New Truth in Caller ID Act, HR1258 passed house

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CONTACT YOUR SENATORS IMMEDIATELY

You may have read that the House of Representatives this week passed HR 1258, The “Truth in Caller ID Act.”

The bill as passed would essentially ban the use of “spoofing.”

NCISS opposes HR1258 as this bill prohibits spoofing with the “intent to deceive.” Deception is often used as a tool when conducting investigations, especially when making undercover phone calls.

As it passed the House, the bill says:


“CALLER ID INFORMATION.—

‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States, in connection with any real time voice communications service, regardless of the technology or network utilized, to cause any caller ID service to transmit misleading or inaccurate caller ID information, with the intent to defraud or deceive.”

Earlier versions of the bill included language that would only ban the use of spoofing to cause “harm or obtain anything of value.” This “harm” language has been dropped from the bill.

The Senate earlier passed its version of the bill, S-30, which includes the following language:


PROHIBITION ON PROVISION OF INACCURATE CALLER IDENTIFICATION INFORMATION.—

‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States, in connection with any telecommunications service or IP-enabled voice service, to cause any caller identification service to knowingly transmit misleading or inaccurate caller identification information with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value”.

The issue is now before the Senate, which has to decide whether to accept the House language or insist on their own “harm” language. Please contact your two Senators to urge them to support the Senate language in S-30 “to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value.”

Immediate action is needed, as this bill could be considered at any time. The NCISS Legislative Committee suggests calling your Senator’s office Monday morning, April 19th and ask to speak with the Legislative Aide handling the Caller ID legislation.


Please use the following script and talking points as a guide:

“ I urge Senator _________ to oppose HR1258, the House Caller ID legislation and to support the language of S-30, the Senate version. The House bill prohibits altering caller id information to “deceive” the recipient of a call. As a private investigator, there are times I need to use deception to investigate fraud. I support the Senate version of the bill because it would prevent people from using the technology to commit fraud or cause harm. Yet, it would not deny investigators a tool critical to the conduct of our job”.


Talking Points:

*

“I have used a spoof caller ID service when calling hate groups on investigations. In other words examples where the person on the other end of the phone being "deceived" may not be viewed as your ordinary citizen.”
*

"There are times when I need to use deception in order to investigate fraud, criminal activity and hate crimes (Add other types of cases here)
*

“I have used caller ID deception to identify individuals who have committed Identity Theft upon innocent victims.”
*

“This technology allows me in certain cases to conduct a much more effective investigation and affords me a much better level of personal security when calling dangerous individuals.”

You can easily acquire contact information for your Senators at this link: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_i ... rs_cfm.cfm

View entire bill by clicking on H.R. 1258: Truth in Caller ID Act of 2010

Please send me an email at jim@nciss.org and let me know:

a.) Which Senator did you call?

b.) Who did you speak with?

c.) What was their response to your call?


Your phone calls are important and urgently needed.

Jimmie Mesis
NCISS Legislative Chairman

NCISS
7501 Sparrows Point Blvd.
Baltimore, Maryland 21219-1927
(800) 445-8408 . Fax: (410) 388-9746
Email: jim@nciss.org

(Permission granted to repost to other email lists and PI association newsletters)