That would be useful information so we could judge whether the sensitivity programs that the law-enforcement officials go through are effective or not.

This is the only way to measure whether the policies and programs that we have in place now are effective or not. That's basically what data collection does. It measures how frequently, if at all, racial profiling happens, and what form it takes. Does it mean that more people of color are getting stopped? Or more frequently stopped? Or once they're stopped, they're getting searched more frequently than a white person would get searched?

There's a lot of confusion about what data collection means and why we're asking for it.

We provide the information first to law enforcement and then do reviews to see if they follow up. Otherwise, we send a cease-and-desist order to the method-of-payment services [such as a credit-card company] and try to engage banks and regulators.

He did not break the law, and there is no evidence that he has in any way misused the information collected. This is not Watergate.

In New Jersey, there are not only statutes making it a crime for law enforcement to leak wire tapped information, but there is also a statute that entitles a person who is damaged by such leaks to recover punitive damages.