rockefeller

Representatives from some of the post-transaction marketing firms now under government scrutiny for allegedly duping consumers into signing up for membership programs are trying to whip up support on Capitol Hill.

According to my sources in Washington, D.C., some of the marketers have sent representatives to meet with individual lawmakers about taking up their side as the U.S. Senate commerce committee continues to investigate the practices of three firms: Webloyalty, Affinion, and Vertrue.

These companies, all based in Connecticut, are accused by Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.V.), the committee's chairman, of misleading as many as 30 million … Read more

The nightmare of the mysterious debit card charges began this way for Caroline Butler:

She noticed that Privacy Matters 123, a membership program she had never heard of, was charging her $20 every month. She had no idea how to get her money back or even how to get the company to stop. All she knew was that they were draining the bank account used to help pay the medical bills for her 18-year-old daughter, a cancer patient.

Somehow, Butler, a freelance photographer from Paducah, Ky., unintentionally enrolled in the membership program during a visit to social-networking site, Classmates.com, … Read more

Now, don't get any wrong ideas, the show title might sound dirty, but it's actually just a reference to our parent company, the wonderful Columbia Broadcast System, or CBS. Unfortunately, Dan the Former Mantern is no longer with us, but we're happy that he just moved laterally to PBS and WNET.org's Thirteen. In fact, he joins us on today's show to help promote a local documentary he's working on featuring yours truly! It's a spotlight on New Yorkers whose lives were changed after visiting one of America's National Parks, and what a coincidence--I just got back from a trip to Yosemite!

Dan and I collaborated on this project, which will air on Thirteen this Sunday, September 27, at 10 p.m. EDT. Everyone else can catch the special on the Thirteen Web site, which we'll also link to after the premiere.

Dan sticks around after this shameless self-promotion to help us discuss a few stories from around the Internet, including a horribly offensive Ching-Chong iPhone App. The cheesy little game produces the same ambiguous messages you find in fortune cookies, but the catch is that the app actually reads the message outloud in a voice that bears a disturbing similarity to Verbose Asian Guy. Of course, Jeff, Dan, and even Wilson (shame on you, Wilson) practically force him out of retirement, and we even get a glimpse of Jeff's priceless Woody Allen impression...TONS of laughs in today's show!

After we play the second Caribbean Call From the Public, we run through Rotten Tomatoes' Top 25 Worst Movies of the Decade. We're not surprised to see most that most of the titles are straight to DVD movies, so we take it upon ourselves to name off a few of our own picks, including "Gigli," "Jersey Girl," "Kangaroo Jack," "Cool World," and more. Let us know in the comments what your top picks are, or call us at 1-855-404-CNET and leave a voice-mail for Monday's Jeff-less show. Have a great weekend!

Two U.S. senators introduced legislation on Wednesday that calls for naming a national cybersecurity adviser who reports directly to the president and who would have the authority to disconnect federal or critical infrastructure networks from the Internet if they were deemed to be at risk of attack.

This proposed legislation comes amid a review ordered by the Obama administration into the government's policies for defending itself against cyberattacks and follows the resignation of Rod Beckström as director of Homeland Security's National Cybersecurity Center in response to what he said was a power grab by the … Read more

The U.S. Senate is investigating allegations by two National Security Agency whistleblowers who have described widespread monitoring of innocuous telephone conversations by the Bush administration's clandestine program.

The reports fill in some details about how the NSA's program works in practice. The two whistleblowers, Adrienne Kinne and David Murfee Faulk, are former military linguists who worked for a secretive NSA operation they say routinely intercepted phone calls of U.S. military officers, American journalists, American aid workers, and others who were calling home from abroad.

The two ex-military employees came forward independently and spoke to ABC News … Read more

If you're going to be in New York City this Saturday, you might want to swing by the Nintendo World Store at Rockefeller Center. Majesco will be holding the Cooking Mama: Cook Off Challenge at Nintendo World on March 31 from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Like most P.R. events, this promises to have free food, prizes, and other cool reasons for Nintendo fanboys, bored gamers, and shameless mooches to attend.

The event will have an on-site chef (read: caterers with hats) offering snacks to hungry gamers while they play Cooking Mama: Cook Off … Read more