Politics and Law

With Thursday night's finale at the Republican National Convention, the preliminaries of the 2008 presidential contest are over and done with--on to the general election in November.

The centerpiece of the Republican event Thursday in St. Paul, Minn., was the acceptance speech by nominee John McCain. The senator from Arizona offered up his vision for what the country can expect if he and running mate Sarah Palin are sworn into office in January.

Get the full lowdown on the night's proceedings from Katie Couric and the CBS News team:

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John McCain's announcement last week that he has chosen Sarah Palin as his running mate left the public thirsting for information about the Alaska governor-- and inspired hundreds of commentators, entrepreneurs, and Palin imitators to try to fill in the gaps.

A would-be Palin shares her inner-most thoughts on "The PalinDrome: Sarah Palin's Blog". A faux Levi Johnston (that'd be Palin's soon-to-be son-in-law, for those of you out of the loop) can also be found online.

You can join one of the hundreds of new Facebook groups passing judgment about Palin-- ranging from "Sarah Palin has more Executive experience than Obama and Biden combined" to "I have more Foreign Policy Experience than Sarah Palin." There is even a Governor Palin Facebook application... that doesn't seem to have any sort of application.

There are plenty of crude references to Palin online--on the less offensive side, one can buy merchandise calling Palin a "Babe-raham Lincoln."

If Palin doesn't suffice as your VP pick, one site recommends you try her out as your new Segway.

It's also interesting to note what you can't find on Palin on the Internet. As pointed out on Versionista, the Palin for Governor site disappeared the morning she was announced as McCain's running mate.

There could be a lot to glean about Palin's views and policy positions from her churchgoing history, the Huffington Post pointed out Tuesday. However, the archived sermons cited in the article are now inaccessible.

And, of course, the most authoritative site on the Internet--Wikipedia--has changed the story of Palin numerous times.

Of course, one could always turn to Palin's official biography for more information--but what fun would that be?

John McCain says nation must drill new oil wells now, while supporting innovative transportation technologies and "the use of wind, tide, solar and natural gas."

(Credit: Declan McCullagh/CNET News)

ST. PAUL, Minn.--John McCain formally accepted the Republican Party's presidential nomination here on Thursday in a speech extolling the virtues of both oil drilling and green energy.

The Arizona senator received one of his loudest rounds of applause when he lashed out at his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, and characterized the dispute over oil drilling as a matter of international relations and security as well as economics.

"We are going to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much," McCain said. "We will attack the problem on every front. We will produce more energy at home. We will drill new wells offshore, and we'll drill them now."

He added: "Sen. Obama thinks we can achieve energy independence without more drilling and without more nuclear power. But Americans know better than that. We must use all resources and develop all technologies necessary to rescue our economy from the damage caused by rising oil prices and to restore the health of our planet."

McCain's speech comes a day after Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, his vice presidential pick, said her state was ready to provide more energy for America. "The fact that drilling won't solve every problem is no excuse to do nothing at all," she said.

McCain went out of his way to tout green technology. In addition to building more nuclear power plants, he said: "We will develop clean coal technology. We will increase the use of wind, tide, solar, and natural gas. We will encourage the development and use of flex fuel, hybrid and electric automobiles."

A comparison of McCain and Obama's energy plans shows that the Republican opposes existing federal government ethanol production targets and would eliminate a tariff on Brazilian ethanol, a move that would expose U.S. producers to more competition. Obama supports the ethanol regulations (one factor that has led to higher corn prices), wants to raise automotive fuel-efficiency rules, and is not willing at the moment to support expanding nuclear power.

Last month, Obama signaled he might be open to new offshore drilling in some circumstances.

ST. PAUL, Minn.--Republicans like to call Democrats a party of "celebrities," but the GOP sometimes finds value in star power as well.

Cris Carter, the former NFL wide receiver who played for the Minnesota Vikings, was in town for the Republican convention to promote a video game called Financial Football that Visa designed with the NFL as part of a national initiative to educate young adults about money management. The Young Republican National Federation and the College Republican National Committee were also promoting the game.

(Credit: Visa)

Developed in 2004, the computer-based game gives players points for answering financial management questions correctly, while wrong answers cost a team yardage. Like a regular football game, the team with the highest point total after four quarters wins the game. The game comes with a classroom curriculum that Visa has freely provided to public schools in 16 states. Financial Football can also be downloaded for free to cell phones--players start a game by texting the word VISA to 24421.

"Young people need to know how to make smart money management decisions before heading off to college and entering the workforce," Carter said in a press release.

College certainly gives young people an opportunity to learn about fiscal responsibility: credit card companies often make deals to pay colleges and alumni associations millions of dollars for access to students' personal contact information in order to target their marketing efforts at young people. A U.S. Public Interest Research Groups survey conducted this year found that two-thirds of college students have at least one card, and the average student surveyed will graduate with more than $2,600 in credit card debt.

Visa also held a Financial Football event at last week's Democratic National Convention in Denver with former Denver Broncos wide receiver Rod Smith.

ST. PAUL, Minn.--The tremendous jump in online requests for sexual services that seems to occur during large political conventions has placed police departments and advocacy groups on the alert.

Denver and St. Paul police, as well as nonprofits the Klaas Foundation and the Polaris Project, have turned to classified advertising Web sites like Craigslist to monitor such illegal activities during the Democratic and Republican conventions.

The Colorado branch of the Polaris Project, a national organization that combats human trafficking, monitored ads on Craigslist, particularly in the "casual encounters" section, from April 1 through the Democratic convention last month.

"This is one way we can publicly document participation in the commercial sex industry and the increase during large events," said Amanda Finger, the coordinator for Polaris Project Colorado.

The results mirrored what CNET News reported last week, according to Finger. She said through July, there was an average of 390 posts per day requesting sexual services, but that the ads spiked to more than 800 per day on Monday and Tuesday during the week of the convention. She said the online activity is typical for an event of that type.

Carl Ferrer, founder of classifieds site Backpage.com, said that large events do spur an increase in postings in all of the site's categories, including its adult section.

To be sure, neither the police nor the advocacy groups turned up any evidence of human trafficking--meaning the involvement of people under 18 years old, or situations involving coercion--at either the Denver or St. Paul conventions. Nor was there evidence of additional prostitution, at least in the form of increased arrests.

The Denver police department, according to a report in The Denver Post, has not seen an increase in online prostitution ads during the week of the convention (the department did not return our phone calls for this story). Similarly, the St. Paul police department has not seen any unusual illegal activity online during the Republican convention, according to Tom Walsh, the department's public information officer--although he added: "We have information that supports the idea that human trafficking and prostitution increases during large events."

This raises the possibility that there may be zero human trafficking and minimal additional prostitution occurring during these events--and the spike in sex ads online amounts simply to more people in town partaking in a perfectly legal practice between consenting adults.

In preparation for the Republican convention, the St. Paul police contacted police departments in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and San Diego--the previous locations of the last few Republican and Democratic conventions.

"St. Paul takes the idea of human trafficking very seriously," Walsh said.

Even with other departments' help, however, "we're learning as we go," he said. "Four years ago, the Internet wasn't the tool it is today."

A nationwide effort
The Klaas Foundation, a national organization that helps to locate missing children, has found a number of ads for high profile escorts servicing the Denver and St. Paul areas explicitly for the conventions, according to Brad Dennis, the director for the foundation's national search center for missing and trafficked children.

"The activity is unusually high," Dennis said. "They're coming in for the conventions--that's exactly what they put on their Web sites."

The Klaas Foundation monitored more than 135 sites for Denver-based sexual services during the Democratic convention, as well as about 80 targeted at St. Paul during the Republican convention, for any indications of child sex trafficking.

Dennis said the organization has not found any ads in either region indicative of child trafficking.

"We do it for large events to help us understand the situation better and to see if we can find some child that is listed as missing," he said.

Overall, the Klaas Foundation is currently monitoring more than 300 sites for suspicious sexual ads. Besides those affiliated with the political conventions, they're also monitoring sites in regions of the country where there are missing children, in the event they are being prostituted by human traffickers.

Anyone under the age of 18 who is providing commercial sexual services would be considered a victim under Trafficking Victims Protection Act (PDF) if there is another person benefiting from the minor's services, such as a pimp.

Dennis said the Klaas Foundation looks for certain indications on Web sites of trafficking, such as key words having to do with age, out-of-state phone numbers, or photographs that hide a person's face. He said the Klaas Foundation searches Craigslist, Backpage.com, and a number of other sites that he would not disclose.

"There are sites we monitor with law enforcement circles, but we don't think they know about the monitoring," he said. "Craigslist and BackPage know we're on there, but people on those sites don't care. Quite frankly, the ads are getting worse and worse."

Web sites try to discourage trafficking
Contrary to Dennis' findings, Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster told us: "The trend on Craigslist is clearly positive."

The site implemented new measures in March of this year such as telephone verification for ads that have reduced inappropriate erotic service ads by 80 to 90 percent, Buckmaster said.

The new measures supplement Craigslist's previously established protocol, which includes prohibiting illegal activity and asking users to flag inappropriate ads. Additionally, Craigslist derives no revenue from erotic service ads.

The Web site also participates in the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's CyberTipline program and collaborates with law enforcement when contacted.

Ferrer said Backpage.com also bans ads for illegal services and responds to law enforcement subpoenas promptly. Like Craigslist, the site tries to deter inappropriate ads by soliciting the help of its users, who remove 150,000 postings each month out of the million the site hosts, according to Ferrer.

"It is a big challenge for sites like ours to keep out spam, scam, inappropriate, and illegal content," he said.

Backpage.com also requires users to submit credit card information when posting any adult service or in the massage category.

Mobilizing support online
The Polaris Project has turned to the Internet for more than just monitoring sex ads. The organization uses sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Change.org to enhance their grassroots efforts to promote awareness of trafficking risks. The organization also makes daily updates to its online grassroots action center.

"We recognize that online advocacy is incredibly important and critical to reach whole new populations who are more online- and tech-savvy," said Bradley Myles, Polaris Project deputy director.

He said Polaris is using the Internet to appeal to people who may be vulnerable to trafficking and sexual exploitation, mobilize supporters to contact their representatives in the U.S. Congress, promote media awareness of the issue of trafficking, and to solicit donations to support victims of trafficking.

While certain Web sites have made it easier to track what's happening in this area, Finger and Myles said the rise of Internet pornography has exacerbated the problem of trafficking. Internet pornography desensitizes the public to human trafficking, Finger said, and enables traffickers to exploit victims worldwide. (In the United States, child pornography laws prohibit the possession or distribution of lascivious visual depictions of a minor. Obscenity laws regulate what kind of material depicting adults can be distributed; only a handful of Web sites have ever been declared by a court to be obscene.)

"When we're talking about individuals being forced into trafficking, many have been videotaped, and it's difficult to track those images online and remove," Finger said. "We're talking about the constant victimization of these people globally."

Sarah Palin had her first big moment on the national stage Wednesday night, as she sought to show why she should be the next vice president of the United States.

The VP nominee was the evening's marquee speaker at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. For many attendees, and for much of the country, it was the most thorough introduction yet to Palin, who currently serves as the governor of Alaska.

Other speakers included two men--former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani--who had contended early in the primary season to get the nod as the GOP's presidential nominee, and two women who've earned their stripes in Silicon Valley: former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.

To help you catch up on Wednesday night's happening, we offer you this recap by Katie Couric of CBS News:

Watch CBS Videos Online

The Business Software Association was a sponsor of Wednesday's technology reception.

(Credit: Stephanie Condon)

MINNEAPOLIS--The streets of the twin cities were relatively quiet Wednesday afternoon: convention attendees were busy wandering from one private event to another. For technology lobbyists, the choice was Chambers, a self-described luxury art hotel here.

A large crowd of Silicon Valley types mingled at a Washington-esque party hosted by trade associations including the Business Software Alliance, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, and the Consumer Electronics Association. Folks from Facebook, Oracle, Advanced Micro Devices, and other tech companies sipped cocktails amid sleek, minimalist design and large pieces of contemporary art.

The late-afternoon event had a festive feel, though perhaps not as much as similar events last week at the Democratic convention. Though well-attended, Wednesday's event likely did not attract as large of a crowd as last week's simply because the Minneapolis location was a half-hour drive from convention headquarters--and was scheduled right before the night's highly anticipated convention proceedings, featuring vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

Unlike at the technology reception in Denver, there were no members of Congress to be seen at Chambers, even though the cuisine was ethics rules-appropriate-- all finger foods such as mini-cupcakes, springrolls, and sliders.

Former HP Chairman Carly Fiorina says John McCain is a better choice for the economy than his Democratic rival.

(Credit: Declan McCullagh/CNET News)

ST. PAUL, Minn.--Two of Silicon Valley's best-known female executives on Wednesday enthusiastically endorsed Sen. John McCain's presidential bid, saying he was a far more attractive candidate than his Democratic rival on economic and tax grounds.

The pro-McCain pair were Meg Whitman, who stepped down as eBay's chief executive officer in March, and Carly Fiorina, the chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard from 1999 to 2005. Both are active in the McCain campaign; both have been talked about as receiving high-level appointments if McCain is elected.

"I know John McCain," Fiorina said. "He will demand that the federal government be transparent and accountable to the American people. In his first year in office, he will subject every government agency to a top to bottom review and post the results on the Internet for all Americans to see."

Fiorina also said that McCain will help to advance clean coal technology and nuclear power, thereby creating jobs and lowering the cost of energy.

Whitman was no less effusive. She said that McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, his vice presidential pick who spoke about an hour later, will lead a "historic effort" in moving toward energy independence.

"John understands the truth," Whitman said. "Higher taxes encourage wasteful spending, demonstrate government's inability to choose among competing priorities, and destroy your prosperity."

These unblushing encomiums are expected, of course. A major purpose of modern Democratic and Republican conventions is to heap praise on the chosen nominee, and Barack Obama received his share last week in Denver.

A secondary purpose is to let the ex-CEOs introduce themselves to party insiders and TV viewers. Whitman has expressed interest in running for governor of California in two years. And after Fiorina's aggressive defense of McCain during the campaign--focused largely on taxes and energy--it would be no surprise were she to be offered a Cabinet post in a McCain administration.