Remedy Act

Floor Speech

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I think many of our colleagues here in the Chamber know that Senator Alexander and I host a breakfast on Tuesday Mornings called Tennessee Tuesday. This week at the breakfast, one of our Tennesseans said: I have seen so many men and women in law enforcement uniforms in DC. What is going on? Is this normal?

It gave me the opportunity to say: Actually, this is National Police Week, and this is a week we set aside to honor those men and women who are in law enforcement.

There are tens of thousands of police officers and sheriffs and highway patrolmen across our country. My hope is that each of us will stop this week when we see them and say ``thank you'' to them for the service they provide our communities, because when it comes to fighting so many of the issues that affect our communities on a day-to-day basis--the issues we face because of drugs and drug trafficking, human trafficking, gangs--it is our local law enforcement that is on those frontlines, and we say ``thank you'' to them.

This year in Tennessee, three officers have lost their lives. During this week, we remember them and express our gratitude to their families for their service and their sacrifice. We lost Trooper Matthew Elias Gatti from the Tennessee Highway Patrol, who died on Monday, May 6, 2019; Sergeant Steve Hinkle from the Sullivan County Sheriff's Office, who died on Tuesday, February 26, 2019; and Police Officer Nicholas Scott Galinger from the Chattanooga Police Department, who died on Sunday, February 24, 2019. As I talk to our sheriffs and police chiefs and patrol captains, I know there are many more who have been injured, and we remember them.

We also say ``thank you so much'' to the families of these men and women who have chosen--you know, they really are called. This is their calling to public service, and we thank them for answering that call and that they choose to serve in our communities to keep us safe so that we know our communities are a place where we can rear our families, where we can enjoy camaraderie with family members, with friends, with our churches.

I will tell you, as I was thinking about this week, I thought, there are so many moms and grandmoms who I think are pretty much like me. Many times I will say I am a ``security mom.'' I want to make certain that my children and my grandchildren are safe, that our children are safe when they go to sporting events and when they go to school. We say a prayer when they get behind the wheel of a car. We are so grateful that there are law enforcement officers who are there at public events to keep them safe, who watch out if they are going to be speeding on the road and provide the security that is so essential to our way of life.

I have the opportunity as one of these security moms, if you will, to serve on our Senate Judiciary Committee. Just last week, Chairman Graham brought forward three bills that we approved. These are things that are going to help law enforcement officers and their families-- providing mental health support for law enforcement and their families, which is vitally important, and, of course, lifesaving bulletproof vests, which are now essential, and ensuring that our first responders get the benefits they have earned by standing for that duty. When they get ready to retire, those benefits are going to be there.

This week, I have joined Senator Cornyn on his Back the Blue Act, and I thank him for his leadership. I think many of us who stand in this Chamber know that we stand to back that ``thin blue line''--that line is the difference between order and chaos in our communities. This bill is going to create new penalties for killing or assaulting law enforcement officers and will protect officers from lawsuits when they intervene to stop a violent crime. It is a commonsense provision, and I am pleased to be in support of this bill.

As we talk about law enforcement and security and having safe communities, we also need to remember our Customs and Border Patrol agents and officers who are on the southern border. When you talk about being a security mom, of course you are going to talk about economic security, healthcare security, job security, and national security, but border security is a part of that. It is a way that we work to keep our communities safe.

We all know there is a humanitarian crisis on the southern border. Much of it is fueled by cartels that are big business. They deal in drug trafficking and human trafficking. It is our first responders who address this in our communities and on our city streets. The issues and the lack of security at that border have created an environment where now, at this point, every State is a border State and every town is a border town because those problems that come across the southern border with the human trafficking, with the drug trafficking, with the gangs-- all of this ends up on the streets in your community.

We are working on legislation that we hope is going to help with this situation. It will target traffickers of unaccompanied minors in the care of Health and Human Services. One of the things that has not happened and needs to happen is that Health and Human Services and Homeland Security need to be able to share all of the information they have on individuals who are bringing these unaccompanied children, individuals who say ``I am a next of kin,'' individuals who say ``I am here, and this child is coming to me.'' We want to make certain they are in the country legally. We want to make certain they have a relationship with these children so that we are protecting and looking out for the security of these children and making certain they are not being trafficked.

As we talk about our children, some of the trafficking--of course, much of the trafficking takes place in the virtual space. It takes place online. It seems impossible, but that is what happens with the human trafficking and the sex trafficking. The adverse impact that this has on young girls and women is horrifying.

Because of my work to prohibit these traffickers from working online, we are pushing forward with privacy legislation. You and I do not want our children to be followed online. That is what is happening, and it is why we need to make certain that moms have the tools they need--that parents have the tools they need--to guard the privacy of their families online.

I recently introduced the BROWSER Act. This is legislation I introduced while I was in the House of Representatives. It is one of the first bipartisan privacy bills we have had. The BROWSER Act will require you to give your consent if you are going to opt in and allow someone to share your information, to have access to your sensitive information.

In this Nation, we have a history of respecting informed consent, and that is what we are saying--that individuals need to give their consent to a company before that company looks at their private information or, worse yet, data mines or, worse yet, shares that information about those individuals with third parties--people they do not know, people they have never seen, people they never will see. Then that tech company--guess what--sells ads. It is paid with your information.

The BROWSER Act also prohibits companies from denying their services to users who refuse to waive their privacy rights. You have a right to privacy, and these companies should not deny you their services because you say: You cannot share my information. You cannot share my sensitive information. I am not going to opt-in to allow you to do that, big tech company. I am also going to opt-out on non-sensitive data. I am not going to allow you to do that. I do not want my children followed, and I do not want you to be following me. I do not want you to sell my information. I do not want my spam to run crazy with ads and information I do not want.

Individuals deserve their privacy. Americans deserve to know they are protected and have that privacy in the online universe. They deserve to know they are not going to be followed and they are not going to be tracked.

While we are talking about technology, I'd like to bring attention to the global race for 5G, or fifth-generation wireless technology. You are hearing a good bit about this. It doesn't matter if it is in our commercial sector or in our military sector; we are at the forefront of this debate to make certain that we win this race on 5G--that China does not get a foothold, that Huawei does not penetrate our delivery systems--and to make certain that we win this race just like we did the race to 4G, which brought forward a lot of the technologies we all use and take for granted, like those devices we hold in our hands on which we receive our emails, make our phone calls, send text messages, pull up maps, get to a favorite site on which we want to make a purchase, and log on to social media accounts. This is all from a handheld device, and it is what 4G brought us. Well, 5G is going to be as revolutionary as going from analog to digital, and we are going to stay on top of this to make certain we win this race.

Because of this, we have a couple more pieces of legislation that I am going to discuss on the floor at a later date. We have the SECURE 5G and BEYOND Act. Senator Cornyn has the lead on that. I have the SUPPLY CHAIN Act, which will be focused on security in the virtual space and make certain that we will be rooting out these threats that may come to our supply chain and affect our private sector or our governmental sector.

We know it is imperative that, yes, we win the race in 5G but that we protect our networks and that we secure them so the American public knows that its information is not being exploited.

As a mom who values and puts a priority on keeping children and grandchildren safe, it is an honor for me to come to this floor to salute the men and women of law enforcement and to talk about what we need to do every single day from this Chamber to protect our Nation's security and to protect our citizens.

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