Dan Coats: “I am more than happy to accept the amendment offered by the Senator from Connecticut. I thank him for his tireless work…”

“I am more than happy to accept the amendment offered by the Senator from Connecticut. I thank him for his tireless work on behalf of children. It has been my pleasure to serve with him on both sides, the majority and minority, of the Children and the Families Committee; under his chairmanship as ranking member, and now as chairman, with Senator Dodd as ranking member. He has been a tireless advocate of children and addressing the particular concerns that children have to deal with, the problems they have to deal with growing up, and his support for this legislation and the amendment to my amendment, which I think strengthens what we are attempting to do and is very reasonable, earlier offered by Senator McCain, to utilize the advantages of software that allows for blocking. We see this as, certainly, a useful tool. It is not a totally useful tool because there are a myriad of ways of defeating it. As we speak, there are undoubtedly computer people far more savvy than this Senator, looking for ways to bypass this and looking for ways to defeat it. But it is a helpful tool, and it should be available to parents to help them in their efforts to protect their children from material that they do not deem appropriate and that certainly is not appropriate. I will be more than happy to accept the amendment. I do not know that we need a rollcall vote on both. We can combine the two and I think we will have a very worthwhile amendment.”