Political Quotes

“privacy is a fundamentally and almost uniquely American value. It is the reason the Colonies rebelled--one of the major reasons they rebelled--against the British. The invasion of our homes by British soldiers without court approval, the lodging of those soldiers in our homes without permission--the invasion of the fundamental rights of privacy was one of the basic reasons this Nation sought independence from the British. So throughout our history, privacy has been a value, a fundamental right affirmed again and again in our courts, enshrined in our Constitution and ingrained in our way of life. That is the reason so many of us were offended and regarded as reprehensible and repugnant a practice that was revealed recently--a practice involving employers coercing and compelling the disclosure of log-in information, user names, and passwords to private accounts and private systems by job applicants. And the same kind of coercion and compulsion applied to current or existing employees as a condition of their continuing in their jobs. That kind of practice is abhorrent, and it is the reason that yesterday I, along with a number of my colleagues from both this body and others from the House of Representatives, introduced the Password Protection Act of 2012. These practices are unacceptable for a number of reasons.…”