Chris Dodd Vows to Keep On Fighting Bush's FISA Bill

Posted by Matt Stoller, Open Left at 5:46 PM on January 4, 2008.

Dodd is going to continue fighting.

I know a lot of you came to this email list through a shared desire to return our nation to one that respects the rule of law, and I want to make one thing clear to all of you:

The fight to restore the Constitution and stop retroactive immunity does not end with my Presidential campaign. FISA will come back in a few weeks and my pledge to filibuster ANY bill that includes retroactive immunity remains operative.

You've been an invaluable ally in the battle, and I'll need you to stick by my side despite tonight's caucus results.

So, one more time, thank you for all of your efforts throughout the course of this entire Presidential campaign.

We made a real difference in shaping the debate, and we'll continue to do so in the coming days, weeks and years.

I'll never forget you, and what we've fought for, together, over the past year.

Chris Dodd

If Dodd does filibuster the FISA bill again, it will provide another opportunity for the candidates to demonstrate leadership. Obama could move us away from a surveillance society by using his remarkably built political capital. I've actually had this conversation repeatedly with both Obama and Clinton staff, and one point I make is that there has been a remarkable limited commitment to fighting progressive battles during this campaign. With the dramatic turnout for Obama, hopefully this can change. As Glenn Greenwald notes, passing and expanding wiretapping authority is Bush's top priority for the next year. Dan Froomkin reports.

As President Bush begins his final year in office, the White House is aiming for one last major domestic legislative triumph: permanent expansion of government spy powers, including retroactive immunity for the telecom companies that assisted in warrantless surveillance...

"FISA is front and center," Gillespie said, according to a pool report from New York Times White House correspondent Sheryl Gay Stolberg. "If it is allowed to lapse we will be less safe as a country."

Chris Dodd has shown remarkable leadership as a Senator throughout this campaign, and I hope his position in the Senate is strengthened with a grassroots base. This opportunity to take his leadership and reinforce it with the sizzle and power of Obama really can change America as Obama is already changing America, and mark us a society that believes in freedom, the rule of law, and privacy. Imagine Obama on the floor of the Senate, helping Dodd filibuster this bill and preserve the rule of law. That would certainly and completely demolish all possible doubts about his commitment to a progressive country, while at the same time preserving a very fundamental core principle that elites should be held accountable when they break the law.

In the meantime, thank you to Chris Dodd for showing us what leadership looks like.

Tagged as: obama, fisa, dodd

Matt Stoller is a political activist/blogger in DC, and was an editor at MyDD from November 2005 until June 2007. He also consults for the Sunlight Foundation, FreePress.net, and Working Assets as well as proactively networking other progressive bloggers/internet activists and progressive professionals.