at a time of a sluggish economic recovery. >> ifill: ray suarez examines why major web sites are threatening a protest blackout beginning at midnight. >> woodruff: and jeffrey brown sits down with director angelina jolie and the cast of the new bosnian war drama, "in the land of blood and honey." >> bosnia just was always ringing in my mind. what was that? how did that happen in the '90s? how did that go on for four years with nobody doing anything? >> ifill: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: search teams in italy found more bodies today on a partially submerged cruise liner. at least two dozen people were still missing. in all, some 4,200 passengers and crew were on board when the ship hit a reef friday night, then listed to one side and settled in the water. we have a report on the day's developments, from martin geissler of independent television news. >> reporter: the time for being delicate has passed. the italian navy blasted their way on to the costa concordia today, the direct route to the parts of the vessel they know they need to reach. divers were heading for the first officer's cabin 30 feet down where it is thought several of those missing may be. with every passing hour the urgency increases. locked magnetic doors are blocking their way. >> we will inspect them with search cameras through small hole. the search-and-rescue camera. >> reporter: today the divers recovered more bodies aboard the concordia. four men and one woman, all thought to be in their 50s and 60s. these new pictures show the chaos that unfolded here on friday night. filmed in infrared we see passengers balancing on the side of the ship, forming a chain and clam ber to go the life boats. just imagine what it must have been like for them in the dark and the cold and the panic. and where was the captain when all this was happening? a phone conversation recorded by the port authority would suggest he was already ashore. >> tell me if there are children, women, what help they need. and tell me the number of each of these categories. is that clear? perhaps you have saved yourself from the sea but i will make you look very bad. tell me the reason why you're not going. i am not going because there was another life boat which is stuck. you get on board. that's an order. you need to continue the rescue. you ordered an evacuation. now i am in charge. you need to get on board the ship. is that clear? there are already bodies, move. how many dead are there? i don't know. one that i'm aware of. one that i've heard of. you need to tell me this. but you do realize it is sdark and we can't see anything. and what? do you want to go back home? it is dark and you want to go back home? get on the bow of the ship. tell me what can be done. how many people there are and what they need. now! >> reporter: today the captain appeared before a preliminary judge who will decide if and when he will be arrested and on what charge. up close, you get a real sense of the size of this vessel and the scale of the problem. the mass above deck has nothing compared to the chaos beneath the water line. at least after a day of waiting the search is back underway. the past 24 hours have been a massive setback for the rescue teams but the forecast from here is good. nature, it seems, has come back sight. the chances of finding survivors now are extremely slim. but as someone at the center of the operation put it, hope is the last thing to die. the authorities are already discussing what will become of the costa concordia. for now this tiny tourist island has a monsterous new landmark. unwelcome but unmissable and unmovable for months at least. >> woodruff: late today, a defense lawyer said the cruise ship captain will be released from jail and placed under house arrest, pending any formal charges. >> ifill: still to come on the newshour, g.o.p. presidential hopefuls square off in south carolina; big money in the 2012 campaign; executive compensation in a sluggish recovery; the "stop online piracy act"; and "in the land of blood and honey." but first, with the other news of the day, here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: president obama pointed to "substantial progress" today in listening to private sector ideas on the economy. he met with his jobs council-- made up of business leaders-- and he touted the group's advice on streamlining government. >> everyone of the agencies in this government has bun focused on how do they improve, get smarter, get better, get faster? i believe that we've made genuine progress on all these fronts. we would not have made this progress without this jobs council. i think it will pay off in terms of solidifying this recovery and allowing us to move forward in a way where it actually translates into jobs. >> sreenivasan: stocks started the week the modest gains. the nasdaq rose 17 points to close at 2728. opponents of wisconsin governor scott walker turned in more than one million signatures today to force a recall election. that was nearly twice the number required by state law. the drive began after the republican governor pushed through a law that ended collective bargaining rights for most public employees. the signatures have to be validated before an election can be scheduled. in haiti, at least 23 people were killed when a truck hauling earthquake rubble crashed. more than 50 others were injured. it happened on one of the busiest streets in port-au- prince, the haitian capital. police said the driver lost control in a hilly area, possibly after the brakes failed. the quake, two years ago, killed more than 300,000 people. scientists in britain have found more than 300 fossils collected by charles darwin and his colleagues, who developed the theory of evolution. the fossilized wood and plants were on glass slides, left in an old cabinet at the british geological survey in london. a few, like this one, bear darwin's name. he found them on his famous voyage of discovery on the h.m.s. "beagle" in the 1830s. most of the specimens were collected by darwin's close friend, joseph hooker, on his round-the-world excursions in the 1840s. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to gwen. >> ifill: the five remaining republican presidential candidates were back on the trail in south carolina today, following last night's raucous debate. mitt romney may have been everyone's favorite target last night in myrtle beach but by the time he returned to the campaign trail this morning, his focus was elsewhere. >> the president says he wants to fundamentally transform america. i don't want to transform america. into something we wouldn't recognize. i want to restore to america the principles that made us the great nation we've been. >> ifill: according to the latest "washington post" abc news national poll, romney is leading all comers 2 to 1. but his closest challenger former house speaker newt gingrich told supporters at a separate campaign stop today that romney is not conservative enough to take on the president. >> look at the polling. i'm the only conservative who realistically has a chance to be the nominee. any vote for santorum or perry in effect is a vote to allow romney to become the nominee. because we've got to bring conservatives together in order to stop it. >> ifill: rick santorum, making his own bid for south carolina's conservatives and evangelicals is also making that comparison in this new television ad. >> why would we ever vote for someone who is just like obama when we can unite around rick santorum? and beat obama? >> ifill: the growing intensity was on display last night in the debate sponsord by fox news and the wall street journal which was punctuateded with audience cheers and jeers. texas governor rick perry won the crowd over by defending state's rights. >> i am saying also that south carolina is at war with this federal government and with this administration. ( cheers and applause ) >> ifill: and moderator juan williams was booed when he asked gingrich if comments he made criticizing the president could be considered racially insensitive. >> we saw some of this during your visit to a black church in south carolina where a woman asked you why you refer to president obama as the food stamp president. it sounds as if you are seeking to belittle people. (crowd booing) >> first of all, juan, the fact is that more people have been put on food stamps by barack obama than any president in american history. ( cheers and applause ) >> ifill: texas congressman ron paul was drowned out when he made the case for a less interventionist foreign policy. >> i would say that maybe we ought to consider a golden rule in foreign policy. don't do to other nations (crowd booing) what we don't want to have them do to us. >> ifill: romney came under particular fire on money issues. when pressed he said he may release his income tax returns in april. he told reporters that would show he pays close to 15% of his income in taxes. much of the campaign's sharpest criticism have come not from the candidates themselves but from independent political action committees called super pacs. all five remaining candidates are getting help from free- spending outside group and some are chafing at the attacks they've launched. the pro romney pac restore our future falsely accused san santorum of supporting a bill that would allow felons to vote from prison. >> i did not have a super pac run ads against you. that is something completely out of the control of candidates. one of the things i decry in the current financial system that gets behind campaigns is that we have these voting requirements that put these super pacs in power that say things we disagree with. >> what he's saying is that the ad that says that i said that i voted to allow felons to vote is inaccurate. it is inaccurate. if i had something of a super pac that was supporting me that was inaccurate i would go out and say stop it. you're representing me and you're representing my campaign. ( cheers and applause ) stop it. >> ifill: and gingrich who dropped in the polls after the same pac aired ads attacking him in iowa said the romney group twisted his record on abortion. >> this is typical of what both senator santorum and i have complained about with romney's super pac over which he apparently has no influence which makes you wonder how much influence he would have if he were president. (crowd cheering). >> speaker gingrich i said at our last debate that anything that is false in pac ads, whether they're supportive of me or supportive of you, should be taken off the air and fixed. i've already said that. but if we're talking about super pac ads that are inaccurate, mr. speaker, you have a super pac ad that attacks me. just hold on. it attacks me. it's probably the biggest hoax since big foot. the people have looked at it. >> ifill: romney ended that exchange by saying he hopes super pacs which are not allowed to directly coordinate with candidates would disappear. romney once raised money for the group and said today they operate within the law. >> the law as it exists today establishes these. i wish that law were not as it is. i wish we could just raise money for our campaigns instead of having to create super pacs. >> ifill: the campaign finance debate has spilled over into late night comedy. humorous steven colbert formed his own super pac and promptly established an arm's length relationship with it by handing over the reins to jon stewart. super pacs came into being two years ago super pacs came into being two years ago when the supreme court ruled that outside groups could raise unlimited sums for campaigns. they have since changed the face of campaign finance. this election cycle, the committees have already spent $26 million-- half of it in just the last two weeks, as the campaign picked up speed in iowa, new hampshire, and especially south carolina. according to totals compiled by the center for public integrity, pro-romney groups have led the way, spending $9 million, mostly on television ads. pro-gingrich groups have spent nearly $4.5 million, and another committee supporting rick perry has spent nearly $4 million, but little of it since january 1. groups backing ron paul have spent more than $3 million, and pro-santorum forces have spent $1.7 million. for more on the superpac phenomenon, we're joined by john dunbar, managing editor of the center for public integrity, which has been tracking the spending. and attorney robert kelner of the covington and burling law firm. he advises super pacs and large campaign donors. how much... i just said this has changed the landscape. looking at the numbers you've come peopled, john dunbar, has it? >> it certainly changed the landscape. it's changed the debate. it's changed the tone of the debate. if you look at the two big super pac controversies, the first is the negative attacks on gingrich in iowa. there's no question that that had an impact in iowa. whether it was increased coverage of gingrich's record or the super pac's, either way, it may have had an amplifying effect. reporters started covering what was claimed in the super pac ad. it also allowed romney to stay above the fray. the super pac did the dirty work. >> ifill: how different is this than last time or any other cycles we've seen in the past? >> i don't think it's really as different as many people have suggested, gwen, because we've always had outside groups raising large amounts of money from wealthy donors to buy advertising time. one difference now, after the supreme court's decision in the citizens united case, is that a good bit of that money is publicly disclosed because it's through these so-called super pacs that are required to disclose their spending but there's a lot of other spending that is undisclosed, that is under the radar line that has always existed that still exists today. so some extent i think the focus on super pacs is because that's what we can see. >> ifill: but we can see what they're spending it on. can we see who is spending it? who is behind these? >> well, we will find out on january 31 who is behind these super pacs because there are disclosure requirements. unfortunately by january 31 the race for republican nomination might be over. but, you know, in addition to the amount of money that's out there that we don't know about, the super pac money is important because it allows for something called express advocacy which means that it's a very... it's the most aggressive kind of political speech. you can go out and say, "vote against or vote for this person" as opposed to some of the other kinds of money which you can remember the 527 groups organizations like that which would do issue ads which were sort of very vague. >> ifill: we knew who the 527 groups were supporting, didn't we anyway? >> we did eventually and the i.r.s. started requiring some disclosure. on the disclosure side we will find out who is behind the super pacs. fortunately for people who want to know who is spending all its money, all the presidential super pacs have been super pacs have not been nonprofits. we're not going to have that same issue with the nonprofit groups which can also make these same kinds of ads but they don't have to disclose their donor. >> ifill: for instance? >> more like what they call social welfare organizations. these are 501 c-4s. the best known is the cross roads g.p.s. is a c-4. >> ifill: does it matter whether we know who these people are who are writing the checks? we know that newt gingrich's campaign was foundering. he got a $5 million infusion from a casino mowing you will which is the term they use. we have heard about jon huntsman's father pouring money into his to no great avail in the long run. does it matter? we know mitt romney's outside major super pac is being run by former aides of his. he's actually raised money for it. does that count? >> i don't think it matters that much. my view is the more things change the more they stay the same in campaign finance. we've always known there were big donors behind candidates. we've generally known who they were. they used to be called bundlers. they're still called bundlers in some respects. it remains the case that there's a huge amount of activity that takes place outside the public eye under the radar line. that's as true this election cycle as it was in the past. >> ifill: explain what you mean by that. is the same pot of money that is just moving into a different definition? >> i think that's about it. i think what we see happening is these super pacs are very much a focus of public attention. they're very much in the public eye. they disclose their donors. then there are all these groups that john was referring to, 501-c-4s organizations, other kinds of specialized vehicles that are not required to disclose their doners and they do a lot of the non-broadcast activities, the so-called ground war activities. in some way some of the real nuts and bolts of the political process. it's largely invis toibl the media and to the public. >> ifill: are campaigns then spending their money differently in spending more on television? more on these invisible direct mail things we don't see? >> apparently they're spending i don't know if they're spending more on the ads. election cycle it's hard to say because they just keep getting so much more expensive. it's almost like you have to decide on inflation but the super pacs are definitely spending more on advertising than the campaigns or the candidates themselves. >> ifill: this is not exclusive to republican campaigns, is it? >> well, this is the first republican primary that we've had under the citizens united speech now regulatory regime. we did get mid-term elections which we got to see how this was going to shake out but this is the first time that we have actually seen a presidential election occur.... >> ifill: but there's a democratic pac supporting president obama, right? >> absolutely. they've already run some ads against mitt romney which made news because they seemed to make the pick of the republican nominee. >> ifill: that's who they've chosen to pick the fight with. we saw a pew study today that showed more than half of americans are aware now of campaign finance. usually not a very accessible topic. all of a sudden they're aware of this. most of the people, two-thirds of those people think it's a neck tiff. is this a negative in. >> the super pacs are a positive because they actually increase the disclosure in the system. i don't think most americans appreciate that. i think if you did a poll to figure out how many people understand that super pacs have to identify your donors, you would find most people don't understand that. it's a net-plus to the system if you believe in disclosure. >> ifill: is it a net-plus? >> if you think... if you believe that unlimited amounts of money by individuals, corporations and labor unions that are actually not disclosed by the time you go to the polls are a good idea, then it's a plus. >> ifill: well, a lot of people would say that that it is a plus then. you're talking about the timing of the disclosures? >> not just the timing but also the fact that you have to take these... there were two court decisions and you have to take them together. combined what they did was allow for unlimited corporate contributions to a group, in this case a nonprofit, if you will, that can make