blumenthal: i thank my colleague from connecticut. the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. mr. blumenthal: i ask the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. blumenthal: i want to begin by thanking my friend and colleague from connecticut, senator murphy, for the very eloquent and powerful remarks that he has just made, showing america the connecticut experience with health care which shows that the affordable care act is working and is expanding opportunities for health care across the country, and once the myths are exploded, once the truth is told, americans will appreciate how fortunate we are to have this reform in the way that health care is insured and delivered for the american people, and there are bumps in the road, as senator murphy has just said. there will continue to be issues to be overcome in achieving success, but the enormous potential to make america healthier, to eliminate the anxiety and anguish that americans experience in seeking quality of life that health care affords

. >> senator blumenthal. >> thank you. thank you for your great work in this area. thank you chairman ramirez for inr focus and interest additional authority, which i agree is important. the ftc has brought authority rules, andse some take some enforcement action when there has been a failure to impose sufficiently stringent safeguards to protect information. expanding that in the ways you have suggested makes sense. i have introduced a bill that would provide for remaking authority, but also skip the multi-. and possibly -- and skip the penalty. stringent penalties if the congress will go along with them. the potential damage is so horrific for identity theft. it provides for mandatory notification, a clearinghouse, and a private right of access. rules, whatce these do you think about a private right of action? >> the commission does not take a position on the issue of private interaction, but concurrent state enforcement, we believe that is critical. states have done very important work in this arena. we think it is vital for them to continue to be involved. >> wh

richard blumenthal is with me now.ssume this jobs report would help the case to extend unemployment insurance but the same could have been said of december's report. what effect, if any, does this report have? >> i think this report will help us, we're just one vote away. we've come a long way and many of the long term unemployed are in states with republican senators such as illinois, ohio, arizona, tennessee. and they are thoughtful, intelligent. we've come a long way with the great leadership of senator reed and that kind of willingness to compromise and work together is going to enable us to get that one more vote that we need. remember, there's no great idealogical principle at stake here. three republican presidents approved this kind of emergency unemployment for the long term unploiped without any payback or any offset and so i think that there is progress to be made. >> here's the thing, you and i both know as we have this conversation, if you do manage to horse train this one additional vote, the bill is dead

so we go to senator blumenthal. senator blumenthal. >> thank you. thank you all for being here. not easy to be the face of the industry which really bears the responsibility here for what i see as a record of failure. not directedent is at target or at neiman marcus. it is directed at an industry, and i think you deserve a lot of credit for coming here today and representing that industry, and also for the steps you have taken in the wake of reaches that certainly victimized you measures include credit monitoring, insurance, --sures that i thought sought for others in this toustry and in other worlds adopt voluntarily while i was attorney general in the state of connecticut and literally had to bludgeon and pummeled them into doing, not physically, but legally. commend you for appearing here and for the proactive steps you have taken. but, i have introduced a bill that i think builds on the very measures that senator leahy and senator rockefeller have introduced to establish standards so that there will be in effect a bar that everybody has to follow, a standard of , because thi

. >> joining me now live senator blumenthal of connecticut a member of the judiciary committee who held's hearing. thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> sorry only goes so far and you want to take an extra step here to protect consumers, but first this admission by target that it waited at least a week before informing consumers that their system had been hacked, your reaction to that news? >> delays in notification are reprehensible because they derive consumers of the opportunities of protecting themselves, that is, taking steps like scrutinizing their bills or imposing a credit freeze on their accounts that will stop the identity thieves that prey on this information that is stolen from the big retailers like target. i give target credit coming forward being the face of an industry that all too often has lagged. and i really mean lagged rep hencebly in providing notification which is why my bill would require it with strong penalties and strict enforcement if they fail to do so. >> senator blumenthal, neiman marcus part of this hearing, they offered few details that impacted its

. >> after hearing from myself, chairman blumenthal and acting ranking member heller, i'd like to ask all other committee members to waive their opening statements. there is going to be an opportunity for remarks following testimony today. hearing no objections so order. it's an honor for me to be here this afternoon with so many dav members and i thank you all for coming to the hill once again. due to the hard work and dedication of vav's 1.4 million members, especially dav service officers, veterans are provided with professional benefit counselling and claims assistance and transportation to and from va health care facilities. dav also assists with transition assistance services and on-site care at military treatment facilities, va medical centers and clinics and at home. that's just to name a few of the many programs that you, dav, provides every single day. i've witnessed many of these efforts first hand and i'm personally grateful to each of you for the hard work the dav does across the country as well as right here in washington d.c. on behalf of a grateful nation, thank you al

blumenthal as well. there is a bipartisan coalition that could form on this. i am afraid that some of the people, particularly coming from the hierarchy of the intelligence committee, want to say it is not spying anyway. these are metadata. they do not really matter. i am afraid we may not get what we want to read it is also a support system. i am much more encouraged and the court system. the attorneys i have talked to says that this defies the fourth amendment. if you are saying a single court order or warts can apply to millions of people's phone records that it goes against what the fourth amendment indicates is our protection. i think that has a really good chance. my attorneys tell me from watching and listening to the supreme court justices, they think there are at least five the indicated that the smith versus maryland case does not tell the nsa that they can collect everybody's phone records. i think this there is a very good chance the supreme court will expand the purview of the fourth amendment as corollary to hat. >> i wanted to get immigration. l

so we go to senator blumenthal. senator blumenthal. >> thank you. thank you all for being here. not easy to be the face of the industry which really bears the responsibility here for what i see as a record of failure. not directedent is at target or at neiman marcus. it is directed at an industry, and i think you deserve a lot of credit for coming here today and representing that industry, and also for the steps you have taken in the wake of reaches that certainly victimized you measures include credit monitoring, insurance, --sures that i thought sought for others in this toustry and in other worlds adopt voluntarily while i was attorney general in the state of connecticut and literally had to bludgeon and pummeled them into doing, not physically, but legally. commend you for appearing here and for the proactive steps you have taken. but, i have introduced a bill that i think builds on the very measures that senator leahy and senator rockefeller have introduced to establish standards so that there will be in effect a bar that everybody has to follow, a standard of , because thi

senator blumenthal. >> thank you, senator franken. thank you all for your great work in this area, and thank you, chairman ramirez, for your focus and your interest in additional authority, which i agree is important. i think the ftc has broad authority now to impose some rules and take some enforcement action when there has been a failure to impose sufficiently stringent safeguards to protect consumer information, but certainly clarifying that authority and expanding it in the ways you have suggested makes a lot of sense. in fact, i had just introduced a bill that would provide for rulemaking authority, but also stiff penalties, and possibly even more stringent penalties if the congress would go along with them. because i think that the potential damage to consumers is so horrific from identity theft and associated wrongs that emanate from these hacking and abusive activities. it also provides for mandatory notification, a clearinghouse and, in my view very important, a private right of action, as well as jurisdiction for attorney ge

so i had this quandary so he was very convincing and blumenthal wasn't one that exaggerate and so i was convinced that is how the fees were me but i couldn't figure out, my sisters were twins so i couldn't figure out whether my parents had done it twice or three times. [laughter] >> your experience as a writer and editor of a sort of underground newspaper in baltimore was very of its time. can you talk about that? >> this is when i sort of started to get over the hippie thing. i was in graduate school in baltimore, and i got started to write for a little underground newspaper and has probably quite a few of you will remember them. it was illegal. we based our whole idea on combat, on the french resistance we were doing is illegal things. so any way we were writing and turning on this newspaper theoretically. i can't remember if it was when we ran out of marijuana or whether it was when we got a bunch. this is when things were starting to get violent but also when the bombings began and kids blew themselves up. we had this kid show up wanting us to hide him not from the police come he go

barbara boxer, dick durbin, harkin, blumenthal, marquee, they stand in the way of the first real progress in ending smoking for good. a half million people die yearly from smoking. if e-cigs had been around 30 years ago many of our moms and dads would be alive. vaping means i will live longer which is awesome for me and you. it's the greatest medical device since the clapper and spurred by cash and drama these hacks smear vaping which makes death smile. they need to be taken to a town square and shown what real tar is. boxer claims that e-cigs profit from addicts. no, they profit from quitters. i get protecting the kids, but this is not a gateway drug, it's a quitting device. her office also said there's no way of knowing whether e-cigs are harmful. there is, it's called science, you bozzo. see, this is all phony concern. critics don't care that it's not smoking. only that it looks like smoking. why not ban chameleons or the creepy insects that look like sticks. i hate those things. politicians love outrage. it makes them feel good which trumps doing good so they belch their toxic fumes c

. >> senator blumenthal. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to follow-up by thanking and the courageous men and women who serve with you and you often are unappreciated because what they do is in secret, but risked their lives. as senator chambliss said, put their lives on the line every day. would just say very often what we focus on is more the failures rather than successes, because the successes are unseen and therefore unappreciated. a little bit like the baseball player who misses a pitch in the third inning, hits five home runs and is told by his manager, you missed that pitch in the , despite the fact that they won the game. theeed to keep our eye on results of the game, not compare what you're doing in any way to a sporting event because it's the most serious business in the world. we need to appreciate the successful work that you do. said, with great appreciation, i want to follow-up on some of the questions that have been asked techniquesrding the used by edward snowden, which were reported recently in the "new york times."

so we go to senator blumenthal. senator blumenthal. >> thank you. thank you all for being here. not easy to be the face of the industry which really bears the responsibility here for what i see as a record of failure. and this comment is not directed at target or at neiman marcus. it is directed at an industry, and i think you deserve a lot of credit for coming here today and representing that industry, and also for the steps you have taken in the wake of reaches that certainly victimized you and those measures include credit monitoring, insurance, measures that i thought -- sought for others in this industry and in other worlds to adopt voluntarily while i was attorney general in the state of connecticut and literally had to bludgeon and pummeled them into doing, not physically, but legally. i just want to commend you for appearing here and for the proactive steps you have taken. but, i have introduced a bill that i think builds on the very good measures that senator leahy and senator rockefeller have introduced to establish standards so that there will be in effect a bar that

blumenthal: thank you, mr. president u i'm reminded, even at this late hour when most of the world has moved on to other pursuits, what a great privilege it is to be with two magnificent voices and advocates for fairness and economic opportunity, senator warren of massachusetts, senator -- my very good friend, senator booker of new jersey on his first occasion here on the floor. and i feel so really blessed and fortunate and privileged to be here with them. and at any moment on this floor in this body but particularly as we face this great challenge ahead. how to preserve and enhance our middle class in america, thousand make sure -- how to make sure that americaer fulfills its great promise that senator booker evoked so eloquently going back to the days of george washington and now with great leaders facing many of the same kinds of basic questions about whether we can provide that opportunity going forward, whether we are equal to the task in an creeingl increasy complex society. just today in "the new york t

senators murray, blumenthal, durbin, merkley, walsh, shaheen. and casey. i suspect i have left out some. i want to thank my staff at the veterans' committee: steve robertson, dahlia mennend r*e z, elizabeth austin, carlos fuentes, jacob bean, shannon laffra and raphael anderson, for their help on this effort. i want to thank the 28 cosponsors of this important legislation. i won't read their names. they know who they are, and i thank them very, very much. mr. president, as i have indicated earlier, this legislation is not bernie sanders' legislation. this is legislation that by and large comes from the hearts and souls of the veterans of this country. as chairman of the committee, i thought it was my obligation to listen to what the veterans of america, the veterans of our country were saying about their problems and their needs and how we might go forward. and that's what i and others on the committee did. we listened. and that is the reason why this legislation is being supported by virtually every veterans organization in the united states of america re

blumenthal: thank you. i am here very proudly and gratefully to support the nomination of jeffrey meyer as united states district court judge in connecticut, and i'm proud because of his extraordinary credentials, i'm grateful to president obama and hopefully to this body for giving connecticut the services of a professor, litigator, prosecutor, and a person of extraordinary integrity and ability. jeffrey meyer has all of the qualifications in extraordinary depth and quality to be a great judge. he is truly a lawyer's lawyer. he is a prosecutor's prosecutor, he will be a judge's judge. he served as a legal aid lawyer in vermont for vermont legal aid, as an associate of two d.c. law firms but really has made his mark has a prosecutor in the united states attorney's office in connecticut, where he served for ten years -- five of them as appeals chief. he also was a law clerk to judge oaks on the second district. he has a grounding in academicia, served as supreme court advocacy teacher at yale where he's also

blumenthal. the senator vitter. >> thank you. i want to express from support for fixing this problem absolutely as well. i voted against the budget deal in december and this issue is est reason why. we need to get it fixed. i want to express strong support for fixing it in a way that does not increase the deficit in any way. two would be doing for steps with the huge majority of us out absolutely not to do, and so that would be a failure as well. get am very hopeful we will this done. i just have one question for both of you. this provision essentially treated folks in uniform fundamentally differently and federal civilian employees, all other federal civilian employees. it sort of penalize them, if you will, retroactively on this issue while the changes made for all other barrel employees was prospectively only. do you think there is any justification for that different treatment? i think it was surprising. i don't think that the vast actuallyof our force thought that through. they were not aware, i think. it was really just the

concern about retiring the a-10 which the senator from new hampshire is adamantly against senator blumenthalays he will reconstitute a combat rescue helicopter program. the issue right now with the army and the big battle they are having in reducing the car both the air force but with those inputs of those change what kind of impact will that have on the budget and where does the money for that come from? >> thank you for that question. this is our annual challenge and it has been frankly since the first 487 billion-dollar reduction in the budget. we worked very hard in the department as i know this audience appreciates to take a holistic view and it's a tightly crafted package where if you don't get this something else comes out and then it goes to the hill and they take it piece by piece. i wish i had a magic solution. all i can say is we are going to do everything in our power to explain those trade-offs. if they force, as they have every year, is to keep things that we don't want to keep something else happens and we are at the point even with a 115 billion additional there are few place

i've worked with senator wyden and blumenthal on trying to fisa and with where technology is going andernment is obtaining new information. i think this is a huge case, whether it's my case that goes forward or another, it does need to get into the light of day and we need to not allow questions of constitutional to be decided in secret without any argument for the plaintiff or without any argument for those who think their privacy has been invaded. >> rand paul, senator from kentucky, thank you very much for joining us. >> thank you, wolf. >>> just ahead, the winter storm is hitting small businesses hard. but what if this is your biggest time of the year? how the snow could actually ruin valentine's day for a lot of florists out there. >>> and the administration has announced new obamacare numbers. is it a disaster or a real sign of progress? ♪ [ male announcer ] to truck guys, the truck is everything. and when you put them in charge of making an unbeatable truck, good things happen. this is the ram 1500. the 2014 motor trend truck of the year. ♪ and first ever back-to-back champion.

president, let me also thank senator murray, senator durbin, senator blumenthal for their very thoughtful and important remarks regarding the needs of veterans and why it is absolutely imperative that we pass this comprehensive veterans legislation, and let me also begin by thanking all of the members of the senate veterans committee for their very hard work in helping to craft what is not only an enormously important piece of legislation impacting the lives of millions of our veterans but is also to a large degree a bipartisan piece of legislation. mr. president, it is no secret that congress today is extraordinarily partisan, and in fact is largely dysfunctional. on major issue after major issue, the american people are trying out to us, they are asking us to address the problems, the serious problems facing this country, and we're unable to do virtually anything. and i just hope, mr. president -- and i think this from the bottom of my heart and as chairman of the senate veterans committee, that at least on this issue, the need to protect and defend those veterans who have protected and

before do i that i want to say i have the same concerns that senator blumenthal just expressed, but also want to make it very clear that -- and if i didn't have those same concerns i wouldn't be upholding my oath to the constitution and the fourth amendment but also i think i would take into consideration a balance between our number one responsibility, the federal government, which is national security, and the requirements of our civil liberties. first of all, thank you for joining us and thank you, mr. chairman, for holding this hearing, and i welcome the board members that are with us. the entire board. it's good that the committee has held many hearings on these surveillance authorities. the committee will undoubtedly hold more. the most important responsibility of the federal government is to protect national security while at the same time preserving our civil liberties. the n.s.a. continues to be of great concern to my constituents in iowa and obviously across the country. over the last few months i've grown more concerned about why the department of justice hasn't prosecuted any

for being here today, and i now yield time to my colleague and friend from the senate, chairman blumenthal for his opening statement. senator? >> thank you very much, chairman miller, and thank you to the leadership of the dav, commander johnston and others who are here today. most important, thank you to all the dav members who are here today. thank you so much for making the trip and sending a message by your presence about not only the concern and interest but your knowledge and power by your numbers and your presence here today. i'd like to ask that chairman sanders' full opening statement be placed in the record. he could not be here today because indeed he is helping to manage the bill, the comprehensive bill that is under consideration this week before the united states senate. indeed, i will have to leave early to go back and assist him in that effort. i hope you'll forgive me, but with the chair's permission, i'd like to ask that his opening statement be placed in the record, and i'd like to make a few opening brief remarks. >> without objection. i thought it was probably going to

before do i that i want to say i have the same concerns that senator blumenthal just expressed, but also want to make it very clear that -- and if i didn't have those same concerns i wouldn't be upholding my oath to the constitution and the fourth amendment but also i think i would take into consideration a balance between our number one responsibility, the federal government, which is national security, and the requirements of our civil liberties. first of all, thank you for joining us and thank you, mr. chairman, for holding this hearing, and i welcome the board members that are with us. the entire board. it's good that the committee has held many hearings on these surveillance authorities. the committee will undoubtedly hold more. the most important responsibility of the federal government is to protect national security while at the same time preserving our civil liberties. the n.s.a. continues to be of great concern to my constituents in iowa and obviously across the country. over the last few months i've grown more concerned about why the department of justice hasn't prosecuted any

he was appointed by president bill clinton ands, and senator blumenthal was appointed to u.s. attorney for connecticut by president carter. other colleagues have been assistant u.s. attorneys, and my guess is when they were assistant u.s. attorneys, they worked for their boss; they had a full-time u.s. attorney in their offices. assistant ution attorneys included in the u.s. senate are senator lee of utah and senator tom udall of new mexico. they know firsthand how crucial it is for these offices to have a u.s. attorney and other top leadership in place. i think they would agree with me that 890 days without a full-time u.s. attorney in minnesota is far too long. since 1849, the district of minnesota's 31 u.s. attorneys have upheld the rule of law, the constitution, and the rights of our state citizens, and tirelessly pursued justice on their behalf. over the past 48 years, for the past half-century, more than half of the u.s. attorneys for minnesota appointed by a republicans and democrats alike were confirmed within a day of when they passed out of the judiciary committee. t

[applause] >> i'll introduce my colleague with senator richard blumenthal. >> good morning. thank you for joining us. we appreciate the opportunity to talk to you. i wanted to give a quick reminder those to to participate in the polling question and we'll get to that. i want to start where you left off, what was the one thing -- the biggest thing you learned about the president last night? >> that he is frustrated with congress as the american people, as i am and going to use the full reach of his authority, not exceed it, not overreach, but use all of the authority that congress has given him to give action to the american people and whether it's the minimum wage or immigration where he has already acted or veterans, which is such a pauferfully important issue, he is going to use -- how were fully important -- powerfully important issue, he is going to use executive orders and promulgate the regulations that are delayed. one of the problems is the overdelay in issuing rules in order to implement the law. >> a lot of your colleagues on the right said he was overreaching by h

, and that includes senator landrieu, senator be begich, senator schatz, senator brown, senator blumenthal, senator boxer, senator casey, senator gillibrand, senator heinrich, senator merkley, senator murray, senator reed, senator shaheen, senator whitehouse, senator rockefeller, senator tester, and senator can' cantwell. i thank all of them for their strong support. mr. president, let me take a few minutes to touch on -- just touch on -- some of the areas that this bill -- this comprehensive bill covers. and as i return to the floor in the coming days, i will go into greater length about each of these provisions, because each of these provisions, unto themselves, is enormously important in terms of the needs of of our veterans. as i mentioned earlier, and consistent with what's on the bill right now, the pryor bill, the bipartisan budget act of 20 -- the bill -- our comprehensive veterans bill will restore the cuts made in the bipartisan budget act of 2013 to military retirees. so in our bill, we address that issue. this comprehensive veterans legislation deals with another issue -- not n

we have sent -- a group of us, led by senator harkin, senator blumenthal has been involved, a number of others, asking the other major drugstore chains -- walgreens and rite aid to do the same, to quit selling cigarettes there. but ssh so we've seen progress, but it's still a major public health problem. one of the places that it is particularly a problem -- i said that 480,000 people in america die from tobacco-related illnesses every year, heart disease, cancer, a whole host of illnesses that are based -- connected to smoking or chewing tobacco. so they aim at children for sure with their targeted campaigns. but they also go overseas and they -- tobacco companies are trying to undermine public health laws, particularly in poor countries around the world. if you are a health care -- if you are a public health official in india, you've got to worry about cholera, you've got to worry about h.b., h.i.v. a.i.d.es, child diarrhea, you've got to worry about all the things that kill people prematurely. when the tobacco companies come in, whether they are american companies or companies fro

blumenthal: thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. mrs. boxer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. boxer: mr. president, i -- i want to thank senator blumenthal for his remarks, and i'm going to utilize the same chart that he had in a moment because i think it really says it all, and it was my -- my colleague mark begich that first used this terminology, that our soldiers, they have paid for this benefit already, and to get distracted by a discussion on how much to hurt children in order to restore these benefits is not worthy, in my opinion, of the men and women in uniform. so i am proud to stand up in support of senator pryor's commonsense bill, and i ask that i be allowed to proceed for 15 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. boxer: senator pryor's bill is a restoration bill. it restores fairness and justice to our military veterans. it repeals cuts to the cost of living adjustments, we all them colas, for military retirees under the age of 62. i see the senator from alaska just came in and i want to r