Sen. Chris Dodd traded in the microphones, bright lights and large crowds of the presidential campaign trail on Sunday for discussion with a little over a dozen people seated around tables lit with candles.
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Dodd has accused President Bush of abusing his power following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and led a 10-hour filibuster on Dec. 17 against legislation to grant retroactive immunity to telecom companies that helped the administration spy on Americans without a warrant.
Dodd said he learned conviction for the ideals in the Constitution from his father, a chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials in Germany after World War II. He read excerpts of letters his father wrote home to his mother when Dodd was 1-year-old, now published in Dodd’s book, “Letters from Nuremberg.”
He said he’s concerned some Democrats, as well as Republicans, are buying into “the false dichotomy that we can only be safer when we give up rights.”
Earlier on Sunday, Dodd met privately with Muscatine firefighters. After his visit in Muscatine, he was scheduled to stop in Burlington and Fairfield before returning to his temporary home in Des Moines.
http://www.muscatinejournal.com/articles/2007/12/24/news/doc476fd0c988d1d344495214.txt