today's hearing today's hearing will now come to order i'm pleased to welcome you to this first hearing of the subcommittee on crime terrorism and homeland security in the hundred tenth congress also pleased to have been elected by my colleagues to chair the subcommittee during this congress and i want to say to a ranking member forbes and other members on both sides of the aisle that i look forward to working with each and every one of you in conducting the important work of this go subcommittee today will be considering h r seven forty the prevention harassment through outbound number one for us month phone act of two thousand and seven h r a five forty five the native american methamphetamine and bossman treatment act of two thousand and seven and h r one thirty the animal fighting for vision and boston act of two thousand and seven three bills have strong bipartisan support all three bills will be marked up in this subcommittee today immediately following the hearing we considered an earlier version of the phone act hundred ninth congress and will be hearing from the author of that bill the gentleman from pennsylvania mr murphy in just a moment he is also a co sponsor of this year's bill h r seven forty is aimed at the practice called spoofing spoofing occurs when a call uses the fake call already to hide the caller's adin a t in order to commit fraud or another abusive act however not all use the fake caller id information is considered s a basically a fake number this kind of non malicious fake the use is used by some businesses as well and it is exempted from the bill moving also occurs when a caller knowingly uses the caller id of another person without mission one of our witnesses at the hearing in our present predecessor bill last congress was still kiko the judiciary committee's chief counsel at the time who had been the victim of such caller id spoofing while he had not suffered any theft of any money or tangible property at the time and was not directly harassed by the person who uses color there with his family members who understandably irritated by the numerous calls from people who are calling him back as a result of his caller id being left on their across the system the bill that we considered we were considering last congress did not cover that situation and this bill made even and that bill also made even non abusive since had a chance to consider the o'jays input and have constructed a bill that makes fraudulent commercial use of caller id information a felony makes abusive use of another call persons call information without a commercial motives a misdemeanor and exempts the use of non abusive fake id information forty five the native american methamphetamine a postman treatment act of two thousand and seven correction oversight in the combat methamphetamine epidemic act of two thousand and five which you passed last congress as part of the usa patriot act included in the combat meth act were provisions that authorize funding for three important gra will correct that oversight panel will be considering h r one thirty seven the animal fighting prohibition was an act of two thousand and seven h r one thirty seven addresses the growing problem of staged animal fighting in this country it increases the penalties the current federal law the transporting animals and interstate commerce for the purpose of biting and for the interstate and foreign commerce and gas designed to be used in cockfighting specifically h r one thirty seven makes of the law a felony punishable by up to three years in prison currently these offenses are limited to misdemeanor treatment with the possibility of a fine and up to one year of imprisonment most states have made all stage animal fighting illegal just two states allow cockfighting virginia unfortunately is one of them although it prohibit prohibits wagering on such fights over the virginia senate just recently passed a bill in the current legislative session that would also make cockfighting illegal thirty seven currently has close to three hundred co sponsors i look forward to the testimony of our witnesses on the important bill and to considering legislation the markup following the hearing is now my pleasure to for selecting you as the chairman of the crime subcommittee i look forward to working with you as we've done together on so many issues back at home in virginia and to find some bipartisan support for some of these important crime  measures also want to say today that because we know there are some votes that have to be coming up pretty soon and we've got a huge panel of witnesses i'd like to simply insert in the record my opening remarks but there is one point i'd like to raise  as you know today we will be marking up three bills only following the legislative hearing in the previous congress the crime subcommittee eventually changed its practice to hold markups on a separate day from legislative hearings on the same measure and that makes good sense since the hearing is to review the legislation to take testimony of possible changes or improvements it's my understanding mr chairman that you intend to continue the policy that again same day markups  that in that such scheduling be limited situations where you and i can agree to such a schedule where there is an emergency requiring such schedule and i want to thank you for working with us on this issue and i appreciate it did not appear to need an additional hearing i insisted that we have a hearing to maintain regular order and it is my intent to have them on separate days so that we can get the full value of the hearing and if there had been any objection on pennsylvania's eighteenth congressional district since two thousand and three certainly sits on the energy and commerce committee and also serves as co chair of both the congressional mental health caucus and the twenty first century health care ca new mexico's third congressional district since one nine hundred ninety five he serves on the resources small business and veterans affairs committee is also vice chairman of the house native american caucus who received a b a from prescott forty the phone act the congressman you'd all be discussing five forty five the native american methamphetamine for us and treatment act of two thousand and seven and we will hear from them  first and ask them questions they can remain if they want or leave if they want but would like to have them make their statements this time congressman murphy thank you mr chairman it's good to see you again it was a pleasure working with you when together we dealt with the previous version the phone at fifty three zero four and i'm must say as i read your work i think you've checked into a good deal made a lot better on something we desperately need to have passed here identity theft as you an increasingly critical problem for consumers the f t c said that some ten million individuals are victims of identity theft and the consumer complaints come from two hundred fifty five thousand individuals across the states congress has repeatedly tried to prevent identity theft most recently with the passage of h r p p three zero four in the final days of the hundred ninth congress on fortune with new technology comes new risks and new opportunities for criminals to skirt the law and one of these technologies is call spoofing or caller i otherwise altering one's caller id to receive to deceive is a new tool in the hands of criminals the practice of caller id fraud can be tremendously harmful to consumers we have tried in the past to use do not call list to provide some privacy for citizens some people have found a way to get around that by hijacking your phone number they can bypass that protection i believe congress must annex a lot of penalize caller id fraud perpetrators this bill is particularly necessary to protect american families the elderly and businesses because illegally using another person's phone number could have limitless unlawful application it doesn't take much imagination to realize how this could be a criminal could try to obtain personal financial information from individuals by using a bank's phone number and x palace could harass a former wife or husband is black holes from their line at pedophile could stalk a child by stealing a school phone number the phone number of a friend this child a sexual predator can use a doctor's office phone number a terrorist could make threats to government the list goes on and on but this is not just possibility there's actually several examples one of them this laid out in an a a r p bulletin i'd be glad to pass on if you wish mr chairman for closing the record reported cases in which people receive calls that they made false claims that they missed jury duty to avoid prosecution the individuals are asked for this so security number and other personal information the phone number that appeared in the caller id it was a local courthouse so people assume the call was telling the truth it and security company has stated that criminals have assessed legal internet sites such as this one over here to my site in order to protect their identities while they bought stolen credit card numbers and then use a wire service such as western union and if a caller id in order cash transfer money to themselves swat teams have been called upon to surround empty buildings or other and have inhabited places such as a new brunswick new jersey after police received a call from a woman who said she was being held hostage in an apartment she was not in the apartment the woman had intentionally use a fal caller id number of madge and what might have happened and also note that some of these calls moving sites also offer that they will disguise your voice as well as all to your phone number for these reasons i introduced h r fifty three zero four in the last congress  some penalties up to two hundred fifty thousand dollars and some binds in your current version you have cleared up many of the ambiguities that exist in the first bill and made it clear of what constitutes and criminal activity and what is worthy of a fine or imprisonment or both i was pleased to work with the subcommittee again this year to improve the phonak by including the forfeiture of equipment used by criminals and call spoofing at any cost moving to the list of unlawful activities associate with money laundering today this subcommittee it's proactively considering a good idea that addresses a problem before more serious tragedies occur today we have a chance to help stop crime prevent identity theft and protect lives i put the chairman and ranking member for making this legislation a priority of the subcommittee and like to thank all of you in this committee for working with me on this bill and for a commitment to the personal identity security of all americans and of course i'd be happy to answer any questions later you may have thank chairman scott and rang the ranking member forbes thank you for the opportunity to speak about the methamphetamine epidemic on native american lands and my bill which aims to give tribal tribal tribes resources to combat this ongoing situation the manufacture and use of math is one of the fastest growing drug problems in the nation meth is easy to make with the recipe easily available on the internet and many of its ingredients being common to household products according to the drug enforcement administration there are over twelve thousand contest and lab incidents in forty eight states in two thousand and five in addition to its production throughout the country a substantial amount of math  smuggled into the country the amount of methamphetamine seized at or between the united states and the mexico border ports of entry increased by more than seventy five percent from two thousand and two to two thousand and four  increased regulation of the sale and use of mance precursor chemicals chemicals has recently led to a decline in domestic production drug traffickers have supplanted this decrease with math produced in other countries unfortunately the met situation has been disproportionately worse in native american communities the two thousand and five national survey on drug use and health reported quote past year methamphetamine use rate of one point seven percent for american indians  alaskan natives and two point two percent for native hawaiians compare this to use rates for other ethnicities point seven percent for whites point five percent first panix point two percent for asians point one percent for african americans additionally while conducting the national methamphetamine initiative survey of native american law enforcement agencies the bureau of indian affairs first question was what drug poses the greatest threat to your reservation seventy four percent of all respondents indicated that math pose the greatest threat to their communities placing a very distant second to math was marijuana at eleven percent congress's work to address the growing methamphetamine epidemic last year congress passed the combat methamphetamine epidemic act as part of the reauthorization of the u s a patriot act the math provisions were designed to control and regulate the availability of meth and its precursor ingredients to help with lab cleanup it also authorize funding for three important grant programs the cops meth hot spent spots program drug endangered children program and the pregnant and parenting women offenders program unfortunately the tribal governments were unintentionally left out as possible applicants for the hot spots and drug endangered children's programs additionally while tribes were included as eligible applicants for the pregnant and parenting women offenders grant program clarifying language is needed to ensure there is ample coordination with tribal service providers my legislation the native american methamphetamine and forstmann and treatment act seeks to rectify this by ensuring that consistent with tribal sovereignty tribes kind of apply for the hotspots and drug endangered children grant programs it also guarantees greater coordination with tribal service providers in the pregnant and parenting women offenders grant program before i conclude i want to take a minute to thank representative dale kildee who is the lead co sponsor of this legislation not only for his support for his work on this issue during the last congress this is one of the many critically important issues mr killed the has championed as co chair of the congressional native american ca honored to be want to mr killed these cold vice chair is on the caucus and honored to work with him on this legislation i also want to acknowledge navajo nation vice president ben shelly as vice president one of the largest tribes in the united states i believe he will be able to share with us some valuable insight on this growing issue as well as how it is being dealt with at the local level i'd like to thank him for his willingness to travel out here to testify on the importance of this issue mr chairman tribes have access to these programs to combat the meth epidemic on their lands and in their communities i urge the members of the committee to pass this legislation and thank you once again for holding this hearing  former chairman of the subcommittee from north carolina representative delahunt from massachusetts representative meddler from new york representative johnson from georgia i don't have any questions on you t thank you chairman and mr chairman i just want to compliment congressman murphy and also congressman utah for the hard work they have had on these two bills and also for the work that our staff has done and coordinating them and bring them together did have a question   it's part of the american way and to provide the freedom of speech is a whole nother thing that poses a congressman's office of course we were then inundated with calls complaining why we're calling people's homes with these messages that can certainly be done not only with members of congress but under any circumstance as you heard from the chairman scott about how someone might use this as a fake number when they're making other sales pitches etc so it's just another form of harassing that's out there i've also heard that they can use to thing and he heard anything about that and how they go about doing that this is what i have here is one particular company that advertises you can change your voice you can make it very simple you disk call a number and use a pin number and then you can type in whatever number you want be it a neighbor or friend an enemy the white house whatever that might be while doing this what these sites also do is they block your ability to use star five seven which is tracing the call star sixty nine the last call return anonymous call rejection or detail billing so they can really be very anonymous and think of what this means and of someone calls a police department with a false alarm or a fire department or if it's someone harassing an individual you can simply cannot react quickly without trying to find out what web site what's procedure was done and even law enforcement officials find it difficult there's no immediate response they can have a trace it's down it's my understanding there's not any current federal statute that deals with spoofing is that there is none last year congress pass some legislation calling upon the f c c to investigate this and there was another bill that these didn't really go through the senate and this is the first one really puts penalties on those procedures and that congress when you don't can you tell us what sort of benefits can we expect to see on native american lands from these grants how will they utilize some of these grants ranking member forbes i think when you're when you're talking about hotspot grants and the and the other grants that are mentioned here i would expect native american communities to use these white lie like other communities would  to to go out if there's a meth lab that has been busted and there is a a polluting leftover lab there to utilize that to help the clean p in terms of the children grant this you're dealing with a very very sensitive situation where there's a bus that goes down and there are children that are a part of it to work with for law enforcement to work with the children that are part of that and try to make sure they're well taken care of that they're not impacted in a way that hurts them in any way that kind of effort  just a few moments but it's my understanding has been requesting demands from the native american governments for this kind of a set yes that's fair to say and as probably many of you on this committee know that that frequently it is the case that the trust relationship between the federal government in the tribes that and various pieces of legislation and in the last today tribes are allowed to go directly to federal agencies and get grants rather than having to go through the states and and that's been a trend i think in place for fifteen or twenty years and really what we're doing is just updating that trend you'll hear from the vice president navajo nation ben shelly who i mentioned in my statement he will talk about the difference between going through a state and and the tribe being able to apply directly and how much that makes a difference to them dealers the the the the it's a mix of the day answer your question directly on whether or not they have the resources generally the tribes in my jurisdiction have misdemeanor jurisdiction to do criminal investigation on the other hand felonies are handled under the major crimes act through the u s attorney's office and then cooperation with the b i and other law enforcement authorities and so generally it depends on the characterization of the specific the specific crime and what crime it is and where the locus of that crime is in order to answer those our next witnesses mr barry saban the deputy assistant attorney general in the criminal division united states department of justice and seventeen since january two thousand and six it's been responsible for overseeing the fraud section criminal problems section gang squad and capital case unit fire that he served as the chief of the criminal division counterterrorism section there's been a federal prosecutor since one thousand nine hundred received a bachelor's and master's degrees from the university of pennsylvania society of the united states during his tenure he has utilized a wide variety of strategies including political strategies such as ballot initiatives and referendums to successfully for the nation's organizations go recognition leiber president united game file raiders association the service community for thirty two years as an educator and at the university and high school levels during that time he also was very active in the game f community which led him to his current position in light of the vote i think will just  wait until these we have voted yes recess for a few minutes will probably take about twenty minutes for us to get back so little recess will recess until we can get back you'll be about twenty legislation seeking to prevent caller id spoofing we appreciate the work of congressman murphy last session and his ongoing efforts today in support of this issue united states department of justice supports congressional action such as this to provide law enforcement additional tools and penalty provisions so as to protect our citizens and our country from identity thieves stalkers and other criminals caller id spoofing the modification of caller id information that causes the telephone network to display a number and other information on the recipient's caller id displayed that is not the actual that is not the number of the actual caller recently caller id spoofing services have become widely available greatly increasing the number of people who have access to this tool to deceive others by outlawing the misuse of caller id spoofing this bill with modifications we have respected respectfully recommended can improve the justice department ability to prevent and prosecute crimes ranging from identity theft to harassment to pretexting though the widespread availability of these services is relatively new we are already seeing criminals use caller id spoofing to facilitate crimes and we fear they could use it to hamper investigations for example caller id spoofing can lend credibility to a criminal trying to trick an individual into giving up private information such as a credit card number social security number making it appear that the calls coming from a legitimate charity or bank from a businesses customer or even from the office of a of a political campaign criminals can more easily fool victims into giving up private information another example is a pretext or call the telephone company pretending to be a subscriber and try to obtain subscribers private telephone records if the caller id information matches the subscribers home telephone number the pretext or can more easily gain access to those private records caller id spoofing can also create opportunities for abusers who would who could not otherwise contact their victims to reach into those victims homes and further harass them misleading call identification information could cause a victim to accept the call they would otherwise avoid or circumvent automatic call blocking that would have prevented the harassing call from being connected obviously caller id spoofing can help to hide the identity of a criminal but it can go further actually defeating security measures that would have prevented a crime business and sometimes use caller id information as part of their fraud prevention measures as a way of confirming the identity of the caller if the information fed into the systems is inaccurate the security measures might be defeated and allow transactions or access to private information that would otherwise have not been permitted moreover caller id spoofing services could complicate criminal investigations for example if kidnappers were to use caller id spoofing law enforcement involv fast moving investigations could lose valuable time chasing down the wrong these concerns are not theoretical we know that criminals are using these caller id spoofing services to further their crimes today as noted in my written prepared statement there is the matter in southern california of james turner hopper who pleaded guilty to several federal federal felony offenses involving identity theft and was sentenced to thirty months incarceration hopper admitted that he obtained over one hundred credit card numbers and associate associated identity information and use caller id spoofing more than one hundred fifty times to steal money and another instance a criminal use caller id spoofing involves alteration software to repeatedly call a police officer and threaten to kill the officer or his family because the criminal spoof the caller id became very difficult to determine the source of the calls addressing the problem of course must be done carefully we know that there is no present requirement that providers of caller id spoofing services make any effort to verify that the person requesting to place a call with alter altered caller id has any right to use the number requested the lack of verification allows the misuses i have described moreover some claim that caller id spoofing serves to protect people's privacy get a caller who wishes to remain anonymous already has an option to use caller id blocking preventing his or her number from being known simply put the caller gets to make a choice about whether to reveal his or her number and the called party gets to make a choice about whether to accept an anonymous call transmitting information that misleads or deceives the cold party does not provide any additional privacy benefit overall the justice department believes that this bill is narrowly targeted at harmful uses of caller id it supports congress providing department the further ability to combat the threats caused by caller id spoofing the justice department has a number of recommend nations that believes will make the bill stronger and more effected effective we have provided these suggestions separately and in detail among other things the department of yes clarifying the description of the offense modifying the punishment provision revising the law enforcement provision to be an exception rather than an affirmative defense in other suggested technical recommendations the department of justice appreciates the subcommittee's leadership in making sure that our country's laws meet this new challenge thank you for the opportunity to testify today and for your continuing support i am happy to try to answer any questions you may have thank you thank you that's i forgot to remind everybody to say that i appreciate you keeping your remarks to five critical need to address the method they use and then the country a year ago there was a meth related execution style triple homicide home side up on the navajo nation this happened in the small community of outback new mexico within sight of the community chapter house the first victim was shot fourteen times the second was shot was shot nine times in the third had seven gunshot wound and a close contact wound to her at the trial accused suspect is about to begin two months later and march two thousand and six an eighty one year old navajo grandmother her sixty three year old daughter her thirty nine year old granddaughter were arrested and charged with criminal possession one thousand back then a study shows that twelve percent of the tuba city teens usenet and seventeen percent of town adults are also using according to the chief of special investigation navajo area indian health service tells us that two thousand one hundred sixty seven patients were treated for meth in the year two thousand over an eight month period two thousand two thousand and four that rose to four thousand and seventy seven patients and two thousand and five forty percent of all drug related call for police assistance within the seventh district with the navajo department law enforcement war for meth use and track that b i tell us that forty percent of all  navajo nation are directly related to meth use and traffic in two thousand and six there were thirty two federal indictments involving the distribution of meth and the navajo land novel nation congressman as time and give and give us that can give us without question this federal law isn't the best interest of all native american and alaska native natives to amend almost a criminal crime control and safe streets nine hundred sixty eight in order to allow native people to receive grant to confront the use of meth throughout indian country particularly the need navajo nation there is a critical need for increased funding for preventi education intervention treatment service law enforcement after care and maintenance program for those who use and abuse men and for the family and community that are affected by the production and distribution of me against the met and the damage congressman thank you for to provide me to provide the navajo nation the opportunity to testify and submit its written testimony on h r five forty five the native american unfortunate treatment act of two thousand and seven we look forward to continued discussion to bear some partnership up partnership opportunity that will help indian tribes and us mad indeed the country and we thank you very much humane society of the united states has us has ten million members and constituents in the u s one of every thirty americans were strongly in support of this legislation that every state in the country now has an animal cruelty statute that criminalizes malicious acts of cruelty towards animals dogfighting and confidence and hog dog fighting clearly constitute animal cruelty and in this country at the state level also at the states have prohibitions against dog fighting forty eight states have prohibitions against cockfighting and in one hundred seventy six when the congress passed a law to criminalize interstate transport of animals for fighting purposes not a single state had felony level penalties for these practices now forty eight states have felony level penalties for dog fighting thirty three states have felony level penalties for cockfighting we're expecting to see a number of other states pass felony penalties this year what we're simply asking this committee to do is to upgrade the penalties for this existing federal statute to crack down on the rampant practice of organized and stage animal fighting in this country so there are lots of controversial tough moral questions about how we treat animals in society but staged animal fights where people are putting animals in a pit to fight injury or death just for the amusement and illegal wagering purposes is not a tough call question three basic points mr chairman and other members of the committee first of the animal cruelty this is not a practice with the animals just spar a little bit and live another day there have been documented dog fights for the animals fight for five hours at a time five hours they can last blood loss is a is a cause of death shock is a cause of death many other painful and traumatic  death of these animals hog dog fights where hogs are released in a pen and pit bulls are sick to plan the animal to attack the animal and bring the animal down or cock fights where the birds have knives or ice pick like devices called gas strapped to their seen time and time again week after week all you need to go to suit to google and do a search for cockfighting or dog fighting see the bus that occur across the country and see the connection between animal fighting and other forms of criminal activity these operations are gateways in their comics traffic public corruption illegal gambling and even violence toward people just a couple of weeks ago we were involved in a bust in virginia it's important to note that north carolina has a stronger at the conkling laws in virginia two thirds of the people came over the line and to virginia because of the weaker penalty in order to participate in these organized talks fights there were there was forty thousand dollars in cash public corruption we've seen police corruption in hawaii the south carolina commissioner of agriculture was on the take trying to protect the cockfighting ring in south carolina in tennessee the f b i and other federal law enforcement agents her involve last year in shutting down to the largest cock fighting pits in the country and i want to just quote from the federal court papers just a couple of a couple of eggs or on march fifteenth two thousand and three a cooperating witness reported observing approximately one hundred at the del rio cockfights it this is in one evening on average between two thousand and twenty thousand was gambled by the spectators on each fight so if you assume an average of ten thousand per fight one hundred eighty two fights one point eight one point eight two million dollars wagered in a single night at a cockfight in east tennessee a second excerpt the cooperating witness observed a girl approximately ten years old with a stack of one hundred dollar bills gambling on several different conf girls were observed in the parking lot during license plates in north carolina south carolina alabama georgia kentucky and virginia underscoring the nature of the interstate trade and traffic in these animals for fighting purposes a third quote on april twenty sixth two on and on children narcotics traffic public corruption how many cruelties perpetrated at the stage animal fights for what purpose you know if you want to use animals in society there better be a compelling social purpose for it but just to be titillated by the bloodletting is a terrible circumstance and i will close and sounds like my third major point is the connection between confident and bird flu and other avian diseases the shipment of confid birds is a threat to spread bird flu it's been a vector for dissemination of the of the virus in southeast asia we saw what happened in california with a less severe disease exotic new castle disease there were birds move up from mexico and then it was a network of backyard transporting operations in southern california that helped to spread this it cost the federal government two hundred million dollars to try to contain this disease twelve million birds had to be destroyed that's why the poultry industry supports the legislation that's why five hundred law enforcement agencies support the legislation local and state law enforcement agencies that's another compelling reason to pass this legislation just absolutely is the chairman u s attorneys that told us they're reluctant to pursue cases because it's a misdemeanor this federal statute has already been upheld by several federal courts animal fighting activities are rampant the states do need assistance this is law enforcement the federal level and at the state level and the local level more tools to crack down on extreme animal cruelty and the criminal conduct associated with dog fighting conflict and hog dog fighting thank you very far more serious far more important issues facing our country such as cherished poverty illegal immigration missing children and the like this isolation is adamantly supported by domestic terrorist groups animal rights groups  and those who support extreme animal rights groups the f b i sees the number one domestic threat as the animal rights movement according to john lewis f b i deputy assistant director of counterterrorism and i quote animal rights groups photos the most serious domestic terror threat in our country five the top eleven people from the f b i had the mystic terrorist wanted list have passed animal rights groups these are not people who raise gang found these are not people we represent over twelve thousand attacks by animal rights groups in the last fifteen years as a result of the loss of millions of many billions of dollars to our economy john voll supposition well known activists the animal rights movement has openly condoned the assassination of people who do testing on live animals he says a few examples of assassinations will greatly change the views of those in the animal industry humane societies of the united states and other animal rights groups kill an estimated four to five million dollars cats kittens and little let in those puppies every year under the name of being humane h s u s have senior managers who are reported to be convicted criminals as a result of animal rights activities and these are the groups that support this legislation and advocate its passage when i read genesis one twenty six that man shall have the main over all the animals and animals were put on earth for man's use i must have missed the part about according to the agenda  h s u s h s one thirty seven on the surface seems to be supported by law enforcement agents across the country but individually they see it's a total waste of time energy and taxpayers dollars in my years of working with law enforcement personnel and countless conversations never once was this type legislation ever mentioned as being wanted or needed if illegal gambling drug trafficking terrorist sales and spreading threatening disease exist as professed by the h s you bring the end us tree out in the open license regulate inspect ask tax over see don't enact legislation that would simply may create more severe or greater problems and lack enact legislation to resolve these problems in a letter dated one twenty three zero seven from ron sparks alabama commissioner of agriculture and he states quote there again file breeders continued cooperation is imperative for successful the surveillance and prevention program and their business has a powerful impact on alabama's economy last outbreak in the southwest two thousand two thousand and three of exotic new castle disease again foul breeder was the first to report that outbreak and had it not been the cording to  francine bradley university california davis and the game found bridge or not reported outbreak it may have been five or ten times greater than it actually was it was the game file breeder who brought this the attention of government officials n research shows that the game file industry generates two to six billion dollars a year from for the economy with more and more jobs being sent out of our country how can we rationally and logically justify eliminating an industrious that any other contributes billions of dollars to our economy awash in the watch dot com website shows eight percent of the people opposed h r one thirty seven these are unsolicited responses from your constituents citizens from every part of the country they expect in the man government to meet their needs is h r one thirty seven for the hardworking taxpaying honest american men and women who have and will readily fight for this country for their last in the freedom this country stands for i think not this legislation supported by special interests animal rights groups with some ties to the mess terrorism them and the violation of human rights no matter the intent no matter the basis there is no justification this legislation is built on distorted deliberate baseless and untrue attempts to portray a portion of america's not ours culture as deviant and deserving of legal banishment nothing could be farther from the truth or more dangerous to our society and the paraphrase the game file in the street the united jank games operators association and the millions americans who believe we live in the greatest country on earth respectfully honestly and sincerely request that you not give in to animal rights extremists that you cannot take away another freedom that you vote to support the overwhelming majority of our citizens for the aforementioned reasons and opposed h mr chairman and ms shelley thank you for being here and for your testimony and i wonder if you could tell us if the funding problems that you've experienced in the navajo nation are representative in in your opinion of what we see a native american communities in general across the country director of health division do they can help with some of these technical question that's coming up if it's necessary i'll go to that thank you sir thank you for the saban can you tell us on the spoofing what's the technology that they used to do  acquire that technology they have to buy or they create it do we need to do anything to regulate the technology that they're being able to get access to for the increased prevalence and the increased and rapid  technological developments in our society have allowed it to be something that can be done by an individual in a home with readily purchased materials fois over internet protocols allow  it to be much more prevalent and widespread so i don't profess to understand all the nuances of the technology but the concern that law enforcement officials from the investigatory authorities are saying that it doesn't need to be the grand corporation to be done on the internet it can be done by an individual it could be done by a group and so by that rapid development of technology for purposes that can facilitate other crimes through obtaining of financial information social security data and the like it really is something that we appreciate congress sort of proactive ability to be ahead of what could be much more harmful developments down the road and there's nothing is understand an individual can really do you know a single bird infecting our poultry flocks and then beyond that gets into communities across the country made its cataclysmic with the exotic new castle disease which is an outbreak that is confined to  essentially a dead end host it was two hundred million dollars that the federal government reimburse poultry producers for in that state so beyond that i mean the second the industry is much larger the national chicken council which is the the major poultry producing groups indorse this legislation last congress mr lieber i was a little stretch for me to make the connection between testing animals racism and you know the legislation cost that you were looking at my understanding in talking with the department of agriculture throughout the country and or those involved in the national voter improvement plans that the game found industry again found are by far the healthiest bards in our country and when they personally go to inspect checked for diseases they find them by far the healthy as healthy as birds in our country when they are traveled they are always traveled in close containers inside back of whatever vehicle they are not taken down the road in open air contain enters with fire with feathers feces sullivan other things being spread throughout the vironment like to put the poultry industry does as a whole we feel by in the law was closed to ban any interstate or foreign commerce in feinberg's so i'm not sure what mr lever speaking about in terms of them packing the animals carefully when they transport them i mean i guess he's conceding that the industry widely transport something really directly i mean do you advocate human assassination we we are very outspoken about any illegal conduct done in the name of animal protection or for any other purpose it under cuts the core values to these extremist animal rights groups being the most significant domestic threat actually i am conversant in an issue in a prior life dealing with national security as head  domestic terrorist organization or i was referring to the congressional testimony only mr johnny lewis is on the federal bureau of investigation web page who simply thought that animal domestic terrorist and he quote specifically animal liberation front earth liberation front and others as the number one terrorism threat in our country and i just read that that is an accurate statement that mr lewis said that both al the faslane that i'm happy to chat about that i did there are you know i don't believe anyone has ever been harmed by a self proclaimed animal activist that said i i am the first to statements and you infer are implicate that there is a large conspiracy among people who care about animals as being you know a domestic threat to the to to the nation you start to lose me in terms of in terms of the credibility of your argument i mean i'm capable of making a stink between the game file industry and cock  fighting i you know when you talk about losing jobs i'd like to outsource cockfighting to some other country there seems to be you know two states left is that accurate this seems to be two states left so organization sir to be a terrorist organization in any way shape or form i think some of the things that you advocate are misguided so we'll get into that now we all know that every u s attorney's office and othe prosecutor's office operates under a budget and the u s attorney or the district attorney has got to make a determination on where the budget can be most effectively  by increasing the penalty for injured state shipment of animals for use in fighting for a misdemeanor to a felony the constitution requires an indictment by a grand jury in the case of a felony charge and it also allows the defendant if indigent to get a public defender at taxpayers expense neither of those are required if someone is charged with a misdemeanor given that why do you think there will be more effective enforcement if your bill is passed that increases the penalty to a felony since it takes an awful lot more u s attorney's time and some others it was regrettable for us to to become of to get into a polarized situation with the last congress over this issue will i you know i would like to thank you for spending all that money in my district just their welfare and i got more votes than any other congressman in the country who was elected by districts answer the question well i'll be happy to answer the question and thank you for inviting us  trip we have talked to numerous it's a new number of u s attorneys and they have said they are reluctant to pursue cases with a small penalty these cases do involve some investigative work it involves lots of individuals they have said you know we want the option you know this is not mandating that u s attorneys take cases that have the same discretion as they do with any other felony level penalty or any other crime it's up to them as the u s attorneys in charge of their area to make judgments about how they allocate their resources what i can say is that we that is the case with every law enforcement officer at the state level at the local level and we've seen a trend in this country toward more felony level penalties because more and more law enforcement officials recognize this is a serious crime they recognize the cruelties severe they recognize the public corruption as a major problem they recognize in the cause traffic is a problem all of the other social ills associated with organized animal fighting this is a major underground industry you have an organization here that's operating as an organized criminal association abetting these activities all over the country  animal fighting is illegal in forty eight states and from what mr scott has said it's about be illegal in forty nine states wouldn't the more effective law enforcement the to  have those who are engaged in animal fighting be prosecuted by the state rather them diverting the efforts of either the f b i or the u s department of agriculture and putting together cases  felony raps that says better we work with state law enforcement officials local and state we train the law enforcement officials on investigating animal flooding crimes and what we've seen is the nature of  interstate international you know the state of virginia cannot possibly look at a national network of dogfighting operators and really make an effective case but you can have a u s attorney in cooperation with other u s attorneys crack down on the seven or eight  network of organized emmel fighters who are trafficking in narcotics bring children to these flights one point eight million dollars and having received dissidents isn't trafficking in narcotics a federal felony even if you don't cross the state investigates and shouldn't they be investigating avian flu and mad cow disease rather than this is always the way to get at even flu is to crack down these operations what we've seen is when you do have fellow level receipt there was just a guy quoted in the newspaper in the mexico which is now moving to ban talks putting he was a state legislator in washington state and he moved to new mexico to engage in talks like you're seeing a migration of  best and ok now the is a newspaper called the independent which said in january two thousand and five in an article called cockfighting maybe it's less like major paper in great britain which reads as follows part of the conversation at all ok thank you i'll you have the balance of my time to the gentleman margot thank you i appreciate your courtesy mr nadelmann for the committee allowing me to be here to observe and participate in this hearing this an issue i've been working with in the last five years and i will reinforce what mr pacelli said this is a problem of not having a meaningful penalty which is already illegal in forty eight states dogfighting is illegal in every state but the the u s attorneys are not going to act aggressively or issues that are misdemeanors and since i started this i have been ashamed that congress has caved in to interests of special interest and been unwilling to have meaningful penalties for this we tried it in the last farm bill and frankly it was an unfortunate circumstance as far as i'm concerned  this goes on everywhere i mean i would like to think that my state is a relatively in lightened state and i know that our humane society is filled with dedicated men and women and children volunteers who deeply care about animal welfare nothing to do with terrorism which i find the witness just sort of a bizarre come in to try and connect  m but we found recently in oregon they found a cockfight or forty three live chickens the equipment the metal spurs and gaps a ten thousand dollars in cash cocaine meth  involved and this is the circle that comes up time and time again you'll find it in virtually every one of your states we had a professional athlete involved with dogfighting in our community it's time for us to step up and give the tools necessary to stop this barbaric practice every time the voters get a chance to my knowledge they have  practice and i think congress ought to be a full partner by at least having a meaningful penalty i deeply appreciate mr chairman you're having this hearing this we had over three hundred co sponsors last session and could not somehow get it to the floor i'm hopeful this session where we we have about that number already that with your leadership your concern that we can make an important step not just for animal welfare but dealing with avian flu these vectors dealing with drugs criminal behavior it will be an important tool for law enforcement as well as signaling that we're joining the rest of civilized society thank you very much  the gentleman you're back it question i answer i don't know that i have the the understanding to be able to give a quality answer to that might my thinking would be that there is a list of animal activities that chase us has banking order or a target and everything from what we've discussed here this place or until the point of it being need to look illegal to own a dog or cat and i think those are the things or any family path and i think those are that would be being produced on tribal land and also being brought in and so i would say both as one of the tribe has done to attempt to eliminate the supply we are tried that's why we're asking for fun to deal with that we are doing the best we can do to interrupt the trafficking and also the production of of our people do need within within the nation nation red light before it comes out yet h r one thirty seven the bill before you has as a provision it's section forty nine subsection g one and it defines the term animal fighting venture and it basically says it means any event which involves a fight between at least two animals as conducted for the purposes of sport wagering or entertainment excess of that sort of animal animal fighting venture shall not be deemed to include any activity the primary purpose of which involves the use of one or more animals in hunting and other animal or animals such as waterfall bird rescue and or fox hunting so hunting is specifically exempted even if you are using dogs which are pursuing other  to labor yes herd seems as though it's the issues or points been made that the game fell industry is the drug trafficking of trafficking association of the country and i think that's far from true i think drug trafficking is at all levels of our society from the top to the bottom and everywhere in between and we're just simple segment of society and why we anyone would think there would be no drug activity involved in any game file industry would be simply saying there's no drug activity involved in any to have written that the reading and raising of game file has healed families together created a sense of unity trust and love the life due to the simple presence and all for which is noted no gain cots and you and you represent the industry in your capacity as president of the united game file breeders association can you tell us exactly what a game file is to my understanding sarah the game file it originated from i mean what is it instead of sorry but the principle purpose for a game file is to produce fighting cocks if you will in that correct that may be the majority use in other words most people who are members of your engage in the game of cock fighting and that is correct i could not testify that sir but you know it to be affected there is significant amounts of game fowl fighting cock fighting that takes place throughout the united states of america in that career i think that's a matter of record sorry yes and this bill woods would seek to prohibit sponsoring or exhibiting an animal in an animal fighting venture so in other words it would ban cockfighting on a national level would it not i think cells are and you're opposed it i don't you i'm opposed to the federal government being involved in issues where states should have the authority to make their own decisions and it and in the forty eight states where cockfighting has been declared illegal you are opposed to those state rules as well are you not i don't think they're in the best interests of our country and so cockfighting were banned then there would be a a rapid decline in the number of game breeders operating in this country is that true is that for i would not kno sar would you speculate that it would be i would suspect that if the demand of any product is produce the demand decreases the likelihood of less production would follow do you believe that it's ok for mankind to subject animals to cruelty no sir so in other words the federal government does have an interest in protecting innocent animals from cruelty levied upon them by human beings i would think if the federal government so chose to do that they would i mean is that the morally correct thing that we should be doing up here sir don't know that i can answer for anyone else as more of your morals would cause you to protect those who engage in animal cruelty with respect to cock fighting sorry i came to test found the transportation issues not on the cockfighting issues but in the process you impugning the character of a organization the humane society of the united states and  i find it objectionable it seems like you equate in them with a terrorist group is that what you wanted to tell the american people until this panel is that the humane society country sir never leave we were founded in one thousand nine hundred eighty four by some incredibly compassionate people who wanted to stop malicious cruelty towards animals and we have built an organization that has ten million supporters in the united states and our entire mission is based on mercy and compassion so terrorism is a is a countervailing force as far as we're concerned how many ok thank you couple questions if i could i want to clarify some of the aspects of h r one thirty seven the animal fighting bill that we're discussing in particular subsection c and d of section forty nine which address the used of the postal service or other interstate instrumentalities for promoting animal fighting ventures it's my banning that subsection c prohibits the use of websites and magazines to advertise the sale yes subsection c covers the animal fighting magazine because these publications which i held up earlier are commercial speech and also clearly promote animal fighting they advertise fighting animals weapons for sale in interstate commerce d still acts as a limitation upon subsection c but as before only if the effect of that promotion is limited to conflicts in the two states where talk flooding is still legal so the practical matter subsection d does not limit enforcement of c against the conkling magazines and web website advertisements because these materials promote animal fights in every state they're sent to or read by buyers in many states who buy the fighting animals and implements and use them in animal fights and states were ok they're promoting illegal activities violating violating the federal law thank you and that's what i want to get into my second question here are the first amendment concerns with respect to limiting commercial speech section forty nine does viable and does this bill prohibit all commercial speech or only commercial speech that seeks to cloak an otherwise illegal act into the first amendment is this consistent with supreme court precedent and i think the supreme court's been clear on the issue there's no first amendment protection for commercial speech where the underlying commercial transaction is lawfully prohibited as is the case here and subsection c is clearly constitutional it's narrowly tailored with this with this in mind the first amendment is built in right there and only prohibits commercial speech like the conflict in bags needs with all their advertisements for contraband the the magazines are not political speech they're basically just catalogues of hundreds of advertisements per issue for illegal transactions the sellers are just soliciting the buyers to commit criminal acts and they can't cloak it on their under the first amendment just by throwing a little bit of noncommercial speech in there either in the supreme court has been quite clear on that thank you and  finally it's also my understanding that the clerical amendment made under the bill which repeals the criminal penalty in the animal welfare act leaves intact the rest of the statute which lever on something i think we want to collectively raise our voices about and that is as i have been in the area of such activity i know that there is  a fight to the death in many instances and therefore there is bloodletting there is the loss of an animal and certainly for those of us who believe in the concept of the value of into pieces that cannot protect themselves and we all have different views that that in of itself is a tragedy but my concern would be the potential course of the industry that you work with is there any protections and concerns concerns first and protections that you put in place that would convince me that there is a protection against  public health risk with this cock with cock fighting i think the answer to that would be that working with the department fragile culture and national culture improvement plans to continue to monitor our flocks and to make sure they are but you don't know as to whether when they are engaging in caught sleeping letting of blood you don't have any particular secondary industry protections that would protect from the spread of disease and of course i use avian flu but there may be many very question what is to what is to prevent the possible spread of disease if there are seemingly no real strictures and restrictions and guidelines for such a violent episode where it's not a regulated industry because it's a criminal industry so you don't have us the a considering game file or fighting dogs i mean it's the birds that we're talking about here but the entire animal fighting industry is a criminal enterprise for them for those words even in new mexico and louisiana the operations are not inspected i will say that that you don't know what may be spread or what disease may go with them we don't but that these at these derbies where people come from all over the country to find their birds and they mix the birds some of the birds die and are thrown in the trash other survivors are brought back to their communities so they may be traveling seven eight states away and if you get an infection at one of these derbies they can spread it across the country in a moment and what you do see the birds mixing a great deal and you do see the possibility of of animal to human transmission of avian avian flu we saw it in southeast asia or sometimes the birds go down because they've been struck with the gas in the lung and they're over the birds enough to suck the blood out of the laws there's no better path for transmission of the disease from animal to human than that let me let me just say you've convinced me this is shelly tell me and i'm very pleased that we're moving toward helping let's respect picking this up and i did mention it myself my testimony here that youth is getting involved in this and the young people in percentage wise they are picking it up and there are some things that are reserved to the states when it comes to criminal laws and one of the things that i was amazed about back in the days i was a trial judge in the district channel and fell in these was just people running for u s congress and promising people we're going to get in there we're going to do something about all the ballot crime the rights the bar the worries and and one point laugh to my wife and remark that's ridiculous that's not their job that's not in accordance with the constitution because some things are reserved to the stage and that's everything that's not specifically enumerated and so  despite my personal feelings about cockfighting i have reservations about whether or not this may be an invasion of states rights ability to either legislate or just say it be a whole lot easier and cheaper if we just go lobby washington one time and that way we don't have to go to the states and i really find that it leads to the diminishing of the of the constitution itself that's my concern at the state level and i would hope so to strengthen the efforts there this is an industry because you don't have that many people in any one state or doing this the nature of it is interstate and there's foreign commerce there are fighting there are visa world slasher jervy in the philippines americans go over and bring birds and for the philippines there is a trade in these birds that is world wide even dogfighting there is a pit bull trade from the united states europe to russia for fights where people are wagering thousands and thousands of dollars we are dealing just with the interstate and foreign commerce issue with this legislation if new mexico or louisiana chooses to allow animal fighting this legislation does not stop them it simply stops the movement of funding birds or fighting animals into the state or the movement from movement of those birds or other animals from the state to other jurisdictions so it's just the interstate and foreign car nexus in body and scared come it's mr labor thank you i find it difficult to comprehend that if a state allows an activity that it's illegal to go into that state and participate in that activity whether it be horseracing buying a lottery ticket raising dogs or whatever it may be and yet that's what this legislation does it says you cannot come into our state and do what we specifically allow you to do because you live from another state with an animal missed the so you care to come  again simply if you move the animals with you in interstate commerce and bring them so if you're in texas and want to bring animals from texas into louisiana to fight of the sunset again club you're not allowed to do that under federal law and that's that's been criminalized since two thousand and two we're not creating a new federal crime here except for the interstate transport of the conflict implements the core criminal behaviors already it's already it's already illegal under federal law we're just upgrading the on these issues in the stage but there is another issue that sometimes arises is this just you know the first foot that will be followed by another and another  heard some representation that perhaps the humane society of the united states is against all types of hunting legal or illegal that it all should be illegal what's your personal feeling that well the human side of course of the set of policy positions or our website at humane society dot org we're not just an animal fighting organization we know that the a larger ethic about humane treatment of animals there are a couple of hunting bills that we're interested in and a couple before this committee one is this the internet hunting where people a guy in texas had a fenced ranch and has exotic animals to be shot for a fee and a guaranteed killer arrangement and he said a web site with a motorized  and a camera and you could click on and shoot an animal through the internet and there is a tom davis introduce that bill of collin peterson who was one of the leaders of the sportsman caucus to try to curb that practice we're also very concerned about these game ranches where animals are shot in fence enclosures and there's no sporting chance for the animal and it basically is an open air avatar so we were concerned about the most abusive practices and i think that would be the general take of the humane society on a wide range of issues in terms of how humans deal with animals we want to curb the worst abuses and you'll see our legislative agenda which again is published on our web site almost every issue has eighty percent of the american public behind it and this one of course is right right d in your testimony you suggest that we change the law enforcement provision in the spoofing bill from an affirmative defense to an exception that important it had been enforcement should be properly allowed to pursue investigatory your intelligence investigations to use this technique so rather than putting it as an issue in the case you carve it out as an exception and therefore it's authorized not affirmative defense would you have to prove that it was not for the purposes of law enforcement in the case in chief no but why should i think that was the intent the prior congress and i don't understand why under ten forty subsection c you would say it is a defense to prosecution for defense why not allow law enforcement clearly in appropriately to proceed with its investigations in that fashion rather than injecting it as an issue to become part of the case you also mentioned that you know where we say an actual person that the word actual is probably problematic could you explain what you mean by that yes i think the concern that it may not cover companies or the government entities words that were person includes generally includes corporations but saying actual persons you think that may complicate that that assumption yes situation can you explain why we need a federal prosecution well again we already have a statute that's been on the books since nine hundred seventy six it was amended in two thousand and two to ban any interstate or foreign commerce in flooding animals it's simply an additional tool for a local state and federal government to crack down on what has become a national and international industry animal funding as a gateway activity to other crimes and the federal government has a  real interest in cracking down not only on animal flooding but the range of other criminal conduct that is fostered and abetted at these animal fighting operations mr lieber what rights do as a government have the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt to show what the purpose was sorry i would assume so but that's beyond my understanding you know this get the prosecutor no that's not what you came here for element in order to have jurisdiction the government has to either under the commerce clause or other provisions show an interstate nexus so it's in the government bears the burden of each and every element beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt mr labor in your written testimony you suggested the bill could generate losses totaling billions of dollars how does the bill create that loss i think you it eliminates the game film industry per se and consequently if you  eliminate the industry even a low limit one third the u s dollars in economy what can you not guess again what can you not do what can you do now that you couldn't do the bill passed say that again sir please what can you do now that you would not be able to do if the bill passed i don't think there's anything different but i think the presumed threat of being becoming a felon whether you're in engaged in illegal or or other activities simply reduces the the involvement in writing game file thank you mr chairman i just let me say that we apologize for the oversight  asked about what percentage of teenagers are using it and i did say that we have over three hundred thousand navajos and this small town that i mentioned and not test that's the mony tuba city with a nine thousand and twelve percent of that tuba city teens use about seven about seventeen what twelve percent and could you imagine three hundred fifty thousand population now that's four years yes sir with regard to the question was posed earlier with regard to considering the humane societies and animal terrorist group i feel like that any group that keep kill forty five million dogs cats puppies every year every year could become nothing but for those four or five million animals and puppies they don't have an option they don't have a choice a gas chamber or whatever method  is absolute and that's just my thinking with regard to that kind of use of animals if we are humane in that regard it looks like you use the money to shelter site even take care of in this nation these organizations strive to the greatest degree to provide homes for animals and to encourage adoption to stay in that are animals and if a decision is made to euthanize it's a failure of society not these local organizations who are striving to do their best and they do it with the most humane method they don't put animals in a pit and fly for two hours and get enjoyment from the activity and to call an organization a terrorist organization because animals in society are overpopulated and regrettably euthanized is an extreme and ridiculous definition of terrorism and i presume that when cock fighting was banned in oklahoma there were two point five million budding birds in that state they're all terrorists will from the game fall association as well there killing those animals thank you no further comments and no further questions i'd like to thank the witnesses for their testimony today members may have additional written questions for the witnesses which we will forward to you and ask that you answer promptly as you can to be made part of the record and without objection the hearing record will remain open for one week fo submission of additional materials and without objection the committee now stands adjourned the subcommittee for the purpose of markup will now come to order  working quorum is present pursuant to notice a call of the bill h r five forty five for the purpose of markup and without objection the bill would be considered as read in open for amendment it in point and i recognize myself in opening statement five forty five the native american methamphetamine and forstmann and treatment act of two thousand and seven correction oversight in the combat methamphetamine epidemic act of two thousand and five which we passed in the last congress as part of the usa patriot improvement and we authorization act of two thousand and five included in the combat meth act were provisions that authorize funding of three programs and unfortunately native american accidental emission of native american communities from participating in critical mass grant programs and appreciate the cooperation working to get this piece of legislation passed thank you members may include an opening statement in the record at this point there a if there are no amendments the question is on reporting the bill favorably to a full committee all of the chair recognizes the reporting quorum all in favor will say all the in any point chair recognizes themselves for a brief opening statement describing the bill h r one thirty seven the animals fighting for admission and for selective two thousand and seven addresses and growing problem of staged animal fighting in this country it increases the penalties on the federal law for transporting animals in interstate commerce for the purpose of fighting and for interstate and foreign commerce with design for use in cockfighting specifically h r one thirty seven makes violations of the law felony punishable by up to three years in prison currently these offenses are limited to misdemeanor treatment with the possibility of a fine up to one year of imprisonment those states make all states animal fighting illegal just two states allow any cockfighting virginia as one does for hibbett if their wages or admissions charge in the senate just passed a bill during the current legislative session which would also make cock fighting strike last word gentleman's recognized him in a chairman because of the concerns that i raised about the additional duties being imposed upon us attorneys and the fact that we're not giving them any more money to enforce you did not intend to do that but i will i thank the gentleman and reclaiming my time let me hope that this bill is not brought to the floor of the house until we get a response from the justice department so  call of the bill h r seven forty for the purposes of markup without objection the bill be considered as read and open for amendment and any time the chair recognizes themselves on opening statement h r seven forty preventing arrest meant throughout the number the intent to defraud the section also prohibits using or providing the caller id information of and of another person with out his or her consent with the intent to deceive the recipient under the bill felony penalties of up to five years in prison or reserve or re just violations committed for commercial gain other violations with a before harris amount of threatening purposes with the requisite intent to treat it as a misdemeanor if it defenses with prison up to one year this bill is currently drafted included many suggestions provided by the department of justice just yesterday we received some additional comments from the o j on the bill and we were happy to work on a bipartisan fashion to review and possibly incorporate some of see which ones of those merit going into the bill as we move it to full committee you know onto the floor of the house passed similar legislation at the end of last congress and i support it's favorable adoption today the gentleman's time has expired are there any amendments is ordered reported favorably to the full committee there being no further business before the subcommittee the committee is now adjourn