U.S. House Approves Boren Amendment Protecting Names, Images of Service Members

Floor Speech

The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation Thursday that included an amendment authored U.S. Congressman Dan Boren to protect American soldiers and their families from commercial exploitation. The amendment, included in H.R. 1540, the FY12 National Defense Authorization Act, prohibits the commercial use of soldiers' names and images without permission from the service member, or his or her family if the soldier is deceased.

"We have an obligation to protect fallen soldiers and their families from exploitation," Boren said. "They gave their lives for this country, and their memory deserves to be treated with some common decency."

The amendment directs the Secretary of Defense to prohibit the unauthorized use of names and images of members of the Armed Forces, and designates the Attorney General as responsible for enforcing the provisions. The amendment will not create a crime, but would provide relief to plaintiffs in the form of an injunction. Punitive actions would be available through contempt of court proceedings if the injunction was violated -- which is a process administered by the courts.

"Nobody has the right to put the name or image of another private individual on a T-shirt or bumper sticker and sell it for a profit," Boren said. "Regardless of how people feel about the wars, I think we can all agree that profiting from a soldier's sacrifice is inexcusable," Boren said. "These men and women are just doing their job."

In December 2007, Congress passed H.R. 1585, the FY 08 Defense Authorization Act, which included language that strongly supported U.S. Congressman Dan Boren's efforts to protect American soldiers and their families from war profiteers. That legislation instructed the Congressional Research Service, which is a department of the Library of Congress that works exclusively as a nonpartisan analytical, research, and reference arm for Congress, to thoroughly examine the issue of private profiteering from the names and images of American service men and women.

Boren was joined earlier this year by Congressman Charles Boustany, Jr. (R-Louisiana) in offering the amendment as a stand-alone bill in the 112th Congress known as H.R. 768, or the STOP Act. Boren introduced both the amendment and the legislation in response to complaints from fallen soldiers' families regarding the selling of items such as t-shirts and bumper stickers, which contained the names or pictures of fallen soldiers in combination with politically driven slogans.

"Since I first introduced this bill, many state legislatures have also approved similar legislation addressing the issue. I applaud their efforts on behalf of the soldiers and their families from their respective states. However, I also believe it is important that this protection of soldiers' identities become federal law. By making this a uniform code for the entire nation, we could protect the identity of these brave men and women, and also provide businesses with one rule to follow throughout the nation," said Boren.

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