While Debra believes government should be as transparent as possible, she also believes people deserve to live free of fear or harassment.

• As a state legislator for 14 years, Debra authored landmark consumer protection laws to protect people from becoming identity theft victims and worked with community-based groups to close the digital divide. Those laws make it more difficult for criminals to commit identity theft by banning businesses, schools, universities and government agencies from using social security numbers as public identifiers, requiring credit card numbers to be removed from receipts kept by merchants, giving people the right to freeze access to their credit reports and giving people the tools to fight back against unsolicited email and fax advertising.

• Debra directs Safe at Home, California’s confidential address program that offers mail forwarding, voter registration, school records suppression and other services to many victims of abuse, stalking and sexual assault, as well as reproductive health care staff, volunteers and patients.   In protecting the identities of more than 2,300 Safe at Home participants, Debra works with district attorneys, health clinics, women’s shelters and other enrolling agencies.  Most recently, she pushed for new laws that prohibit publication of Safe at Home participants’ legal name changes in any public forum, including newspapers and the Internet.