Chris Dodd for President

I hope everyone had a great Holiday. We came back from a short break to find another great letter to the editor about Senator Dodd's FISA fight. This one comes from Andrea Calandrella of Lebanon. It ran in today's Valley News.

There was a showdown on the floor of the US Senate on Dec. 17. The debate was over the proposed renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). At stake was nothing less than the US Constitution and the preservation of our civil liberties.

The specific issue was a provision to grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that illegally disclosed millions of private records, including yours and mine. These disclosures were made in response to warrantless requests from the Bush administration beginning in February 2001, months before 9/11.

FISA as it exists provides reasonable means to conduct surveillance legally and with proper oversight. To date, only 5 of 18,000 requests under FISA have ever been rejected. If the telecom companies acted in a legal manner, there is no need for immunity. If they acted illegally, the proper place to address this is in a court.

Chris Dodd left the presidential campaign trail to fight this granting of retroactive immunity. With passion and eloquence, he held the floor for over 8 hours on Monday until the majority leader, Harry Reid, postponed action on the bill until January 2008. Without Chris Dodd’s leadership and political backbone, there is no doubt that the bill would have passed with the inclusion of retroactive immunity. Watching him on C-SPAN was seeing democracy and statesmanship in action.

Bob Cesca named Chris Dodd his "Hero of the Day" yesterday. Follow the link to see why Cesca wishes Dodd had been able to start his filibuster.

Senator Dodd issued the following statement in response to Senator Reid pulling the Intel Committee bill from consideration until the new year:

"Today we have scored a victory for American civil liberties and sent a message to President Bush that we will not tolerate his abuse of power and veil of secrecy. The President should not be above the rule of law, nor should the telecom companies who supported his quest to spy on American citizens. I want to thank the thousands of Americans throughout the country that stood with me to get this done for our country."

The progressive blogs, who played a huge role in lobbying the Senate to support Dodd's leadership against retroactive immunity, are joining in the celebration now that the FISA bill has been pulled until next year.

In an email, Athenae of First Draft writes, "Seriously, that was some awesome with awesome sauce and a side of pure, crispy win."

Crooks & Liars has video of Dodd's closing remarks this evening.

Jason Rosenbaum at The Seminal writes, "This victory means Dodd’s filibuster has weight. It also makes it much more likely that he will win round two as he continues to stand up for the Constitution and against telecom immunity."

Sam Stein at the Huffington Post sets the early narrative - one which I think accurately describes how events evolved over the course of the last few days - in an article titled "Dodd's Filibuster Threat Persuades Reid."

Senator Chris Dodd won a temporary victory today after his threats of a filibuster forced Democratic leadership to push back consideration of a measure that would grant immunity to telecom companies that were complicit in warrantless surveillance....While he never technically conducted a filibuster, according to aides, Dodd left the floor only once, to address a press gathering. He did, on occasion cede time to his Democratic colleagues. But even then, they say, he remained engaged in the debate.
"Everyone who spoke on the floor said they were grateful for Dodd taking a stand," said a staffer to the Senator who asked not to be named. "They said if it weren't for him they wouldn't be having this much-needed debate."

Also, thanks to everyone at FireDogLake for all the help driving activism today.

Earlier today Senator Dodd spoke out in opposition to retroactive immunity. He focused on the Bush administration's requests for immunity for those companies who may have broken the law. Dodd highlights the fact that these companies knew what the law was and they were not represented by "first year law students."

You can read a transcript here.