Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte) for his excellent presentation. I agree with him that what probably triggered this bill in 1988 was Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork's video rental history in which his privacy was violated in a very major way. And so I join him and the members of the House Judiciary Committee in supporting the Video Privacy Protection Act, which provides continued consumer protection. H.R. 2471 is very important in this respect because, over the course of the 23 years since this measure has become law, there have been significant changes in the ways and the means by which people view technological content. Movies can now be downloaded to mobile phones; live events can be streamed in real-time to laptops using mobile Internet services. There were so many other things happening in the transformation that go on at all times that could not have been contemplated in 1988. So there was ambiguity about whether the statute applies only to physical goods, such as videocassettes and DVDs. Under this bill, a videotape service provider means anybody engaged in the business, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, of rental, sale, or delivery or prerecorded videocassette tapes or similar audiovisual materials. It's the phrase ``similar audiovisual materials'' that has created some ambiguity.…”