Facebook status update provides alibi

New York (CNN) -- For 19-year-old Rodney Bradford, a simple Facebook status update turned into much more: a rock-solid alibi after he was accused of a crime.

Confirmation of the time stamp on the update and the location from which it was entered showed he could not have been at the scene of a robbery in another part of New York City. After he had spent almost two weeks in jail, the case against him was dismissed.

The story began at 11:49 a.m. on Saturday, October 17, when Bradford was updating his Facebook status at his father's home in Harlem. A minute later, 12 miles away in Brooklyn, two men were mugged at gunpoint.

The next day, Bradford, who is facing a separate 2008 robbery indictment, found out police were looking for him in connection with the Brooklyn robbery.

Bradford turned himself in, confident he would be cleared. But after one of the victims picked him out of a lineup, he was charged with robbery in the first degree and sent to Rikers Island, home of the New York City jail.

It wasn't until Rodney Bradford Sr. discovered his son's Facebook update that the young man's defense attorney realized he had an unbeatable alibi.

"Throughout that week," said the attorney, Robert Reuland, "I worked with the district attorney's office and made them aware of who our alibis were, presented the Facebook evidence and generally tried to convince them that it would be wrong to proceed to an indictment in light of this evidence."

The district attorney subpoenaed Facebook for documentation that would prove Bradford had updated his account from his father's home in Harlem. It worked.

"It all corroborated our alibis," explained Reuland. "The Facebook thing was really the icing on the cake. I think, ultimately, it's what prompted the DA to dismiss."

The district attorney's office would not comment on the story because the case is sealed.

Facebook officials said they are "pleased" they were "able to serve as a constructive part of the judicial process."

The online social network is ready to join telephone records and video cameras as a means of establishing an alibi -- but the implications are both good and bad, says an intellectual property attorney versed in the medium.

"We're in a much more trackable world, and for better and for worse," said attorney Jonathan Handel. "The extent to which it means that the right people get prosecuted and the innocent get their cases dropped, that's all of the good."

But, he said, the issue of privacy is also at stake.

And he pointed out that it could be argued the Facebook update was a set-up.

"On the Internet, nobody really knows it's you," he said. "A kid could set up an alibi by setting up a Facebook update."

Reuland finds that unlikely.

"This is a 19-year-old kid. He's not a criminal genius setting up an elaborate alibi for himself," he said. "This is not the kind of thing someone would fake." And if someone were going to fake it, he said, "They'd do it in a lot clearer way" than the inside joke that Bradford posted: "On the phone with this fat chick... where my IHOP."

The message was met with some incomprehension by reporters first writing about the story, who didn't quite understand the reference to the International House of Pancakes.

Reuland explained it this way: The "fat chick" was a playful reference to Bradford's pregnant girlfriend who was irked that he, his father and his stepmother had gone to an IHOP without her the night before. The update teased that she wondered where her pancakes were.

"He was just kind of taunting her playfully about having been to IHOP," Reuland said. "I know it sounds not very nice but it's sort of a reference to her because she's pregnant. But they actually have a very good relationship. She's cute as a button."

Now that his innocence has been demonstrated, Bradford has hired civil attorney Herbert L. Schmell, who said they are "99.9 percent sure" that they will be filing a civil suit against the city.

"Based upon what I see, there was no probable cause to arrest him at the time," Schmell said. "And to put him in Rikers for 12 or 13 days. ... We're seeking money damages. He's shook up."

Anchor Lou Dobbs departs CNN

New York (CNN) -- CNN's Lou Dobbs stepped down from his controversial role as an advocacy anchor at the network at the end of his show Wednesday night, saying he plans to seek a more activist role.

"Over the past six months, it has become increasingly clear that strong winds of change have begun buffeting this country and affecting all of us, and some leaders in media, politics and business have been urging me to go beyond the role here at CNN and to engage in constructive problem-solving as well as to contribute positively to a better understanding of the great issues of our day and to continue to do so in the most honest and direct language possible," Dobbs said during his 7 p.m. broadcast.

Dobbs, 64, said he had discussed the issue with CNN President Jonathan Klein, who had agreed to a release from his contract "that will enable me to pursue new opportunities."

In a written statement, Klein called Dobbs "a valued founding member of the CNN family."

"For decades, Lou fearlessly and tirelessly pursued some of the most important and complex stories of our time, often well ahead of the pack," Klein said. "All of us will miss his appetite for big ideas, the megawatt smile and larger-than-life presence he brought to our newsroom, and we're grateful to have known and worked with him over the years.

"With characteristic forthrightness, Lou has now decided to carry the banner of advocacy journalism elsewhere. We respect his decision and wish him, Debi [Dobbs' wife], and his family the very best."

Dobbs, who is the last of the 29-year-old network's original anchors, said he was considering "a number of options and directions."

He cited the growth of the middle class, the creation of jobs, health care, immigration policy, the environment, climate change and the U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as "the major issues of our time."

But, he said, "Each of those issues is, in my opinion, informed by our capacity to demonstrate strong resilience of our now weakened capitalist economy and demonstrate the political will to overcome the lack of true representation in Washington, D.C. I believe these to be profoundly, critically important issues and I will continue to strive to deal honestly and straightforwardly with those issues in the future." Read Dobbs' full statement about his departure from CNN

Those issues, he added, are defined in the public arena "by partisanship and ideology rather than by rigorous, empirical forethought, analysis and discussion," and he vowed to work to change that.

In an e-mail to CNN staff members, Klein described the parting as "extremely amicable," and said Dobbs' replacement would be announced soon.

Dobbs was with Cable News Network from its initial broadcasts in 1980, acting as chief economics correspondent and host of the business program "Moneyline."

His coverage of the 1987 stock market crash won him the George Foster Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting. That was one of many awards he received while at CNN, including an Emmy for Lifetime Achievement that he received from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 2005.

Dobbs left the network in 1999 to found SPACE.com, a Web site devoted to space-related subjects. He returned to the network in 2001 as anchor and managing editor of CNN's Moneyline News Hour, which became Lou Dobbs Tonight. He also acted as lead business news anchor for CNN/U.S. and CNNfn, the forerunner of CNNMoney.

During his second stint at CNN, Dobbs positioned himself as "tough, relentless, independent," lashing out at what he described as the deficiencies and "partisan nonsense" of both major political parties, and injecting advocacy journalism into his coverage of topics ranging from free trade to immigration.

His no-holds-barred, sometimes acerbic style brought him a loyal following, but also attracted controversy both to him and to the network, especially over the subject of illegal immigrants.

Dobbs will continue as anchor of The Lou Dobbs Show, a daily radio show that began in March 2008 and is distributed to more than 160 stations nationwide by United Stations Radio Networks Inc.

GOP senators push for term limits

Washington (CNN) -- A handful of Republican senators have proposed a constitutional amendment to limit how long a person may serve in Congress.

Currently, there are no term limits for federal lawmakers, but Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, and several of his colleagues are advocating that service in the Senate be limited to 12 years, while lawmakers would only be allowed to serve six years in the House.

"Americans know real change in Washington will never happen until we end the era of permanent politicians," DeMint said in a statement released by his office. "As long as members have the chance to spend their lives in Washington, their interests will always skew toward spending taxpayer dollars to buyoff special interests, covering over corruption in the bureaucracy, fundraising, relationship building among lobbyists, and trading favors for pork -- in short, amassing their own power."

Two-thirds of the House and Senate would need to approve the amendment -- a stumbling block that short-circuited the idea 14 years ago. The new proposal echoes the Citizen Legislature Act, part of the original Contract with America proposed by Republicans before they won control of Congress in 1994.

That measure, which would have allowed both senators and members of the House to serve just 12 years, won a majority in the Republican-controlled House in 1995, but failed because it did not meet the constitutionally-required two-thirds threshold.

"There is no question there are big obstacles in the way," said Philip Blumel, president of U.S. Term Limits, a nonpartisan organization that advocates putting time restrictions in place. "It is difficult to pass a constitutional amendment, however the goal is worthwhile and it is very important to the country. Also, if not now, when?"

This time around, proponents are not calling on lawmakers who believe in the idea to place a self-imposed term limit on themselves.

"If you are asking people to self-limit, what might happen -- and what did happen -- is that honorable politicians who made the pledge left office," while others did not, Blumel said. "The answer to the term-limit supporter is not self-limiting. It is the body as a whole."

DeMint, who is currently serving his first six-year term in the Senate, echoed Blumel's rationale for dismissing self-imposed term limits.

"I want to be clear: demanding that reformers adopt self-imposed term limits is a recipe for self-defeat on this issue," DeMint said in Tuesday's statement. "We lost the battle for term limits after the 1994 Republican Contract with America because we forced our best advocates for reform to go home, while the big-spending career politicians waited them out. We must have term limits for all or term limits will never succeed. Only when we apply the same rules to all will we be able to enact vital bipartisan reforms."

One of the original co-sponsors of the amendment is Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, who is serving her third term in the Senate, but is expected to resign her seat to focus on a gubernatorial bid.

A spokesman for Hutchison said it is easy to square the fact that the Texas Republican is advocating a cap of two terms, even though she is currently in the middle of her third term.

"Throughout her career she has fought for term limits and continues to do so, and that is why she is co-sponsoring this bill," said Hutchison spokesman Jeff Sadosky. "But until it is passed, it would do a disservice to Texas and the people of Texas to do away with the seniority she has gained, unless all the states and all of the senators hold themselves to the same standard."

The two other original co-sponsors of the amendment are Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, and Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kansas. Coburn, a first-term senator, is up for re-election to his second term in 2010, while Brownback is retiring next year after pledging to serve only two full terms in the Senate. As congressmen, both voted in favor of the GOP's Contract with America term limit proposal in 1995. Coburn, a longtime term-limits supporter, retired from the House in 2000 after serving three terms, based on that pledge.

Source: CNN (Mark Preston)

Michele Bachmann's 'high stakes' political game grows

Washington (CNN)-- The thousands of restive conservative protesters milling outside the west front of the Capitol last week definitely didn't seem in the mood to listen -- but there was at least one voice they wanted to hear.

Michele Bachmann doesn't say she finds GOP leadership irrelevant. But with health care reform gathering momentum as the Democratic bill entered final debate in the House, she took her typical route around, not through them.

"When we came down to this final hour, as the clock is ticking 11:59 on this health care reform, Speaker Pelosi is posed with her health care bill to take over 18 percent of the American economy," the Minnesota congresswoman said Thursday, drawing an angry roar from the audience set to swarm Democratic congressional offices on her instructions. Bachmann grinned. "Oh come on, don't hold back," she said. "Tell them how you really feel!"

Michele Bachmann is the ideal political creature of the Tea Party era. Her path to power doesn't lie in moving up the GOP leadership ladder, but in ignoring it entirely, drawing her power more from cable TV hits than committee assignments.

Nearly all of those appearances made news, featuring a supremely confident and combative Bachmann.

One summer pledge to battle health care reform generated even more media heat and liberal outrage. "What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing," she told Colorado conservatives in August. "This will not pass. We will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn't pass."

Her target audience, and core constituency, is the outraged conservative voter who feels powerless in the Obama era. And they're listening.

Her polarizing voice sounds like money -- to members of both political parties.

Even Republicans concede Bachmann, 53, is playing a high-stakes game.

"But on the other hand," he adds, "nobody follows somebody who's just muttering."

It wasn't the first time in Bachmann's life that her fortunes had shifted radically. When her parents divorced when she was in her teens, Bachmann suddenly found herself living with a single mother earning less than $5,000 a year. The emotional impact of that experience still shapes her fiercely independent approach.

If her mother and women like her could make do with less and spend within their means, Bachmann said, the U.S. government should be able to do the same.

"He was kind of mocking the Founding Fathers and I just thought, 'What a snot,' " she told the paper. "I just remember reading the book, putting it in my lap, looking out the window and thinking, 'You know what? I don't think I am a Democrat. I must be a Republican.' "

Her entrance into politics came relatively suddenly -- she jumped into a state Senate race a decade ago over dissatisfaction with school regulations, and quickly became one of the most high-profile culture warriors in the Minnesota legislature, a leader in the fight against same-sex marriage.

While other Republican lawmakers have publicly struggled with the role of conservative voices like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck -- offering mild criticism and backing away from their comments, serving up vague praise with conditional disclaimers -- Bachmann has embraced them wholeheartedly.

"And thank God for Joe Wilson. Thank God for Joe Wilson," Bachmann, praising the South Carolina congressman's "huge heart," told a Tea Party gathering in her home state shortly after his "You lie!" outburst to Obama on the House floor.

Blankley, who attended a conservative conference with Bachmann earlier this year, says her star power is undeniable: "You could feel the energy rising when she came into the room." Bachmann's "lack of equivocation" on moral issues is bracing, says Blankley. "She brings some energy and cares what she's talking about. She's not going through the motions."

Source: CNN (Rebecca Sinderbrand)