Still in Washington for votes on Saturday morning, Senator Coons appeared on MSNBC’s Up with Chris Hayes to discuss the controversial detainee provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act approved by the Senate earlier in the week.
Earlier in the week, Senator Coons entered an in-depth statement into the Congressional Record detailing his objections to the detainee provisions. Click here to read it.
Monday, December 19 at 9:00 a.m. – The Senator will meet with Delaware’s Principal of the Year, Jim Comegys of Middletown High School. Each year, the National Association of Secondary School Principals recognizes one principal from each of the 50 states (as well as the District of Columbia and the Department of Defense Education) for the positive impact they are making in their school and community. Middletown High School, 120 Silver Lake Road, Middletown, DE 19709 – Open to press.
Monday, December 19 at 11:30 a.m. – The Senator will tour the Middletown Police Department and brief Chief Henry Tobin and senior police staff members on the recent formation of the bipartisan Law Enforcement Caucus. Middletown, DE – Closed to press.
Tuesday, December 20 at 9:00 a.m. – The Senator will meet with the Delaware Manufacturing Extension Partnership (DEMEP). DEMEP was established in 1994 with a mandate to provide and transfer Lean Best Practices and Quality Systems Training to Delaware’s manufacturing community. Since then, DEMEP programs and practices have increased the quality levels and profitability of the many companies it has served in Delaware. Dover, DE – Closed to press.
Tuesday, December 20 at 1:00 p.m. – The Senator will join Governor Markell, DNREC Secretary O’Mara, Maryland Department of the Environment Secretary Summers, and EPA Regional Administrator Garvin for a ribbon-cutting ceremony for clean water investments at the Delmar Wastewater Treatment Facility. The ceremony will highlight the partnership among the Town of Delmar, states of Delaware and Maryland, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in a critical project that protects public health and provides long-term water quality benefits for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. 30055 Connelly Mill Road, Delmar, MD 21875 – Open to press.
Tuesday, December 20 at 2:30 p.m. – The Senator will tour Delmarva Teen Challenge, an affiliate ministry of Teen Challenge International. Delmarva Teen Challenge is a 12-month residential treatment program for men from 18-65 years of age who have decided to make positive changes in their lives. 611 3rd and North Street, Seaford, DE 19973 – Open to press.
Wednesday, December 21 at 8:00 a.m. – The Senator will visit the coIN Loft to meet with the growing community of start-up and seasoned entrepreneurs who have co-working space in the LOMA area of Wilmington. Senator Coons and the coIN Loft members will talk about ways to encourage startups and grow entrepreneurship. They will also explore how places like the coIN Loft create synergies among businesses and young entrepreneurs in Delaware. Wilmington, DE – Closed to press.
Thursday, December 22 at 12:30 p.m. – The Senator will tour Mom’s House in Wilmington, one of seven non-profit centers nationwide that provides supportive services to single parents facing an unplanned pregnancy. Mom’s house provides pre-school children with care and early education, and offers their single parents a network of supportive services that enable them to complete their education, find jobs and get off of welfare. Wilmington, DE – Closed to press.
Thursday, December 22 at 2:00 p.m. – The Senator will join Santa at the Arbors at New Castle to hand out gifts to needy seniors. It is part of a program called Be a Santa to a Senior, a campaign that has delivered 1.5 million gifts to needy seniors throughout North America during the past seven years. Locally, the program is being run through the company, Home Instead Senior Care. 32 Buena Vista Drive, New Castle, DE 19720 – Open to press.
Note: Schedule is subject to change.
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After months of deliberation, the Senate passed the final version of a piece of legislation that would give the Chief of the National Guard Bureau a seat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Senator Coons has been an outspoken advocate for this measure that is important to many Delawareans who admire the value our state’s National Guard adds to U.S. national security.
Most recently, Chris penned an op-ed in The Delaware State News.
Though the courage of members of the National Guard is no less respected than the other branches, and the sacrifice of their families is every bit as great, passing the legislation was not about rewarding extraordinary service. Rather, it was about recognizing what we need to do for our future in order to keep our country safe. It was about bringing to bear every resource we have for the defense of this nation.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff are the top military advisers to the president and to the Secretary of Defense. They are responsible for making sure our military is prepared for every threat to our national security, but as those threats tilt toward the asymmetric, so must our military planning.
Click here to read the entire op-ed.
Senator Coons introduced Delawarean Michael Scuse at a hearing for his nomination to be the Undersecretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and his nomination to serve on the Board of Directors of the Commodity Credit Corporation at the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry earlier today.
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U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) speaks on the Senate floor to urge his colleagues to vote in favor on maintaining tax cuts for America’s middle class.
U.S. Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) spoke on the Senate floor on Wednesday to debate amending the Constitution to require the federal government to balance its budget.
Once the backbone of our economy and pathway to the middle class, America’s manufacturing industry has particularly struggled in the current economic climate. With factories closing around the nation and thousands of workers laid off, Senator Coons and a coalition of leaders have voiced their support for efforts to rehabilitate the manufacturing industry and get Americans back to work.
That’s why Chris was pleased Monday about President Obama’s announcement that he was creating a new Office of Manufacturing Policy that would be part of the National Economic Council at the White House. The office, which will be co-chaired by Secretary John Bryson and National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling, will work across federal agencies to coordinate the execution of manufacturing programs and the development of manufacturing policy.
“At this make-or-break time for the middle class and our economy, we need a strong manufacturing sector that will put Americans back to work making products stamped with three proud words: Made in America,” President Obama said. “I am grateful that Secretary Bryson and Gene Sperling will head up this office to continue our efforts to revitalize this great American industry and fight for American workers and jobs.”
Since being sworn-in to the Senate, Chris has fought to strengthen our manufacturing industry and create jobs for American and Delawarean manufacturing workers. Specifically, Chris devoted his Senate maiden speech to manufacturing and the first bill he introduced contained measures that would jumpstart domestic manufacturing and create conditions to help businesses grow and create high-quality, high-paying middle-class jobs.
Click here to learn more about Chris’ fist bill, the “Job Creation Through Innovation Act.”
Click here to watch Senator Coons deliver his maiden speech.
Click here to learn more about Chris’ work to create jobs for Delawareans.
Monday, December 12 at 9:30 a.m. – The Senator will visit the Wilmington Senior Center. During the visit, Delawareans will have an opportunity to not only chat with the Senator, but also learn more about the constituent services his office provides. 1901 North Market Street, Wilmington, DE
Monday, December 12 at 2:00 p.m. – The Senator will preside over the Senate. Washington, DC – Open to press who wish to sit in the Senate Gallery.
Wednesday, December 14 at 9:00 a.m. – The Senator will attend a Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee meeting. S-207 United States Capitol Building, Washington, DC
Wednesday, December 14 at 10:00 a.m. – The Senator will attend a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The Director of the FBI, Honorable Robert S. Mueller III, will serve as a witness. 226 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC – Open to press.
Thursday, December 15 at 10:00 a.m. – The Senator will attend a Senate Judiciary Committee business meeting. The Committee will markup a bill introduced by Senator Coons, entitled the Temporary Bankruptcy Judgeships Extension Act of 2011, which would extend 30 temporary bankruptcy judgeships in 14 states and Puerto Rico, including five in Delaware, to ensure that those key positions do not become vacant. More than one-third of the nation’s largest bankruptcies are handled in Delaware’s bankruptcy courts, which play an important role in Delaware’s economy. 226 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC—Open to press
Thursday, December 15 at 2:15 p.m. – The Senator will chair a Senate Foreign Relations African Affairs Subcommittee hearing on the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Honorable Johnnie Carson, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs at the Department of State will testify on the first panel. Witnesses on the second panel include: Mr. Mark Schneider, Senior Vice President at the International Crisis Group; Mr. Mvemba Dizolele, Fellow at the Hoover Institution; and Mr. Anthony W. Gambino, Fellow at the Eastern Congo Initiative. 415 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC – Open to press.
Friday, December 16 at 1:00 p.m. – The Senator will speak at the ribbon cutting ceremony for the new fitness center at the Dover Air Force Base. Dover Air Force Base, Dover, DE – Open to press.
Senator Coons commended the Senate Judiciary Committee’s passage of two critical bills to combat dangerous intellectual property theft on Thursday. The first bill that passed the Committee was the Counterfeit Drug Penalty Enhancement Act of 2011, which would penalize those knowingly trafficking in counterfeit pharmaceuticals. The second bill was the Economic Espionage Penalty Enhancement Act, which would increase the maximum penalties for theft of a trade secret to benefit a foreign company or government.
A firm believer in the importance of protecting American innovation and ideas, Chris, who is a cosponsor of both bills, has repeatedly highlighted the importance of intellectual property and strengthening our government’s efforts to enforce intellectual property rights.
“Individuals who steal ideas from American companies are stealing more than just intellectual property — they are stealing jobs, and when pharmaceuticals are involved, they are putting lives at risk,” Chris said in a statement to the press. “This country cannot afford to let the rampant intellectual property theft underway now to continue to go unchecked. Trade secrets — whether in the form of ideas, schematics, or formulas — are critical to American companies and especially to American manufacturers. As a nation we haven’t done enough to protect the ideas on which our economy depends, but these measures will help change that.”
Copyright infringement and the sale of counterfeit goods cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs, in addition the billions of dollars in lost tax revenue for federal, state and local governments and threatens the safety and wellbeing of consumers. Fortunately, the two measures passed by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday will help combat the theft of intellectual property by increasing the sentences of criminals who are found guilty of trafficking in counterfeit pharmaceuticals or committing economic espionage.
Chris is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a former counsel for one of Delaware’s leading science-based manufacturers.
Click here to learn more about Chris’ work on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Last week we learned that a California-based IT company called Carrier IQ had developed tracking software found secretly embedded on more than 140 smartphones. Concerned about Americans’ privacy, Chris wrote to the president of Carrier IQ demanding answers. The News Journal published an editorial today supporting Chris’ push to protect users’ privacy.
Early this fall, a television series premiered with the premise that our government is recording every phone call, reading every email and watching every move through a massive network of cameras trained on streets, parking garages and shopping malls.
In the series, “Person of Interest,” the government seeks only terrorists and throws away the information on the innocent. While it’s enough to keep conspiracy theorists up at night, the TV series is a delightful fiction.
Just a few years ago, a company called Carrier IQ secretly installed a monitoring code on 150 million mobile phones. This hidden code logged what websites the users visited, kept track of phone calls and text messages, including where and to whom they were sent. Carrier IQ downloaded the information every day and distributed it to various clients. It has, the company admits, a “treasure trove” of information on the phone users. A spokesman added, under a reporter’s questioning, that his company probably could read the text messages and emails as well.
This is real. It is not fiction. And it is anything but delightful.
And if conspiracy theorists aren’t sitting up and howling, then something is terribly wrong in the country.
Luckily several U.S. Senators, including Chris Coons of Delaware, have started asking some very tough questions. Among them: Who has access to the data? Is this really wiretapping?
Sen. Coons, in a letter to the company’s president, said, “A latent capacity to log keystrokes or track location may provide a backdoor that an individual or organization could exploit.”
Some experts believe the coding could open up the phones to hacking or sabotage.
Carrier IQ installed the code with the acquiescence of the phone manufacturers. It was designed to monitor possible software malfunctions and other usage data that would help the phone companies anticipate and fix problems.
But the phone users had no idea they were being tracked and logged. In addition, the data collected by Carrier IQ goes far beyond the kind of information the phone companies have a right, or reason, to know.
Again, Sen. Coons: “If your company never intended to collect or make use of this information, I wonder why your company would have included the capacity to log it.”
This is developing into a major scandal and, from what is known now, Americans should be outraged. We have been losing our privacy to the data miners bit by bit.
This advanced technology is here to stay. It serves the interests of commerce and individual interests.
We must, however, make sure that the laws be obeyed.
Read the editorial in the News Journal.
Click here to learn more about Chris’ work on the Senate Judiciary Committee.