After a deal was cut yesterday, it seemed inevitable that the Senate would pass legislation giving telecom companies a free pass for voluntarily giving up caller data to illegal administration data harvesting requests (some even prior to 9/11), effectively shutting down any attempts to prosecute these infringements.

But Chris Dodd has stepped forward to throw a monkey wrench in the works. It's a shocking development these days when a politician actually attempts to defend the Constitution (which unless I'm mistaken is still part of that whole pesky "oath of office" thing) instead of pandering to the "save me from the terrorists, Daddy" vote. So big kudos to Dodd.