Bill Amendment Would Bar Government Web Site Tracking, Information Gathering
A provision prohibiting the tracking and collection of personal information from government Web site visitors was added to the $14.4 billion Treasury, Postal Service and General Government appropriations bill by the House late last Thursday.
The prohibition, proposed by Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) was added to the appropriations bill (HR-4871) by voice vote. More than seven hours later, after lengthy debate on other issues, including lifting the bank on U.S. food and drug sales to Cuba, the House, in a close 216-202, vote, approved the amended measure.
Frelinghuysen, citing recent disclosures about how some government agencies are tracking Web site visitors and collecting their personal information, basically said the government had no business gathering that information without permission.
Questioning why those agencies, which he did not name, were collecting that information and what they were doing with it, Frelinghuysen called for a moratorium on government agencies snooping on their Web site visitors at least until there is a “government-wide consistent policy, under force of law, that provides the necessary protections against the unintentional and involuntary collection of people’s personal information.”
Besides prohibiting the USPS, Treasury Department, White House and executive agencies from collecting personal data about Web site visitors, the legislation increases the government’s payments to the USPS to recover its cost of processing free and reduced-rate mail by $3 million to $96 million in fiscal 2001 which begins next Oct. 1.
Since the Senate previously approved the legislation without any amendments, the measure now goes to a conference committee for reconciliation.
There was no immediate comment from the Direct Marketing Association which is reviewing the Frelinghuysen amendment and a call to the Washington, DC-based Internet Alliance, for comment was not returned by press time.
