Credo Action has launched an action alert to their members, asking them to contact Senators Clinton, Obama, and McCain to request that they come off of the campaign trail to stop bad FISA legislation that includes retroactive immunity. (Full disclosure: I am consulting for Credo Action / Working Assets on their FISA campaign.) It’s time to call on these candidates to make defending the Constitution a greater priority than presidential politics.

Take action through Credo’s action page.

The request on Clinton, Obama, and McCain is not an unreasonable one. They claim to be leaders and they seek to hold our highest office. They should be willing to do whatever it takes to ensure that before they take the oath of the presidency, they honor their oaths as senators to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

Given that we are in a political season and the request we make is for these presidential candidates to leave the campaign trail has political implications, it is worth noting that Americans are strongly opposed to warrantless surveillance and retroactive immunity. New polling out from the Mellman Group shows that at a rate of two to one Americans want the government to get a warrant before tapping Americans’ international calls. At almost the same rates and with a majority across the political spectrum, Americans are opposed to blanket warrants. And 57% of Americans oppose giving the telecom companies immunity.

Returning to Washington to stop retroactive immunity isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s a politically popular position.