Political Quotes

“This amendment lays the groundwork for massive new monitoring programs in the name of preventing extremism. The amendment would implement verbatim the recommendations of DOD bureaucrats and political appointees who wrote the two reports. These reports, which are shoddy and devoid of actual data, recommend massive expansions of so-called vetting of DOD civilians and servicemembers. These recommendations, if implemented, lay the groundwork for new social media and online activity monitoring, new screening questions about group and political affiliations, and so-called behavioral analysis. The amendment is so poorly drafted that it may require DOD to share information about extremist activity in the DOD with foreign countries. It doesn't prohibit the sharing of servicemember information or include any mention of privacy protections. We can't even say for sure what the amendment will do. It asks the DOD to pick six recommendations from a list of 27 policy ideas. There is a reason we don't implement departmental reports as law without due consideration. The options range from updating a PowerPoint to collecting servicemembers' social media data to extremism databases. Mr. Speaker, this amendment is an abdication of legislative responsibility and will likely lead to massive civil liberty infringements at the DOD. I strongly urge its rejection, and I reserve the balance of my time.”