Convicted "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski, who terrorized the country with a series of mail bombs over nearly two decades, is fighting to stop a public auction of his diaries and other personal possessions. But Kaczynski's five-year legal battle will come to an end soon unless he can convince the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.

The property that is up for auction includes tools, typewriters, knives and a hatchet; Kaczynski's degrees from Harvard and the University of Michigan; and the glasses and hooded jacket made famous by an artist's rendering of the suspect. But experts say the most valuable items probably will be the 40,000 pages of Kaczynski's diaries and other writings.

The only way that the Unabomber victims are going to receive any sort of restitution from Ted Kaczynski is if the government auctions off his personal belongings. At this point, Kaczynski owes four victims $15 million.

What do you think? Should the Unabomber’s possessions be auctioned off? If so, would you ever want to buy any of these items? And if your answer is yes – how much would you be willing to spend?

Watch Abbie Boudreau’s video blog and let us know what you think.

Five years from now I will be 18 heading on to college. What my plan is to do is to finish up junior high, reach my goal of going to Townsend Harris High School or to Stuyvesant High School. Then I want to go to Temple University or even better. With participating in this program and excelling in school I want to reach my dreams and even go beyond. I know I could do it but it requires a bunch of hard effort from my self and sacrificing time for studying. If God sends me a message that I will make it, I will be willing to do it to pursue my dreams. After college I want to work in the medical field or in the law field and actually have a passion for it.

-Sydney Smart, 13

-Albert Brunn III, 12

-Jenee Lawson, 15

-Wayne Phillips, 15

-Jeremy Baker, 15

Five years from now I will be 20 years old and half way through college. I would love to go to Howard University so I am working hard to bring my grades up. I enjoy traveling and volunteering so I will probably continue to travel across the nation and internationally in service for others. I don't think I will ever stop volunteering my time, talents and service for others. Who knows I may become an activist for human rights, especially after seeing Slumdog Millionaire!

-Joshua Hall, 15

In five years I will have graduated from college and will be working as a fashion stylist. I will still volunteer giving my time to people who need it. In ten years, I will be living in Los Angeles, CA, married with kids, and working on great projects.

-Yolaine Calixte, 17

Omg!!! Slumdog Millionaire was an amazing movie. I loved it. I didn't know that the poverty was so bad in India. It's amazing what you can learn from a movie huh!? I was amazed at how all those children who played slumdogs in the movie were actually slumdogs. Like after the movie you would think they would have all the fame right in hotels and stuff. No, they're back in the slums. The way those children are treated! They do not deserve to be treated in this matter. It was very devastating to watch this movie because of everything that was happening. This is an amazing movie if you haven't seen this movie I don't know what you are waiting for because this movie is breathtakingly outstanding.

Love ~N~ Peace

-Mariah C. Ralph, 13

Slumdog Millionaire was sad because I started to feel their pain and put myself in their shoes. I cried. I was able to see how people live and it made me appreciative and thankful. Though the brother treated his brother wrong, he died for him so he could be with the girl he wanted.

-Sadara Lewis, 13

Slumdog Millionaire was inspiring because the main character was eager and anxious to find the girl that he loved. He stayed true to her and did not deviate from his mission until he saved her. I found the poverty very similar to South Africa, but the bathroom situation was different because they had to pay to use the toilets in the Mumbai slums.

-Donovan Rodgers, 14

Slumdog Millionaire was interesting because it had a lot of ups and downs. The two boys were together their whole life and saw a lot of things. And then one was in love and never stopped thinking of the girl. The poverty was really bad and striking and shocking. It was similar in South Africa but I think it was even worse, which is really bad.

-Jonathan Severe, 14

I thought Slumdog Millionaire was a good movie because it taught a lesson about being grateful for what you have because in other countries they don't have anything. I liked when the flashbacks happened so we were able to see the past. The main character didn't forget anything. We should be helping more countries with their poverty.

-Laura DiFilippi, 13

Jeff Gray is a nice guy.  He's a 45 year old father of three, a husband to a school teacher and a former Marine.  He is also self-admittedly financially inept and very-near being kicked out of his suburban Maryland home.  He is literally begging for help not to be foreclosed on.  But when you hear his short financial history,  you may come to the same conclusion that J.P. Morgan Chase has come to: Jeff Gray can not keep his home.

I sat in his living room a few weeks back and went through his mortgage papers and could not believe what I was reading.  In 2005,  Jeff Gray filed a tax return indicating he and his wife had a combined income of $7,900 a year.  In December of that same year the couple refinanced their three bedroom home for $347,000.  It would take four months of his salary to pay for just one month of his mortgage.

When I asked him how anyone ever approved this loan,   he told me to look at the loan papers that he says were filled out by a fast talking mortgage broker.  The loan form indicated Jeff and his wife were making more than $13,000 a month!

"Wait a minute",  I said  "Your income was 7-thousand-900 a year and they inflated it on the paperwork to $13,000-a-month, and somehow they loaned you 347 thousand?"
"Yep."
"Jeff,  I have to ask you did that make sense to you at the time?"
"Well Drew,  when I went back and looked at it,  like I said we were signing deeds we were getting them real fast,  and we didn't know.  We didn't pay any attention to it."
Jeff Gray has not made a mortgage payment, he says, in four years.  He has been living rent free, unable to pay that $2,700-a-month for even one month. Now he wants help.
There are a lot of reasons we have gotten into this housing mess.  Whomever it was who wrote this loan, approved this loan and sold this loan should, in my view, be held responsible for it.  But that also includes the person who applied for the loan, signed for the loan and then couldn't pay the loan.
Jeff Gray told me he feels he was swindled, caught up in a swirl of paper work flying at him at closing.  And it is true he is being kicked out while the banks are being bailed out. But there is no fine print about the loan papers I saw. They clearly stated his first mortgage payment would be $2,700 dollars and he knew he couldn't afford it.

Slowly but surely more information is coming out in the Bernard Madoff case. One of the big questions remains: With this being one of the largest alleged Ponzi schemes in history, is it really possible that Madoff acted alone? Or were others involved in the scam?

Industry insiders have told me they question whether regulators were either not sophisticated and experienced enough to uncover a massive fraud, or whether there was someone on the inside purposely looking the other way.

This week, Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-PA), the chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee who is investigating the Madoff case, released a statement that suggests more red flags than originally thought were missed by federal regulators in this case.

He points to the 2007 audit report of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. He says it contains obvious warning signs that should have alerted the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Kanjorski says the audit report did not include basic information such as an income statement, an accounting of how money was managed, or even a statement of cash flows. Click here to read Congressman Kanjorski’s statement to S.E.C. Chairman Christopher Cox.

Essentially, it was a report with a bunch of boxes checked, without information attached. (Or maybe the information was attached, but it has somehow gone missing.)

Kanjorski also raises questions into the S.E.C's inspection policies as they relate to internal controls for broker-dealers and their auditors. Kanjorski says a "competent" auditor would have likely spotted the alleged scam much earlier.

So, once again, the big question: Was it a lack of “competency” or did qualified people simply choose to trust Madoff and look the other way?

Take a look at the audit report yourself – it’s only eight pages. Does anything stand out to you? Do you agree with Kanjorski that the report should have raised red flags within the S.E.C. about Madoff’s operations? Click here to read the 2007 audit report of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities.

The press release form the New Orleans Police Department described him as an unidentified gunmen who was “confronted by a New Orleans Police officers” then “reached into his waist and turned toward the officer.” The New Orleans Police Department told us the officer on that day, Sept. 4, 2005, fired one shot killing the suspect.

CNN's Drew Griffin talks to man who says he witnessed New Orleans Police shoot an unarmed person.

I’m guessing the New Orleans Police thought we would just take their word for it. We didn’t.

It took us more than a year, but what we found out about Ronald Madison proved justice in New Orleans is only for those who wear a badge.

Ronald Madison was a 40-year old mentally disabled man who had survived Katrina flooding with his brother Lance. On a Sunday morning they swam out of their mother’s home and headed for the Danziger Bridge. You can read more about their ordeal, and Ronald’s tragic death, in the stories below.

What you need to know now, is three years after he was killed by police, the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice and the

U.S. Attorney’s office in New Orleans finally announced they will investigate.

Well it’s about time.

Ronald Madison was unarmed when he died. Ronald Madison was running away from a group of unidentified gunmen driving a postal truck. An autopsy showed Ronald Madison had seven gunshot wounds, all in his back.

Thee gunman turned out to be plain clothes New Orleans cops. It took us a year to find it, but after CNN revealed the autopsy and then found an eyewitness, the 7 officers were indicted. Two weeks ago all the charges against those officers were dismissed by a New Orleans judge because the New Orleans District Attorney’s office violated rules during a grand jury hearing.

All just a little too convenient, isn’t it?

So now, three years later, the U.S. Justice Department is stepping in to perhaps finally bring “justice” to Ronald Madison. Like almost everything else the Feds have done to help New Orleans recover from Katrina, it’s just too little too late.

For more info:

Eyewitness describes killing of Ronald Madison

Autopsy shows Ronald Madison shot in back

What is “gotcha” journalism?

I keep hearing this term used on the campaign trail, and I wonder what people mean by it. As a journalist I believe my job is to ask tough questions. But apparently, if they are too tough, or the person just doesn’t know the answer, or the answer is the wrong answer, the person can claim a case of “gotcha” journalism. I guess once someone claims the reporter was out to “getcha” then the focus becomes the horrible, unethical, and mud-slinging reporter, and not the candidate.
The “gotcha” excuse was used recently when I asked Gov. Sarah Palin’s spokesperson, Meg Stapleton why the governor only seems to talk about the one bridge to nowhere that she killed, when there are two bridges to nowhere, and Palin supports the second bridge being built.

Here is the exchange:

Boudreau: “When Gov. Palin is talking about the bridge to nowhere, we are thinking, she killed that bridge. But everyone locally is telling us there has always been two bridges. I mean, it’s always been referred to as the two bridges to nowhere here.”

Stapleton: “I think the media coined the bridge to nowhere.”

Boudreau: “Congress coined it.”

Stapleton: “No, the media coined the whole bridge to nowhere, and the whole focus on the bridge, has been the Gravina Island Bridge.”

Before we get to the alleged “gotcha” moment, let me give you a few details about these two bridges.

One was the Gravina Island Bridge that would connect residents in Ketchikan, to their neighboring island, where the airport is located.

The other bridge, would connect Anchorage, to Point MacKenzie, population 269, an outlying community of Wasilla, the governor’s home town.

Both of these bridges were coined “bridges to nowhere” during Congressional debates after a public outcry that the bridges symbolized wasteful government spending.

Gov. Palin killed the planned Ketchikan bridge. And she has been very vocal about how she redirected the funding for that bridge, claiming she told Congress, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

But Gov. Palin seems to have left out the fact that she continues to support the other bridge. I asked Meg Stapleton why the Governor chose to leave that little detail out of her stump speech. Here is Stapleton’s response:

Stapleton: “The national media may just be learning about it, but she has said this. The national media has focused on one [bridge] because it was perhaps the easiest one to talk about.

Boudreau: “It’s the one she continues to talk about.”

Stapleton: “It’s the one that Ketchikan residents have brought up because they felt it was sorta a gotcha moment.”

Aha. The “gotcha” moment. So here’s my question: Where is the line between a tough, but fair question, and “gotcha” journalism? And, have journalists crossed the line in questioning Gov. Palin and her record?

She said, “thanks, but no thanks,” to a “Bridge to Nowhere,” so, why didn’t Gov. Sarah Palin say, “thanks, but no thanks,” to a $26 million “Road to Nowhere?”

Here’s some background: At one point, there was supposed to be a bridge that would make it easier for people who live or visit Ketchikan, Alaska to get to nearby Gravina Island, where the airport sits. The bridge was never built, after it was publicly ridiculed by Congress as being a waste of taxpayer money.But the road that was designed to connect from the bridge to the airport was built. Now, many locals coined it the “Road to Nowhere.” And guess who paid for it? You! 

But what’s really interesting is the response we received from the McCain – Palin camp about this road.  I interviewed Meg Stapleton, a spokesperson for the campaign. Here is part of that interview:

 
Boudreau: “It’s hard to imagine that the governor wouldn't think that this was a waste of money – taxpayer money.”

Stapleton: “The governor could not change that earmark. That earmark was given, was dictated to us, and it had to be spent on Gravina Road – and nothing else. So, the governor had no option.”
Boudreau: “Could she [Palin] have stopped construction?”

Stapleton: “Uh, my understanding is that, you know, I'd have to look in to that for you. I don't know.”

 
In this interview, Stapleton told me there was nothing the governor could do in this case. She went on to try to explain who would be to blame for this road that leads absolutely nowhere. Here’s what she said:

 
Stapleton:  “She had no opportunity to evaluate this. The contracts were already signed and she was told she had no option but to use this money for Gravina Road.”

Boudreau:  “Who told her that?”

Stapleton:  “The state D.O.T officials.”

Boudreau:  “Wow. I would have thought the governor could trump the D.O.T.”

Stapleton:  “Well, they're interpreting. Ultimately, it's the federal government, you’re dealing with federal earmark dollars. So, ultimately it's the federal government.”

About two hours after our on-camera interview, I received an email from Meg Stapleton that further explains Palin’s position. Here are a couple of excerpts from that email:

Gravina Road

• Unlike the “Bridge to Nowhere,” the Governor could not cancel this road project. While Congress released the earmark for the bridge, the road was still earmarked by Washington, DC.
• It would have literally taken an act of Congress to redirect the funds away from the road project.   Even that extraordinary step would have come too late as a contract had already been signed by the previous Governor.

• To stop construction on the road would have meant for the State to pay back costs incurred by the Contractor as well as a portion of future profits.

• Bottom line: Under ordinary circumstances, Governor Palin would not have allowed the Gravina Road to move forward with the same timeline. Given the directed earmark and the signed contract, the Governor was left no viable alternative.

 
Here’s my question: Why is the federal earmark system set up in a way that it would prevent a governor from re-directing earmark money when the project doesn’t make any sense? And in this case, do you think Gov. Palin could have done more to stop this project from getting started?