[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 18 (Wednesday, January 31, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Page S322]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                MOVING AMERICANS PRIVACY PROTECTION ACT

  Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 1568, which was received 
from the House.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will report the bill by title.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 1568) to amend the Tariff Act of 1930 to 
     protect personally identifiable information, and for other 
     purposes.

  There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the bill.
  Mr. MERKLEY. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read 
a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered 
made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The bill (H.R. 1568) was ordered to a third reading, was read the 
third time, and passed.
  Mr. DAINES. Madam President, today the Senate passed the bipartisan, 
bicameral Moving Americans Privacy Protection Act--S. 758, H.R. 1568--
and will send it to the President for his signature. In 2017, a small 
Montana trucking company came to me with concerns that servicemembers 
and Americans moving home from abroad were having their identities 
stolen after cargo manifests were made public by Customs and Border 
Protection without the removal of their personally identifiable 
information. So I took action, drafted the Moving Americans Privacy 
Protection Act, and worked with a bipartisan group of Members in the 
House and Senate to move forward with a solution.
  The bill is simple and straightforward. It requires Customs and 
Border Protection to remove all personally identifiable information, 
including Social Security Numbers and passport numbers, from manifest 
sheets before making them public. This is an easy solution to a 
longstanding problem, and I am glad Congress is finally acting to get 
this bill to the President's desk and signed into law.
  In 1984, Customs and Border Protection were required to publicly 
disclose certain manifest information. Since then, we have seen the 
inadvertent disclosure of Americans' personal data with little to no 
recourse. In today's digital world, once a person's information is put 
online, it is nearly impossible to remove it. And while the CBP does 
offer a process for consumers of shipping services to make their 
information confidential, these forms can take months to process and 
are often processed after the individual's data has already been 
released to the public.
  I believe the priority should be to protect Americans' privacy and 
automatically remove this personal information, rather than requiring 
citizens to make a request and hope the paperwork is processed in time. 
This bill will ensure that happens.
  I want to thank Senator Peters for helping lead this bill with me in 
the Senate, as well as Senator Marshall and Senator Stabenow. I also 
want to thank Representative Waltz and Representative Pascrell for 
leading the House companion bill that we passed in the Senate today. I 
also want to thank all our staff and the staff on the House Ways and 
Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee for their work over 
the years to get this bill signed into law. Finally, I want to thank 
all the Montanans and Americans, including the large group of trucking, 
moving, and servicemember organizations, who have championed this bill 
for so long.
  I look forward to our bill getting signed into law and ensuring 
Americans' and servicemembers' privacy is finally protected.

                          ____________________