Max Cleland: “in December 2000, New York Times reporter, John Schwartz, wrote ``When Congress passed a new bill last week requiring…”

“in December 2000, New York Times reporter, John Schwartz, wrote ``When Congress passed a new bill last week requiring virtually every school and library in the nation to install technology to protect minors from adult materials online, it created a business opportunity for companies that sell Internet filtering systems. . . . some of the filtering companies' business plans include tracking students' Web wanderings and selling the data to market research firms.'' While I support the use of filtering technology in schools and libraries that will be visited by our children, this statement alarmed me. A month later, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Department of Defense was buying information about our school children's Internet habits from a filtering company without the knowledge of their parents or the school officials. The Defense Department contracted directly with the filtering company. As one of our most vulnerable populations, I believe it is Congress's duty to act in a manner to ensure families knowledge of the information that is collected about our children and to restrict the collection of personal information on children. The fact that this arrangement could occur without anyone with direct responsibility for the children having knowledge of it is a serious oversight. We need a solution, and to that end, I am introducing the Children's Electronic Access Safety Enhancement, or CEASE Act.”