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Warning of a Double-Dip Recession; Dems Back Tax Deal Reluctantly; WikiLeaks Supporters Launch Cyber War; London Students Protesting Tuition Hike
Aired December 09, 2010 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, guys. 9:00 a.m. on the East Coast, 6:00 a.m. out West.
This morning we're talking about computer geeks with grudges. They got together and attacked big secure Web sites like MasterCard and Visa. Knocked them offline. Why? To show their support for WikiLeaks. We want to find out just how close they came to your personal info.
A 21-year-old Maryland man goes on Facebook, says he's devoted to violent jihad and gets the FBI's attention. This morning he's in jail accused of trying to blow up a U.S. military recruitment center with a car bomb. The bomb was fake. The criminal charges are real.
And a new report from the surgeon general about smoking. She says just a few cigarettes and even a little bit of second hand smoke can do immediate, serious and potentially fatal damage to your body.
We begin with the White House and the stern warning for congressional Democrats. Get on board with the president's tax deal or we could slip back into a recession. Keep in mind, if this bill doesn't pass, taxes go up in January.
Here's the tough talk from Larry Summers, the top White House economic adviser. Quote, "If they don't pass this bill in the next couple of weeks it will materially increase the risk that the economy would stall out and we would have a double dip."
President Obama's deal with the GOP would give all Americans two more years of Bush-era tax cuts no matter how much they make. It extends unemployment benefits for 13 months and it gives every American worker a one-year payroll tax holiday, a 2 percentage point break on their Social Security taxes.
Christine Romans is in New York.
So, Christine, what's the connection here between this tax deal and a double-dip recession?
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, a double-dip recession is a scary thing. Quite frankly. I mean this is when the economy grows, comes out of recession, and then falls back into recession before growing again. And that's pretty painful. It means more job losses. It isn't good for the economy or sustained recovery. But what Goldman Sachs is saying this overall deal effectively makes economic growth potential significantly more positive, boosting economic growth by up to one percentage point for the year 201 and beyond.
Mark Zandy over at Moody'seconomy.com, Moody's analytic says it changes the near term outlook, says that it cuts unemployment to 8.7 percent next year as opposed to cutting unemployment by 8.7 percent in 2012.
So in the near term there's a boost here. Where does the boost come from? The boost comes from the unemployment benefits, Kyra, as we've been pointing out. Those are dollars that are spent immediately in the economy because so many people are living right on the edge.
They spend all of that unemployment check. Also comes from the payroll tax holiday as we reported to you earlier this week. Somebody who makes $40,000 a year will see $800 extra in their paycheck next year because of that payroll tax holiday.
What this does is Larry Summers, the president's advisor, Kyra, switches the conversation to the (INAUDIBLE) part of the deal and takes it away from the conversation that maybe the president gave up too much to the rich, parts that were not as stimulative to get this deal through -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right. Thank you so much, Christine.
And congressional correspondent Brianna Keilar is standing by in Washington for us.
Brianna, a lot of Democrats have made it clear that they're not happy about this deal. We know that. But the White House says hey, they're coming around. Do you agree?
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, if they're softening their language a little bit, Kyra, and they've been lobbied by the White House tremendously in the last couple of days they're doing it grudgingly. And we understand now that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- this is talking about the Senate now -- could begin debate on the tax cut bill perhaps as soon as later today.
But the question is, still an open question of how many Democrats would be on board, what kind of changes they're going to try to make and that's just the Senate. Then you look at the House which would go second on this. They had a meeting yesterday, House Democrats, with Joe Biden, the vice president.
And although that meeting was described as respectful, it wasn't hostile, he was also pressed a lot and there were a lot of unhappy Democrats especially with that estate tax, that inheritance tax that so many Democrats see as a giveaway to the rich. And Biden made it clear to them, hey, this is what we can get. If there are going to be changes they're going to be -- it's going to unravel this deal.
And this is -- this is it. Take it or leave it -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right. Well, let's switch gears if you don't mind, because "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." We may get a possible vote. Is that right? Or has it been postponed? There's a hold up at this point.
KEILAR: Well, so there was a vote. A vote was postponed from last night, which you might think is a bad thing. But actually in this case for supporters of repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," this would be considered a good thing. Because it was put on hold because Susan Collins, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee is negotiating or trying to come to some sort of agreement with Harry Reid and Democrats on this.
What we do know now, though, is there is a vote on the schedule for this morning -- this is the new thing here, Kyra -- for this "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal which is attached to the Defense Authorization Bill.
The question now, and this is going to come to a head here in the next few hours, can there be an agreement leading up to the time of that vote, and we still don't know at this point. It's going to be very interesting this morning.
PHILLIPS: Got it. All right. We'll keep talking. Thanks, Brianna.
Well, young illegal immigrants are one step closer to having a path to citizenship if they go to college or sign up for the military. The House passed the Dream Act late last night and it could come up for a vote in the Senate as early as today.
Democrats are going to have a tough time finding the votes to push it through, though, in the last handful of days in this Congress. Some Republicans say that the Dream Act adds up to amnesty legislation.
All right, let's talk about this war that's happening in cyber space right now between WikiLeaks supporters and those they see as enemies. Computer hackers who support the whistleblower site and its founder Julian Assange might have attacked and shut down Sarah Palin's political action Web site.
Payback for Palin saying Assange has, quote, "blood on his hands." But the payback has also got a bit closer to you and me. The hackers also went after Mastercard, Visa and PayPal. Tried to knock down the Web sites, too, so you couldn't access them. Payback for refusing to process money for WikiLeaks.
So when you're talking about the Internet, hackers, credit cards, all of that in the same sentence, it's a little bit unnerving especially during the holiday season.
We want to talk to our John Sutter. He's a tech writer for CNN.com.
And just real quickly, I've got a couple of question for you. You're saying you talked to all these experts, John, and they're saying -- saying that this is a cyber-war. Is it a little too much?
JOHN SUTTER, CNN.COM TECH WRITER: Yes. Some people are calling this a cyber-war. You've seen that term thrown around a lot.
PHILLIPS: Right.
SUTTER: Online. And it's, you know, very scary for people like you were mentioning because, you know, the shopping season because these are big named, financial institution Web sites. But the type of attack --
PHILLIPS: Because we think wow, it's our credit cards. You know?
SUTTER: Right. Exactly.
PHILLIPS: And we think about our privacy issues and our -- basically how we get by day-to-day.
SUTTER: Right. But it really hasn't bled into that yet. And I think that's an important distinction. They've been able -- these anonymous hackers have been table to shut down these financial Web sites but they haven't tampered into their systems. There's no evidence that they've actually stolen information of credit card users or that they've been able to shut down like the actual payment system.
So you've been able to use the Mastercard, you know, in stores. It's just that their Web site wouldn't load.
PHILLIPS: Got it. And we even tried this morning. We're trying to log on to Mastercard and Visa. I don't know if you've done it yet this morning.
SUTTER: Yes.
PHILLIPS: And it would come up. And then we'd try it 10 minutes later and it wouldn't come up.
SUTTER: Yes.
PHILLIPS: So it's sort of -- there's definitely still having some issues. I'm being told right now, they just logged on and they are working now.
So how exactly does a hacker do this? And how far could this go? Because I think that's the concern that this is sort of just the beginning. That's the worry.
SUTTER: Yes. No, I think that is a big concern. So this is called a denial of service attack which is sort of -- you know, a geeky techie name for basically flooding a Web site with so much traffic that it can't operate any more. It can't send you the information that it needs to -- for you to be able to see it. That's at least a decade old. It's not necessarily like a new technique.
PHILLIPS: So what do you do? You put a call out to all your hacker buddies and you say, let's flood the Web site? Is that --
SUTTER: Kind of. Yes.
PHILLIPS: Is that how it works?
SUTTER: There's these anonymous forums where hackers, you know, traditionally and apparently in this instance, you know, communicate. So you can download a simple program on your computer and sort of volunteer, if you will, to be part of this attack.
And then your machine -- there's evidence that there are, you know, hundreds of machines involved in this, not thousand, millions. Hundreds of machines that then are all sort of sending traffic to this Web site at once and causing it to overload.
PHILLIPS: Finally, anything we can do to protect ourselves -- like you said, no big concerns at the moment. But is there anything we can be doing now to be proactive?
SUTTER: Yes, I mean I think having an anti-virus software on your computer and updating it regularly is smart. Getting the latest Windows or, you know, Mac updates, but that's important because there have been instances in the past. There's no evidence that this has happened here, but that, you know, other computers have been sort of co-opted to become part of these networks of computers that have shut Web sites down.
So like I said there's been no evidence of that here so far but we've seen that sort of thing in the past. As far as the idea of this escalating, you know, there are worries that this could translate into real-world action, there's been no precedent to that sort of thing, though.
PHILLIPS: Got it.
SUTTER: You know, using a cyber-attack to cause like real harm like, you know, in the real world. So, so far just people see it mostly as kind of pranksterism, and almost a form of like protest, like for a modern era. But it's definitely something to watch because there are, you know, threats that this will continue.
PHILLIPS: Got it. John, thanks a lot. Appreciate it.
SUTTER: Thank you.
PHILLIPS: All right. Well, next hour I'm actually going to talk with the former chief security officer at MySpace. He knows a thing or two about online security. He says that these hackers have bigger fish to fry and that Visa and Mastercard are just the beginning of this so- called cyber war.
Well, Mr. WikiLeaks himself, Julian Assange is in a British jail right now. He's accused of sex crimes in Sweden. Assange is from Australia and a news crew there actually talked to his stepfather.
Listen to him describe his famous or infamous whistleblower stepson.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRETT ASSANGE, JULIAN ASSANGE'S STEPFATHER: Strangely enough I always thought that he would do something like this. He was always very independent. And he certainly wouldn't take no for an answer.
He always stood up for the underdog. I remember that. Like with his school friends. He was always very angry about people ganging up on other people.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Well, that reporter also talked to Assange's mother. She said she is worried for her son's safety.
Got some breaking news right now. Live pictures. We've got more protests taking place -- look at this -- in London over tuition hikes. We've actually seen pictures like this over the past, I'd say, four, four and a half weeks, same amount of people, marching on parliament.
It's ahead of the controversial vote that's going to triple university tuition fees. We're talking $5,000 to $15,000. And students are angry and they've actually threatened to shut down the city.
So we're looking at these live pictures right now. And London, right now looking pretty calm. As you know from the last couple of times we've taken these protests live, we saw some fires being set outside parliament. They had broken window, they had broken into the conservative part of parliament.
But our Dan Rivers is there. He's monitoring it and we will bring you up to date as this develops.
All right. It's been rough week for states around the Great Lakes. That lake-effect snow machine has been working overtime.
In Cleveland this morning a lot of streets are still snow covered after the latest storm. A travel advisory is also in effect in the town of Randolph, New York. Randolph has been hit with about four feet of snow since Sunday.
It's good news for some businesses, though. One tow truck driver says he's pulled about 25 stranded cars a day since that snow began.
Rob Marciano is following all the conditions for us right now.
So, what's the deal, Rob?
(WEATHER REPORT)
PHILLIPS: Well, an Antarctic cruise ship is making its way back to an Argentinean port after being battered by rough weather. A large wave crashed over this ship causing engine and electrical problems. All the passengers on board Americans. Luckily nobody was hurt.
Another cruise ship stayed the damage or stayed with the damage one while repairs were being made.
And historic flight comes to an end. The Dragon splashed into the Pacific Ocean about three hours after taking off from Kennedy Space Center. The Dragon is the first commercial spacecraft to return from low earth orbit.
With NASA getting out the space shuttle -- getting out of the space shuttle business, rather, there's hope that private companies like this can someday launch supply runs to the International Space Station and perhaps carry astronauts.
Justice has been an open door for Jim Morrison. Forty years after the rock legend was convicted of a crime and nearly that long after his death it's looking like he's finally going to get off the hook.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Got it. All right, I want to take you live to London. This is a familiar scene that we have seen over the past four and a half, five weeks or so. It's the third time that we've actually taken this live.
These protests outside Parliament there in London. These are students that are really frustrated -- oh, good we're getting some ground pics in, too. Our Dan -- that's our Dan Rivers, actually, right there. We're feeding in some tape of where he is right on the ground. And you can see some of the students kind of egging on the police or the officers there in London. And then on the other side of your screen, you can see the live pictures from the helicopter.
But they're protesting the tuition hikes. Used to be $5,000. They want to triple the tuition to $15,000. And students are, obviously, angry about this in a bad economy, right middle -- right towards the holidays. The end the year, getting ready to enter in 2011.
The vote, apparently is supposed to go down today. Now, right now, it looks pretty calm, but you can see that they are prepared for what could happen. Because the last two times there were -- there was an attack of -- it looks like they are trying to break -- some of the students are trying to break through the barriers, there. And if, indeed, that happens, we could see a rush.
You're seeing the students moving in. You're seeing the bobbies trying to work them back behind the barricade, there. So, this could get ugly. We saw some of the students attack a police van last time. Shaking it and surrounding it, which caused a bit of a problem. There were some arrests. And then, the time before that -- OK let's go ahead and listen. Let's listen for a minute.
CROWD: Let us in! Let us in!
PHILLIPS: OK. So, and then, the first time that we had taken these protests, it was about a month ago. They actually had broken the windows of the parliament building, and had rushed inside and had set up or set fires, bonfires outside the parliament building.
So, our Dan Rivers is there. We're going to try and get looped up with him. Maybe we can get him on the phone to kind of give us a sense of how this is turning out. But as you can see, just for about a moment there, some of the students tried to rush through that barricade, and -- but the bobbies were able to push them back and keep things calm at this moment.
But this definitely -- don't have a number count right now but, compared to the last two protests, it seems like not only have authorities gotten more organized to deal with the crowds, it looks a lot more calm than last time, but it does appear that more students have turned out for this protest. The last one, I remember, was a couple hundred thousand people had shown up protesting this upcoming vote on the tuition hikes.
All right. We're following it for you. We'll keep our eyes on it.
All right, back here in the States, we want to head Cross Country, now. Why don't we start in Miami, Florida, first? Where you're going to see a little guy highlighted that's walking up the bus stop -- the bus steps. Do you see that?
He's only two years old, and he's alone. He actually got on that transit bus last week without anybody else. He just wandered away from his babysitter, apparently. And these surveillance cameras show the little guy just taking a seat and enjoying the ride. A passenger actually noticed and alerted the bus driver. He was finally reunited safely with his family.
OK. Let's head over to Central Falls, Rhode Island, where a pet alligator caused an apartment fire. Firefighters quickly put it out, saved the ten-foot python, three other snakes, a large iguana, and a three-foot alligator. The tenant says that his pet alligator knocked over a heat lamp.
In Providence, well, this big six-foot guy caused quite a commotion roaming around neighborhood yards. Listen to the 911 call.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (via telephone): I'm house-sitting for my brother. He lives at 153 Regina Drive.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (via telephone): And you've seen a big chicken run across your yard?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (via telephone): Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh, I'm afraid to take their dog out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (via telephone): I just came across an ostrich. I think it's an ostrich. A very large, large bird.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: No, it's not a chicken or an ostrich, but an emu and, apparently, it escaped from a small family farm over the weekend. The emu was safely returned, by the way.
Oprah sets the record straight about her relationship with Gayle King. Here's some of the emotional interview with Barbara Walters that brought tears to her eyes, coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: All right. Live pictures once again to London. These are protests going on over tuition hikes. It's the third time that we've taken these live pictures over the past four to five weeks, and it's hundreds of thousands of students showing up saying they can't afford to go school if they triple the tuition. Normally $5,000, they're talking about raising it to $15,000. And as you can see, students are outraged.
Now, what's interesting about this protest, this is the third protest that we've taken live over the past number of weeks. And the first one was extremely chaotic. The students had gotten right up to the windows of the parliament building, broken through the windows. They had set fires outside of the parliament building. Oh, and I'm told we do have Dan Rivers now. This is great. He's right there in the middle of the crowd. Dan, are your able to hear me now? We had trouble getting linked up with you. Are you there?
DAN RIVERS, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, hi. I don't know if you can hear me, but we're right outside the Houses of Parliament here in central London where tens of thousands of students have come to protest and are trying to push the police lines back.
The police are just through here, and there've been a few sort of minor scuffles and clashes. But more so far -- so far, it's largely peaceful. This is ahead of a vote in Parliament in about two hours to triple tuition fees here to about $14,000. And it's clearly causing a lot of anger. And, as you can see, it's pretty difficult for the police to hold back this number of people. But so far, so far, they're holding their line. But it's pretty ugly scenes down here.
PHILLIPS: Now, Dan, can you hear me OK? Because I know it's a little crazy. If you can hear me, just to kind of explain to our viewers, this is the third time that we've taken such protests live, and although it seems pretty crazy down where you are, it is more organized, because the first time this happened, Dan, they actually broke through the windows and were setting fires outside the Houses of Parliament.
(CROWD CHANTING)
RIVERS: Yes. It's definitely less violent than it was on that occasion. But you can see here -- I don't know if we can come through to the front of these barricades. This is where the police are beginning to sort of move forward, now, with their riot gear. You can see they've got these barriers up to hold the crowds back. But they're --
(AUDIO GAP)
RIVERS: Prepared than they were on that other occasion when protesters managed to break into the offices of the Conservative Party just down the road from here and smashed a lot of windows and, obviously, created a lot of headlines.
Today, though, is the real crunch day on this issue, because this is the day when members of the parliament will vote whether to put up fees. And they will be doing so amid all this noise, which they will clearly able to hear inside the chamber as they debate, and it's causing real political repercussions here, as well, because the junior partners in this coalition government are bitterly split over this issue, the Liberal Democrats have promised not to put fees up and, now, their leadership is having to do a U-turn and basically vote this through.
PHILLIPS: And Dan, tell me if I still have the facts right. We're talking about tuition that used to be $5,000 a year, now they're talking about tripling those fees to $15,000 a year. Is that correct? And what's the argument to triple tuition costs?
(CROWD CHANTING)
RIVERS: Yes. You've got to remember the context in Britain, here. People are used to free university education and have been for decades. It's only recently in the last sort of 15, 20 years that fees have come in. And now, within a decade. they've gone up from about 3,000 pounds to a proposed 9,000 pounds, about $15,000. So, that's a trebling of the tuition fees, which didn't even exist a few -- even exist a few years ago.
And you can see there that just how violent this can get when they try and push too are far up to these barricades. But so far, I think, largely that that has not been typical of this protest. This is just some small skirmishes at front. But largely, the tens of thousands of people behind me are here to make a political point, not a violent one.
PHILLIPS: All right. Well, and we can see -- and Dan, by all means, please don't put yourself in a dangerous situation there. We can see that some of the students are trying to rush the barricades, and the officers are having to use their Billy clubs there. So, let us know if we need to wrap this up.
Just -- how many students do you think are there? The last two protests, there were estimates of a couple hundred thousand students. Would you say this is mostly students, or are your seeing parents come out and support students here? What kind of -- kind of describe the crowd.
(CROWD SHOUTING)
RIVERS: It's very difficult for me to gauge -- to gauge the numbers, here. I don't have an idea of the numbers because we're right at the front. But I was told earlier on that this column of protesters goes back several miles. Several miles through the middle of London. And this is the real flashpoint, as you can see, because the entire protest movement wants to march further towards these buildings here, which are, basically the House of Commons and the House of Lords and they're being prevented from doing so.
Part of the issue in Britain is that the number of university students has increased massively over the last 10, 20 years or so. It's about half a million people a year now going to university each year. And, you know, in some sense somebody has to pay for this. The question is how? There's this big argument here about whether this should be done through general taxation or whether the number of students should be decreased, or a graduate tax, or whether there should be fees, as there are in the U.S., which will leave a lot of students coming out of university with $50,000 of debt, maybe $60,000 maybe more.
That is, obviously, the norm in the U.S. but here it's a very alien concept. People have been used to their parents and even their grandparents going to university for free. And even getting a government grant to go to university. Now suddenly the next generation is being faced with a massive, massive debt.
PHILLIPS: Yes, Dan, you bring up such a good point. You know all of us here in the states are used to taking out loans and having to work our way through college and go into tremendous debt, having to pay for college. And then you've got public university, you've got private university.
And you bring up such a good point that this has been a place, for decades, where you could get an outstanding education for free. And so you can understand the frustration when these fees continue to accumulate.
And kind of give us a sense for where you think the vote will go? Do you have any idea? Are there more lords that are for the hikes, or more against the hikes? Can you give us a sense of how you think this vote will go?
RIVERS: Well, I think most people are fairly certain the vote will go through. I think it's a question of by what margin. I mean there are a number of liberal Democrats who've said they're going to vote against this. This is the junior partners in the coalition. There have been a handful of the conservative party who said they will vote against it. But I think that even with those rebels, there's enough of a majority to carry this through fairly comfortably.
The question is, at what political cost? You can see the anger here and you can see that this will be -- a lot of these people will vote against the conservatives at the next election because they feel betrayed by the promises that were made by the liberal Democrats during the last election. So I think that there will be massive political consequences here, and clearly this is just one of a number of casts (ph) that's going to go through. But certainly at the moment, they're most contentious.
PHILLIPS: And Dan, I know we're on a little bit of a delay right now, so if our viewers are wondering about that, we have about a 10 second delay now with you, Dan.
But just to kind of refresh those of us, our minds here in the United States, a lot of us know of the very well-known universities there in London. A lot of students go from the United States over to London to go to these universities because they have such a great reputation.
Let's talk about some of the universities and colleges that will be impacted, where these students go to school.
RIVERS: I think it's important to emphasize that students from abroad pay much higher fees here than do domestic students. So students from the U.S. coming to study in Britain do already pay very high fees.
Now what's going to happen is that the domestic students here will be paying comparable fees. So I think the U.S. students that we talked to the other day kind of think, well, so what, we're used to high fees. We already pay them. But it's the people that live here, that you know, they're British, that have grown up here with a culture of free education that are facing this complete change in the way you get a university education. Suddenly they're going to be burdened with a massive amount of debt that they didn't expect (INAUDIBLE). And as they're saying here, they already have (AUDIO GAP) but this is extra on top of their living expenses and the fees that they already pay.
PHILLIPS: If you don't mind, Dan if you have a moment, go ahead and talk to some of the students. Ask them where they go to school. Can we gauge what schools we're talking about and what their concerns are, these students that are surrounding you right now?
RIVERS: I can try but it's -- as you can see, it's pretty difficult.
Let me talk to this guy here. You talked to us earlier on.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, absolutely.
RIVERS: This is going out to the U.S. here. There will be people in the United States who will say, well what's wrong with paying fees? They've been doing it for years. In the U.S. you have to pay.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, but we're United Kingdom and we're in England, specifically. We need to understand that -- the viewers in the U.S. need to understand that the Liberal Democrats, the third largest party in Parliament before the general election made a pledge. They went around to university constituents, they went around and --
RIVERS: And promised not to raise fees.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, absolutely. And the president of Sheffield Hallam University said that before the election they couldn't get Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister and Liberal Democrats -- the head of the Liberal Democrats out of the student union. Now once he's in power he's completely changed his mind within a matter of weeks and now they can't get him inside the (INAUDIBLE) -- complete injustice and a sense of betrayal among students out there.
RIVERS: So you speak about the sense of betrayal. But, how should university be funded in Britain?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think even some -- university cuts will mean that Britain will spend equivalent to Chile's GDP on our higher education system, which is completely (INAUDIBLE). I mean, following the financial crisis (AUDIO GAP) higher education students, students who are from the poorest income backgrounds (INAUDIBLE) cuts which the banks -- RIVERS: Well the government would say this is a progressive scheme, that if you don't earn enough after you graduate you don't have to pay back the loan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not progressive for the fact that they're increasing fees. They're also imposing a market rate of interest. And on top of that, they're actually increasing the time frame from 25 years to 30 years when your debt (INAUDIBLE).
So these are not progressive. There are support for the very poorest. But, actually (INAUDIBLE) income slightly higher, they're actually going to be penalized, as well. So there are aspirational working- class people, as well. And people feel very passionate about this issue.
RIVERS: We're certainly getting the passion here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And this is why you've seen students for four weeks in a row, I've been coming here to every single demonstration for weeks in a row. Thousands of students, tens of thousands of students across the country. Even in Scotland where they don't have tuition fees, in Wales, in Northern Ireland. You're even seeing solidarity protests in Greece. Students are extremely passionate about it. And this is why you're seeing tens of thousands of students here today.
RIVERS: OK. Well, thank you very much.
So basically --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We love CNN.
RIVERS: To sum this up, I mean, this gives you an idea of the completely different outlook here in Europe as to America. Here there is a culture of free education that's been around for a long time and the sense that this is being dismantled according to these students here, obviously denied by the government.
But there's a sense they are dismantling something that people feel is almost a right here, which is a university education either low cost or for free for everyone. I think that's what's kind of angering so many people here that they feel their parents and grandparents went to university for free, so why shouldn't they.
PHILLIPS: Did he said he went to Hallam University, Dan?
RIVERS: Say again?
PHILLIPS: Dan, did he say he goes Hallam University?
RIVERS: I'm sorry, I can't hear your question.
But, I mean, I think if you were asking about when I went to university, the fees had not been introduced. And that, you know, that was what, 15 years ago. So it's a relatively recent innovation here. But slowly these fees have come in and then within a decade now we're looking at going from no fees effectively to what, $15,000 a year. And then on top of that your living expenses and all the other costs of living in a city like London.
So for some of these students that will mean, just a massive amount of debt and a debt that they feel they shouldn't have to pay. The politicians inside are saying well, look, the country's in a bind, we have a massive deficit to pay off. They're cutting services all over the place and, therefore, why should universities be exempt. The argument goes if don't invest, you get a better job, therefore you can afford to pay it back, and only have to pay it back once you're earning over about $35,000.
PHILLIPS: OK, Dan, are your able to hear me now? We're trying to work the audio situation. Can you hear me now?
RIVERS: It's very difficult to hear you, I'm afraid. I can't really hear your exact questions. But if you want to come up some of the latest situation now, the police seem to be holding the line fairly successfully, and I don't know how many protesters are behind us but I would say tens of thousands, certainly many thousands. And so far it's, you know, there have been some skirmishes but it's largely been good natured, but noisy.
PHILLIPS: Got it. All right. As you can see, it's so hard technically to be able to connect with our reporters when things are getting more intense. We're going to try and fix situation where Dan might be able to hear me better.
But If you're just tuning in. There's a bottom line. There's a vote that's about to go down in the Houses of Parliament there in London, probably about 11:00, 11:30 our time. So in less than two hours, less than an hour and a half, they are going vote on whether they are going raise the tuition there in England.
We're talking about tuition tripling as Dan pointed out. I mean, this was once a place where you could get a free education, free university education. Slowly those fees started to trickle upward. They were about $5,000 a year. Now the vote that's about to go down if, indeed, it passes, will triple tuition there in London, in England. And, of course, we have talked about the education there. Here in the United States. So many Americans go over there for specialized education.
And so it was interesting how Dan said when he was talking to those students, you know, we're used to going into debt, we're used to paying loans, we're used to having paying for college. But just imagine hundreds of thousands of students that have been used to that and then now all of a sudden are being told their fees are going to triple.
You can see some of the students are still trying to break through the officers there that are trying to keep them back from other protests that have already taken place, where they have been able to get through up to those house of Parliament and break windows and start fires. So far we've seen little skirmishes like this but nothing too intense. We are following the breaking news out of London to let you know about that vote that will go down within an hour and a half and change the face of education there in England. We're following it.
We'll bring you more right after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: All right, live -- or actually, I apologize, it's not live pictures. We -- we are actually moving our live truck for safety reasons right now.
Dan Rivers was kind of right in the middle of that pretty intense situation. We're talking about possibly hundreds of thousands of students -- definitely tens of thousands of students protesting the tuition hikes there in London.
The vote is supposed to go down within the next hour and 20 minutes or so. These students here are not happy about the fact that their tuition may triple in the next 90 minutes or less. We are following that vote. We're following the protests. As you can see it's starting to get a little more hairy. Some of the students are able to break through that barricade.
But the -- the officers are trying to keep them back. It seems to be getting a little more intense as we come -- intense rather as we come closer to -- to that vote. We are following this live.
We will get back to our Dan Rivers as soon as he gets to a safer location to kind of gauge how these protests are going.
All right. It's 9:45 here on the East Coast, 6:45 out West. Here are some of the other stories that have us talking this morning.
They are calling it Operation Payback a network of WikiLeaks supporters launching a series of cyber-attack against companies and political leaders critical of the Web site. The hackers targeted Sarah Palin's site and temporarily brought down PayPal in addition to Visa and MasterCard corporate Web sites.
Beverly Hills police now say Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen was murdered in a random robbery. The killer investigators believe was 43-year-old Harold Martin Smith. Officers say Smith was riding his bike when he shot Chasen to death. Preliminary ballistic tests showed that he committed suicide with the same gun he used to kill Chasen.
The cold weather from the Great Lakes moving to the south, hard freeze warnings are in place for Florida, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. Temps are expected to dip below 27 degrees for a couple of hours.
Well, the Alaska Senate race is still not settled but a judge's decision could bring us closer to a final resolution.
Senior political editor, Mark Preston is following that story from us -- for us, rather. Hey, Mark.
MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL EDITOR: Hey, good morning Kyra.
Yes, arguments in the contested battle for that Senate seat up in Alaska began yesterday. They continue today. A judge expects a ruling tomorrow.
And just to give a quick synopsis of what is going on. Joe Miller the Republican nominee who lost in the general election to Lisa Murkowski, she's a Republican that ran a write-in candidate, he contends that the ballots should not be counted because they have misspelled her name.
Now, she is up by 10,000 votes. Right now, by all accounts Lisa Murkowski has won this race. But we expect a ruling from the judge tomorrow, Kyra.
You know, Kyra -- Donald Trump doesn't necessarily want to run for president but we might need him to run for president. That's what he's telling Joy Behar over at our sister network HLN.
And in fact last night he said "I'm having a lot of fun at what I'm doing. It's great to be buying things. I'm buying a lot of things and really having a good time". But having said that he's really upset about the direction the country is headed in.
He actually took a poke at President Obama and said, "Look, he went over to try to get the Olympic Games and he wasn't even able to deliver". So Donald Trump says now more than ever he is seriously considering running for president -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right.
Well, Mark, it looks like we're going to start seeing more and more of our Congressmen next year.
PRESTON: Yes certainly. Certainly back home in your district, you know Kyra, you know most people work five day work weeks, some people work six, seven day work weeks -- I'm pointing to myself here. But you know, in Congress they have been under a lot of criticism Kyra because they only work three-day work weeks.
PHILLIPS: Ok.
PRESTON: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, but you know something? The new schedule for next week has them in Washington for two weeks, working four days a week. And then after the two weeks they head home to their states and their Congressional districts to meet with their constituents for one week.
So a little bit of a shakeup than what we're used to for the Congressional schedule -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: We shouldn't say Congressmen; it's Members of Congress -- Mark.
PRESTON: Members of Congress forgive me, politically incorrect.
PHILLIPS: Yes -- now but I said the same thing. I figure we got to watch ourselves now. Thanks Mark.
PRESTON: Thanks Kyra.
PHILLIPS: And you are working just as hard if not more than our Members of Congress.
All right, we're going to have your next political update in just about an hour. And a reminder: for all the latest political news just go to our Web site, CNNPolitics.com.
Also we're keeping a close eye on these tuition protests in London. We're talking about tripling tuition, and hundreds of thousands of students are not happy about it.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: All right. Let's go straight to London real quickly and check in on those protests that are taking place for the -- with regard to the tuition hikes. This is actually some -- some video that we just -- we just got fed in. It's starting to pick up. It was -- it was pretty calm within the past hour.
And now, as you can see, the students have broken through parts of the barricade and officers are having to push them back and use their Billy clubs. They're furious because in about an hour or so, the vote is going to go down telling these students whether their tuition is going to triple or not.
We're talking $5,000 to $15,000 in a part of the world where university used to be free and then those fees started to move upward through the years. And now it's a -- it's a huge blow to these students that for decades, their parents, their grandparents, had free education, some of them as well not having to pay nearly as much as they will if this vote passes and their tuition goes up three times as much to what they're used to paying.
And then, in addition to that, there's housing and food, and it's the living expenses added in to their tuition. We are going to follow these protests and we're going to follow the vote. We're going to let you know what's going to happen.
We're also following a lot of other developments in the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM. Let's check in first with Brianna Keilar on the Hill -- Brianna.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, we have a lot going on, on the Hill today. Some Democrats seem to be warming to the President's compromise over extending Bush era tax cuts, but is it going to be enough? And also, the fight over repealing "don't ask, don't tell" well, it could come to a head today. I'll have more on that at the top of the hour.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Elizabeth Cohen in Atlanta. The surgeon general has a new warning about smoking, and it's not just for smokers. They say the minute you walk into a smoky bar, you are damaging your body immediately. They said the effects are there and they are profound. I'll have more on that at the top of the hour.
PHILLIPS: All right, ladies, thank you.
Also, a man chooses trains over Jets. We're going to be talking with Keith Fitzhugh right here in the studio. He was offered a chance to follow his NFL dream, but he turned it down. We're going to ask him why he wants to stay -- keep his job as a train conductor instead of going to the field. That's next hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Did you pick that song, too? Yes. Forget football and television. You should have pursued television.
JAMAL ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Singing and dancing with Jamal?
PHILLIPS: Yes, you never know. You have to start your reality show.
(CROSSTALK)
ANDERSON: Happy Thursday Kyra. How are you?
PHILLIPS: Happy Thursday. All right. What are we talking about -- the most embarrassing moment in sports? We're not talking about you, are we?
ANDERSON: No, unfortunately -- actually, fortunately, we are not talking about me. I did have a moment something like this but not quite like this goalie in soccer. That was -- this is pretty fantastic right here. You're going to watch this goalie. He can't pick up the ball with his hands, so he kicks it back at his own team.
PHILLIPS: It's his team right? That's why he can't touch it.
ANDERSON: He scored a goal for his own team. And they ended up tying in the match.
PHILLIPS: Oops.
ANDERSON: Hello. You can imagine his teammates and everybody looking at him. He's just like, what can he do -- what can he do at this point?
PHILLIPS: What's up pal? What happened to all your training? Look at that. He just whiffed -- totally whiffed.
ANDERSON: The closest thing -- totally -- the closest thing I can compare to this, years ago we were playing the Panthers, and I was about to score and they knocked the ball out of my hands in the back of the end zone.
PHILLIPS: Did you turn around and sock them one?
ANDERSON: I wanted to but they would have fined me and sued me and suspended me. It couldn't happen.
PHILLIPS: All right. We go from soccer to --
ANDERSON: Hockey. Sidney Crosby, the Penguins are playing fantastic right now; obviously nothing like this goalie here. He is on fire. The Penguins are winners of ten straight right. Sidney Crosby leads the NHL in scoring right now.
And you have a thing about this. They won ten straight games and they're missing two of their stars. He leads NHL with 48 points, 26 goals, Kyra, in the past 30 games. This guy is on fire.
He's playing amazing right now. The Pittsburgh Penguins are doing a great job. Only thing about Sidney Crosby is he didn't have a great play against us, Kyra, in the Olympics. And that wasn't so much fun.
So we like him. We like him when he's here in the NHL, but I don't know about playing against us in Canada.
PHILLIPS: All right. Now, those Canadians, they love their hockey.
ANDERSON: Yes. Yes, they do.
PHILLIPS: All right. They love their tin bits (ph).
ANDERSON: They do. They do.
PHILLIPS: Sorry, it was so quick and short today. We've got protests in London, my friend.
ANDERSON: I know. News happens, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: But I'm giving you a good exit.
ANDERSON: Thank you ma'am.
PHILLIPS: Happy weekend.
ANDERSON: And I'll see you tomorrow.
