Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 116 Part 4.djvu/537

 PUBLIC LAW 107-347—DEC. 17, 2002 116 STAT. 2965 (g) STATUTES REGARDING FALSE STATEMENTS.— Notwithstanding section 512, information collected by an agency for exclusively statistical purposes under a pledge of confidentiality may be provided by the collecting agency to a law enforcement agency for the prosecution of submissions to the collecting agency of false statistical information under statutes that authorize criminal penalties (such as section 221 of title 13, United States Code) or civil peneJties for the provision of false statistical information, unless such disclosure or use would otherwise be prohibited under Federal law. (h) CONSTRUCTION.— Nothing in this title shall be construed as restricting or diminishing any confidentiality protections or penalties for unauthorized disclosure that otherwise apply to data or information collected for statistical purposes or nonstatistical purposes, including, but not limited to, section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (26 U.S.C. 6103). (i) AUTHORITY OF CONGRESS.—Nothing in this title shall be construed to affect the authority of the Congress, including its committees, members, or agents, to obtain data or information for a statistical purpose, including for oversight of an agency's statistical activities. Subtitle A—Confidential Information Protection SEC. 511. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES. 44 USC 3501 (a) FINDINGS. — The Congress finds the following: (1) Individuals, businesses, and other organizations have varying degrees of legal protection when providing information to the agencies for strictly statistical purposes. (2) Pledges of confidentiality by agencies provide assurances to the public that information about individuals or organizations or provided by individuals or organizations for exclusively statistical p\u*poses will be held in confidence and will not be used against such individuals or organizations in any agency action. (3) Protecting the confidentiality interests of individuals or organizations who provide information under a pledge of confidentiality for Federal statistical programs serves both the interests of the public and the needs of society. (4) Declining trust of the public in the protection of information provided under a pledge of confidentiality to the agencies adversely affects both the accuracy and completeness of statistical analyses. (5) Ensuring that information provided under a pledge of confidentiality for statistical purposes receives protection is essential in continuing public cooperation in statistical programs. (b) PURPOSES.— The purposes of this subtitle are the following: (1) To ensure that information supplied by individuals or organizations to an agency for statistical pm-poses under a pledge of confidentiality is used exclusively for statistical purposes. (2) To ensure that individuals or organizations who supply information under a pledge of confidentiality to agencies for statistical purposes will neither have that information disclosed

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