good morning. i'm ashleigh banfield. >> and i'm zoraida sambolin. it's 5:00 a.m. in the east. let's get started. >> we've got a lot of breaking news coming into our offices from around the world. you know this story already, remarkable pictures out of italy, and now we're hearing the rescue operation of that cruise ship listing on its side has been suspended once again because the ship is moving. not only that, one of the res e rescuers had to be rescued as well. we'll get you detailed. and wikipedia and other websites going partially dark. right after midnight that happened. they're protesting anti-piracy bills. that's google right there. if you thought that all's fair in love and war and even the fringes of war, the u.s. and pakistan are having trouble right now. pakistan has said to the united states, you know that special envoy you sent us? send them back. we don't want them. weem get to the details. mitt romney reports that he pays about a 15% tax rate. how do you feel about that? he is resisting calls to release his tax returns. we've got a lot more details headed your way on that. first up, we want to get you breaking news from overnight, the rescue operation we've been covering since the weekend of that doomed cruise ship that is listing perilously on its side in 60 feet of water. all of the rescue operations for the remaining people who are considered to be on board have been suspend ed because once again that ship is moving. it's sitting in 60 feet of water on rock, but there is ocean movement. there are tides. and that means there is movement, and it is dangerous, especially for those trying to do the rescue. you see the gurney coming out? that is a rescue worker on that litter being rescued from the operation itself. clearly, it has become dangerous for all involved. u.s. coast guard says the coast guard workers felt sick because of the stressful conditions under which they have been operating. and by the way, new today, the captain of the doomed cruise liner is out of jail. he was released overnight. we have video. it's so strange, looking as though he's being put into a confined vehicle and taken away from the jail. perhaps for his own safety, perhaps it's standard operating procedure. >> he actually looks like he's in handcuffs as he's being escorted out. >> it would be odd particularly because yesterday was a perfunctory investigative process as opposed to a typical american court hearing. he's still got the presumption of innocence in that country. >> it was odd to see him in handcuffs if he's going into house arrest. journalist barbie nadeau on the phone. >> reporter: i would say there's outrage that captain francesco schettino is home south of naples right now. he was whisked away from the jail at 2:00 a.m. local time, arrived at his home in naples, and that's where he'll stay until the judge makes another decision. the prosecutor is livid. he's made comments this morning to a number of reporters that he's going to try to get the captain back in jail. yesterday at a hearing, the judge made a decision not to make a decision about whether or not he should stay in jail for the duration of the investigation. and between the time she made that decision and this morning, he was let go on house arrest. that doesn't mean he's going to stay there for the duration, but it's where he is right now. as the workers in giglio are braving dangerous conditions and stormy seas to try to conduct the rescue operations. >> barbie, the transmissions that we've been listening to between the captain and the port authority have been absolutely remarkable, more than anyone assumed could be. i'm wondering if there's talk in italy right now about just how guilty this makes this man sound and how the locals are reacting, as well as the people who are still there, the passengers still probably in country waiting to go home. >> reporter: and don't forget 1,000 italians who are on that ship listening to this in their native language. if you understand italian, the nuances of this commander of the coast guard as he was speaking to this captain, who wasn't speaking to him in a formal tone and was sort of talking to him like he's talking to another sailor, it's just incredible. the coast guard official handled it so professionally. his concern was obviously safety first. he is trying to downplay the notion that he's the hero, this coast guard official. he said, people are dead. there is no hero. this is a real drama at this point. this is just the beginning. there's a number of missing people on board, and there's also the threat of an environmental emergency. there are 500,000 gallons of fuel on that boat. there's a storm predicted, sea storm with waves up to six feet, which is huge for the mediterranean. the mediterranean is a very calm sea. and all of these factors are swirling around. and this captain at home. it's really unbelievable. >> barbie nadeau, thank you for following this for us. we're going to check back in with you. she's live from rome. so many details emerging this morning. it's kind of tough to see him in handcuffs going home. >> i couldn't tell though. >> his hands, i looked at it very carefully to see. his hands are in the front. >> it would be odd, certainly as you're free. >> something we would never do in this country. >> you are home, right? as you're looking at headlines, i don't know if you've got your early papers, this one is absolutely remarkable. the "new york post" basically saying "chicken of the sea" with a picture of this captain. in the smaller print, it has the port authority's quote to him over the transmissions. "get back on board for "f" sake." that wraps up the conversation between the two parties. and we're hearing about the huge operation in that ship. there is a heck of a project they're start to go think through. step one, get what barbie was talking about, the 500,000 gallons of fuel out of the ship's 17 tanks. it was only three hours into the cruise, so it was pretty much full. that process could take weeks on weeks. then they have to decide what to do with the mess. if they can right the ship. they've got to decide whether to cut it up, haul it away for scrap, salvage it in some way. and the workers thinking about the salvage are working alongside the rescuers as well. >> and up until the rescue operation was suspended, they continued to blast holes in the side of the ship. they were loorbgiking for signs life. so far they haven't seen in. the death toll stands at 11. two dozen still missing, including the american couple from minnesota, jerry and barbara heil. a prayer vigil will be held for the two of them. there's a picture right there. the couple's children waiting for any word about their parents. >> my mom never travels much until after my dad retired. so they've been going a lot of places. i was really happy for them because they deserved to go on this awesome trip that they had planned. >> this was a 16-day vacation they had planned with a trip to the vatican, devout catholics. really tough to hear the family there. as for the owner of the cruise line, it insists that its ships are safe. >> translator: an episode like this which was caused by human factors cannot and must not destroy what we've all done collectively. our ships are as safe today as they were on friday. what happened has nothing to do with maritime safety. it has nothing to do with policies and procedures or our technology, training, and quality of our staff. >> coming up in the next hour at 6:00 a.m. eastern, we're going to talk to joe ryan. he was a passenger on board that cruise ship. so one of the things you might do, if you're like zoraida or me, is you get up in the morning and log on. you start looking for information, whether it's news or sports or all sorts of fun things. you might head on to, i don't know, your google. there's a lot of sites you're not going to be able to get to today. wikipedia for one is completely blacked out. that's what you'll see. and i decided to call up my google page to do a quick search. come on over here and take a look at this. >> you can get an google. you're just a little blocked out. >> it's funny. the way google operates, they always have a message on their icon. that's the message today. big old black bar over the google icon. this is essentially a protest over anti-piracy bills. you probably heard of sopa, the stop online piracy act. it's being worked on, but it's real sluggish. things aren't going so well on capitol hill. i think the intentions were good here. i do think the intentions of this bill were that online piracy is a big problem. hollywood, television, music, they all suffer from it. they lose billions of dollars from people who steal. so the bill is an attempt to sort of mitigate that, but it's not going over so well with people who think it amounts to censorship. >> we're actually going to break it down for folks so they understand how it works for them as well. >> last night on cnn's "up front" with erin burnett, the co-founder of wikipedia says it amounts to online censorship. >> in the worst version, wikipedia wouldn't be able to even link to pirate bay or the scientific discussion of what pirate bay is. that raises freedom of speech issues. >> cnn actually supports the legislation, the sopa sitting before congress. he says by censoring free and open internet, the u.s. would be doing exactly what china does. u.s. markets higher yesterday. the dow and nasdaq each gained about .5%. the s&p 500 up about .3%. >> i don't know if i should be taxing you on sopa so early. christine romans, i'm sure there's a huge money issue to deal with that. aren't people more concerned with their credit card debt? >> credit card is down over the past year. now it stands on average about $6,576. how much credit card debt do you have. the national average is $6,576. it depends where you live. some states have more credit card debt than others. you can see from this, the more red it is, the more likely you are to have higher than average credit card debt. especially the end of the year. a little thing i'm concerned about is the holiday spending. we started putting money back on our credit cards. so this overall number for 2011 showed we were paying down our credit card debts, guys, but we were still picking up more auto loans, more student loans. our mortgage debt didn't go down. but we were paying down our credit card debt a little bit. i think this year we have to really watch to see if people start -- economy gets a little bit better. people start adding more credit card debt. the banks are sending me notices. have you been getting the notices in the mail? >> two a day. >> the banks are starting to send them. finding people that aren't going to be good customers. >> they think i'm not going to be a good customer. maybe it's all the moving i've done. >> they'll find you, zoraida. >> be careful when you add the debt. >> are we talking politics? >> i want to talk politics quickly because, as the candidates head south, they're getting into new territory in terms of unemployment rate, in terms of foreclosures. they're going to a couple of big states. big primaries coming up, south carolina and florida hurting in a couple of ways. south carolina, the unemployment rate 9.9%. half of the people unemployed are long-term unemployed, meaning they're really hurting there. 1 in 70 properties in south carolina is in foreclosure. let's head to florida. unemployment rate is 10%. 240,000 long-term unemployed. and 1 in 9 properties in some form of foreclosure. so housing and long-term unemployment two very big things for the gop candidates as they head south. >> and i'm sure you're working on nevada with those housing numbers. >> nevada's housing numbers are just unbelievable. >> they're like florida, aren't they? >> i think they're worse than florida. they're both so bad that it just hurts. >> christine, thank you. 13 minutes past the hour here. they're getting a big blast of winter in the pacific northwest. seattle bracing for five to ten inches of snow. we say that's no big deal. for them that's a very big deal. it's usually what they get in a year. could be one of the largest snowfalls since the 1940s. >> rob marciano has his finger on the pulse. he's in the weather center watching the snow, watching the reaction to it, and letting us know what's going to happen. >> in that part of the world, one inches of snow, two inches of snow is a big deal. to get several is certainly going to be epic, especially south of seattle. right now in portland, we're seeing several inches of snow on the ground. chaos for the most part has ensued there. there are actually 10,000 people without power at the moment as this stream of moisture makes its way into the pacific northwest. eventually, it will get down to the northern california area. winter storm warnings issued from the canadian border all the way south towards northern california into utah as well. this is a big event. the good news is it will replenish or at least start to build some of the snow pack that's been so, so low this year. snowing in portland. vancouver, three inches on the ground. the rain/snow line just south of portland. the warmer air will push in. seattle just about to get the snow. the second round started. several inches expected. at least five, if not ten inches expected seattle, tacoma, in through parts of olympia as well. the east coast, a little frontal action moving through the southeast and cold and blustery. colder, i should say, across the northeast. hold on to your hats. windy conditions expected from new york to boston today. >> rob marciano, thank you so much. still to come on "early start," rivals want mitt romney to show them the money. he's not revealing tax returns, but he is offering up new information about how much he pays uncle sam. when i look up into my student's faces, i see pride. you know, i have done something worthwhile. when i earned my doctorate through university of phoenix, that pride, that was on my face. i am jocelyn taylor, i am committed to making a difference in peoples lives and i am a phoenix. have i got a surprise for you! yeah, [ bait's beneful healthy fiesta. gotta love the protein for muscles-- whoo-hoo! and omega-rich nutrition for that shiny coat. ever think healthy could taste so good? 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(announcer) starts working on contact and at the nerve level. to block pain for hours. new capzasin, takes the pain out of arthritis. it is 5:18 in the east. welcome back to "early start." i'm zoraida soambolin along wit ashleigh banfield. it is a temporarily suspended cruise ship rescue because the costa concordia is moving off the coast of italy. in the meantime, the captain has returned home under house arrest, taken away in handcuffs, it looks like, as he's headed to house arrest. and wikipedia partially dark this morning. critics say the stop online piracy act, sopa, amounts to online censorship. time warner, in sake of full disclosure, supports this legislation. and authorities say a smoking object was thrown over a white house fence during an occupy wall street protest. the president and first lady were not there at the time. they were out there celebrating michelle obama's 48th birthday. if you've been watching mitt romney and his money seems to be a pretty big headline and a real nagging one for the republican front-runner because his rivals are pushing like mad saying, all right, romney. release your tax returns. everybody knows that mitt romney is a wealthy man. but mitt romney isn't interested at this point in releasing his tax returns. he's definitely trying to mitigate the situation. kind of threw this piece of meat to the circling media lions. >> what's the effective rate i've been paying? it's probably closer to the 15% rate more than anything because the last ten years, my income comes overwhelmingly from investments made in the past rather than ordinary income or rather than earned annual income. i get a little bit of income from my book, but i gave that all away. and then i get speaker's fees from time to time but not very much. >> speaker's fees from time to time but not very much. that's going to be key for my panel in just a moment because from chicago we've got conservative radio host mike mcallister and from political roll call and democratic strategist maria cardona. lenny, i want you first on this one. not very much, apparently, the speaker's fees. when you look at what his speaker's fees were from last year, $374,000. i don't know about you, but for me that's a lot of money. does this play to that whole argument from his fellow politicians and candidates that he's out of touch? >> it absolutely does, and it's not good for the gop from an establishment standpoint to push him as the nominee. he pays less of a tax rate than other americans do. some think it's not a lot of money to get over $300,000 in speaker's fees. somebody that can throw around $10,000 bet. and the big thing for me, what he mentioned on monday night, saying that felons who have paid their debt to society, that are moving forward with their life and have reformed, still shouldn't get their voting rights reinstated, something that rick santorum did stand for? this is a guy who can't relate to the vast majority of a diverse america moving forward in the 21st century. he couldn't relate to the issues rick santorum brought up in black america, can't relate to people who are struggling, he thinks that $10,000 bets are something to throw around. this is not good for him. the grass roots of the republican establishment and the conservative base are going to say something about it to be quite honest with you. >> and they're going to invoke his own family's words because our intrepid reporters at cnn were able to dig back to 1967 for an article from the "st. joseph missouri gazette." the income tax returns for the last 12 years revealed by romney. that would be george romney, mitt romney's dad. this was unprecedented. he's the first politician really to have done so, and he released 12 years. so, shira, what is the harm, at this point, because it's getting so ugly, for mitt romney just to do what his dad did? >> i think there's probably something in those tax returns that doesn't make us look too favorably on romney. we're already talking about this being his biggest weakness on the campaign trail, he's uncomfortable talking about his own wealth. he's referred to in the past -- remember in new hampshire several months ago he joked he's un