Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005

BANKRUPTCY ABUSE PREVENTION AND CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT OF 2005

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Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee and others who have worked together for many years, despite considerable differences in the area of bankruptcy reform, to produce a bill that has passed the Senate a number of times. All that said, the bill is far from perfect, and the Senate should take full advantage of this opportunity to take a number of steps to amend this bill and improve it. I have supported amendments that improve the bill in areas where it affects particularly vulnerable consumers and retirees, and I believe we should also address incidents of corporate abuse. There are also ways to bring the bill up to date with modern technology and crime.

For example, I proudly join my colleague from Vermont, Mr. Leahy, in recommending to all my colleagues the pending Leahy-Cantwell-Snowe privacy amendment, Amendment No. 26. This amendment is an appropriate response to the recent erosion of informational privacy in our society, demonstrated by the ChoicePoint and Bank of America personal informational security breaches, where the personal information of thousands of people was misappropriated by identity thieves.

Consumers should not have to surrender their privacy rights, just to gain access to our Nation's bankruptcy system. There are a number of reasons why it is simply sound practice for bankruptcy courts to join other Federal courts that already have a viable mechanism to file personal information of debtors and others under seal. Identity theft is a predictable outcome when criminals have virtually unfettered access to an obvious public database of people who are already vulnerable in public bankruptcy court files. In some instances, a debtor might be a battered woman, a victim of a stalker or another victim of domestic violence, and the disclosure of that person's private information may subject her to further abuse. Congress has recognized the need to render private such personal information in court filings in much of the Federal court system, and this body should now add the bankruptcy courts to the list of properly protected public entities. Although I recognize that bankruptcy courts have some discretion to protect ``scandalous or defamatory matter,'' the point or preserving privacy of this information should also be to protect information that could be used to injure the consumer, either financially or even physically. It is also clear that such courts do not have the same ability to do protect information for cause as do other Federal courts. It is time to fix this unjustifiable distinction between the privacy rights of litigants in one kind of Federal court and another. I ask my colleagues to support Leahy-Cantwell-Snowe, because people's economic and even their physical security may be in jeopardy otherwise. Let's not wait for the inevitable abuse of this loophole, which could lead to stolen identities, or physical harm, before we act.

I urge my colleagues to vote for the Leahy-Cantwell-Snowe amendment.

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