JOHN LINDER: “this is getting curiouser and curiouser. In the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, when this bill was going…”

“this is getting curiouser and curiouser. In the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, when this bill was going through it was the Democrats, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) who demanded privacy language, very strict privacy language. It was the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Vento) who, with the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach) late at night worked out a compromise on the privacy language, the first consumer protection language in the banking bill. It got to the Committee on Commerce and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) passed on a voice vote strong consumer privacy language, but even he was shocked it passed, and made it a huge point on the floor of the House that his language was not being adhered to. It had to be stronger. Now they come out today and say, we do not want anything; accede to the Senate's nothingness, no consumer protection at all. Or is it maybe that they would rather have the administration write the language? They are acceding to a bill that is absent the language. They cannot have it both ways. This banking legislation, as it left this House, had some of the best privacy language of any banking legislation, and now my colleagues want to walk away from it, and they ought to be ashamed.”