William M. ``Mac'' Thornberry: “Woman, I would say the first part of the gentleman's amendment is certainly appropriate. There is no question that DOD…”

“Woman, I would say the first part of the gentleman's amendment is certainly appropriate. There is no question that DOD did not do what it should in reporting to the national database and there have been instances where that made a difference, tragic instances. So requiring DOD to report within 3 days, I think, as the gentleman from Virginia said, codifying the current policy, I think makes sense. I hope someday we can get to the point, by the way, where we require State and local governments to report within 3 days as well, because as the study was conducted on DOD's failure to report to the database, it turns out that some State and localities are even worse. So I think we all ought to up our game when it comes to that. I do want to express some concerns, however, about the second part of the gentleman's amendment. It requires a feasibility study on a military database for military protective orders. If it is a feasibility study about whether it is technically possible to have a database, that is one thing. But it is important for Members to understand that military protective orders are issued by commanders, and do not have any sort of due process that is associated with civilian protective orders or much due process at all. Now, military members can go and get a civilian protective order with appropriate due process. But right now, a military protective order by commanders is just issued at the request of the victim or the victim's advocate.…”