"Dodd was right"

The Concord Monitor has a letter to editor about Dodd's success in the FISA fight.

As the rest of us were out shopping on Monday, Sen. Chris Dodd left the Iowa campaign prepared to filibuster a "get out of jail free" provision in the FISA bill.

The Bush administration is threatening to veto a much needed revision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that would continue to allow our National Security Agency to intercept potential foreign terrorist communications if Congress does not include the okay to let phone companies off the hook for surveilling on U.S. citizens' communications without proper authority. Dodd stood up to yet another Bush threat by standing firm.

C-SPAN televised the whole abusive attempt by the White House with initial support from Democrat Harry Reid to usher this bill through the Senate as we got ready for Christmas. It blatantly tramples on our constitutional rights against illegal surveillance under the Fourth Amendment, and it was not just an incident or two but millions of phone calls and e-mails over a five-year period.

The FISA bill allows us the security of monitoring terrorist phone calls, but they need to be approved by the FISA courts - a judicial oversight process of checks and balances.

If you believe that the executive branch needs to follow the rule of law, tell your senator to support Chris Dodd's insistence that there should not be any "retroactivity exclusion" in this bill handed to the phone companies. This will come up again in the New Year. Do not let them attempt to sneak it through again.

PATRICK CLARK

Tilton

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