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The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release

Remarks by the President at the Signing of the Judicial Redress Act Bill

Oval Office

4:39 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT:  Well, I want to congratulate the members of Congress who are standing behind me here today.  The bill I’m about to sign is entitled the Judicial Redress Act bill.  And what it does in the simplest terms is makes sure that everybody’s data is protected in the strongest possible way with our privacy laws -- not only American citizens, but also foreign citizens.

We take our privacy seriously.  And along with our commitment to innovation, that’s one of the reasons that global companies and entrepreneurs want to do business here.  We enforce our privacy laws, unlike a number of other countries.  And in fact, just this month, we finished a landmark new agreement called the Privacy Shield, which provides tough new protections to safeguard consumer data, and it gives certainty to thousands of businesses representing hundreds of billions of dollars in trade.

And we’ve also established the first Privacy Council to strengthen protections of people’s personal information and privacy rights across the federal government.  And we’ve put new laws and policies in place that clarify what we do and what we do not do when it comes to people’s data and our intelligence efforts.

The members of Congress who are here, they have been leaders in these efforts.  It is bipartisan.  I want to thank members both in the House and the Senate who worked so hard on it.  And I think this is one more step in what is this evolving process as we get deep into the information age to make sure that even as we protect America’s security, we’re also mindful of the privacy that we cherish so much.

So with that, I’m going to sign the bill.  Thank you, everybody, for doing a great job on this.

(The bill is signed.)

END   
4:42 P.M. EST