board i boarding a flight after refusing a pat-down. and news on beginning itch's work for freddie mac. we have the contract just released. let's go "outfront." good evening. i'm erin burnett and tonight, breaking news. the truth behind newt gingrich's ties to freddie mac. literally, within the past eight minutes, the former speaker released records explaining his connection to the taxpayer subsidized mortgage giant. i've been reading through it, it's a 15-page contract and this is a contract for just one year, 2006. now, the speaker worked for freddie mac for several years, so 2006 is the only year that i have in my hands and here's what i can tell you it says. it says that the gingrich group had a $25,000 monthly retainer fee from freddie mac. he said that adds up to $300,000 a year, which is the maximum for the year 2006. i want to emphasize this is one out of the six that he worked for freddie mac. now, he was a consultant and he released this to make that point, to try to continue to make the distinction between consultant and quote unquote lob lobbyist. he said he warned them about the looming housing crisis. >> i have never done any lobbying. i said to them at the time, this is a bubble. this is insane. this is impossible. turned out unfortunately, i was right. >> but when he was working at freddie mac from 1999 to 2002 and from 2006 to 2008, gingrich saying a much different tune. extolling the benefits of freddie. in an interview posted on freddie mac's website, this is my favorite quote. the former speaker said quote, i'm convinced that if nasa were a government sponsored enterprise, we probably would be on mars today. we have a much more liquid and stable financing system than we would without the gses. that refers to freddie mac. stable? housing prices are down 24% from their peak and the facts are, no matter what you believe about freddie's contribution to helping people buy homes in this country, the fact is that america's home ownership rate today is about 66%, almost identical to canada's 68% and canada has no taxpayer subsidized institution like freddie. and more r outrage. freddie still owes 56 milli$56 billion to taxpayers. that's part of the $71 billion bailout they were handed during the crisis. that is more money than any bank in this country ever got. so just how much will gingrich's ties to freddie mac hurt him in florida? in florida, 44% of homeowners at this moment with under water on their mortgages. the average home in florida worth half what it was when newt gingrich worked for freddie mac. douglas is a former economic adviser to the 2008 mccain campaign. john avalon is a cnn contributor. what do you make of that? he's putting out one year to say yes, i know, sounds like lobbyist. is that going to be enough? >> i don't think so. people are going to be interesting, motive republican primary voters, and the american public in general. the nature of his activities. mr. gingrich is a long time washington insider. freddie mac was one of the people he worked for. i'm sure there are many more, and people are going to want a full disclosure of the nature of his activities. he was in the business of influencing public policy and the broad opinions toward those public policies and i think people want to know the nature of these activities. >> i think that's true and john, there were a lot of people who missed this. that's not necessarily the point. but when you are receiving money from a company that still owes $51 billion to taxpayers, you look not so good. >> this is not a crystal ball that looks good right now. this is an academic distinction p. people know historians don't get paid $1.6 million. otherwise, there would be a lot more of them. really, we're going to readjust the entire thing. but if someone's consulting and giving advice and their analysis and they're that far wrong, that can become an issue. >> and doug, how does that play out? >> a lot of people got this situation wrong, but you have newt gingrich come out saying barack obama should give back the money he gave in campaign donations from nmci freddie mac. should he be giving back the money from consulting fees as it was crashing? >> whether you got the housing bubble right or wrong -- i've been wrong many times. i'm going to become a historian. fannie mae and freddie mac were gses and there was always a concern going back to 2001, 2 2002. there were many who warned about the problem who were worried about the structure of the gses and the congressional budget office wrote about this. the crew question is how consistent were his views and he said this is fine, then said no, they should never have been that way. >> the fight in florida, we're eight days away from the florida primary. both campaigns biting hard. >> not the most popular name. >> we'll check that out. what's important here is you've got a huge number of -- number of under watt err mortgages, 200,000 foreclosures each year. the economic pain that floridains are feeling will translate. >> this also lends itself to the broader conversation that newt gingrich is it seems going to have to have potential voters, which is do you believe that the government is who should be helping you get a home, encourage home ownership or is this something is government should not be involved in. at this time, he was promoting the government. >> there is no question about it. there is now and will be over the next several years, an ongoing policy decision about what is the role of the federal government in house purchases and finance. he owes the american people an explanation. i think the biggest issue he's going to face is he is trying to portray himself as a product of the tea party. he is no more than i'm a product of the seattle liberals. he's been in washington for all of the time i've been in washington. deeply involved in the int ra kwasis and efforts this this town. the authenticity of his campaign vael the issue. >> newt is a government reformer. romney's going to have a problem here and in nevada where there's a lot of under water mortgages. when he told the board he thought the process should play out and hit bottom, that could rub a lot of people the wrong way. >> thanks very much to you and by the way, emphasizing again, i have one contract here just released eight minutes ago. i guess now, it's 16 minutes ago, but doing the math, assuming newt gingrich was paid $25,000 over the time, that would be $1.8 million from freddie. but that's based off the one-year rate. things get ugly on the campaign trial. romney and gingrich trading shots in florida and then, senator rand paul. something happened to him that may have happened to you, but he fought back. refused to pat-down, got banned from a flight. and police using phones, cars and watches to track you and until today, they didn't need a warrant. the employee of the month isss... the new spark card from capital one. spark miles gives me the most rewards of any small business credit card. the spark card earns double miles... so we really had to up our game. with spark, the boss earns double miles on every purchase, every day. that's setting the bar pretty high. owning my own business has never been more rewarding. coming through! [ male announcer ] introducing spark the small business credit cards from capital one. get more by choosing unlimited double miles or 2% cash back on every purchase, every day. what's in your wallet? the tsa got personal today. when the outspoken libertarian leaning republican refused a pat-down at the nashville airport. an alerm went off when paul went through a scanner. that happens to me. i usually take the pat-down, but paul did not want to. but he wanted to go through the body scan again. and you know, we know they don't like it when you do that. so he wasn't allowed to get on hids flight, but laughed it off later. this is a serious issue for the senator. senator paul comes out tonight. let me ask you, senator paul rand, what really happened today? >> i did offer also to show them my leg. i pulled my sock down, but they really weren't sbrinterested. they wanted to do the pat-down and i said i'm happy to walk back through the screener, which i've done as other airports before, been rescreened, and they weren't willing to do it. i had two tsa agents admit to me that the screener isn't always going off because it sees something. it also goes off because it's part of a random screening process and i think most airport passengers don't know this and we're sort of made to believe oh, it's okay to do the pat-down. it's actually random. >> it happened to me the other day and they admitted it was random. but let me ask you because i know you're frustrated with them and you don't like them, was there any theatrictheatrics? rand paul acting out a little bit? >> no, but i wouldn't put it that way. i wouldn't say i don't like tsa. there is a need for security at our airports. most of the tsa agents i see are good and pat me on the back, but they're stuck with rules that don't allow them to have any consideration. i want the manager on the floor to have some discretion to say we don't have to do a pat-down here. i want them to have a trusted traveler program where business travelers can flow seemlessly through the airport without being harassed. >> i hear you on that point, but when you look at the trk sa, 70 million people go through those scanners. what if, god forbid, they thought someone looked normal and didn't submit them to the extra check and that's the person who blows up a plane? >> there's always the what if, but if you had a frequent travel terror program, you would sign up, give background information voluntarily. you would still go through an x-ray machine, but you wouldn't take your shoes off, your belt, but wouldn't have to go through a pat-down search. we've had 88-year-old women having an adult diaper taken off. an 8-month-old child, the same thing. a 6-year-old girl from my town had an agent putting their hands inside her pants. we've gone too far and are not using our brain. let's use common sense in trying to figure out who r the people who want to ait can us. >> how did you get on the plane? >> well, i was detained for a while. and then when they got tired of detaining me, they then injected me and sent me outside under sort of duress. >> oh, ejected. i think you said injected. >> not injected. i was detained for a while and every time i tried to leave the cubicle, i was detained. then they got tired of me because i made phone calls. they said, if you use your phone, you'll get the full body pat-down. >> is that just maybe of terms -- >> if you're told to get back in the cubicle, is that being detained? but then they got tired of me on my phone and they knew they were created more problems, so they forcefully ejected me and you know what they did in the end? they said if you go through the screener again, we'll pretend like it didn't happen. then the screener didn't pick up anything. so either the screeners aren't working or i was being suggested to a random pat-down, which i don't think the helping any of our safety. >> i want to do one final question for you, sir. i spoke to newt gingrich the day before the south carolina primary. and i asked him about your dad and he had a lot of praise for him. here's what he said. >> it's a fact of life ron paul's going to get a significant vote and it's a fact of life that you want to find something that would give him a strong reason not to consider a third party and so you've got to say o kay, under what circumstance, he has a legitimate role. and you want to find something we're compatible on that you could find something to do. >> is there a something? >> well, i think one thing that ron paul has brought to the republican party is he's been a long time republican, but when you poll him against president obama, he's beating president obama by seven points among independents. he's bringing young people and independents to the party, so i think newt is right. they need to embrace ron paul and say we want you to be a prt of our party. we want all these new, young people. but in some ways, they have to embrace ron paul's message, because it's not about ron paul as a personal figure. it's about my father's message that brings the young people. i think there is room for him in the republican party. there's room for me. we're not all the same, but most of us do believe in much smaller government than president obama does. much less taxes and much less debt than the president does. >> rand paul, thank you very much. apologies for the snafu with your name at the top. you were gracious. have a good one. tonight, under surveillance, how the government is watching us and we're talking about g prk s. in cell phones, cars, boats, planes. you can get it now in a wristwatch for as little as $100, but it's also used by police to track suspects. until now, they didn't need a search warrant, but today, the supreme court ruled that the police have to have a warrant in order to monitor a suspect with the gps device. paul cowen, the case today was a suspected drug dealer. tracked him for 28 days. should they be aloud to do that? >> well, there's a big disagreement about that. those who support law enforcement officials and including the obama administration, people think it's a liberal administration. the justice department said they did not wrong. a search warrant expired after 11 days and they tracked the guy for 28 days, nailed him and then he got sentenced to life in prison and the justice department says it's okay. >> the obama administration supported the position that no warrant was required by the police. >> and i think people would be shocked by that. civil libertarians say they should have had a warrant. you can't have this sort of unrestrained surveillance by police forces in the united states. >> what's the reaction going to be? >> people were hoping for a monumental decision about these new digital surveillance techniques. gps is kind of an old one. they were hoping the court would hand down a big decision, but it was a very confused decision. the only thing they agreed on is that they pres passed on somebody's property. can you follow somebody for 28 days and as a result of knowing where they go, then you arrest them for criminal activity. people thought we'd get a look at infrared, all these techni e techniqu techniques, but we did get a hint that a lot of supreme court justices think we need new laws in this area. that americans' privacy is being violated by these techniques. >> remember, everyone, to turn it off. you know, you can turn off your g prk s thing. i think they're always watching. all right. got to go. >> okay. >> next, where is michelle parker. there is new video showing the missing mother just hours before she was last seen. it's a story we've been following and we're going to talk to her sister tonight. and the end of the line for one of your favorite television characters. the shat goes splat in tonight's number. 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[whoosh, clang] you need lifelock-- the only identity protection company that now monitors bank accounts for takeover fraud. lifelock-- relentlessly protecting your identity. call 1-800-lifelock or go to lifelock.com today. we start the second half of our show on stories we care about and tonight, we begin with two people dying, 100 injured. there's been severe weather in the southeast today. one of the hardest hit areas was jackson county, alabama. officials there are telling us the storm destroyed more than 200 homes and damaged another 200. we're told that number will rise. alabama governor robert bentley has declared a state of emergency in all 67 counties. two, the u.s. has imposed sanctions on iran's biggest bank. the european union put pressure on iran saying they would ban oil imports. but the truth is, the u.s. and europe are not able to stop iran from getting the money it needs to build nukes. an analyst says one-third of tran transactions go through dubai and has been used a long time by iran to conduct back channel trades. three, gabrielle giffords will resign from congress this. daniel hernandez seen here hugging the congresswoman is credited with saving her life after a gunman opened fire at a congress on your corner event january 8th, 2011. we talked to daniel hernandez after today's event and he told "outfront" that giffords talked to his mom and said, quote, she was always a fan of my mother's cakes and today, mentioned her name. number four, the new ceo of rim, said today that better marketing and product rollout are key to keeping the smart phone alive. market share has dropped below 10%. they need a change at the top, however, experts believe a change in markets will not be enough to turn around blackberry. it has been 171 days since america lost its top credit rating. we are hopeful congress to going to do more this year. only 90 public laws were passed in the senate in 2011. that is the lowest number since 1995. forget positive campaigning. mitt romney and newt gingrich are going after each other today in florida. >> the you've been campaigning for six years, and you begin to see it slip away, you get desperate. and when you get desperate, you say almost anything. >> you look at the speaker's record