Political Quotes

“I really like and respect its author, but I have to urge my colleagues to vote against the Schakowsky amendment on the Freedom of Information Act. This is a very narrow restriction on public disclosure of information about the private industry's critical infrastructure. We all rely on that privately owned infrastructure of this Nation: computer networks, phone and power lines, airplanes, et cetera. As the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) said, 90 percent of our critical infrastructure is owned by the private sector. In President Clinton's Directive 63, an effort was put into play to enable the owners of this infrastructure to communicate with each other and formulate effective response plans to terrorism, extortion, and hacking. However, PD-63, that Presidential directive, found that companies would not share information about threats to their infrastructure because of their lawyers' concerns about FOIA and antitrust. Sharing such information would put them in an even more vulnerable position with respect to their customers, their shareholders, and their competitors. I have to say, some of the objections that this amendment addresses are misleading. It is not unprecedented. Congress passed Y2K legislation to exempt information-sharing about critical infrastructure vulnerabilities from use in lawsuits and disclosure to third parties. It is narrower than that Y2K legislation. It contains numerous definitions.…”