Dodd Pledges To Filibuster Bush's Domestic Spying Bill

Posted by Jane Hamsher at 1:00 PM on October 19, 2007.

This post, written by Jane Hamsher, originally appeared on FireDogLake

He said he “might have to.” And he will.

From the Dodd campaign:

Are you willing to go to the mat to restore the Constitution?

Just last night, we heard there are plans to disregard Senator Dodd’s intention to place a hold on a FISA bill that includes amnesty for telecommunications companies.

That would be a pretty extraordinary move, but Chris Dodd has pledged to stop this horrible bill any way he can.

So if the hold is not honored, he is prepared to go to the Senate floor and filibuster.

Rolling back the Bush Administration assault on the rule of law has been a major focus of Chris Dodd’s work in the Senate — and it’s also a centerpiece in his campaign for President.

Finally someone willing to filibuster and cut through the ocean of glue the Senate seems to be swimming in.

This is awesome. Go Dodd.

Update: Just added — YouTube above. It’s pretty impressive. Reward good behavior.

UPDATE II Russ Feingold just released this statement:

As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee, I have been working and will continue to work every step of the way to try to fix the badly flawed FISA bill. I was pleased that in the Intelligence Committee markup yesterday Senator Wyden and I were able to make some improvements to the bill, including requiring FISA court orders for wiretapping U.S. citizens overseas and more meaningful oversight by Congress and the Inspector General of the new authorities. But we still have a long way to go before this bill adequately protects the privacy of law-abiding Americans. The bill still cedes far too much power to the executive branch, which has time and again shown it will only abuse it. And I am deeply disappointed that it included retroactive immunity for anyone alleged to have cooperated with the Administration's illegal warrantless wiretapping program. I hope the bill will be further improved in the Judiciary Committee before it reaches the full Senate. If the bill that ultimately reaches the Senate floor includes immunity and does not adequately protect the privacy of Americans, I will fight it vigorously with every tool at my disposal.

I hope this means what I think it means. Because it's a nice contrast to the mumbling coming out of Reid's office.

Glenn Greenwald:

I emailed Reid's office to ask if they actually intended to override and ignore Dodd's "hold" and this is the patronizing (though crystal clear) dismissal I received back as a "response" from Reid's spokesman, Jim Manley:

Reid will work with Dodd and other Senators to correct the deep flaws in the Protect America Act.

Clearly, Reid has nothing but contempt for Dodd's principled stand, which was generated by (and in response to) the actions of tens of thousands of Americans concerned about our constitutional liberties and the rule of law. Reid is dismissively brushing that all to the side -- as usual -- to ensure the safe and smooth passage of a Draconian bill jointly demanded by the Bush administration, the telecom industry, and their lobbyists.

It's very easy to say where you stand on these things (ahem, Senators Clinton and Obama). Russ Feingold did, everyone else can too. Nobody needs to wait until the bill passes through the bowels of all these Senate committees and procedures to say where they stand, and how they will act, on telecom immunity and other aspects of the Rockefeller-for-sale bill that just came out of the Intelligence Committee. Posted in Civil rights, Domestic Spying,

Tagged as: feingold, domestic spying, warrantless wiretapping, dodd, bush administration, fisa

Jane Hamsher is the founder of FireDogLake. Her work has also appeared on the Huffington Post, Alternet and The American Prospect.