saying -- bring it on. senator rand paul refusing a pat-down at an airport security checkpoint after setting off an alarm on a body scanner. he's joining us live this hour. he'll tell us what happened. also, a key u.s. supreme court ruling on electronic surveillance. the justices agree that police need a warrant to plant a gps device on a suspect's car but they don't agree on why. i'm wolf blitzer and you're in "the situation room." what a day in politics. mitt romney is going all out as he goes after newt gingrich with a series of very bitter attacks. the new national poll out today may show why. the two rivals are in a statistical tie. the gallup daily tracking poll shows romney at 29% nationwide, down nine points in just over a week. gingrich is at 28%, double his strength in the last poll a week ago. it's a dead heat, just a week and change before the florida primary. let's bring in cnn jim acosta. he's in tampa and watching the battle for florida. >> it shouldn't be. got the best weather around. >> reporter: licking his wounds after south carolina, mitt romney has the klaas out in florida. >> we can see in october surprise a day from newt gingrich. >> reporter: and he's tearing into newt gingrich with a vengeance. >> while florida families lost everything in the housing crisis, newt gingrich cashed in. >> reporter: the romney campaign released a new tv ad slamming the big money gingrich made advising freddie mac, a smart play in one of the hardest-hit states in the housing crisis. romney called on gingrich to release documents detailing his work and it would the speaker was lobbying on half of the agency, a charge gingrich denies. >> if you're working for a company and getting paid for a company through one of your many entities and you're speaking with congressmen in a way that would help that company, that's lobbying. if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. >> reporter: gingrich all but told cnn romney is lying. >> i understand why both mccain and huckaby said he was dishonest. >> reporter: a theme he carried into this afternoon's event. >> if 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. it used to be pious bologna but now its desperate bologna. >> reporter: winning the florida is tough. evangelicals and the 50-delegate prize is winner take all. romney has a leg-up in the battle of the airwaves spending more than $2 million in the state with a pro romney super pac and their getted ready ahead of rick santorum putting it this way. >> they may have a little thing that says for mature audiences only, because it's going to be a blood bath. >> reporter: at the same event the rhetoric was getting out of hand. >> i never refer to obama as president obama because legally he is not. he constantly says that our constitution is passe and he toldly ignores it as you know and he does what he darn well pleases. he's an devout muslim. >> i'm doing my best to trying to get him out. >> everyone knows the president is not an avowed muslim. we should point out, jim acosta reporting for us. much more on the world of politics, the presidential contest coming up. another important story we're following right now. senator rand paul of kentucky set often an alarm at an airport body scanner today and then had to leave the security checkpoint when he refused a pat-down. both sides seem to agree on that much but there's a bit of a history between the senator and the tsa and his father, the republican presidential candidate, congressman ron paul, is furious about all of this. senator rand paul is joining us now live from capitol hill. senator, thanks very much for coming in. i know you caught a later flight and you just got to washington. appreciate the hustle getting to our location up on capitol hill. so walk us through, senator. what happened today when you showed up at the airport? >> you know, i've been flying pretty frequently for the past year since i was elected and really vpt had any trouble with the tsa. most of the local people have been friendly, if not, outright supportive. but today i went through the scanner and it went off and i just requested that i show them my leg, which i did, or that i get to go back through the scanner again. but they wouldn't let me go through the scanner and they insisted on a pat-down search and i just didn't think that that was appropriate. i thought that, really, when i interviewed director pistole of the tsa a couple of months ago he talked about that we were letting people go back through the screener so they didn't have to get pat-downs. but the other thing i learned today is, the screener is not going off because it detects something. the screener is part of a random pat-down process where people are getting randomly pat-down but the they think the screener is going off because it defected something. i didn't realize that until today. the screener goes off one time and they let me go through it an hour later and the screener doesn't go off. that's because i must have been part of a random pat-down but wasn't told that initially. >> we checked, you had mentioned that earlier and we went to the tsa and asked them -- are there now random alerts that simply go off without any evidence that there's a problem and they issued a statement saying, no. we said, can the -- tsa trigger the machine to indicate there's an alarm? no. and then the other question was -- do the machines have alarms that randomly go off to indicate that there is an object on a person when there is no object on a person, the tsa insists the answer is "no," who says there's a random alert? >> two people from the tsa, two separate people and i don't want to name their names at this point. but two separate people told me that there are random bells and whistles going off in the screening process. that the local screeners are not aware of but are part of random pat-downs. they admit that there are random pat-downs but i believe they're coming from the machine. otherwise we've got machines that just aren't very good because why are they setting off a signal one time and not setting off the signal the next time? so it tells me that either the machines are inadequate or they're not telling us the whole story. but my understanding from two different tsa agents is -- yes, there are random bells going off in the screening machines, that don't indicate something on your body, but indicate you've been selected for a random pat-down. >> i want to show our viewers a video of what happens as these body image scanners. you see people waiting in line over there as they go through they obviously have to raise their hands and they have to stay still for a few seconds and we'll continue showing the video. what's the big deal, senator, about then going through a pat-down and letting somebody touch the back of your leg to make sure there's nothing there? >> i think that, you know, we've seen a lot of instances of very invasive searches. an 88-year-old woman being asked to take an adult diaper off. termly ill people being put through invasive body searches. 6-year-old girls having tsa agents put their hands inside their pants. 8-month-old babies having their diapers taken off. is it too much to ask to have a little dignity when you travel and shouldn't an adult be allowed to get back in line and go through the scanner? i think that's not too much to ask and i think we've gone overboard. i don't want feel more safe. i feel that our dignity is being compromised but i don't feel more safe. i would rather see selective risk-assessments done on people who are international travel and people who have ties to groups that may be terrorists. but the regular ordinary citizens don't need to be put through this, particularly the frequent travelers. >> i remember and we have the clip, when you were questioning the head of the tsa in a senate homeland security committee and a subcommit back in november. here's the clip. >> 99.9% of us are not terrorists. let us go back to the machine rather than get a pat-down and you'll get rid of a lot of the anger and animosity towards the tsa and towards what you're doing and give us a little more dignity when we travel. >> obviously this has been on your mind for a long time. this is not a new occurrence that just came out of the blue today. >> well, i spoke with secretary or director pistole today and i asked him for a couple of things. one, let adults go back to the scan fer they choose to do that, versus an invasive body search. or give someone discretion. in the nashville airport today, no one had the discretion to say, hello, there. i've seen you four times. i see you come through here every week and i'm not asking for special privileges because of the office i hold, i would expect the same thing for any flea kwenlt traveler. if wolf blitzer came through, where are you going? back to cnn in atlanta. i have to be on the air tonight. that would be enough for me not to do a full body pat-down if you wanted to step back through the screener. i think we ought to use some common sense and not think that everybody is a terrorist. >> what did mr. pistole say to you? >> he indicates that there's a lot of programs out there and they're trying to make it better. i don't attribute bad motivation to him. i think he probably is trying but my point back to him is -- after ten years, why is there not a frequent flyer program? why is there not a trusted-traveler program. why, for example, my brother-in-law went to the air force academy and he's on three planes a week. why is he still going through invasive seshlgs? why couldn't he submit to a background check and not have to go through all these invasive searches? i think and contend that wire wasting time on people who are not the enemy and meanwhile, the enemy could be slipping through because they spent an hour and a half with me and you know what they did in the end? they let me walk back through the screener and the screener didn't show anything the second time which makes me suspicious that they are doing random searches based on artificially allowing the machine to go off. >> i agree with you there. there should be a trusted-traveler program. they have six pilot programs that we checked on. at certain terminals not all, in atlanta, dallas, detroit, miami, las vegas and los angeles. but i guess the question is -- what's taking so long to have this done nationwide? >> the only thing i can imagine is government doesn't do many things very well. but it also might be a reason why that security would have been better had we privatized it and sent it out to private agencies. i would also feel more comfortable giving my private information to a private security firm because i think they do a little better job with not losing their laptop computers and not letting my information get out on the web. so i think really, privatization would be a better route to go. there are still some airports that do have private tsa but president obama has opposed that and really, pushed toward, you know, there been just a government agency and no private security. >> i'll leave you with two statements and we'll wrap it up from the tsa they released this after the incident with you today. when an irregularity is found in the tsa screening process it must be resolved prior to allowing a passenger to proceed to the secure area of the airport. passengers that refuse to complete the screening process cannot be granted access to the secure area in order to ensure the safety of others traveling. that statement from the tsa and your dad, congressman ron paul, the presidential candidate issued this very tough statement. he said, quote, the police state in this country is growing out of control. one o'o the ultimate embodiments of this is the tsa that gropes and grabs our children, seniors and will you haved ones and neighbors with disabilities. the tsa does all of this while doing nothing to keep us safe. that's a very strong statement from your father. are you ready to go as far as he does? >> what i would say is they need the discretion to be allowed, for example, if they thought something was on my knee and i pulled up my pants leg and showed them my knee and showed them underneath my socks that there was nothing there and agreed to go back through the scanner, most reasonable people would think, that's reasonable. he's not refusing to comply, he just doesn't want to be patted down. he travels every week through the airport and would like just to go back through the scanner and i think we need better scanners or admit we're doing random pat-downs because of false beeps from the scanner and that's something i think they need to own up to. because go of them today told me that is happening. >> and i assume you'll agree with me. no one is blaming the officers, those people that were working at the airport. they're doing their job and they have their requirements. it's the higher-ups you're criticizing for not giving them the discretion to deal with, for example, someone like you? >> absolutely. as i've gone through the nashville airport for a year the tsa agents have been nice, kind, supportive, friendly, but they're stuck. they're stuck with the gentleman that wouldn't let me go through walk it's not his fault but he has no discretion. then he called his manager who had no discretion who called his manager who an hour and a half later let me walk back through the screener and the screener didn't go off this time which really makes me think the screeners aren't very accurate if they go off one time and don't go off the next time. >> we're going to invite the tsa administrator, john pistole to come here in "the situation room" and continue this conversation. because i know as a frequent flyer myself, there's a lot of frustrations and we don't blame the individuals dealing at the airports with security, they're doing their jobs. but there's a lot of frustration out there and we totally understand what you went through. senator, as usual, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> it's an extraordinary turn-around form newt gingrich. how is newt gingrich doing it? jooef cafferty taking a closer look at newt gingrich's latest comeback. and the president will have a huge audience for tomorrow night's state of the union address. how can he make the most of it? donna brazil and mary matalin are standing by live for a strategy session. and today's gps technology has amazing capabilities but a u.s. supreme court ruling puts police on notice. jack cafferty is here. >> wolf, newt gingrich has risen from the dead for the second time in this roller coaster ride that's become the republican nominating battle. with his decisive double-digit win in south carolina he heads to florida a proverbial juggernaut with a full head of steam and south carolina has the distinction of picking every republican nominee since ronald reagan in 1980 and what gingrich did is nothing short of amazing and also a bit puzzling. a piece in politico suggests that the surging gingrich has mastered the art of debate and disguise. no question about gingrich's debate performance, outstanding. in the free media he gets as a result, they have been key to his success thus far. last week, his answer about food stamps and his subsequent beating up on the news media helped him win over south carolina conservatives. as for the disguise part, gingrich uses his master debate skills to camouflage his weaknesses as a candidate. the three wives, leaving the first two while they were ill. his erratic leadership, et cetera. one ex-wife's claim that gingrich wanted an opened marriage might have done him in but in the end she didn't lay a glove on him. the voters simply yawned. mitt romney has to be tearing hills hair out it wasn't supposed to be this way. with much less money and a smaller organization, gingrich is threatening to take away romney's crown once again. a stunning comeback for a candidate sent off to the political graveyard the first time. remember last summer? his staff quit when he went on a mediterranean cruise and reports surfaced of his million dollar line of credit at tiffanys but gingrich roared back to life in december shooting to the top of the polls before collapsing ahead of the iowa caucuses. he just won't go away. here's the question -- what is the secret to newt gingrich's success? go to cnbc cnbc/cafferty file and go to my blog. pretty remarkable, wolf. >> was it a million dollar line of credit or half a million dollar line of credit? >> i don't know. >> i don't know if it really makes that much difference. >> check. >> more than i have and i don't shop at tiffanys. >> mack it was a million. >> maybe it was half a million. >> never mind. thanks, jack. the presidential election is shaping up to be the most expensive ever. who is bank rolling it? could the outcome be determined by the so-called political action committees that are on steroids, the super pacs. we're looking into the super pacs and learn what can they are, where their money comes from and how much impact they'll really do have. let bring or n our congressional correspondent, kate baldwin who has been doing a lot of reporting. the bottom line, they're very powerful? >> they are. it's a very tangled web of election spending, wolf, you know that people in groups, supporting both parties, have exploited the complex system that's election spending, for decades. but a landmark supreme court ruling two years ago, almost to the day, changed the landscape for money and politics and what we're seeing now may only be the beginning. >> romney's objective was never a focus on creating jooibs. >> newt attacks because he has more baggage than the airlines. >> reporter: the ads are everywhere. their source? a new breed of, ad commit called the super pac. >> this is the first presidential election where we're watching the creatures taking any amount of money from just about any entity or individual and spend it any way they want as long as they're independent of the candidate. >> reporter: and, boy, are they spending. some $34 million so far in the 2012 race. according to the nonpartisan center for responsive politics. there are almost 300 super pacs currently registered. and much of the explosion can be traced back here to the supreme court, with the landmark citizens united decision two years ago. the justices eased prior restrictions on federal election spending by outside groups allowing corporations, unions and advocacy groups to spend unlimited amounts of cash to influence an election. >> five more conservative members in the majority said -- this is an easy case. this is elections. it's why we have free speech. therefore, this is constitutionally protected. >> reporter: the ruling put corporations and unions on equal footing with individuals who have, in reality, been able to spend their own personal fortunes advocating for campaigns for decades. for example, newt gingrich supporter, sheldon addleson and billionaire george soros but previously the fortune had to be spent by the individual directly not through a group like traditional election committees. experts dispute the direct impact of the decision and agree it created an environment ripe for historic spending in elections. >> it's always been true in campaigns that money is like water. it will leak and find the cracks and crevices and find ways to evade restrictions. but citizens united on some level, just blew a hole in the wall and said, come on through. the constitution gives you this right. >> reporter: some rules still do apply. super pacs must disclose their donors and cannot coordinate with a candidate or campaign. but outspoken critics of the ruling call it one of the worst decisions in the court's history. >> now that the system under which we operate which leads to this kind