would be up in arms about it. i see these vouchers as investing in her future like saving money for her education. uh you know what else is investigating in her future, saving money for her education? saving money for her education. i'll take saving any day of the week. there's so much less swelling and putting money in a plan has not once landed anybody on the riduculist.

tonight, our super pacs super shady. the presidential candidates seem to think so. >> the people of south carolina need to know the truth and when they know the truth, i think they'll find it's not surprising that governor romney is not as conservative as his pac and his campaign has said that he is. >> so, super pacs were born out of the controversial supreme court case citizens united in 2010. the the ruling allowed so-called super pacs to raise and spend unlimited amount of money on campaigns, but they're not allowed to take direction from the candidate. they have to be independent. but are they? what we found is that the ties do seem pretty close. for example, the pro mitt romney super pac's treasurers spees was romney's general counsel in 2008.

the pro gingrich super pac founded by rick tyler. gingrich's former press secretary and bill burton, the president's former deputy press secretary. these super pacs do seem to be run by some of the candidate's super close friends. if you listen to the candidates, you'd think they want nothing to do with the pacs. >> campaign finance law has made a mockery of our campaign system. we ought to just get rid of these super pacs. >> millions of americans are struggling to get by and their voices shouldn't be drowned out by millions in secret, special interest advertising. >> get rid of the super pacs, the negativity, and then the candidates would be in control and be responsible. it would be a dramatically better system an more honorable system. >> so, where's the disconnect? all right. we're joined by bill burton, who

runs priority u.s.a. and charlie spees, the major pro romney super pac. okay, so let me just put the question to you both directly. you friends with mitt romney? >> sure. >> friends with barack obama. >> i love the guy. think he's doing a great job as president. >> but you know him personally for a long time. so, when regular americans hear this super pacs are supposed to be separate if the candidates, how do you answer the question that guys you're fond of personally and are fighting for professionally, that there's a line? >> it's no secret that we support the candidates who we support in this race and that we know them from before. but there are rules that have had to follow throughout there's been campaigns in this country, we're sort of following the letter and spirit of those rules and i have no doubt we'll be able to. >> do you have conversations with the governor just to figure

out what they want or what? >> absolutely not. it would be sort of strange if the people running pacs with respect strong supporters, so there's nothing strange about that, but there are clear legal rules about what we can and can't do in terms of coordinating on message, timing and communication and we fully abide by those rules. you guys got to admit from the regular person's perspective, i get that you want to support, you're both supporters of the guys you're fighting for. how does the president not influence you, bill, when your coming up with ads and plans for your pack? >> we do our own polls. we have our own strategy meetings, our own group of people we go to to make decisions for where we're going to advertise and why we're going to run those. it's not that hard to follow the rules. we strongly support president obama.

that's why we got involved in putting this pac together and we're going to continue to follow the rules. >> so both, the president and governor romney, they've said that they don't like super pacs. you saw governor romney saying that with joe scarborough and the president referring to super secret money. now, this is a tough situation because the law is the law, so you got to go ahead with it, right, even though you don't want to? >> i think governor romney makes a good point that the current campaign finance system doesn't make a lot of sense. i would argue that it's based on fine gold, the campaign finance law that pushes money to outside groups. candidates would rather control their own message. they'd rather have the money flowing to their campaigns and that would provide more accountability, but due to the finance restrictions, money, there's restrictive limits on what can be given to campaigns and political parties that pushes money to outside groups, which sometimes are helpful to

the campaigns. we certainly hope we're helpful to governor romney's campaign. >> the personal connection is important to most people, that you are on the same page. if not you, bill burton, didn't do a super pac for the president, someone else would. >> the issue is much less who on the democratic side would. it's the fact that who on the republican side is doing it. we didn't start because we thought the decision was the right one, but aren't going to let the private equity guys helping mitt romney's super pac get in there and raise millions while the president just stood by and his supporters did nothing. we thought if there's going to be -- >> so, he's saying you started it. >> well, bill likes to use sort of the buzz word karl rove and and karl rove has nothing to do with our super pac. >> his his own, cross roads. >> that would be great if he did, but to my knowledge, he and cross roads are neutral. our super pac is in contrast to bill's group.

everything we do is above board. we fully disclose our donors. >> every single donor. >> every single donor to restore our future is fully disclosed. >> early on, one of your first donations from the spawn corporation did not disclose and it wasn't until there was public pressure that we found out who was behind it, a former partner of governor romney's at bain capital, so maybe you've been pushed in the position, but maybe you ought to tell your political director, who will be dumps millions into this race on behalf of romney, that romney doesn't support donations from groups that don't disclose their donors. >> bill, you've cherry picked one example of the corporation where there was a mix up. yet, the reason that was came to light is because it was disclosed. you and the supporters of president obama do not disclose

your donors, so in contrast to what we do with restore our future, priorities u.s.a. doesn't disclose who's giving. all this talk about secret money, you're part of the problem and i would recommend that you follow our course and disclose everybody who's giving. you could voluntarily do that. there's nothing stopping you. >> now, will you do that, bill is this. >> we're going to follow the same rules that karl rove is following here and the way we set up is we have a super pac, 527 action which discloses all donors and a five in one c 3. funny to hear these groups seem so unaffiliated when they have a same goal. >> and so people understand, the deal with super pacs, is you're supposed to disclose donors except if you have a chartable a.r.m.

if you said i'm going to be the hero and disclose it, don't you think you could force karl rove and others to do it? >> i think he's taking my lead when it comes to ethics. no, what we're going to do is not give karl rove, the private equity guys supporting mitt romney any more advantages. we're not in the position of saying we're going to step aside. >> but you guys are sitting here, mitt romney and barack obama. you're the proxies. you hadn't met before tonight, right? >> correct. >> even though you're technically in a full on war, but why not just sit here and shake hands and say we're going to do it different. >> restore our future discloses and you should do the same thing. >> some of the seed money from your organization did not come from a disclosed donor.

we're not going to stand on the sidelines and let folks drive a right wing republican agenda in a way that you know, unfairly allows them to play by a different set of rules. >> i understand it's probably good for your fund raising to take cheap shots at karl rove, but the hundreds of millions of in donations, you're making that up. the money going towards restore our future is fully disclosed. >> that's not true. you should check out some of the press clippings, but karl rove has pledged $300 million through cross roads -- >> but that is not -- >> we don't have a republican nominee yet. i certainly hope that nominee's governor romney and woul like nothing more to have support from other groups. >> you can throw up the smoke screen to make it seem like one group is for one thing, there should be different, a whole different set of rules, but until they are, we're going to fight.

>> thanks very much for both of you. i appreciate you're coming in and doing it together. i hope you'll come back and let us know what you think about this. their point of view and arguments they made about how close they are to the guys they're pushing for. just five days away from the south carolina primary. how much do we know about south carolina? john avalon outfront and schools giving students high-tech watches. counts calories and weight and then tracks it. what are they doing with the information? and a lot of americans bought guns at christmas. were you one? dvice. back then he had something more important to do. he wasn't focused on his future. but fortunately, somebody else was. at usaa we provide retirement planning for our military, veterans and their families.

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five days until the south carolina primary and if you listen to pundits and washington insiders you might think to quote john avalon, south carolina is quote a swamp of sleazy politics an brutal attack ads and bible belt bashed in red necks and racism, but avalon would say you are dead wrong. he's out front to debunk the myths. >> this is that time of year, you know, the ugly stereotypes

disfiguring a beautiful state. >> number one. >> this is the old one for back in strom thurmond days. it's had a 15% population growth in the last ten years. those counties along the coast, out of state immigrants, retirees looking for a better quality of life and then look at the -- >> a lot of those people coming from the north. >> a lot of jobs, manufacturing plants. we've got an indian american governor and then the new representative from charleston, tim scott. an african-american leader representing the first district. he beat thurmond's son in the primary. it's a great story and it's a sign of how the stereo e types don't hold. >> oh, they say, south carolina, it's all about evangelicals.

is it? >> bob jones university seems to become shorthand for the entire state's politics and it's not true. in fact, in 2008, you see john mccain won the state. he didn't have evangelical support, but was able to win the coastal cities because the majority of people do live in the cities in suburban areas. mike huckabee did well. mitt romney came in fourth. so the point is that there's a will the of room for a strong center right candidate to play in south carolina. >> all right. and now, to myth number three. you mentioned her, nikki hailey. nationally, lots of attention. a darling, but locally, darling ruler ore the tea party? >> no. and this is one of the most fascinating things. she's a national rising star, her poll numbers right now, only 35% approval. there's less than barack obama in the state of south carolina right now. so while it's a great endorsement to have and mitt

romney r's saying it, not so fast. in fact, the numbers tell a very different story. >> and this means that we'll see how we go this weekend. people think the evangelical sign means everything, no. we shall see. thanks very much. under surveillance tonight, your children. the government is monitoring the weight of students. this is an effort to curb childhood obesity. schools are giving kids high-tech watches to help them count calories and loose weight. school officials then track the data, but it's unclear where the information goes from there. students have received the devices in new york, new jersey and st. louis. joining me now is paul cowen and mimi roth, good to have you with us.

i got one of those watches. >> very nice. >> it's pretty cool. i would think a kid would like to have this. i would have loved to have this, especially in pink or yellow or something like that. so, what do you think about this idea? >> well, on the surface, i think it's not a bad idea. we want to encourage fitness among our kids and this is a way to monitor it, but i worry about the privacy implications. do we have the right for instance to find out how active a kid is after school, track his sleep patterns? these devices are getting very fist kated now and i'm worrying that they're going to get too intrusive and we're going to become a nanny state. >> the percentage of childhood obesity has tripled in 30 years. kids between 6 and 11, 7% were obese. now, it's 20%. >> i love how paul uses the word, nanny state.

what about the people who pushed these kids into becoming fat in the first place? they were bad nannies. let me have my moment. >> teachers are responsible -- >> these kids got fat and it was adults who did it to them. i think it's a great thing and this is why. it's information. teachers can use the information, the parents can use the information and the kids have access to this so they can involve themselves in making good decisions. >> fitness is a great idea and anything that will encourage it, i'm for, but we have to worry that some of the information could be leaked to sources that maybe shouldn't have access. >> let's put one of those sources out there. the insurance company. kid who and again, this is an issue of whether it's the kid, the parent or the teacher. but is not exercising, isn't doing what they're supposed to do and is eating too many twinkies.

>> what's not going to be news to the insurance company is that the kid is fat, which means diabetes, stroke, heart conditions. they're already tallying up that bill before they find out the other information. these kids are doomed. >> mimi has little appetite for privacy. >> where do you get that from? i didn't say that! >> i wanted to add another thing to this. i found to be very interesting. i was talking to dr. michael nagler. he was telling me you're thinking of this as monitoring the kids. you know what this is really about, it's monitoring the teachers because we're looking for a way to figure out how for instance, fizz ed teachers, these watches are saying what the heart rate is and how fast they move and how much activity. >> these things barely get more than a treadmill used to get. >> we're not arguing here. what we're saying is this

information is flowing in both directions. we're monitoring the effectiveness of teachers. >> here's what i have to say. forget this other stuff. these kids are doomed if we don't intervene. i applaud new jersey and new york for doing something. these kids deserve the right and chance to grow up healthy. >> let us know what you think. we'll tell you who wins. >> till the next time. next, three iranian nuclear scientists assassinated. iran says it has proof the cia was to blame and how many guns did americans buy at christmas? we'll be back. [ male announcer ] every day thousands of people are choosing advil®. here's one story. pain doesn't have much of a place in my life. i checked the schedule and it's not on it. [ laughs ] you never know when advil® is needed. well most people only know one side of my life.

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guns were a hot item this holiday season. according to the fbi, there were 129,166 requests for instant background checks from firearm retailers on black friday. that of course is the day after thanksgiving. it was a single day record in the united states and beat the previous high, black friday 2008, when everyone was so worried about economic collapse, beat that by 32%. which brings us to tonight's number. 1.8. over 102,000 of those checks occurred on december 23rd. the second busiest gun buying day. even though they don't track sales, the fbi points out the number of gups sold during the holidays could be higher if customers passed the checks

bought one gun. only 1.3% of people who applied for permission to buy a gun are denied. still out front, the out front 5. >> italy's cruise disaster. >> and as we were being lowered in our lifeboat, we actually slammed into the side of the boat. s. one day i'm on top of the world... the next i'm saying... i have this thing called psoriatic arthritis. i had some intense pain. it progressively got worse. my rheumatologist told me about enbrel. i'm surprised how quickly my symptoms have been managed.

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we start the second half of our show with stories we care about, what we focus on, do the work and find the outfront 5 and first, super pacs. they can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on campaigns, but not take direction from the candidate. supposed to be independent, but are they? turns out super pacs are run by the candidate's former staffers. two came out front tonight. bill burton was one and charlie spies. both say they're following the rules, but say they will continue their super pac work even though each candidate has criticized the groups.

number two, wikipedia will shut down for 24 hours on wednesday in protest of sopa. an online privacy act, a story a lot of people are passionate about. wikipedia is going to join redit and several other sites in protest of the antipiracy legislation being considered. the cofounder says the site averages 25 million visitors a day. number three, zappos has been hacked, compromising 24 million accounts. zappos is owned by amazon. it sent an e-mail the customers this afternoon telling them their passwords were compromised. the company insists the passwords were encoded, but we talked to an online security expert who says there's no question about this one. if you use a password or logon anywhere else, change them immediately. four, fewer americans describe the current economic conditions as poor, but the number calling it somewhat poor has gone up to 42%. looks like an improvement at

least in category. the same poll found americans' view of congress has reached a low for a cnn poll. just 11% of people approve how congress is handling its job. this comes out after the fierce fights of payroll tax extension and raising the debt ceiling. number five. it's been 164 days since the u.s. lost its top credit rating, which happened after a fight in congress over the debt ceiling. what are we doing to get it back?

>> answer the question first. >> we have plenty of time. i'll get there. isle do it in the order i want >> it's classic mitt romney. he had to add, isle do it in the

order i want to do. >> this crowd just loving the fistfight and really not taking the invasion. >> the invasion is there for a very simple reason. when mitt romney punches back, it looks like he's punching a child. there's only so much he can do. >> social media is going crazy as always. big issue with ron paul and defense cuts. ron paul's plan does not freeze the pentagon budget. why? because of this exchange. >> your question suggests you're confused about my position. i would probably have more bases here at home. we were closing them down in the 1990s and building them overseas.

we would save a lot more money and have a stronger national defense. >> this issue has come back again and again. i don't want to seem as extreme as some people are making. >>'ll he's holding his ground, comparing himself to ike, warning about the military industrial complex getting a big applause. >> and there is a lot of confusion between cutting overseas and cutting the pentagon budget. >> absolutely. military spending is not all defense spending. a lot on contracts and personnel costs. >> what's your feeling on ron paul? >> he has great domestic policy and monetary policy but a lot of people don't agree with his foreign policy. and he has a very strong network of supporters.

and they' been following him for a long time and they absolutely believe in him. the frob people have is the foreign policy. i am a former flight attendant. i was fly on september 11 and i understand that we need to be here and take care of ourselves, but who is going to make sure that another jumbo jet doesn't fly into a building in new york city. we have to have a strong military that defends and protects the united states. and a lot of people would agree with me. >> thanks so much. john, amy, all three of you. amy, i'm eager and excited for it. i will let you know, erin, i promise. >> thanks to all three. appreciate it. >> the showdown between the u.s. and iran may be reaching a boiling point. iran says it has proof the cia is directly involved in the murder of a nuclear scientist and rounded up several suspects.

then there's iran's threat to cut off the strait of hormuz. 40% of the world's traded oil passes through it. you saw the video last week of the iranian speedboats the u.s. has two aircraft carrier fleets in the region and warned closing the strait would be a red line that should not be crossed. the question now is, is there already a war going on and everything but a direct military way? and how close is that? former secretary of defense william cohen joined me earlier and i asked him about what the rising tensions may lead to. >> i think it has escalated and we have to be careful that the rhetoric doesn't turn to action. we need to avoid a conflict if possible. part of the difficulty is the iranians are starting to feel the bite of the sanctions. you had the e.u. on the verge of declaring tougher u sanctions and boycotting oil from iran, so this is really starting to hurt the iranian economy and as a result of that, the tensions

within iran are starting to ratchet up and therefore, they start to make declaration they're going to shut down the straits of hormuz, which would if they're successful, cut off the supply of 20 to 30% of the world's oil supply. so i think after the rhetoric ought to be cooled a bit and they ought to understand that the united states and other countries are going to intensify these sanctions until iran understands it has an option. the option is to give up its nuclear weapons program and then be welcomed back into the international community. but absent that, i think sanctions are going to be intensified. >> if iran has reached a point of no return, the the more isolated they become, the less they have to lose by using their weapons, but killing a lot of people. >> they've pointed themselves into a corner. some of the academics have said they have pointed themselves into a corner at which they have no option.

they have painted themselves into a corner by violates international rules as such and so, they have an opportunity to step back from their nuclear weapons program to allow the progress of a nuclear program that will be for civil purposes only, which they have declared to be their goal. so there's an option available to them other than what they're doing now, but they refuse to take that. more recently, they talked about opening up to discussion, so we'll see whether they have a real interest in revolving this peaceably. >> what would cause military conflict? from your point of view. what could iran do that would make the u.s. fight back? >> well, the one thing they have declared they would do would be to try to shut down the persian gulf or straits of hormuz. number one, they could disrupt traffic for a few days or longer, but i'm confident they could not shut it down, but that

would be red line that would be crossed and i think they would have difficulty from that point forward. i think the response of the united states would be vigorous. it would inflict great damage upon iran's ability to sell oil in the future for some time, so i think it would be a very serious move for them to take. hopefully, it's just boasting at the point, but if they were to take that action, i think the international response would be one that's quite vigorous that would be critical to iran and have long-term consequences for its future. >> secretary cohen, thank you very much. we're going to talk about the republican candidates' view on iran tomorrow. >> good to be with you. human error behind the death of six peoples and hundreds of contractors being detained in iraq. many of them, americans working at the american embassy. we'll be back. ♪ home was an airport lounge and an ipad ♪ ♪ made sure his credit score did not go bad ♪

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will be giving away passafree copies of the alcoholism & addiction cure. to get yours, go to ssagesmalibubook.com. we do this at the same time every night. our outer circle, where we reach out to sources around the world. tonight, we begin in iraq according to the "new york times," many of the hundreds that have been detained in recent weeks are americans working at the u.s. embassy in baghdad. now, formal charges haven't been filed, but the detentions have lasted from a few hours up to a few weeks. jeffrey is the trek tor of the fund and we asked why this is happening. >> they do not have the proper documentation when they enter

the country. it seemed stricter security measures were put in place and that information was not clearly conveyed to contracting companies. >> and next in nigeria, there's news today that the country's president has decided to slash fuel prices, but not down to prior levels. two labor groups suspended their strike and urged demonstrators to go home. we asked how the striking has affected the economy. >> it estimates that each day of striking has cost the nigerian economy nearly a billion dollars and that's not taking into account the impact it's had on investor confidence. the threatened oil workers union strike which was called off at the 1 1th hour over the weekend sent shivers through international marks, and most investors will be asking themselves, what happens next

time the labor unions and nigerian government face off? tonight, an american couple from minnesota, among the 29 still missing in the capsized cruise ship off the coast of italy. they have four children and 15 grandchildren. they were on a 16-day cruise with 4,200 passengers and crew aboard the costa concordia. as you know, it ran aground off the coast of tuscany on friday. authorities say human error was the cause and the ship was sailing too close to shore, perhaps to literally greet a friend. the scene aboard the doomed ship was one of chaos as passengers scrambled for lifeboats. >> we were waiting for like, two, three hours. >> the crew was so young. you would have thought they could have handled it better. >> we were fortunate. we boarded a lifeboat early enough. we were taken to shore early enough. >> we were helping the staff more than they were helping us.

they weren't in control. >> divers continued to search the flooded cabins for survives and it's a disaster, but what is exactly is the captain and the crew accused of? jim walker specializes in ship safety. nice to have you with us. 29 people still missing as we have been reporting. six confirmed dead. who is accountable for this? >> well, the captain, first of all, is obviously accountable. he's the master of the ship. he has the ultimate responsibility. he should be the last one of the ship if he's not going down with the ship. so he's clearly responsible, but in akin to the master, the cruise line itself seems to be accountable as well. they didn't have any type of lifeboat drill to begin with. they should have known that this captain had a history of deviating from his scheduled course. and there's a lot of responsibility to go around, erin. >> jim a lot of people take

cruises and they're perceived as one of the safest vacations you can take. we're coming now into spring break and cruise season. i think a lot of people are wondering, how common is this? you have crews who seem inexperienced and you don't have proper lifeboat pro-eseed durs, et cetera. >> right. a week ago, another italian cruise liner ran aground over in the bahama islands, going to freeport. no one was injured but a large cruise ship found itself in 14 feet of water sailing into a fragile reef and running aground. that was a week ago. that had no press because no one was injured. but if you look at costa, in the past two years, two other costa ships, the costaeuropa and costa classica had incidents that resulted 234 injuries to passengers and death to crew. so just in the past two years, they've had three very serious fatality, casualty situations.

there's not a lot of press, but these types of incidents are not as rare as the cruise lines want you to believe. >> i mean, 14 million people take cruises every single year. it's a huge industry. something like $30 billion. if you're going on a cruise, how do you know? how can you find out about the record of the ship? or of the captain? and i'm also curious in this case, the captain who may be charged with manslaughter. did he even have a record? would it have shown up? >> there's no place for the general public to go for that type of information, unfortunately. there is an organization called international cruise victims.org where you can go and read story the about different types of injuries, sexual assaults, crimes, groundings and fires. that's a pretty good source to go to. there's also a professor in canada, ironically enough, professor ross klein who has a website called cruise junkie.com.

it's kind of a silly name, but it has s a valuable course of information. the cruise line, the cruise line industry, they're not going to tell you about all the bad things. they want you to come aboard and have a good time. but if you look back in the past two to three year, there have been 15 major casualties. groundings, collisions, and fires. primarily with the carnival cruise lines, the carnival splendor a year ago had a major catastrophe with an engine room fire. it was disabled in international waters off the coast of mexico. and our u.s. coast guard and navy, we had to send an aircraft carrier out there to retrieve the ship back to u.s. port at u.s. taxpayer expense. so these are types of things that do happen on somewhat of a routine basis. >> that's amazing. i think a lot of people were not aware. thanks very much, jim. >> thank you.

we've all heard about economic troubles in europe. but tonight, a human face and a truly disturbing one.

today's essay comes from ireland, where a medical examiner believes the country's new drunk driving laws have actually led to more deaths. it believes tougher laws led to more suicides among older men

who live in isolated rural communities because they stopped driving to the local pub for company while they drink. it's a bigger sign of a bigger problem in ireland. one of the reasons the people have to drive to the pub in the first place is because the bars in ireland are few and far between. it was once said it would be tough to pass ireland without passing a pub in the book "ulysses." almost 1300 bars closed their doors and a country once known as having a pub on every corner, only 7,500 left in the entire country and suicide rates risen sharply with 13% of all people taking their own lives as they face a bleak economic out look. in that, ireland is not alone. and things are worse in greece where protests rocked the nation last year and suicide rates up by 16%. that's an incredible number when you consider a couple years ago, greece had the lowest suicide rate in europe.

even worse, this week, the greek orthodox church reported more and more cases of parents abandoning children in athens because they can't afford to support them. that's an amazingly horrible thing and amazing to happen in a place like greece. europe's leaders are not hopeful. french president nicolas sarkozy calls it the worst since the world wore and the imf says it could trigger protraction, retraction, rise protectionism and isolation and exactly the description of what happened in the 1930s and not something we're looking forward to. everybody thinks you could never have anything happen like world war ii again. certainly, they would have thought that in world war ii when world war i was a very current memory. now, world war ii is a long time ago and we say it could never happen again, could it? nobody is in this crisis alone.