[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 43 (Wednesday, April 13, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3509-S3510]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THE NOMINATION PROCESS

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, yesterday it live the 
nomination and confirmation process as envisioned by our Constitution 
with regard to two nominees. The Constitution, of course, provides that 
it is a two-step process: the President nominates and the Senate then 
confirms or rejects. In this case, there was quite a contrast between 
the two nominees.
  In one of my committees, the Foreign Relations Committee, we have a 
highly contentious, highly divisive debate raging over the nominee of 
the President, Mr. John Bolton, to be the Permanent Representative of 
the United States to the United Nations. It is a very significant post 
representing the wishes of the American people, of the U.S. Government, 
to the world body, the United Nations.
  While at the same time those confirmation hearings were occurring in 
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, another one of my committees, 
the Commerce Committee, was considering the nomination of Dr. Michael 
Griffin to be administrator of NASA. Dr. Griffin's nomination is quite 
a contrast to Mr. Bolton's nomination, for it is embraced almost 
unanimously in a bipartisan way. The extraordinary support is shown 
even to the point that the chair of the Science and Space Subcommittee, 
Senator Hutchison of Texas, and I, the ranking member of that 
subcommittee, both requested that the chairman of the full committee, 
Senator Stevens, accelerate the confirmation process. So that Dr. 
Griffin could be confirmed by the committee and we could get his 
nomination to the floor of the Senate this week, putting him in place 
as the administrator next Monday. NASA desperately needs to have a 
strong leader in place, particularly as we recover from the disaster to 
Columbia. We are also going to launch an expected flight for recovery 
somewhere about the middle of May. That is the contrast between two 
nominees.
  I think one of the things that makes Dr. Griffin so attractive as the 
head of NASA is not only that he is literally a rocket scientist with 
six graduate degrees. Not only does he have exceptional experience in 
the Nation's space program, both the manned and unmanned programs, but 
he carries with him a demeanor that contains an element of humility, 
which will serve him well in the NASA family. NASA is a family. We have 
seen that borne out in the history of our space program in times of 
tragedy as we have had in the past. The NASA family comes together, and 
in times of triumph not only with the extraordinary space 
accomplishments we have had, but in times of extraordinary triumph 
where in fact it has been said that failure is not an option. The 
extraordinary success we had with Apollo 13 in which we thought we had 
three dead men on the way to the Moon when the Apollo module blew up, 
and how in real time people in a simulator back in Houston, people in 
mission control, the design engineers--all came together to figure out 
the fix. Since the main propulsion system had blown up, rapidly losing 
electricity, and how to design the circumstances which in a trajectory 
towards outer space they could get back home safely to Earth. And they 
did that.
  That is another illustration of how the NASA family works when it 
comes together. It wants a leader who has an appreciation of that 
family, who knows something about the business of that family, and who 
in fact can comport themselves with humility.
  Interestingly, this is a contrast to the other nomination being 
considered at the same time, on the very same day, in another one of my 
committees. This is a controversial nomination because of the alleged 
improprieties which stem not from a sense of humility but from a sense 
of entitlement, even bordering on arrogance in demanding one's way. Not 
one's personal beliefs and ideology--we can all debate those because 
those are differences of issues. But in this particular case, Mr. 
Bolton is alleged to have berated intelligence analysts and, according 
to the allegations from some former very high-ranking State Department 
officials, insisting that they be fired, dismissed, or transferred 
because their analysis of the intelligence differed with his. Contrast 
the personalities, the nominee to be NASA administrator and the nominee 
to be the U.S. Representative to the U.N., contrast of styles, contrast 
of attitudes, and contrast of capabilities. Thus, it leads to 
extraordinary differences in the nomination process.
  I wish all of the nominations were as Dr. Griffin in NASA, except for 
one hiccup that I think we are taking care of with the junior Senator 
from Virginia. It is my hope that today Chairman Stevens will call the 
committee, that

[[Page S3510]]

we will vote Dr. Griffin out of the Commerce Committee and get his 
nomination to the floor. At least by tomorrow, so his name can be sent, 
confirmed, and the President can go ahead and swear him in.


                        Information Data Brokers

  If that were not enough to engage one Senator from the State of 
Florida in activities, we also saw yesterday a day that started to 
bring out new revelations on a completely different subject. This time 
we found from the wire reports that the number of names which had been 
thought to have been missing or stolen from an information data broker, 
namely one located in my State, a company called Seisint in Boca Raton, 
FL, owned by LexisNexis. The company is owned by an international 
conglomerate located in France, which a month ago announced that 30,000 
names were missing--that is 30,000 names and Social Security numbers, 
and who knows how much other sensitive information. These records are 
compiled in this company for many law enforcement agencies. We were 
told yesterday the number is now not 30,000, it is 10 times that; it is 
over 300,000.
  This is one of a series of five or six revelations in the last 2 
months of information. Data brokers trade and sell this information 
about us--information that normally we would be so careful in seeing 
that it's secured and locked up or shredded so somebody can't get that 
information and go out and steal our identity. We now find these 
information brokers--in one case called ChoicePoint--have 12 billion 
records; they have records on virtually every American.
  We have seen over the last couple of months a series of these stories 
where the information is suddenly missing, or they found that somebody 
hoodwinked them and bought their information under false pretenses. It 
is now out in the public domain in somebody else's hands.
  Members of the Senate, if we don't do something about this, none of 
us in America will have any privacy left because our personal 
identities will be taken from us.
  I hope Senators have had an opportunity to experience what I have in 
talking with victims of identification theft. One of the biggest 
complaints, aside from the harassment and the financial losses, is they 
can't get their identity back. They do not know where to go. They go to 
their local law enforcement. We can't help you. They go to their State 
agencies. We can't help you. They go here, they go there, and they keep 
getting referred to somebody else, and all the while somebody else has 
their identity. Maybe they are put on the watch list, or the do-not-fly 
list, or suddenly they are getting dinged for $25,000 charges on a 
credit card, or their driver's license--such as the truck driver's 
license in Florida which gives the privilege of driving vehicles loaded 
with hazardous materials. Guess what that would do in the wrong hands.
  We find, if we don't do something, that none of us will have any 
privacy left. It used to be in the old days that we were careful to 
shred our records, or keep them locked up. Now we know all of this 
private, personal, and financial information is in the hands of 
information brokers who have it on computer--billions of bits of 
information. They are trading it and selling it and buying it. There is 
something we can do about it. I suggested one way a month ago when I 
offered a bill that has been referred to the Commerce Committee. Today, 
Senator Schumer of New York and I have taken a number of bills, 
including mine and his, and we have put them together into a 
comprehensive package. The bill is being referred to the Commerce 
Committee, and it is my hope we will get the Senate to start moving on 
this. As we speak, the Judiciary Committee is having a hearing on this 
very subject. It is my hope we will get some action so we can protect 
the personal identity of every American.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.

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