Political Quotes

“Mr. President, today I am introducing the Privacy Act Modernization for the Information Age Act of 2011. In 1974, Congress enacted the Privacy Act to protect Americans' personal information from improper disclosure by the Federal government. Broadly, the Privacy Act requires that government agencies allow individuals to see any records an agency keeps on him or her, with some exceptions for security and law enforcement, limits the extent to which the government may share data with and agencies and third parties, allows individuals to access and correct their records, requires agencies to provide notice of what data is collected and how it is used and to keep records of disclosures, and provides individuals the ability to enforce their rights under the act. With the expansion of technology and the proliferation of personally identifiable information in the hands of government agencies, the risk of losing, abusing, or misusing information has grown exponentially. In particular, over the last 10 years security needs have created pressure on agencies to use existing personal information in new ways, not contemplated when the information was collected. The growth in the business of buying and selling individuals' information also raises new questions about the extent to which the Privacy Act applies to these sources of data on individuals used by the government.…”