Facebook on Monday pulled a third-party application that allows users to create polls after a site member built a poll asking if President Obama should be killed.
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/POLITICS/09/28/facebook.poll/art.facebook.cnn.jpg caption="There are more than 350,000 applications on Facebook. The company says it disables any that violate its terms."]
The U.S. Secret Service, the agency assigned to protect the president, has launched an investigation, agency spokesman James Mackin said.
"As is usually the case, our vigilant users reported it to us first," Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt told CNN. "The USSS [Secret Service] sent us an e-mail late this morning PDT asking us to take it down. At that point, it had already been removed, and we let them know."
Schnitt said the application "was immediately suspended while the inappropriate content could be removed by the developer and until such time as the developer institutes better procedures to monitor their user-generated content."
Twitter user outs president's 'jackass' comment
President Obama thought his comments about Kanye West were off the record when he called the singer a "jackass." They came during an interview with CNBC. The remark was overheard by people at ABC who then tweeted about it. So just what is fair game for tweeting while you are at work?
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/09/16/lewis.regina.art.jpg caption="Regina Lewis says it's important for employees to know their company's social networking policy."]
Regina Lewis is AOL’s consumer adviser and author of "Wired in a Week." She spoke to John Roberts on CNN’s “American Morning” Wednesday. Below is an edited transcript of the interview.
John Roberts: Let's just illuminate for folks at home what the tweet was that sort of launched a thousand conversations. It said, “Pres. Obama just called Kanye West a 'jackass' for his outburst at the VMAs when Taylor Swift won. Now THAT'S presidential.” ABC News says it was wrong for that tweet to go out. So I guess the caution here is be careful what you tweet these days?
Regina Lewis: Yeah. They are saying the threshold should be the same as if it was published on ABC.com, which has raised all kinds of questions within the journalism community. But it extends beyond that to everybody else at work. And that's got a lot of companies scrambling to update their business code of conduct and create things called acceptable use policies around social networking, which tweets would fall under.
Lower your exposure to cell phone radiation
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/09/09/cell.phone.gi.art.jpg caption="Environmental Working Group has assembled an online guide to cell phone radiation, rating more than 1,000 phones in the U.S."]
(PRESS RELEASE) –- Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) research team has assembled the most comprehensive online consumer guide ever to cell phone radiation, rating more than 1,000 cell phones marketed in the U.S.
With this free, user-friendly online tool, consumers can make informed decisions about which cell phones to buy. The EWG guide uses easy-to-read graphics to illustrate each phone’s radiofrequency emissions, enabling consumers to make quick comparisons of radiation output of various wireless devices.
EWG’s top 10 phones, based on low emissions:
- Samsung Impression (SGH-a877) [AT&T]
- Motorola RAZR V8 [CellularONE]
- Samsung SGH-t229 [T-Mobile]
- Samsung Rugby (SGH-a837) [AT&T]
- Samsung Propel Pro (SGH-i627) [AT&T]
- Samsung Gravity (SGH-t459) [CellularONE, T-Mobile]
- T-Mobile Sidekick [T-Mobile]
- LG Xenon (GR500) [AT&T]
- Motorola Karma QA1 [AT&T]
- Sanyo Katana II [Kajeet]
EWG’s list of highest radiation phones:
- Motorola MOTO VU204 [Verizon Wireless]
- T-Mobile myTouch 3G [T-Mobile]
- Kyocera Jax S1300 [Virgin Mobile]
- Blackberry Curve 8330 [Sprint, U.S. Cellular, Verizon Wireless, MetroPCS]
- Motorola W385 [U.S. Cellular, Verizon Wireless]
- T-Mobile Shadow [T-Mobile]
- Motorola C290 [Sprint, Kajeet]
- Motorola i335 [Sprint]
- Motorola MOTO VE240 [Cricket, MetroPCS]
- Blackberry Bold 9000 [AT&T]
Give president power to take over the Internet?
In the 1960s, it was the stuff of science fiction – connecting the world through personal computers. 40 years ago today, the Internet was born and since then it has transformed our lives with tweets, e-mails, blogs and a whole lot more.
Its growth has also put our security at risk with just about everything plugged in these days. Washington's current effort to beef up cyber security has some critics concerned.
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/09/02/thompson.nick.art.jpg caption="Nick Thompson of Wired magazine says cyber security is a serious problem, particularly for the United States."]
Nick Thompson is the senior editor at Wired magazine. He joined John Roberts on CNN’s “American Morning” Wednesday.
John Roberts: The story is out there Congress is fashioning a bill that would give the president the power to take over the Internet. And any suggestion that the government could take over the Internet just drives people who have that libertarian view of the World Wide Web crazy.
Nick Thompson: Absolutely and there are a lot of people who have the libertarian view of the Internet. And if the government really were going to take over the Internet it would be a terrible idea. You can imagine a situation where there’s a coup d'état – “They take over the Internet. Well, dissent is supposed to spread on the Internet so it would block the people’s opportunity to protest against the government. It would be just awful.”
Roberts: Okay, so there’s a bill in the Senate. Jay Rockefeller’s committee is writing it. It did have some language in it that was troubling to people early on this year. It said it would "give the president the power to order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic." Since then the bill's been rewritten somewhat. Now it would just give the president the power to declare a cyber security emergency, do what's necessary to respond to the threat. But really does it give the president the power to take over the Internet?
Thompson: No, absolutely not. The early version was troubling. It came out on April 1st. It looked like a bad April Fool's joke. The new version – it’s so bland. It says, if there's a cyber emergency the president may, if he thinks it's necessary, direct the response in coordination with the private sector. There are about five hedges built into it. It basically gives the president no additional powers than he already has and in fact Obama has been very clear that he does not want to take over private networks.
FDNY's newest training tool: high-rise simulator
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/07/09/signage.simulator.randall.island.art.jpg caption="The sign upon entering the subway component."]
From CNN Associate Producer Erica Fink
FDNY firefighters are now training on the world’s first high rise fire simulator, and they took us along for a morning of drills at the Fire Academy, or as they call it, “The Rock.”
The building simulates conditions unique to high rise fires: a person stuck in an elevator shaft; people stuck in the windowsills of burning rooms, many floors high; rooms with old or poor ventilation; apartments and offices illegally divided into very small rooms. And while the building itself is only five stories tall, the drills require engine companies to react as if they are 40 or 50 stories off the ground (there’s a trampoline on the side of the building, but they’re not allowed to jump off the roof.)
As many as fifteen times a day, they set the building on fire with a remote control. Deb got to play victim as one squad company practiced a rope rescue from the fourth floor.
Until the simulator was built, firefighters practiced on unused portions of working office buildings (imagine sitting at your desk and seeing a firefighter repelling from the roof past your window). Worse yet, they only got to do it a couple of times a year and it wasn’t real fire - they would practice without smoke or water.
The academy looks like something out of Hollywood. They have fake street scenes, burnt down busses, and a full-fledged subway station for firefighters to practice rescuing people stuck beneath subway trains (I crawled under one of the subway cars and there really is headroom if you get stuck under one…but I’m glad the FDNY is practiced on getting folks out of there.) Check out the videos and our exclusive behind the scenes photos.
Actor Denis Leary and the Leary Firefighters Foundation partly backed the project, with the rest of the funding coming from the Department of Homeland Security. Watch our one-on-one interview with Leary.
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/07/09/simulator.smoke.building.art.jpg caption="Simulated building fire"]
Every day, all day, different ladder and engine companies come through the facility to train on simulated fires.
The FDNY took us through a drill with a ladder company to see them in action: we saw them combat flames over head, kick doors down, do a gurney rescue down an elevator shaft, and climb through windows.
The facility was the subject of an international symposium in March, where fire fighters from around the country came to learn about the facility to replicate in their own cities, easily applicable to Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington, DC.
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