Comments Of Sen. Patrick Leahy
(D-Vt., Incoming Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee)
On Department Of Homeland Security Privacy Office Report
On DHS’s Breach Of The Privacy Act
In Development Of The Secure Flight Database Program
Friday, Dec. 22, 2006

“This further documents the cavalier way the Bush Administration treats Americans’ privacy.  To them, following the law and protecting the security of the public’s personal information have become just afterthoughts, or worse.  With this database program, first they ignored the Privacy Act, and now, two years later, they still have a hard time admitting it.  Right now Congress knows little about these mushrooming federal databases and about how the Bush Administration wants to use them.  That needs to change, and in the new Congress we will work to change it.

“The problem is not technology.  The problem is a lack of safeguards and oversight to prevent abuses by an Administration that apparently feels it can ignore Congress and break privacy laws with impunity.  Data mining technology has great potential, but history shows that without adequate checks and balances and oversight, misuse and abuse of the public’s personal information will be inevitable.”

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