Civil Rights

I drove to Tallahassee and went to see what was supposed to be a secure facility.   They had brought in an outside hacker.  In less than thirty minutes, he was able to completely change the vote.

There has got to be a way to check the system to make sure that every vote is counted as the person intended to cast it.  You have soldiers in Iraq fighting to give people the right to vote.  We need to have that same right in the United States.

The passage of my resolution of inquiry was a critically important step forward in protecting the privacy and constitutional rights of millions of Americans who are deeply concerned about the scope and legality of the NSA's domestic surveillance program. I want to thank Chairman Sensenbrenner for his steadfast cooperation and willingness to work in a bipartisan manner to pass this resolution. Bipartisan support for this resolution sends an unequivocal message to Attorney General Gonzalez that stonewalling the Committee's request for information regarding this program is unacceptable. It is unconscionable that the Administration continues to ignore Congress' Constitutional authority to oversee legal safeguards, which were put in place to protect the civil liberties of all Americans. It appears that this Administration has assembled what news reports have called 'the largest database ever amassed in the world' from the telephone records of ordinary Americans, without the lawful supervision of FISA courts. It is clear that this Administration has arrogantly disregarded the law, and we must now immediately hear the legal justification of this program.

I believe that our flag should be afforded our utmost respect and protection.  That's why I am a cosponsor of a measure that would amend the U.S. Constitution, giving Congress the power to prohibit the act of flag desecration.  In fact, I have cosponsored similar amendments in every Congress since I came to the Senate in 1995.  The House of Representatives has passed their version of this amendment in every Congress since 1995 by the necessary two-thirds majority.  The issue, therefore, lies in the hands of the Senate.  We must do what we can to protect this symbol of our nation.

The current hue and cry over the Administration's accessing of bank records to stop funds from flowing to terrorists completely misunderstands the way the American people think about their government. As hard as it is for many to believe, most voters trust their government to keep their focus on the war on terror and not use the information it gets to invade privacy. The fundamental disconnect here is that the left cannot believe that this reservoir of trust exists, but it does.

We have been tabulating violations of the VRA and they have been pretty heavy.

All you have to do is to apply, and a lot of jurisidctions have.  We're not being arbitrary.

We've been very disappointed and the clock is ticking.

This is something that the American people have been under for 42 years that was supposed to be a temporary remedy for the problem.  Now they are trying to extend it for another twenty-five years.  That would be 67 years under this act.  Look at the things that have changed since then.

To me, this deserves close scrutiny.  This was the cornerstone of the Civil Rights Movement.  But this is more about politics than the people's right to vote.  If this were about the right to vote, then this bill would include districts in 2000 and 2004 that showed improprities.  Let's take history and lead from that.

Let's let every state come under the scrutiny that the South came under in 1964, 1968, and 1972.

I was a little disappointed and saddened that it was postponed when it was our understanding that the bill would move onto the floor and would be protected from amendments.

Unfortunately, the leadership wanted to defer to members who didn't have the same opinions of stlawarts such as John Lewis, John Conyers, and Martin Luther King, Jr., who walked on the Edmund Pettis bridge.

I'm saddened by the members from my state who had that kind of view.  I'd have hoped for them to ensure that Georgia doesn't revert to its practices from before 1965.

We've come a long way, but to change the formula would be a poison pill to weaken the imapct of the 1965 Voter Rights Act.

Those who truly believe in democracy don't want that to happen.

While the President possesses the inherent authority to engage in electronic surveillance of the enemy outside the country, Congress regulates wiretapping within the United States. And Congress intended to fully occupy the field when it passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act requiring court approval for domestic eavesdropping.

There is no limiting principle to the Administration's argument that as commander in chief the President can do as he chooses during the war on terror. We are left solely to rely upon the good faith of the executive, and that is not good enough. When the executive shows that it is infallible, a good faith standard may be enough; but they are no more infallible than Congress. The Constitution doesn't say, as my opponents on the floor argued 'trust us.' In fact, in its system of checks and balances, the Constitution actually says, 'don't trust us,' and sets each institution as a check on the self-aggrandizing tendencies of every other.

Electronic surveillance of al Qaeda operatives and others seeking to harm our country can and will continue; it can and should be done in compliance with the law.

Creating the building blocks for huge information systems to store and exchange the medical secrets of millions of Americans WITHOUT building in privacy from the start is incredibly reckless and risky. It's sort of like hopping on a super-charged motorcycle and then thinking about the need for a helmet AFTER you hit the car. It's too risky, as I'm sure Pittsburgh Steelers' fans everywhere would agree.

The Markey-Capps amendment, which was defeated on a party line vote, would:

Give patients the power to keep their medical records out of these electronic databases unless they first give their permission;

Require patients to be notified if their health information in the system was lost, stolen or used for an unauthorized purpose; and

Require the use of data security safeguards such as encryption.

To achieve the benefits of health IT systems, we need to hard-wire health IT systems with strong privacy protections and the House should put those safeguards in place before any bill like this passes.

My concern was two-fold: 1) The Democratic Caucus does not have rules in place to remove a rank and file member who has not been arrested or indicted for any wrongdoing. In my opinion, due process requires objective standards for removing a duly elected Member of Congress from his or her committee, under any circumstances. There are no such standards now. To remove a member in the absence of those objective standards is inherently arbitrary and invites abuse. Our Democratic Caucus should have established rules governing this situation and then revisited whether Mr. Jefferson deserves to be removed under those agreed on rules. 2) The Democratic Caucus has had members with problems before, Gerry Studds and Gary Condit come to mind, and yet we have never punished a sitting member in this manner. I was and am concerned that by taking this action against Mr. Jefferson we are setting a dangerous double-standard. Our party is supposed to stand for the rights of the accused and the value of due process even if doing so isn't popular or politically expedient.