Jersey Gas Hike; Fuming Over Fuel; Cyber-Stalking
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Chevron's expected to release its figures sometime before the market opens. Yesterday, ExxonMobil announced more than $8 billion in first quarter profits. Chevron is expected to announce about half that number. We've been talking about high gas prices, so it shouldn't really come as a shock, still does, though. Imagine waking up and seeing prices jump 14 cents overnight. Carol's got details for us this morning. Hey, Carol, good morning.</s>CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, that would wake you up, wouldn't it. If you plan to cruise the Jersey Turnpike or the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey, fuel up now. In fact, it might be too late. Get ready for sticker shock. Gas prices going up a whopping 14 cents a gallon today. Let me spell it out. You will pay $2.90 for a gallon of regular gas. Premium will cost you $3.12 if you drive the Jersey Turnpike. A little known fact, gas stations on the Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway can only raise prices once a week. Last week the went up 17 cents a gallon. New Jersey's Governor Jon Corzine says he has a plan. New Jersey, oddly enough, is one of two states that prohibit self serve gas stations. You can only get full service. Well, Corzine wants to phase that out to see if it will saves drivers money.</s>GOV. JON CORZINE, (D) NEW JERSEY: We will start with select sites, if not on all, of the turnpike positions over a period of time and in some local neighborhoods, north, south and central, to see whether these price savings actually flow through to the consumer.</s>COSTELLO: Corzine said it could cut gas prices by as much as 6 cents a gallon. As for the rest of us, Congress is proposing suspending gas taxes and offering rebates. But, frankly, those ideas won't solve the problem in the short term. The Federal Reserve chair, Ben Bernanke, says this. He says, "unfortunately there's nothing, really, that can be done that's going to affect energy prices or gasoline prices in the very short run." Still, lawmakers are scrambling to prove to you they are standing up to big oil if only in words. New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat, says, "while Exxon Mobil executives are popping champagne and celebrating their record profits, American families are popping antacids under the strain of searing gas prices." So the story goes on, Soledad. And, I don't know, Congress is talking.</s>SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Yes.</s>COSTELLO: But I don't know if they'll actually be able to do anything for consumers in the short term.</s>SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: The story goes on. The gas prices go up. It's ugly. All right, Carol, thanks. And, of course, it doesn't matter if you pump it yourself and have somebody else pump it for you, everybody's still fuming over high gas prices, pointing fingers at big oil, pointing fingers, too, at Washington, D.C. AMERICAN MORNING's Bob Franken joining us live from the nation's capital. Hey, Bob, good morning.</s>BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. And a lot of finger pointing going on here. When in reality, the people who are doing it could probably point the finger at themselves.</s>FRANKEN, (voice over): When the Federal Reserve chairman speaks, everyone listens. Even when he states the obvious.</s>BEN BERNANKE, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN: Rising energy prices pose a risk to both economic activity and inflation.</s>FRANKEN: Those rising energy prices are fueled in part by ever rising energy usage. The Fed chairman, for instance, is transported around town in the standard dignitary Cadillac limo. Figure around 16 miles to the gallon. According to published reports, he sold his Toyota Sienna minivan when he took the job. That got about 21 miles per gallon. The spike in energy prices has brought a spike in energy related media events.</s>REP. DENNIS HASTERT, (R) HOUSE SPEAKER: We've passed legislation time and time again with Democrats blocking it. But that was history. Now this is the future. And we need to move forward.</s>FRANKEN: But when House Speaker Dennis Hastert joined fellow Republicans at his news conference, he traveled there in a SUV. It gets approximately 15 miles to the gallon. Congressional leaders are driven around in SUVs. The same goes for Democratic leaders like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. When some of her fellow Democrats engaged in their own finger-pointing, the reporters had a snarkey question. How had they gotten there?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Taurus. Ford Taurus. A little two-door -- four-door. It's a four-door. OK. I mean . . .</s>SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER, (D) NEW YORK: Every one of us drove fuel efficient cars here.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right here. Wait a second. Hold on. Hold on. Wait. No, no, I ain't doing this. I ain't -- you want to play that game? Chicago CTA Card, public transportation. Washington, D.C. public transportation. Any time you want, anywhere you want to go.</s>FRANKEN: Maybe so, but the fact is, the parking lots for members of Congress around the Capitol look like gas guzzlers are us, which look like parking lots just about everywhere else in this country.</s>FRANKEN: Well, there's a saying about show business that could probably applying to politics, which is that the key is sincerity. And if you can fake that, you've got it made. I think it applies here.</s>SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: I would agree with you on that one. Bob Franken for us this morning. Bob, thanks. Miles.</s>MILES O'BRIEN: Happening "In America" now. Wild cats roaming near Air Force One. At Andrews Air Force Base they're on the look out for a pair of big cats described as either panthers or cougars. One is black, the other brown. An all out search was called off at night fall. Witnesses report large cat sightings all over the base. A deadly confrontation at Cleveland's Hopkins Airport. A police officer in stable condition this morning. He has a bullet lodged in his back. The man who shot him, Kenneth Callaway, used another officer's gun to shoot the officer. He grabbed it after biting that officer in the neck. A third officer killed Callaway. Unclear what sparks that confrontation at a ticket counter. Two families in Massachusetts suing over a gay themed story book. It's about two princes who fall in love. The story was read to a second grade class. Families claim school officials broke state law and violated their civil rights for trying to teach their children about a lifestyle they consider immoral. The school's superintendent says the school didn't do anything illegal. Allegations of racism leading to a suspension of funding for youth baseball teams in Lafayette, Alabama. Parents and coaches are complain about two teams. One is almost entirely white. The other African-Americans. The coaches and those teams in the Dixie Youth League say it's just a coincidence. The city council is considering what to do about the makeup of those teams. Interstate 95, main thorough fare in the East Coast, near Cape Canaveral in Florida, just reopened a short while ago. Florida highway patrol shut it down after a brush fire jumped the highway. You see the pictures. The 850-acre fire mostly under control this morning. No reports of any injuries. Reynolds Wolf, they need some rain in Florida, don't they?</s>REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Oh, they're desperate for it, Miles.</s>SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: A disturbing story to share with you this morning and one that's, unfortunately, becoming a little too common these days. It's called cyber-stalking. And, of course, it can put unsuspecting people in a pretty big danger. Deb Feyerick joins us this morning to fill us in. Is this something new?</s>DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's not something new but it's definitely something that's on the rise. Anyone can be a cyber- stalker, anyone can be a victim. As a matter of fact, in 50 percent of all cases, it's a total stranger. And what starts as a prank can sometimes turn very dangerous.</s>FEYERICK, (voice over): Last September, out of nowhere, Claire Miller began getting obscene phone calls and sexually explicit e- mails. She shrugged it off but then strange men started ringing her doorbell.</s>CLAIRE MILLER, CYBER-STALKING VICTIM: There were some scarier ones that showed up very late at night.</s>FEYERICK: What are they telling you?</s>MILLER: That I'd set up a date with them online.</s>FEYERICK: Online on a hard core adult website. Someone had posted a personal ad pretending to be Claire Miller. It revealed where she lived and how to reach her and said she was into swingers, group sex and erotic e-mails. Miller, a publishing executive, is being cyber-stalked. She has no idea who it is or why they're doing it and says she has never posted her personal details on any website. She agreed to speak with me only on conditions she disguise herself so the stalker won't know what she really looks like. This must be so frightening to look yourself up and see that somebody's put you on something like this.</s>JAYNE HITCHCOCK, CREATOR, HALT ONLINE ABUSE: Oh, yes, I would be frightened.</s>FEYERICK: After being victimized herself, Jayne Hitchcock created the group Working to Halt Online Abuse or WHO@ for short.</s>HITCHCOCK: I call it Internet road rage where for whatever reason, just like offline road rage where somebody just snaps and starts chasing somebody down the information superhighway.</s>FEYERICK: Noone keeps official statistics on cyber-stalking. But Hitchcock says she gets about 50 new calls a week. How difficult is it to get your identity back once it is posted on an adult website or some place else like that?</s>KEVIN BARROWS, RENAISSANCE ASSOCIATES: Well, to get it back, it's virtually impossible.</s>FEYERICK: Former FBI Agent Kevin Barrows investigates computer crimes. What is it about the Internet that makes people think they can do this and get away with it?</s>BARROWS: They don't have to sit in front of someone's house and watch them. All you do is type a few keys and hit send.</s>FEYERICK: Which raises the question, who's doing it?</s>HITCHCOCK: These are normal, everyday people. Their professionals. They're usually white collar. Don't have criminal records.</s>FEYERICK: Do they see themselves as cyber-stalkers?</s>BARROW: I don't believe so. In my experience, I think that they see themselves as getting back, getting revenge.</s>FEYERICK: As for Claire Miller, she still doesn't know who's harassing her, though she thinks it may be someone connected to an old high school friend. If you could say anything to this person, what would you say to them?</s>MILLER: Stop. Stop now.</s>FEYERICK: Now, there are no official statistics on how many cyber-stalkers are actually out there, but Hitchcock says she gets 50 new calls a day.</s>SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Oh, my gosh.</s>FEYERICK: And the problem's getting so serious that more than 45 states now have laws making cyber-stalking a crime.</s>SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: It's a crime, but what are the penalties for it?</s>FEYERICK: It all depends. It all depends on how threatening the e-mails get. Somebody may just think they're being funny, so they're e-mailing people online. But when you post somebody's personal information on some of these websites, it's very, very dangerous.</s>SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: But is it illegal to be the conduit? You know, if you post and say, go and check out her apartment. I mean she gets 50 people a day who, you know, if that -- if the first cyber-stalker sets up something that happens later.</s>FEYERICK: And that's one of the nuances and that's what got to be determined. Are you going to be charged as an accessory to some sort of a crime if somebody shows up and your door and it turns very dangerous or very violent. Claire Miller was lucky that none of these guys actually hurt her. That they realized that something wrong had happened and they just walked away, they left.</s>SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Oh, my God, how awful. How awful.</s>FEYERICK: Scary.</s>SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Fifty a day.</s>FEYERICK: Yes.</s>SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: That's terrible. Deb Feyerick. Thank you, Deb. Of course, Deb's report first aired on "Paula Zahn Now." And you can see more with Paula on weeknights at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. Andy Serwer's "Minding Your Business" just ahead. Hey, Andy, what's coming up?</s>ANDY SERWER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Soledad, some music to Howard Stern's ears. Major static at CBS Radio, coming up next on AMERICAN MORNING.