[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 167 (Wednesday, December 21, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Page S14300]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          FAILURE OF HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TO PASS S. 1558

  Mr. LEAHY. I am disappointed that the House of Representatives has 
failed to act on S. 1558, which passed the Senate on November 10. This 
bill was introduced by Senators Collins and Lieberman. I worked with 
them to amend it to extend for 4 years the ``sunset'' of a provision 
first enacted in the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act of 
1998 that grants the Judicial Conference of the United States the 
authority to redact information from a judge's mandatory financial 
disclosure in circumstances in which it is determined that the release 
of the information could endanger the filer or the filer's family. The 
bill, as amended, also extends the protections of this provision to the 
family members of filers.
  Like the more comprehensive court security measure Senator Specter 
and I have introduced, S, 1968, the Court Security Improvement Act of 
2005, CSIA, from which it is drawn, S. 1558 provides judges and their 
families with needed security by extending the judges' redaction 
authority without interruption and expanding it to their families. It 
also strikes the right balance with the need for continuing 
congressional oversight to prevent the misuse of this redaction 
authority, which has been a matter of some concern to me. I appreciate 
that the Judicial Conference is seeking to improve its practices and 
the Senate passed S. 1558 because none of us wants to see judges or 
their families endangered. Now, because of the failure of the House to 
pass S. 1558 and enact the reauthorization of redaction authority for 
another 4-year period, these protections will lapse at the end of the 
year.

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