Political Quotes

“I rise to introduce the Employee Information Protection Act of 1997. This bill will correct a serious problem with the 1996 welfare reform law that threatens the privacy of every American. I do not know how many of my colleagues are aware of the fact that the new welfare reform law created a national new hire directory, which requires States to collect the name, address, and Social Security number of all newly hired employees and send this information to Washington, DC. This new hire directory will be housed at the Social Security Administration, under agreement with the Office of Child Support Enforcement, and the data will be checked against a registry of child support cases to detect overdue payments. Concerns with this new hire directory nearly killed the welfare reform bill in the Montana Legislature and in several other State legislatures, but folks inside the Beltway do not seem too concerned. But I am concerned, and I will tell you why. I am all for tracking down deadbeat parents and recovering overdue child support. But this new directory covers every new hire in every State and does not distinguish between deadbeats and nondeadbeats. What's more, the new law puts no limits on how long employee data may remain in the national new hire directory, and the Office of Child Support Enforcement has not developed any limits.”