August 2000, Electronic Newsletter

On a regular basis I send out electronic newsletters on subjects in which residents of Middle Tennessee have expressed an interest. If you do not wish to receive e-mail from me in the future, hit reply to sender to this message and type UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject box and you will be removed from my e-mail list.

Stay in touch,

Bart Gordon

Member of Congress

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As a senior member of the House Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade, and Consumer protection, I’ve worked hard to protect individual privacy in areas such as medical records, credit reporting, telemarketing, taxpayer confidentiality and personal financial information. New technology and the Internet offer new challenges to protecting consumers.

Earlier this month, I sent a letter to the Chairman of the House Commerce Committee asking for a markup of H.R. 4586, the Medical Financial Privacy Protection Act of 2000. This bill would require financial institutions to obtain permission from a consumer before they could disclose sensitive medical or health information from affiliated or non-affiliated parties. While I support much of this bill, I believe that this higher standard of protection should apply to all sensitive financial and health information.

I have also encouraged the committee to take action on comprehensive medical privacy legislation.

According to a recent survey completed by the Federal Trade Commission, while 88% of commercial Internet sites have a privacy notice, only 55% disclose what information is collected and how it is to be used. Only 41% disclose their privacy policy and give consumers the right to consent to how their information is used. Just 8% have privacy seals of approval from private enforcement bodies.

This is a strong improvement over last year. However, Congress continues to examine ways to effectively enforce privacy protections, both through self-regulation and rule of law.

I believe consumers should, at minimum, have the right to know up front what information is collected by any company, how it’s to be used and who’ll have access to it. They should also be able to opt-out of supplying personal information beyond what’s needed for a transaction. And if the information is personal, such as medical records or financial information, access should be controlled by the consumer. Consumers should also have reasonable access to correct any errors. Finally, companies should be required to take reasonable precautions to safeguard sensitive personal information from unauthorized use.

I am an original cosponsor of H.R. 3113, the Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act of 2000. This bill would empower the consumer by making it illegal for companies to send unsolicited commercial e-mail, unless such e-mail is clearly identified and includes a return e-mail address that gives the consumer the ability not to receive future solicitations. Internet-service providers (ISPs) would be allowed to enforce their own spam policies, and both ISPs and individuals could sue senders if they willfully violated the law. It would also require ISPs that accept commercial e-mail to maintain lists of their customers who choose not to receive spam.

The House approved H.R. 3113, by a vote of 427-1, on July 18. The Senate is anticipated to take up its version of this legislation in September.

The long-awaited Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (ESIGN) was signed into law on June 30, 2000. This bill aids the growing electronic economy by making electronic signatures as legally valid as written signatures for most commercial transactions. This will allow businesses and consumers to do business entirely online without having to print out paper copies. Electronic signatures can offer consumers greater security online by verifying the identities of those involved in a transaction and making sure personal information has not been intercepted or altered in transit.

The legislation also gives consumers the right to request electronic records of their transactions, if the business offers the service.

We should be doing more to reduce taxes and create opportunities for growth. That is why I am cosponsoring a bill to provide $2.6 billion in specific tax relief for Tennesseans by allowing you to deduct sales taxes from your Federal income tax. It has been estimated that Tennesseans pay an average of $927 more each year in federal taxes than other Americans because they cannot take a deduction for sales taxes.

I am also supporting repeal of the marriage penalty tax and the federal estate tax. Legislation to repeal the marriage penalty, which passed Congress with my support, increases the basic standard deduction for a married couple filing a joint income tax return to $8,800 (or twice the basic standard deduction for an unmarried individual) in 2001. I also supported passage of a bill to end the estate tax on small, family-owned businesses and farms.

The House has approved, with my strong support, legislation to ban per-minute access charges on calls to Internet-Service Providers (ISPs) and to lower phone taxes for consumers.

Currently, calls made to ISPs are not subject to per-minute access charges. But if the FCC should ever change this policy, consumers would be forced to pay an additional fee for every minute they are connected to the Internet. H.R. 1291 codifies existing FCC policy exempting ISPs from access fees to ensure that per-minute charges never materialize in the future.

The Telephone Excise Tax Repeal Act (H.R. 3916) repeals the out-of-date 3% federal telephone excise tax, which was originally enacted to finance the Spanish-American War. Lower income families, seniors and Internet users will especially benefit from the repeal of this regressive tax.

The Mobile Telecommunications Sourcing Act simplifies taxes on wireless phone calls to ensure consumers are taxed only once when making mobile phone calls. The measure prohibits jurisdictions other than the customer’s home or business from taxing mobile telephone services, regardless where the call was made.

The Senate is expected to pass all three bills.

Last October, the House resoundingly passed H.R. 2723, the Bipartisan Consensus Patients’ Bill of Rights. The Senate passed a weaker bill that does not cover all Americans and fails to hold HMOs accountable for withholding or delaying medically necessary treatment.

A House-Senate conference committee has come to tentative agreement on many of the key provisions, such as the right to an external review if you have been denied care and the right to go to the nearest emergency room in an emergency. However, the conference has been stalled since June on a final Patients’ Bill of Rights over disagreements regarding how many Americans should be covered by the bill and whether managed care companies should be held liable for treatment decisions that hurt or kill patients.

I continue to support the stronger patient protections contained in the House bill.

Top