Ed Markey

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton). (Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Vento). (Mr. VENTO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Madam Chairman, I rise in support of the comprehensive privacy amendment. I believe that this amendment improves the bill by providing consumers with new important safeguards for their financial privacy. Public concerns about personal information privacy are growing. Seemingly each week, there are new reports of stolen identities, selling of consumer financial data, ``cookies'' on Internet sites, hijacked ATM cards and numbers. Both the Banking Committee and the Commerce Committee, for the first time, addressed consumer privacy in H.R. 10. During the Banking Committee debate on this issue, I stated that the issue of privacy is even bigger than the financial services modernization bill. While it is appropriate to insure that adequate privacy safeguards are in place to protect consumer privacy in the new financial marketplace, this legislation is not the vehicle to address an all embracing comprehensive privacy legislation. This bill will not stop identity theft. It will not stop the stealing of Social Security numbers nor the filing of false tax returns. H.R. 10 will not stop the selling of driver's license information or the selling of its lists or attaching cookies to visitors to web sites. Nor will this bill stop the diversion of an individual's mail nor the stealing of credit card and ATM numbers. Those issues are left for another day and future action. H.R. 10 should contain a privacy protection component as it relates to financial institutions. That component should not just be a rhetorical statement, it must be a workable safeguard for consumers. The financial privacy protection amendment pending before the Committee is better than the Banking and Commerce Committee alternatives. It is a good, workable product that will serve our constituents well. The Financial Privacy Protection amendment reinforces the opt-out for third party information sharing--a key consumer concern. More importantly, the amendment puts in place strong affirmative provisions of law that provide absolute protections and benefits for consumers. Those provisions include: Affirmative privacy responsibility and policy.--Banks, insurance companies, credit unions, security firms, mutual funds, thrifts and other financial institutions will be required by law to be respect for consumer's financial privacy and to have a privacy policy that meets federal standards to protect the security and confidentiality of the customers personal information. Prohibition on sharing account numbers.--Consumer account numbers cannot be shared for the purposes of third party marketing. This protection applies to all consumers and requires no action on their part. Workable ``Opt-Out'' on third party information sharing.--Consumers can ``opt-out'' of sharing of information with third parties in a workable fashion that protects consumers' privacy while allowing the processing of services they request. Effective regulatory authority.--Regulatory and enforcement authority is provided to the specific regulators of each type of financial institutions. These regulators can best do the job instead of the alternative single regulator who is understaffed and supports privacy ``self-regulation'' for the industry it is currently charged to regulate. Prohibits repackaging of consumer information.--Consumer information remains protected. It cannot be resold or shared by third parties or profiled or repackaged to avoid privacy protections. Consumer disclosure.--Consumers must be notified of the financial institutions' privacy policy at the time that they open an account and at least annually thereafter. These common sense, workable provisions will be added to the substantial protections already included in H.R. 10 that prohibit obtaining customer information through false pretenses and disclosing a consumer's health and medical information. In addition, the legislation clearly defines what is ``publicly available information''. This definition is designed to insure that non-public information is not disseminated through a public information loophole. Under the amendment, which I helped to draft, publicly available information is intended to include information such as: Public records from country or municipal sources, such as tax assessors' offices, recorders of deeds, tax collectors, planning departments and court systems; Public records from state sources, such as planning agencies, secretaries of state, revenue agencies, departments of motor vehicles, state courts, departments of education, departments of forestry, environmental reporting agencies and employment security agencies; Public records from federal sources, such as federal courts, the IRS, FEMA, the USGS, FCC, FAA, U.S. Post Office and Census Bureau; and Public information from Journals, newspapers and other publications. I do not take a back seat to any Member when it comes to consumer rights and consumer privacy. I have worked to protect consumer privacy through laws like Truth in Lending, Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Electronic Fund Transfer Act. I also introduced one of the first proposals to protect a consumer's privacy on the Internet, the Consumer Internet Privacy Protection Act. During the Banking Committee mark-up, I introduced an amendment that would have provided an annual opt-out on affiliate sharing. I withdrew that amendment because I realized that it was unworkable. Other advocates of the opt-out are to date not dissuaded by the problems. Consumer privacy is not insured and consumer services are reduced. Unified statements cannot be issued and something as simple as calling to get an account balance will become a bureaucratic nightmare. The only thing that an affiliate opt-out amendment accomplishes is to require financial institutions to restructure themselves to conform to the cookie cutter mold developed by Congress. A law that requires consumer action is appropriate but third party and affiliate ``opt-out'' is hardly the last word in consumer rights. The fact is that a number of consumers have such a right today under FCRA or institution policies. Even with that authority, only a small fraction of individuals, less than 1 percent, exercise that option. Consumer choice is nice but what does it really accomplish--what is the bottom line. Another deficiency of the alternative proposal is the regulator. That approach gives enforcement authority to the Federal Trade Commission as opposed to the appropriate regulator for each financial institution. This is the same regulator who testified last year before the House Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications on Internet privacy. At that time, FTC Chairman Pitofsky testified that: ``The Commission believes that self-regulation is preferred to a detailed legislative mandate . . .'' We should not turn over such an important enforcement authority to such a reluctant regulator. Madam Chairman, I urge my Colleagues to support the pending amendment. If we are to pass financial modernization, strong consumer privacy protection must be a cornerstone of that proposal. The pending amendment helps us to achieve that goal.

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time. Madam Chairman, the Oxley amendment is a good step forward. We will concede that. But it has huge loopholes in the law that it does not close. As soon as we finish this debate on the Oxley amendment, we are going to have an opportunity to vote on a recommital motion. Within that recommital motion, each Member out here on the floor will have a straight shot to vote on the provisions that the Committee on Rules did not give the Members a chance to vote on. They will have a chance to vote on the Condit amendment. The gentleman from California (Mr. Condit) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) have a proposal that will close all the medical loopholes. It will ensure that your medical information cannot be given away. It will guarantee that the exceptions that are inside of this bill that swallow the rule do not allow for families across this country to have their medical information sold and bought as though it was just an ordinary commodity. Every Member on the floor in the recommital motion will also be put on substantive record on the issue of financial privacy within the holding company. That is, if they have all of their checks inside of a bank right now and they do not want them to give it over to a telemarketing affiliate, they do not want them to give it over to the brokerage affiliate, they do not want them to hand it over to the insurance affiliate, they cannot say no. They have no right to say no under the Republican bill. In the recommital motion, each Member is going to be given an opportunity to say to every American, I think you should have the right to say no. I do not want any of my children's privacy compromised. I do not want my family's privacy compromised. I do not want the medical secret of my family out on the street just because it happens to be a bank holding company that owns the insurance policy, the checks, or the brokerage account and they have a marketing affiliate that sells my privacy like it is a commodity to hundreds of companies that are dying to find out everything that is going on within my State. So we are going to give everyone an opportunity in that recommital motion, and we are going to throw in the Lee redlining as well as the third little provision. That is only going to be a 5-minute debate altogether. But when my colleagues vote on it, they are going on record on those issues. Because if it is successful, it goes into the bill immediately, and we are voting final passage. And if my colleagues vote no, this bill is leaving here with every one on record against medical privacy and against the financial privacy provision that ensures that the bank holding company and its telemarketing subsidiary, its affiliate, cannot just take all their secrets and sell them to the rest of the world and make millions of dollars. Yes, they call it a synergy, by the way, a synergy. But we are trying to take the sin out of the synergy. We are trying to make sure that they get the benefits of all these products, they can say yes if they want them, but they can say no as well. That is what this is all about. It does not stop any bank from trying to get them to buy these products. What it says is they have a right to say, no, I do not want this. I want the checking account, that is it. Please do not sell the rest of the material to anyone else. So the Oxley amendment is something that should be supported. I think we will all support it unanimously on this side. But the big vote is coming up in about 10 more minutes.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, this is a pure substance vote. These are the votes the bankers did not want to be taken. The reason they did not want them to be taken is because they are so hard. Yes, we are going to offer full medical privacy protection to all of people's records. This is a straight up-or-down substantive vote. Yes, we are going to give full financial protection. It does not make any difference whether it is some third party or the bank themselves, we have a right to say no. If we want all of these services from this new financial structure, we can take advantage of them, but we might be part of the 10 percent or 20 percent or 30 percent, in the same way that we have an unlisted phone number, we just might not want anyone telemarketing to us, even from our bank, going through all of our checks. Just say no. Thirdly, the point of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) on the insurance industry, why should it be any different on redlining? Why should not her community and all the poorer communities of the country have those kinds of protections? When Members vote for recommital, it goes straight into the bill, it is part of it, and then we vote final passage. If Members vote no, they are voting not to put it in the bill right now. Recommital does not go back to the committee, it just goes right to that desk and into the bill immediately. This is a straight substance vote. Please, vote for the recommital motion, and Members have made this a good financial services modernization bill for the banks and for the American people.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Condit).

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Chairman, I rise to request control of the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. MARKEY. I am in momentary opposition to the amendment.

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chairman, maybe there are Members in this institution and maybe there are Americans who do not share the same concerns I have about my financial privacy. When I go to the ATM machine in this building, I go over and I punch in my four numbers, and then, as the machine spits out the hundred dollars, I pocket that and out spits a receipt. The receipt tells me what my balance is. Now, I do not know about the other people in this Chamber, but I hide that sheet from the intern or the page who is standing right behind me, because I do not want them to know what my balance is. Now, maybe I am different from other people in this room. As a matter of fact, I do not even throw away that slip in the bucket that is right there. I walk 10 buckets away, or I pocket it because I do not want anyone to know what my balance is. Now, the Oxley amendment makes some progress because it gives an opportunity for a consumer to block the sale of that information to an unaffiliated company. That is progress. However, it does not stop within a bank holding company, if our checking records or any of our banking records are now affiliated with a new brokerage or a new insurance or a new telemarketing firm, because in fact the bank holding company can now be affiliated with a telemarketer. Or, looking earlier at the Burr amendment, perhaps television stations. Perhaps it will be CNBC. Perhaps it will be the Drudge Report. They can be affiliated with anything, anything, potentially. Well, we do not get any protection because they can share the information with anyone they affiliate with. So the Oxley amendment does take a step forward, yes. Yes, indeed. But only when we reach, only when we reach the recommittal motion, which is coming up in about 15 or 20 minutes, will we get a chance to close the big loophole. The big loophole. And all I ask of my colleagues is that while, in fact, the Oxley amendment shuts down sale to robbers, that is burglars, those outside the bank holding company, it does not do anything about electronic embezzlers inside the bank holding company marketing it, not just to its affiliates, but they can market it because they are affiliates to anyone else in the world. That is the loophole. We have no privacy. So the Oxley amendment is a good step forward but with a big loophole left that the recommittal motion is going to give every Member out here a chance to vote in a substantive way for, as they will for the health care provision that the gentleman from California (Mr. Condit) wants and the redlining provision that the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) wants. But the key here is to understand that at least on this Oxley amendment, while it is a good step forward, there is another big vote coming up in about 15 minutes after that, and this is just a preview of coming attractions that we are going to try to give our colleagues during the course of this debate on Oxley. Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost). (Mr. FROST asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, the recommittal motion that we are going to vote upon in 10 minutes will contain three elements. It will contain the amendment of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) on insurance redlining, which she won in the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, but the Committee on Rules would not put in order. It will include the amendment of the gentleman from California (Mr. Condit) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), which ensures that full medical privacy protections are guaranteed. They are not in this bill; and third, that the financial privacy amendment, which I won in the Committee on Commerce, but not put in order out here, is also voted upon. Remember, in the Oxley amendment, telemarketing is prohibited by unaffiliated companies of a bank holding company but telemarketing of the financial data is not stopped inside the bank holding company. We are going to prohibit that tonight in the recommittal motion. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaFalce).

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley) for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, this is a terrible rule. The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) in the Committee on Banking and Financial Services wanted an amendment to protect against insurance companies redlining the poorest people in our country. The Committee on Rules strips out the protection for those poor people, just strips it out. That is not fair. It is a bad rule. I won my amendment in the Committee on Commerce guaranteeing the protection of privacy for the checks, for the mortgages, for the insurance records, for the brokerage receipts of every American, inside the bank, outside the bank. The Committee on Rules strips it out. They will not allow for those protections to be built into this bill, and no amendment will be put on the floor which makes it possible. The gentleman from California (Mr. Condit) asked the Committee on Rules to put in order an amendment which would allow for medical records, your children's Ritalin, your daughter's anorexia, your wife's breast condition, your father's prostate condition to be protected. They will not allow the Condit amendment to be debated on the floor. Mr. Speaker, there is a Dickensian quality to this wire. Yes, we want financial industries to be able to work more efficiently, but it is the best of wires and the worse of wires simultaneously. The Republicans are saying we need commerce but commerce without a conscience, without any protection for poor people, without any protection for medical records, without any protection for everyone's financial secrets that no one else has any business getting into. Mr. Speaker, they are willing to protect people's secrets from being robbed by third parties but not against embezzlement inside of a bank. They can take someone's information and sell it to anybody they want. This is a terrible rule. This is a rule which compromises the individual integrity of every American in our country. I strongly urge a no vote on the rule so that we can have the proper amendments put in order to give the American individual the protections which they are going to need as we move to this new era of cyber-banking. Every American has a right to knowledge about information being gathered about them, notice that it is going to be reused for purposes other than that which they originally intended, and the right to say no to banks, to hospitals, to insurance companies, to anyone else that seeks to use a family's private information as a product. The Ganske amendment does not provide that protection. The exceptions in the Ganske amendment swallow this rule. There is no protection against medical records being compromised. Vote no on this rule. Send it back to the Committee on Rules. Allow for these amendments to be brought out here on the floor for a full debate of the modern financial era and what it means to every American in our country.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, when George Bush came to this Chamber after a successful campaign in destroying the designs which Saddam Hussein had on Kuwait, he came to this Chamber and we rose as one, not Democrat, not Republican, not liberal, not conservative. We stood to praise our Commander-in-chief. We did not say, Mr. President, how could April Glasbie, your ambassador to Iraq, have told those people we would have no protest if you had designs on Kuwait? Which she did. We could have said, Mr. President, how could you have not detected the gas centrifuge technology that he was using for nuclear weapons? How could you have voted to condemn Israel in the U.N. for bombing the Osirak nuclear power plant? How could you have not killed the Red Guard when you had a chance? How could you have not wiped out Saddam Hussein when you had a chance? We did not do that. We praised George Bush, after a successful military campaign, as our Commander-in-Chief. The majority in this House should be ashamed. They continue this pathology of bitter hatred of the President at the expense of our country.

Mr. MARKEY. No.

Mr. MARKEY. No.

Mr. MARKEY. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. MARKEY. You are over the line.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Chairman, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), myself, many Members of this body over the last 14 years for me have worked to produce this financial modernization bill. Many times I have brought it out here on the floor. I can remember our final meeting with President Bush and Secretary Baker back in 1990 where it just came down to one final detail. We have been here many times before. It is an important bill. But it is only half a bill because as the financial revolution speeded up by the global technology telecommunications revolution, hits our country, we need to provide protections for ordinary people as well. Yes, this bill gives ordinary Americans a window on Wall Street, but simultaneously it gives Wall Street a window on each one of our living rooms. The problem with the Republican bill is that it says that if their checks, and let us just say for the sake of this discussion, they you have had their checks in the same bank for the last 25 years, every check my colleagues have written for your family. Now, after this bill passes, that bank can now buy a brokerage or an insurance affiliate. This legislation says that they can hand over all of my colleagues checks for the last 25 years to the 300 or 400 brokers in their new affiliate even though they have got a broker down the street who has been their broker for the last 25 years. So every one of the checks that my colleagues have written are now in the hands of 300 brokers in town who my colleagues do not want to go through everything that they have done financially for the last 25 years. Now should people have the right to say, no, I do not want that? The Republicans refuse to give that right. What they say is we are going to give people notification that we are going to compromise their privacy. That is like a burglar leaving behind a note saying what they have stolen, giving notice, but my colleagues have no right to stop it. Now, my colleagues, here is how the American people feel about this issue. Question, AARP: ``Would you mind if a company did business with sold information about you to another company?'' Ninety-two percent of Americans would mind. I do not know who the other 7 percent are, but 92 percent would mind. Now let us go to the next poll. The next poll is just as bad. Here is the question: ``In the future banks, insurance companies, and investment firms may be able to merge into a single company. If they do, would you support or oppose these narrowly merged companies from internally sharing information about your accounts or your insurance policy?'' Eighty percent would oppose sharing. Eleven percent would support it. Eighty percent oppose. They want the right. This is the AARP. And the final chart: Here is what a typical bank's policy says quite simply: ``Even if you request to be excluded from affiliate sharing of information, we will share this other information about you and your products and services with each other to the extent permitted by law.'' We determine what the law is. If we do not pass a law, they are sharing that information. Madam Chairman, the world breaks into three categories, the information peepers, and they are out there; now, with the new technology, the information mining reapers who use these electronic technologies to gather all parts of our life, medical, financial, checking; and third, information keepers. They used to be our local doctor, our local banker, but they have been purchased by multinational banks, by multinational or by national HMOs. The information keepers of the modern era are the United States Congress. If we do not pass these laws today, the American people are unprotected.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Chairman, reclaiming my time, only to say that this amendment obviously reflects a long-term concern that the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) and I have had for this whole subject area, and I would hope that all of the Members could embrace it today. Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chairman, this amendment seeks to update the last two reports prepared under the direction of the Surgeon General concerning what the research tells us about how media affects young people. The President has called for such a report. In fact, the Motion Picture Association has indicated it does not oppose such a report. When this proposal was introduced as a bill, it attracted 31 cosponsors, led by the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) and proving the bipartisan nature of this need. It has been 17 years since the report by the National Institute of Mental Health in 1982, and 27 years since the Surgeon General's report of 1972. Both reports focused on television's impact on behavior. But since that time, the capacity of the entertainment industry to deliver ever more graphic depiction of violence has vastly increased, and the outlets for delivering these images to children without the intervention of adults has multiplied many times. Moreover, the research community and the entertainment and interactive media have produced a vast compendium of research polling and analysis, much of it confusing and conflicting, but which is much more relevant to today's world than when it was studied 15 and 30 years ago. The last Government-sponsored review in 1982 included the following introductory sentence: ``We must recognize that children are growing up in an environment in which they must learn to organize experiences and emotional responses not only in relationship to the physical and social environment of the home, but also in relationship to the omnipresent 21-inch screen that talks and sings and dances and encourages the desire for toys and candies and breakfast foods.'' This notion is now as quaint as it is obsolete. Over the last 30 years, we have seen a transformation of the media in the United States. We no longer talk about the 21-inch box. We now have the Internet. We now have a cable revolution with dozens of channels, all of them potentially threats to the well-being of children unless there is proper protections, proper safeguards put into place. So we call upon the Surgeon General to provide the country with a new Surgeon General's report within 18 months which reflects a contemporary crisis. We hope that all of the Members here on the floor today can embrace, I believe, the need for better public health information about the threat to children in our country.

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Madam Chairman, to show my colleagues how bad this practice is, Senator Boxer made this amendment in the Senate and Senator Hatch accepted it. These disturbing advertisements and articles bring to mind the all- out assault the tobacco industry made on children through the use of Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man. I think it is wise for Congress to ask the question of whether or not the gun industry, the gun manufacturers, and the NRA are targeting the young children of our country, trying to develop them into a culture of guns and violence, which ultimately manifests itself in crimes or antisocial behavior in our society. Our amendment is not a panacea. It will not solve all the problems of youth gun violence. It will, however, begin an important dialogue about firearm manufacturers' and marketers' contribution to the high incidence of gun violence and gun deaths among our Nation's children. Three-quarters of all of the murders of young people in the 26 largest industrialized countries of the world occur in the United States. Three-quarters of all of the murders of the 26 largest industrialized countries occur amongst children in the United States. Does anyone doubt that this kind of advertising helps to perpetuate an atmosphere in which that kind of act is contemplatable? I think not. I think that those who carelessly target the young people of our country with this kind of advertisement must be stopped. I urge the Members of the House to today embrace this amendment. It is a small but important step in ensuring that the gun manufacturers and the NRA be made accountable for their actions in creating a culture of youth violence within our society. Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, the Markey-Roukema-Barrett amendment is very simple and straightforward. It would require the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to work together to examine gun manufacturers' marketing efforts towards children. To effectively combat youth gun violence, we must first understand the factors contributing to the culture of violence. Just as we must examine the role the media and the entertainment industry play in glamorizing gun violence, so too must we investigate the firearm industry's targeting of children. Advertisements and articles such as this one, which encourage parents to ``Start 'em young,'' and depict children toting guns that would be illegal for them to possess, needs to be closely examined and stopped. This is not unusual. Advertisements aimed at children are utilized by Beretta, Browning and Harrington & Richardson Revolvers, to name a few. They appear on-line in gun catalogues and weapons magazines and appeal to a culture where guns and gun violence are considered acceptable. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from California (Mr. Berman).