Bob Goodlatte

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5048) to require a study by the Comptroller General of the United States on Good Samaritan laws that pertain to treatment of opioid overdoses, and for other purposes.

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, Highland County, Va., is a little slice of heaven. Anyone who lives there or has visited this beautiful area knows exactly what I mean. I am honored to represent the Sixth Congressional District in the House of Representatives, including this unique region of the Commonwealth. Part of what makes Highland County special is that it is remote. It is a living example of how vibrant rural America remains. That has plenty of advantages and in many ways Highland County remains a well- kept secret. But that also comes with a unique set of challenges, including limited access for businesses and limited opportunities for growth. In a region that continues to be known for its heavy reliance on an agri-business economy, the Highland Center is an important asset in helping preserve jobs and encourage new enterprises. With the mission of serving all citizens of Highland County by being a catalyst for cultural and economic development, the Highland Center in Monterey, Va., has become a gathering place and treasured landmark in the community. Since its inception in 1998, I have visited the facility to see its programs in action and have been kept well-informed about the variety of ventures that it supports in the Alleghany Highlands. The Highland Center has spent a great deal of time building public and private connections to sustain its many operations, including a business incubator, a farmers market, and the Youth Employment Program. Today, the Highland Center houses 13 tenants representing a mix of small businesses, individual artists, and non-profit organizations It also serves as a public venue for community events. Most recently, the Center has embarked upon an effort to renovate the old school building that serves as its headquarters. On May 1, the Highland Center will hold a ribbon-cutting to officially unveil its newly renovated facility. While the Highland Center was temporarily relocated to the historic Highland Inn during construction, the organization's work in the community did not cease. The improvements made to the Highland Center over the past 13 months will aid in the Center's innovative and collaborative work as well as efforts to further integrate this vital community center into the local economy. The reopening of the Highland Center is a long-awaited occasion. I thank the Highland Center Board members, Executive Director Betty Mitchell, and the countless volunteers for their hard work and dedication to seeing this through. I wholeheartedly support the Highland Center's drive to develop creative solutions to rural Virginia's needs. I wish the Center great success as it reopens its much-improved facility.

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, across the globe, nations are on alert as the threat of ISIS spreads. France, Turkey, Belgium, and the United States have each been tragically affected by ISIS or ISIS-inspired terror plots. It is imperative that America's first lines of defense against ISIS and other terror groups are working effectively. H.R. 4240, the No Fly for Foreign Fighters Act, is a commonsense bill that requires the U.S. Government Accountability Office to conduct an independent review of the operation and administration of the Terrorist Screening Database, or TSDB, which is sometimes referred to as the terrorist watch list. The gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) has worked diligently on this important issue, and I am pleased to support this bill. The terrorist watch list is a critical tool in our fight against terrorism. The watch list and the screening process support the U.S. Government's efforts to combat terrorism by consolidating the terrorist watch list and providing screening and law enforcement agencies with information to help them respond appropriately during encounters with known or suspected terrorists, among other things. At the same time, we must ensure that the watch list and the accompanying processes and procedures comport with the Constitution and the values of the American people. The GAO previously conducted a study of the terrorist watch list following the December 25, 2009, attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253, which exposed weaknesses in how the Federal Government nominated individuals to the terrorist watch list and gaps in how agencies use the list to screen individuals to determine if they posed a security threat. Several improvements were made to the watch listing processes and procedures following the December 25, 2009, attempted bombing. However, concerns have been raised over the effect the watch listing processes and procedures may have on law-abiding persons, including U.S. citizens, based on inaccurate or incomplete information in the database or similar or identical names to watch listed individuals. The GAO stated in its 2012 watch listing report that routine, government-wide assessments of the outcomes and impacts of agencies' watch list screening or vetting programs could help ensure that these programs are achieving their intended results or identify if revisions are needed. Such assessments could also help identify broader issues that require attention, determine if impacts on agency resources and the traveling public are acceptable, and communicate to key stakeholders how the Nation's investment in the watch list screening or vetting processes is enhancing security of the Nation's borders, commercial aviation, and other security-related activities. This bill provides for an independent review of the operation and administration of the watch list. It reaffirms our commitment to our Nation's security while upholding the constitutional values that make America unique in the world. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4240) to require an independent review of the operation and administration of the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB) maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and subsets of the TSDB, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, this is good legislation. It is common sense to conduct a review of the terrorist watch-listing process. I urge my colleagues to support the legislation. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Today is an historic day. Today, the House of Representatives will be the first Chamber in Congress to approve legislation that has been pending before the House and Senate for several years to reform and modernize the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, or ECPA. Reforming this outdated law has been a priority for me as chairman of the Judiciary Committee. I have worked with Members of Congress, advocacy groups, and law enforcement agencies for years on many complicated nuances involved in updating this law. Two weeks ago, the House Judiciary Committee unanimously reported a revised version of H.R. 699, the Email Privacy Act. The resulting bill is a carefully negotiated agreement to update the procedures governing government access to stored communications content and records. Thirty years ago, when personal computing was still in its infancy and few of us had ever heard of something called the World Wide Web, Congress enacted ECPA to establish procedures that strike ``a fair balance between the privacy expectations of American citizens and the legitimate needs of law enforcement agencies.'' In 1986, mail was sent through the U.S. Postal Service, a search engine was called a library, tweets were the sounds made by birds in the trees, and clouds were found only in the sky. In 1986, computer storage was finite and expensive. It was unheard of that a commercial product would allow users to send and receive electronic communications around the globe for free and store those communications for years with a third-party provider. So much has changed in the last three decades. The technology explosion over the last three decades has placed a great deal of information on the Internet, in our emails, and on the cloud. Today, commercial providers, businesses, schools, and governments of all shapes and sizes provide email and cloud computing services to customers, students, and employees. The Email Privacy Act establishes, for the first time in Federal statute, a uniform warrant requirement for stored communication content in criminal investigations, regardless of the type of service provider, the age of an email, or whether the email has been opened. The bill preserves the authority for law enforcement agents to serve the warrant on the provider because, as with any other third-party custodian, the information sought is stored with them. However, the bill acknowledges that providers may give notice to their customers when in receipt of a warrant, court order, or subpoena, unless the provider is court-ordered to delay such notification. The bill continues current practice that delineates which remote computing service providers, or cloud providers, are subject to the warrant requirement for content in a criminal investigation. ECPA has traditionally imposed heightened legal process and procedures to obtain information for which the customer has a reasonable expectation of privacy, namely, emails, texts, photos, videos, and documents stored in the cloud. H.R. 699 preserves this treatment by maintaining in the statute limiting language regarding remote computing services. Contrary to practice 30 years ago, today, vast amounts of private, sensitive information are transmitted and stored electronically. But this information may also contain evidence of a crime, and law enforcement agencies are increasingly dependent on stored communications content and records in their investigations. To facilitate timely disclosure of evidence to law enforcement, the bill authorizes a court to require a date for return of service of the warrant. In the absence of such a requirement, H.R. 699 requires email and cloud providers to promptly respond to warrants for communications content. Current law makes no distinction between content disclosed to the public, like an advertisement on a Web site, versus content disclosed only to one or a handful of persons, like an email or a text message. The result is that law enforcement could be required to obtain a warrant even for publicly disclosed content. The bill clarifies that commercial public content can be obtained with process other than a warrant. Lastly, H.R. 699 clarifies that nothing in the law limits Congress' authority to compel a third-party provider to disclose content in furtherance of its investigative and oversight responsibilities. Thirty years ago, the extent to which people communicated electronically was much more limited. Today, however, the ubiquity of electronic communications requires Congress to ensure that legitimate expectations of privacy are protected, while respecting the needs of law enforcement. I am confident that this bill strikes the necessary balance and does so in a way that continues to promote the development and use of new technologies and services that reflect how people communicate with one another today and into the future. I would like to thank Congressman Yoder and Congressman Polis for introducing the underlying legislation and for working with the committee on improvements to the bill. With this historic vote today, Congress will approve legislation that embodies the principles of the Fourth Amendment and reaffirms our commitment to protecting the privacy interests of the American people without unduly sacrificing public safety. I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan legislation. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on H.R. 699, currently under consideration.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from South Carolina.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise), the majority whip.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, how much time is remaining?

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I want to take this time to thank the ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), and many Members on his side of the aisle, including Mr. Polis. I especially want to thank Mr. Yoder, who has worked long and hard on this legislation for which he is the chief sponsor. I most especially want to take note of the fact that we have very disparate points of view from a whole array of people around this country, from law enforcement, to technology companies, to civil liberties organizations. It took a long time to sort through that and find the common ground that is the legislation we have before us today. That ground would not have been found without the outstanding work of our staff, most especially Caroline Lynch, the chief counsel of the Judiciary Committee's Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations Subcommittee, and her able team of attorneys, and Aaron Hiller, minority counsel as well. They deserve a great deal of gratitude for the years of work to bring us to this point where we can pass this important, important legislation by what I believe will be a resounding majority. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Sanford).

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Farenthold), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Yoder), the chief sponsor of the legislation.

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. In closing, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my fellow Judiciary Committee colleagues and their staffs who have devoted much time and energy and intellect to this project. We have worked together for the common goal of improving our Nation's trade secret laws for the past 2 years. I want to particularly thank Representatives Doug Collins, Jerrold Nadler, and the over 150 Members of Congress who joined as cosponsors of this legislation in the House. In the Senate, we have worked closely with Senators Hatch, Grassley, Leahy, Coons, and others, and I want to thank them and their staffs for their contributions to this effort. Furthermore, I would like to thank the White House and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for working collaboratively with us, as well as the Protect Trade Secrets Coalition for its work on this effort. I also want to thank my staff for all their hard work on this important legislation. This bill is the product of years of bipartisan, bicameral work, and it will have a positive impact on U.S. competitiveness, job creation, and our Nation's future economic security. I urge my colleagues to support S. 1890. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 1890) to amend chapter 90 of title 18, United States Code, to provide Federal jurisdiction for the theft of trade secrets, and for other purposes.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on S. 1890, currently under consideration.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins), the chief sponsor of the House version of this bill and a member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Today we are here to consider S. 1890, the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016. This bill puts forward enhancements to our Federal trade secrets law, creating a Federal civil remedy for trade secrets misappropriation that will help American innovators protect their intellectual property from criminal theft by foreign agents and those engaging in economic espionage. This bill will help U.S. competitiveness, job creation, and our Nation's future economic security. Our intellectual property laws cover everything from patents, copyrights and trademarks, and include trade secrets. But what are trade secrets? Trade secrets law is used to protect some of the most iconic inventions in America. For example, a trade secret can include recipes like Colonel Sanders' secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices, and the 125-year-old formula for Coca-Cola housed in a vault at the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta, Georgia. However, trade secrets are not simply isolated to the realm of food and beverages. They can include confidential formulas like the formula for WD-40, manufacturing techniques, customer lists, and algorithms like Google's search engine. Trade secrets occupy a unique place in the IP portfolios of our most innovative companies, but because they are unregistered and not formally reviewed like patents, there are no limitations on discovering a trade secret by fair, lawful methods, such as reverse engineering or independent development. In innovative industries, that is simply the free market at work. Though trade secrets are not formally reviewed, they are protected from misappropriation, which includes obtaining the trade secret through improper or unlawful means. Misappropriation can take many forms, whether it is an employee selling blueprints to a competitor or a foreign agent hacking into a server. In addition, one could argue that even a foreign government's policies to require forced technology transfer is a form of misappropriation. Though most States base their trade secrets laws on the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, the Federal Government protects trade secrets through the Economic Espionage Act. In the 112th Congress, the Committee on the Judiciary helped enact two pieces of legislation to help improve the protection of trade secrets, and in the 113th Congress, we introduced and passed out of committee the first version of this trade secrets bill unanimously. Today we build on our efforts over these past 2 years and are taking a significant and positive step toward improving our Nation's trade secrets laws and continuing to build on our important work in this area of intellectual property. I urge my colleagues to support this bill. I reserve the balance of my time. Information Technology Industry Council, Washington, DC, April 26, 2016. Hon. Kevin McCarthy, Majority Leader, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Hon. Bob Goodlatte, Chairman, House Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, DC. Hon. Doug Collins, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Hon. Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Leader, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Hon. John Conyers, Ranking Member, House Committee on the Judiciary, Washington,