Following up on yesterday's FISA press conference in Des Moines, I wanted to share some of the Iowa press coverage on the event. Charlotte Eby, writing at Iowa InsiderIowa Inside and the WCF Courier, has a great column on Dodd's press conference.
Christopher Dodd rapped three other Democratic U.S. Senate members running for president for not being in Washington to help him quash a proposal he says violates the Constitution.
Dodd, a U.S. senator from Connecticut and White House hopeful, has been an outspoken critic of warrantless wiretapping.
He’s working to defeat a proposal that would give immunity to telecommunications companies that voluntarily handed over years’ worth of private phone, fax and e-mail records of American citizens to the federal government without a court order.
Dodd said he convinced the Senate leadership to pull the bill this week after spending several hours speaking out against the bill and threatening a filibuster.
“That was a good victory for the Constitution on Monday, but that was only one battle in this war,” Dodd said at a news conference in front of the Iowa State Capitol Thursday.
Dodd said it is unlikely the bill would have even come up had Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden been in the Senate with him to fight it.
...
He noted that his rivals made it back to Washington for a Senate vote on the farm bill, a key piece of legislation for Iowa’s farm economy.“They seemed to recognize the importance of that in Iowa. Why weren’t they there for the Constitution?” Dodd said.
The Des Moines Register and Quad City Times also have articles today covering Senator Dodd's press conference on this week's FISA victory.
