National Consumer Credit Reporting System Improvement Act of 2003 - Continued

NATIONAL CONSUMER CREDIT REPORTING SYSTEM IMPROVEMENT ACT OF 2003—CONTINUED

AMENDMENT NO. 2059

Ms. CANTWELL. I call up the Cantwell amendment and ask for its immediate consideration.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.

The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Washington [Ms. CANTWELL], for herself and Mr. Enzi, proposes an amendment numbered 2059.

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

The amendment is as follows:

(Purpose: To provide for certain information to be provided to victims of identity theft, and for other purposes)

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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, this amendment is one more addition to the great underlying Fair Credit Reporting Act that would establish a process where business records can be accessed by consumers whose identities have been stolen. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, my colleague from Wyoming and I tried to accommodate Members who were here in the last few minutes, trying to get several amendments adopted.

I want to spend a few minutes going into more detail about the Cantwell-Enzi Restore Your Good Name Act that has been incorporated into the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

I would first like to thank the chairman and ranking members of the committee for their strong support of this underlying bill that has been incorporated, along with the last amendment that we just voted on by voice a few minutes ago, dealing with business records.

It was roughly 2 years ago that the chairman of the Banking Committee and I spoke at a national platform for the attorneys general of America to address the issue of privacy and some of the biggest challenges to privacy at that time. We both made known our view that this country needed stronger legislation in the area of identity theft.

I commend the chairman and the ranking member for their strong step forward, a really critical step forward, to protect Americans from what is the fastest growing crime in America—identity theft.

Unfortunately, even though the Senate passed the Cantwell-Enzi legislation last year, the House failed to act on it and the number of victims has continued to grow. In fact, 9 million Americans have been the victims of identity theft. This underlying bill incorporates some of those good ideas that my colleague from Wyoming worked so hard on in the Banking Committee and that we worked through the Judiciary Committee to pass. I certainly commend my colleague, Senator Enzi, for his dedication to this issue. Consumers in America are going to be more protected because of his efforts. It has been a pleasure to work with him on these challenging issues, to make sure those protections are put in place.

The underlying bill that we have passed changes the framework by which consumers can now restore their good name and protect their identity. It does so, first and foremost, as Senator Enzi and I suggested, by formulating an affidavit process. So many people in America are victims of identity theft. But I can tell you this: it is not a crime for which you can call 911 and get immediate response. The biggest problem, once you are a victim of identity theft, is proving that you are in fact the person whose identity has been stolen.

I like to say that, in the case of the perpetrator who steals your television set right out of your living room, chances are that he is somewhere in the neighborhood. But the crime of identity theft could involve someone anywhere in the country, or for that matter, outside the United States, working with a ring.

So part of what we are trying to do, first and foremost, is to give victims and law enforcement tools to help victims reclaim their identity. The affidavit process that now must be accepted by business owners and credit agencies as proof that you are a victim of identity theft is the first step in making sure that your credit record is corrected and perpetrators are prevented from continuing to ruin your credit.

Second, the credit provisions that Senator Enzi was successful in getting added in committee represent a tremendous step in solving the problem that so many Americans face when their identity is stolen—that the perpetrators continue to pose as them, running up large credit bills.

In the case of a constituent I recently met in Washington State, the perpetrator who stole the constituent's license succeeded in buying five different vehicles. My constituent has continued to be a subject of investigation by law enforcement as she has tried to prove that it was, in fact, her identity that was stolen, that she was the victim. So a critical part of this legislation is the fact that individuals will be allowed to go to a credit agency and get that information blocked so that their good name is restored.

The amendment that we just adopted deals with another aspect of this problem, which is getting access to business records. Law enforcement in the State of Washington have been very successful at dealing with crimes of identity theft because identity thieves are often criminals who are involved in larger activities. There is a high correlation between people who are involved in identity theft—who use that stolen identity to get access to cash and resources in the State of Washington—and people who are involved with methamphetamine production. These criminals are involved in both drug activity and identity theft.

With this amendment, police can now get access to business records. Any victim, or law enforcement official acting on behalf of the victim, will have access to business records within 20 days after the victim provides identification, an affidavit and a police report to the business. This gives consumers a real tool to correct the harm caused them by this crime. This is a very fundamental part of this bill.

The last aspect of the identity theft bill that is part of the amendment we just agreed to deals with the statute of limitations. In the 2001 Supreme Court case of TRW v. Andrews, the Court ruled that the statute of limitations in these cases runs for 2 years from the time the crime is committed. But what we have found is that some victims of identity theft don't even realize they are victims until a year or 2 years after the identity theft has occurred. The statute of limitations therefore impacted the ability of victims to get justice. The underlying amendment we just agreed to extends the statute of limitations to give victims of identity theft 5 years from the time the crime was committed.

This underlying bill with the amendment we just agreed to represents a critical first step in dealing with one of the most important issues I think we will deal with in this information age, which is the issue of privacy. While this body has tried to deal with this issue in myriad ways by protecting the financial and health records of individuals, and by making sure that either opt-in or opt-out legislation have been cleared with consumers, I think we have much more work to do in the area of privacy. But you can be sure the Fair Credit Reporting Act before us today and the Cantwell-Enzi amendment and language adopted with it take a very positive step in dealing with one of the biggest privacy threats to Americans today—identity theft.

With these tools, law enforcement and individual consumers whose identities have been stolen will have the tools to make the process of reporting and resolving identity theft go smoother. While some may have said businesses would oppose the underlying amendment, or some of the features of the Cantwell-Enzi amendment, businesses have seen record losses of $22 billion a year from identity theft, and they have joined in this effort to make sure we pass strong national legislation.

I again thank Senator Sarbanes and Senator Shelby for their hard work, and certainly Senator Enzi for his effort and his stewardship in making sure we have good legislation in the process that can go on to passage and that will better protect consumers in America.

I yield the floor.