Washington, DC - Thank you Chairman Barton and Ranking Member Dingell for holding this hearing as swiftly as possible. 
 
I certainly heard from my constituents upset over this issue over the January district work period and they will be glad to know that we are responding with all possible speed.
 
I want to thank our witnesses for taking the time to come here and inform us on this issue, particularly FCC Chairman Martin and FTC Commissioner Leibowitz.
 
The amount of personal information floating around the internet about all of us is staggering, and this is just another example.  Our committee has dealt with financial records, medical records, and our data protection bill is addressing credit records.
 
Now we are faced with unscrupulous internet businesses selling phone records to anyone— stalkers, identity thieves, abusive ex-spouses, and any other type of shady character. 
 
To plug this particular leak of personal information on the internet, I support regulatory action, private sector legal action, and legislative efforts by this Committee to stop pre-texting for phone records. 
 
I am concerned, however, that every time we use our finger to plug a hole in the levee for one type of personal information, soon after we find yet another new leak.  I am afraid we are running out of fingers.
 
Going after phone records may not be enough, since these people are also selling the private, personal information behind email addresses and instant messenger names.
 
 I think we may need a more comprehensive approach to privacy of personal information, as opposed to reacting to every new breach of privacy that makes the headlines. 
 
Like the folks in New Orleans, we need to rebuild the levees rather than just keep patching them up.
 
Relying only on Section 5 covering “unfair” or “deceptive” business practices of the Federal Trade Commission Act is probably not enough. 
 
As we have seen with credit information and now phone information, scattered privacy laws specific only to one type of information lead to legal or semi-legal loopholes.
 
In any comprehensive privacy protection approach, we are going to need the strong cooperation of legitimate businesses that are on the front lines protecting our information from bad actors.
 
Companies need to have state-of-the-art privacy standards, but it is difficult for Congress to specify what those standards are, because the state-of-the-art protections and criminal methods constantly change.
 
We must rely on the independent agencies like the FCC and FTC to monitor what companies could do and what they are doing, but reliance only works when combined with oversight. 
 
For a comprehensive privacy framework, I think we need three things:
 
1) Empowering as many people as possible to do enforcement with flexible tools to achieve enforcement,
 
2) Educating and informing the public so they are not in the dark, and
 
3) Encouraging businesses that hold personal information continuously evolve better privacy protections.
 
Thank you Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Dingell.  I yield back.

 

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