Joseph R. Pitts

Mr. Speaker, last week, more than 80 million Americans lost personal information when health insurer Anthem was hacked. Almost immediately, Anthem customers started to receive suspicious email messages trying to con them.

Anthem, Target, Home Depot, Sony--the list goes on and on of major hacks in the last year. In many of these cases, those who had their information stolen did not receive notice of the compromise promptly-- the best way for them to protect themselves.

Because of ObamaCare, Federal and State governments now host a massive trove of private information. In hearing after hearing last year, we heard about the vulnerabilities of these systems.

In order to protect consumers, the House passed my Health Exchange Security and Transparency Act, which would require the government to inform consumers of a breach within 2 days. This bill passed with an overwhelming veto-proof majority but went nowhere in Harry Reid's Senate.

I have now reintroduced this bill, a commonsense measure to protect consumers if ObamaCare is the next major target for hackers. Maybe this year the Senate will act.

Mr. Speaker, with the rise of ISIS--or ISIL--in Syria and Iraq, we have seen the brutality of Islamic extremism to an extent previously unimaginable.

In just the last week, ISIL beheaded two Japanese citizens and revealed that a Jordanian pilot had been burned alive in a cage. This is why it is more critical than ever that we support our moderate allies in the region and praise their efforts to protect religious minorities.

In Egypt, President el-Sisi recently became the first modern leader in the country's history to visit a Coptic Christian church on Christmas Eve. The cathedral he visited had been attacked just 2 years earlier by Islamic extremists. By contrast, in regions controlled by ISIL, groups that have lived in the same community for more than 1,000 years have been killed or have fled for their lives.

We must never forget that the mission of the extremists is not regional but global dominance, and it is aimed at all who refuse to submit to their harsh interpretation of their religion. We must stand together with leaders like the King of Jordan and the President of Egypt, who speak up and act to defeat Islamic extremism, and give them our strong support.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Speaker Boehner for appointing me to serve as the Republican cochair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. It is a great honor to serve as a voice defending the rights of people worldwide to live free of repression and violence.

I have served as a member of the Commission since its establishment following the passing of our dear colleague Congressman Lantos. A Holocaust survivor, he understood what it was like to live under the thumb of a brutal and oppressive regime.

While we vowed ``never again,'' today, hundreds of millions of people worldwide live under governments that restrict the rights of free speech and religious expression--regimes that persecute minorities, women, and children.

We are blessed to live in a country where individual rights are protected and cherished. Despite our differences, Democrats and Republicans work hand in hand to protect these rights at home and expand them worldwide.

I am particularly honored to share the leadership of the Commission with Congressman McGovern. We have worked together to promote human rights for many years now, and I think there is much we can accomplish together.