Chris Dodd for President

Below the fold is a rough transcription of the entire live chat with Senator Dodd that took place on FireDogLake earlier today. Where possible, I've added references to who originally asked the question in the comment section and links to the comment. In a couple cases, it was a paraphrase of a question asked by a number of people. Enjoy!

FISA Live Chat

Senator Chris Dodd: Well great, well good morning, everyone. It’s still morning here in Iowa, so I thank you all for joining me this morning. I’m in Mason City, Iowa; been here the last couple of days, got a full and busy day here. Leaving here and going to a head start program in Mason City, and onward to some town hall meetings and house parties to talk about the issues of the campaign. And one of the principle ones I’m talking about, everywhere I go is of course what happened here a few days ago.

With the announcement out of the Intelligence Committee that Democrats are joining Republicans in extending retroactive immunity to telephone companies that turned over, I’m told, massive amounts of records, private records, to the Bush Administration without a government, without a court order. And I just find that shocking and reprehensible. This is yet one further beat in the drum beat that’s gone on here with this administration, to trample on the constitutional rights of Americans. The right of privacy and the Constitution don’t belong to any candidate, or belong to any political party. It’s incumbent upon all of us to stand up when those rights are being jeopardized and that’s what I intend to be doing over the coming days here, depending upon the outcome of this process, moving through the United States Senate. This bill, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is one that’s been around for some time, I’m open to all the details of that. But the idea that we would extend immunity to companies that have turned over these privacy documents, private documents is, I said a moment ago, troubling. You should also know, by the way, that not all companies did, to their credit, QWest and other did not turn over, insisting instead on a court order. There was no court order forth coming, and they refused to voluntarily turn over these documents. So the notion it was every company is false. It wasn’t every company, here. It was only companies that decided in their legal departments that they were going to comply with the Bush Administration’s request.

Let me tell you what I’m doing here, and how much I appreciate the support that many of you are giving, to this effort, because I couldn’t really do this without you. First of all, I let the leadership know, in Congress, that I was going to put what they call a hold on a bill. A hold doesn’t have any great legal basis at all. It’s been more tradition and custom in the senate that any one senator can put a hold on a bill for a period of time. I’ve always announced my holds, I announced who I was and why I was putting one on. I didn’t try to do it in secret, as some have done over the years. And rarely have I put a hold on a bill. But it is a tradition and a right in the sense that senators have. It doesn’t give you a permanent ability to stop a bill but allows it to slow it down. The rules in the Senate are designed specifically, as many of you know, to protect the rights of the minority, including the minority of one. Hence, the rule, filibuster rule.

Now as I’m told right now the bill has gone on from the Intelligence Committee to the Judiciary Committee I’ve talked with Senator Patrick Leahy who’s the chairman of that committee, and has been a great advocate and a great supporter, of mine on these issues involving constitutional rights. He and Arlen Specter, a Republican, have also expressed some severe reservations about this retro active immunity. They’ll be voting on that, this bill and I presume and an amendment to strike the language, granting retro active immunity in that Committee. So the first thing I’d be asking people to do is to contact members of the Judiciary Committee. And ask them for their support in what we are trying to accomplish here. And that is to strip out this provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as it’s been rewritten. It that doesn’t work here; if this bill leaves the Judiciary with this provision still intact then I’ll be filibustering this bill. I don’t do that very often, but I feel so strongly about this. What’s happened from this administration from Habeas Corpus, torture, secret prisons, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, politicization of the US attorney’s offices, wire traps without warrants, all of these things, an accumulation of stepping all over and shredding the Constitution under the false dichotomy that in order for us to be safer we have to give up rights. I fundamentally reject that idea. In fact I think the opposite is the case. When you stand up and protect your rights we become stronger not weaker.

And so I’m soliciting your help as you’ve provided already this week in letting people know how much we care about this as a country. I don’t know all what your politics are. Some of you may be very conservative Republicans others of may be liberal Democrats, maybe independents. I don’t think this has any political label on it here. All of us ought to care about this. We don’t want the government peering into the privacy of Americans. I chair the Privacy Caucus with Democrats and Republicans in the Congress, to watch out for matters just like this. So again I solicit your help. Now my hope is of course, we can be successful in convincing people to strip this language out of this bill. And if we don’t, then as I said earlier, I’ll be prepared to filibuster the legislation. And if it comes out, I presume others will want to put it back in, and that will require a second set of actions we will have to take down the road.

But that’s what I’ve been doing over the last several days, on this, here. Letting others know, and I’ve been talking about it a lot. I want you to know, as I travel around Iowa and New Hampshire, people’s concern about the Constitution is very very strong. I know people talk about Iraq and energy and health-care policy and environmental issues and education, all of which are tremendously important - I don’t minimize them. But I’ve been talking about the Constitution for over a year now. As many of you may know, going back, when I authored the Military Commissions reform bill, to overturn that dreadful piece of legislation that was adopted a year ago, by the congress. And asking Democrats to stand up and join in this efforts as well, particularly, and Republicans who care about it, care about the constitution, and what the Bush administration is doing to it. I want to thank all of you for coming in and tuning in this morning, what I’d like to do is use the remaining time we have here to try and respond some of your questions.

I hope I’ve been clear enough in explaining where I am today and how this is working and what steps I’m prepared to take here to reverse this decision. But thanks again for your participation, what you’ve done already and what you will do in the coming days to help us succeed in this battle. Getting some kinds of results here, that I think people want. People don’t often talk about results. When it comes to the Constitution, there’s no more important result, than getting and the result of protecting and defending these principles. Which should not be abandoned because the facts change for some people. So standing up for these principles, is something all of us care about, and I hope we’re going to fight together on.

Amos Hochstein, Deputy Campaign Manager: Thank you Senator. Off camera you’ll here my voice from time to time asking questions. This is Amos Hochstein from the Senators’ campaign. And so we’ll start with a question from Muzzy, who says: Senator Dodd, is there any concern by some in Congress, real or imagined, that without retro active immunity for telecom companies they will be less likely to cooperate with legitimate and legal government surveillance in the future?

Senator Dodd: No, not at all. Look, again, if there’s a court order, requiring that these documents be turned over, then they’re going to comply with that. I don’t have any fault with a company complying with a court order. What happened here is they turned over documents without a court order. As I mentioned earlier, the one company that refused to do it said: “You get me a court order, and then we’ll consider doing what you’ve asked us to do.” That court order was never forth coming, and so they never did turn over the records. So I don’t want people to disobey the law, when that happens. And they argue about whether it’s a proper court order, but I expect companies to be able to do what the law asks them to do. By the way I should have thanked Fire Dog Lake, and Jane Hamsher for being this today. Thanking them for supporting this effort to communicate with all of you today. Fire Dog Lake has been a great sponsor of moments like this, and I thank them very, very much, and I thank Jane.

Amos Hochstein: Next question, Senator is from Adam B.: Senator Dodd can you clarify what your hold means procedurally? Is it correct that a vote by 60 senators on a motion to proceed can override your hold?

Senator Dodd: Well as I said earlier, a hold is a sort of a non verbal filibuster. And, again, there’s, sometimes holds are respected, sometimes they’re not. Usually they’re are respected because people recognize if they disrespect one senators hold, then the next time you may have one, for whatever reason you determine to be worthy, that hold may be not respected, may not be respected as well. So, the hold is not the same thing as a filibuster. But you’re correct in pointing out, that if you’re going to break a filibuster then you need to have those 41 votes to do so. And it may come to that, if in fact this legislation, this language in the FISA bill remains. Then I’ve indicated that I will do something I’ve rarely done, and that is to engage in a filibuster to stop the bill from going forward with that language included. It would, then I’d need the support of 40 other senators to stand with. To say that we’re not going to support this bill going forward with this language in it, here. That’s not easy to get under these matters, considering that the intelligence committee marked up this bill and there were only two negative votes out of all members of the committee casting votes. That’s not at, that’s not a positive sign for me, is things are moving forward. I hope the judiciary that is getting joint referral on this matter, will act more carefully about keeping that language in the bill.

Amos Hochstein: TJ asks, how do we get the other Democrats in Congress to recognize that it’s not their job to pass legislation that the president won’t veto. The job is to do what is right and let the president veto it over and over until the country understands that the president is not on the right side. And what more can we do to get out members of congress to do what is right?

Senator Dodd: Well, I, let me take the last part first and that is, again you’ve got a wonderful ability to reach and communicate with members of the US senate on these matters, members of the judiciary committee, members of the Senate as a whole and I would not limit my contacts with just democrats. Again, I made the point earlier, there’s some people, I think, on the other side, as well, concerned about this erosion. The erosion of constitutional rights, and the rights of privacy. So I’d urge people here to contact members of both parties, and remind them, as I’m sure they do, that they’re constitutional obligations require them to stand up and defend the Constitution. That’s the oath of office we take, when we’re sworn in as senators. Also the oath office, I might add, when we’re sworn in as President of the United States: to protect our country from enemies both foreign and domestic, and to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

I’d like to see a little more spine, frankly, on some of these issues. People tell us the want to lead, a little leadership right now would certainly be welcomed on these questions. I don’t want to be, I’m not afraid to do this alone. I fell so strongly about this. It’s part of my DNA in a sense. Some of you may know, that I grew up in a household where my father was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, here. And, Robert Jackson, the great prosecutor, the great Supreme Court Justice, made the case as others did. That we were going to stand up for the rule of law, even with some of the greatest violators of human rights in recorded history. That we were going to provide a trial for them, that which they never gave to their victims. So I heard all about the rule of law growing up, and how important it is. I didn’t discover this a week ago, or year a go or two years ago. It’s something I believed in very strongly when I served on the House Judiciary Committee, with people like Father Dryden, and Liz Holzman, and others back a number of years ago, here. We stood up. I sat on the subcommittee dealing with constitutional rights. So my history on these matters go back a long way, here. They didn’t come up recently, and I’m urging people to stand up.

And the person who asked the question is right, my view here, you don’t decide keep to something in a bill that’s dreadfully wrong because the president threatens a veto. If it’d dreadfully wrong, as this is in my view, to provide retroactive immunity, here, then you strip it out of the bill, and do everything you can to achieve that. The President vetoes it, you send it back that way again. You don’t put, the constitution should not be monkeyed around with because you’re afraid of a veto. That’s the worst thing you could do, when it comes to that document.

Amos Hochstein: Senator, Oklahoma Kiddo asks, the Republican Party has framed this issue of phone and email spying on American citizens as necessary to combat real or perceived terror, and a significant number of Americans have bought into this idea. How would President Dodd counter this perception?

Senator Dodd: Well by standing up and talking strongly about it. Again, I remind people, there’s a history here. When you start giving away your rights the first one doesn’t sound so bad, the second one may be okay too in some people’s minds. But before you know it, it’s the third and the fourth and the fifth. And you’re looking back and saying how did this all happen? When did it start? The cumulative effect has all of a sudden made us a very different place. And we’ve seen in the past what’s happened to our country when we’ve taken those actions, and how much weaker we think we’ve become, and ashamed of those moments in our history. When we’ve abandoned basic rights of individual people, here.

Now look, I want to, I’m no shrinking violet when it comes to state-less terrorism and the threats posed by them, and the steps we ought to be taking to make sure we protect ourselves from those enemies foreign and domestic. But when you give up basic constitutional rights, you give terrorists a far greater victory in many ways. The damage done to our country on 9-11, of course was stunning. What happened in New York, what happened in Washington, what happened in the fields of Pennsylvania. And all of us will not take a backseat to anyone in expressing our outrage over that. But if you start also diminishing our rights as a people, then you compound the tragedy of 9-11. And so I happen to believe we’re stronger when we stand up for these rights. If the terrorists believe they can get us to give up on our principles and rights then that’s a greater victory, in my view, in many, many ways. So we need to respond strongly, and I will as president. Respond strongly to these efforts here, and insist that in my administration we protect the rights of people. Even people we fundamentally and totally disagree with. That’s what our country requires of us, I’d certainly do nothing less as President

Amos Hochstein: Beth Meacham asks: Can you explain why the democratic controlled congress continues to roll over for a president with a 24% approval rating?

Senator Dodd: Well, Beth look at, I would tell you here on this issue, if the president’s poll numbers were at 85% approval rating, I’d be fighting him on this. The issue isn’t where his poll numbers are, the issue is whether or not they’re doing things that harm the country, here. And unfortunately, over the last couple of months, despite the election of last fall, when the American people, I think, voted for change, fundamental change and gave Democrats the ability to control both houses of congress again. They wanted us to step up and make a difference on Iraq, and certainly on issues like this one. So I’ve been disappointed like many, that we haven’t been stronger and clear on these issues.

I certainly respect what the leadership has to confound, and confront all the time, and it’s not easy, and I respect them for trying. But I’m of a view that it makes more sense to get 15 or 20 votes or 25 votes with something that has clarity to it, is defined very sharply, instead of trying to write something that 50 votes or 61 votes will support. Inevitably you’ll end up writing something that doesn’t mean anything at all, and I think it sends the worst possible message. So we’re going to have, we’ve had several opportunities to stop the funding for the war in Iraq, and unfortunately there’ve been very few people willing to stand up and insist that that be the case. I’ve been supporting Russ Feingold on that effort for months now, and I wish others would show some leadership, not just about casting a vote occasionally, but utilizing the position they’re in as candidates for the presidency to make this more of a point, and stand up and be strong on it.

The same is true with these resolutions dealing with Iran, here, we had the other day. We had one candidate who didn’t show up, and another who cast the wrong vote on that issue. That is very harmful to the country. Again, results matter here. And if you want to lead, you’ve got to demonstrate you’re willing to fight and show leadership. This is one of those moments here. I don’t want to wait until January 20, 2009 or 2013 as some have suggested, before we get our troops out of Iraq. I want to see us do that now, if we can, before those dates. This is one of those moment here when people need to demonstrate how strong their leadership qualities are. In the face of whatever the polling data is, I would stand up and fight this administration, as they try to strip our constitutional rights away from individuals.

Amos Hochstein: [TheraP asks] Senator, can you please describe you understanding of the oath of office, versus how Bush has mangled and betrayed his oath.

Senator Dodd: Well, again, I say the oath of office that members of congress take, and the president takes, basically requires that you defend the constitution and protect the country; keep it safe. And frankly both on the issue of safety and security, I think we’re less safe, less secure, I think we’re a lot more vulnerable as a country today. I think we’re certainly far more isolated today, as a result of continuing the policy in Iraq. Our soldiers and sailors, marines and air men have done an incredible job. I wore the uniform of the United States military after I served in the Peace Corp. I was in the national guard and the reserves, and so I take a backseat to no one in caring about what happens to our soldiers when they’re in harms way and also when they come back out of harms way: whether or not they’re treated properly in our Veterans Administration.

And also, I understand the Constitution, how much, how it ought to be important to all of us, here. And I’ve been terribly disappointed, because I think we are not defending and protecting the constitution. And we are not keeping American safe and secure. The two fundamental obligations of an American President. And over this campaign here, I’ll be talking about those issues, and as president, if elected in November of ’08, I’ll be standing up as a leader of this country, and expressing whatever has to be done to keep us secure and safe, but also to see to it our constitution is going to be protected in my administration.

Amos Hochstein: Senator, after all that this president has done to [inaudible] our Constitution, why did you choose this as an issue, why now take a stand?

Senator Dodd: Well it isn’t now. I don’t know where you’ve been over the last year or so, but I was the one who lead the charge against the military commissions act over a year ago when Habeas Corpus and torture and the Geneva Conventions were being shredded, I offered, by the way I just didn’t talk about it, I offered the legislation to repair it. I was the sponsor, along with Arlen Specter, and Arlen Specter and Pat Leahy to try and restore Habeas Corpus. Back a few weeks ago we failed at that attempt, and I’ve been talking about these issues, as many would tell you, across the country for a long, long time, even when they weren’t showing up as important questions.

I remember at one of the earliest debates, we were all asked the following question: what’s the first thing you would do as President of the United States. They gave me five seconds to answer the question by the way. But the answer I gave that day, and the answer I’ve given consistently is that the fist thing I’ll do is restore the Constitution of the United States to the American people.

Amos Hochstein: Senator, [Apache Trout asks] have other senators joined you in committing to a hold? Specifically, I’d like to work with my two senators, Leahy and Sanders, and what else can people on this track do?

Senator Dodd: Well you’ve got two great senators in Bernie Sanders, and Pat Leahy. And I haven’t talked to Bernie Sanders I have talked to Senator Leahy, of course, he’s in a very influential position as chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee. And Pat, as you know, has been terrific on these issues. He was terrific on the military commissions act, has been terrific in talking about getting materials out of the justice department, where the politicization occurred in the past, terrific in terms of the Alberto Gonzales matters that have been going on going. So I have every confidence that Pat will be leading a charge in the judiciary committee to try and, probably strip this language out of the FISA bill. But I don’t want to put word in his mouth, and a citizens of his state, I presume you’ll be in touch with his office, and find out where he is on this, and how the matter will get handled in the Senate Judiciary committee.

Amos Hochstein: [60th Street asks] Do you think this retroactive telecom immunity will provide a proxy legal precedent for the white house to use, to be able to use as a shield, rather to shield themselves from prosecution as well?

Senator Dodd: Well, I don’t know if that’s the case or not, but I, as one colleague of mine raised this issue; why is the Congress deciding to get involved in an immunity decision? The president by executive order can grant immunity, why is he asking the congress to join him in this effort? What more is involved here? How many records are involved here? What other matters are being included here? What materials were turned over? What information is there, here? Granting immunity means all that information now is secure where it is. What sort of information? What sort of conversations, what sort of calls did people have?

Again, I don’t know what everyone’s politics are, who are with us today, but regardless of what your politics are, this ought to concern you. Privacy is a very serious matter. And the sense of having security, or feeling secure that basic private information is not going to be shared with people all across the spectrum here is something we assume will be the case. That did not happen here. And if we allow this to go forward with a congressional stamp of approval on it, as well, then I think we run the real risk of watching a repeat of this, we’ll watch other companies that will step up and respond without court orders and turning over other information. So this could be precedent setting for another set of actions here, hence, this is very important to stop in its tracks, before it goes any further.

Amos Hochstein: [zennurse asks] Senator, do you believe that if you are elected president there will be a better Democratic response to the people’s rights and concerns?

Senator Dodd: Well I would certainly hope so, and again, I think leadership insists upon it here. And again I emphasize here, I don’t want to see America be vulnerable. We all want to keep us safe, and secure. But again, I make the point to you here, you don’t tailor your principles to the facts of the day, here. They’re either strong principles, or they’re not, and I believe this principles ought to be firm and strong, here. As Sandra Day O’Connor said, when talking about this administrations request to do other things that were volatile to the Constitution, this was Ronald Regan’s appointee to the Supreme Court by the way, she said a condition of war does not give the president a blank check on these matters. She was absolutely right on that, here. She was absolutely right in that, here. And that’s what I’m saying in a sense. This is not a blank check, and again, when court orders are involved, there’s a way of getting this, that can help and protect our country. But turning over, without any court order, documents like these, I think is dangerous, and that’s the reason I feel strongly about it, hope you do as well, hope you’ll join me in the coming days, that we see to it that we strip this kind of language out of the bill.

Amos Hochstein: Senator, what can people do to help your effort? As you earlier said it is going to the judiciary committee next, what would you like people to do to help you in this process?

Senator Dodd: Well again, I think just contacting--exercising that old constitutional right here. The right to petition your government, and the First Amendment, and that is to communicate by calls, by emails, faxes, here, to members of congress, Republicans and Democrats. And to express your concerns about this, here. That giving retroactive immunity to companies that violated a law, in my view, by turning over documents, that are private documents, without a court order is dangerous stuff. And every American, regardless of political persuasion ought to be concerned about it. And so I urge people here to communicate your concerns with members of the United States Senates, well particularly, right now, the Judiciary committee. That frankly will be making a decision, as I said earlier, sometime in the next few days, I believe on this matter. And then obviously with other members as well who are not on the committee to express your concerns on this matter and ask them to join us in expressing our opposition to this language.

Amos Hochstein: Senator, I think we’re out of time. I want to thank everybody for joining us and let everybody know that you can also please come to our website chrisdodd.com, and we appreciate all your help.

Senator Dodd: Well let me thank again, of course I want to thank, Fire Dog Lake, and Jane Hamsher. For allowing us to use Fire Dog Lake for this live streaming here, across the country. I’m told there were a thousand people, maybe more that were a part of this discussion this morning, and I thank them for being a part of it, and we can make a difference, we can create change. And you’re doing that already, and again, my thanks to those who’ve communicated with us over the last several days. Some 22,000 people across the country have expressed their agreement with us on this position. That’s important for people to know; that there’s people out there who really do care about these issues. And I thank you all as being patriotic Americans for caring about our Constitution as strongly as you do. Thanks.