Chris Dodd for President

One anecdote that I left out of my postings yesterday is a conversation Tim Tagaris and I had with Senator Dodd while we were prepping to shoot a short web video of him asking Iowans to caucus for him on January 3rd. Tim and I were filling the Senator in about the continued praise for his leadership in the FISA fight online. The Senator pointed out that while he appreciates that support of people online for his actions to defend the Constitution, he's seeing the same sentiments on the campaign trail as well. In fact, he said, when he returned to Iowa following the floor fight over retroactive immunity, a man came up to him in the airport and stopped him to thank him for standing up against the Bush administration over immunity.

I've always said that the issues of the Constitution and the rule of law are national ones, that Americans all over the country online and offline, care deeply about. Senator Dodd's airport story speaks to that and is certainly borne out on a daily basis as he travels around Iowa. Chris Dodd is running to restore the Constitution, something neither he nor most Americans would have thought would ever be a necessary platform for a presidential candidate. But this country needs Chris Dodd's leadership now and a Dodd administration would be a soothing tonic to our battered Constitution.

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.

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.

Earlier today Senator Dodd held a press conference on the steps of the capitol in Des Moines to talk about this week's FISA victory. In it he challenges his Senate colleagues in the presidential race to come back to DC in January and join him in the fight against retroactive immunity. Senators Clinton, Obama and Biden were not in DC to fight against retroactive immunity on Monday, though all had previously put out statements saying they would support a Dodd filibuster to stop retroactive immunity.

Senator Dodd didn't just talk about how he wants to defend the Constitution. He took to the floor of the Senate and stopped a bad piece of legislation from becoming law. That kind of leadership that gets results is exactly what our country needs now - we can't rely on anything less.

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.