Political Quotes

“Mr. President, since we are technically under 30 hours of debate on the nomination of Patricia Smith to be Solicitor of Labor, I will rise in opposition to that nomination, as I did yesterday. I will elaborate a little on my concerns about the personal privacy violations in a program she created in 2009 called the Wage and Hour Watch. The Wage and Hour Watch program recruits and trains union organizers and public interest groups to go into businesses with compliance literature and interview employees to discover violations of wage-and- hour law. The State of New York gives participants materials to disseminate and official cards identifying them and their group as being part of the program for when they enter businesses and speak with employers and employees. As part of this process, union and community organizers were directed to gather personal telephone numbers, vehicle license plates, and home addresses of business owners, as well as details about the employees working there. These are people with 1 day's training and a special card from the government. Labor organizers and community activists were allowed to use this information for their own organizing activities. State identification cards were provided to individuals from various unions and community organizing groups to investigate businesses--but the State conducted no background checks on those they trained and provided identification cards to. Is this the kind of program we could expect Ms.…”