Press Releases

I want to begin by thanking you, Chairman Goodlatte, and your staff, for working with us to develop the amendment before us now.

I also want to thank the members of the Digital Due Process Coalition, many of whom are represented here today, for their tireless dedication to the work of modernizing federal statute for the Internet age.

Over the last few weeks, Mr. Chairman, as we have worked out our few remaining differences on this bill, we have crafted what I believe to be an effective compromise.

This amendment addresses many of the concerns expressed to us by local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, and it does so while preserving the privacy and due process interests at the core of the original bill.

Wherever possible, we have retained the important changes proposed by the underlying bill.

Central to these changes is the elimination of the so-called “180-day rule” and any distinction between opened and unopened email in the statute.

We have always agreed that a simple warrant-for-content standard is a better approach to protecting our privacy.

I should also note the absence of a special carve out for the civil agencies.  This committee quickly reached consensus that those proposals were unworkable, unconstitutional, or both. I would have preferred to keep the notice provisions of the original bill, which are absent from this substitute.

In the digital world, no amount of due diligence necessarily tells us that the government has accessed our electronic communications.

The government should have an obligation to provide us with some form of notice when intruding on a record of our most private conversations. But I understand that not everyone shares this view—and I am willing to compromise, for now, in order to advance the important reforms that we will adopt today.

I am proud of the work we have done.  This legislation is six years in the making, and it should not be delayed any further.

Accordingly, I urge my colleagues to support the manager’s amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.