State Of The FISA Fight

I'm with Marcy Wheeler here, I think Sen. Reid believes in the housing bill's need to pass, and he's going to leverage the Iraq supplemental and FISA in order to get the housing bill done. However, he's also said he will give time to Sens. Dodd and Feingold to let their views on the subject be known (that means allowing them the maximum time allowable to Senators to speak on a bill, including perhaps a traditional filibuster). And there simply isn't enough time, if he holds to that, to get everything passed, by my calculations.

Dodd got some love from his home-state paper today.

But the promise in question concerns the Democrat's vow to fight a provision in a bill on warrantless eavesdropping that is headed for the Senate. During his short-lived presidential run, Connecticut's senior senator made a great show of opposing a clause that would retroactively forgive telecommunications firms for helping the government spy on Americans without a warrant.

It was the right move then, and would be again, now that the House of Representatives has revived the language and, once again, sent it on to the upper chamber. Dodd should pick up the fight where he left off, and do all he can to see that this bill does not become law.

The basis for opposing this bill is simple: The United States is not a tyranny. The president, even in times of emergency, must follow the law. And everyone, including corporations, even when asked by the government, must themselves uphold the law.

Dodd is taking a real risk speaking out. He's up to his eyeballs in this Countrywide mortgage incident, where there is the appearance of impropriety in a loan he received (some are wondering whether that was intentional timing on somebody's part). Most Senators would go into hiding at this time, but Dodd made a promise and he's keeping it. And I believe he has the ability to delay this thing, after which anything is possible. I previously thought there was a 0% chance of salvaging the Constitution and stopping the bill; now I'm up to 2%. Progress!