II 

109TH CONGRESS 

2ND SESSION S. 2178 

To make the stealing and selling of telephone records a criminal offense. 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

JANUARY 18, 2006 

Mr. SCHUMER (for himself, Mr. SPECTER, Mr. NELSON of Florida, Mr. 

BURNS, Mr. CORNYN, and Mr. REID) introduced the following bill; which 

was read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary 

A BILL 

To make the stealing and selling of telephone records a 

criminal offense. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Consumer Telephone 

5 Records Protection Act of 2006’’. 

6 SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 

7 Congress finds that— 

8 (1) telephone records can be of great use to 

9 criminals because the information contained in call 
2 

•S 2178 IS

1 logs listed in such records include a wealth of per2 sonal data; 

3 (2) many call logs reveal the names of tele4 phone users’ doctors, public and private relation5 ships, business associates, and more; 

6 (3) although other personal information such as 

7 social security numbers may appear on public docu8 ments, which can be accessed by data brokers, the 

9 only warehouse of telephone records is located at the 

10 phone companies themselves; 

11 (4) telephone records may be accessed without 

12 authorization of the customer by— 

13 (A) an employee of the telephone company 

14 selling the data; 

15 (B) ‘‘pretexting,’’ whereby a data broker or 

16 other person pretends to be the owner of the 

17 phone and convinces the telephone company’s 

18 employees to release the data to them; or 

19 (C) unauthorized access of accounts via the 

20 Internet; and 

21 (5) because telephone companies encourage cus22 tomers to manage their accounts online, many set up 

23 the online capability in advance. Many customers 

24 never access their Internet accounts, however. If 

25 someone seeking the information activates the ac-
3 

•S 2178 IS

1 count before the customer, he or she can gain unfet2 tered access to the telephone records and call logs of 

3 that customer. 

4 SEC. 3. FRAUD AND RELATED ACTIVITY IN CONNECTION 

5 WITH OBTAINING CONFIDENTIAL PHONE 

6 RECORDS INFORMATION FROM A COVERED 

7 ENTITY. 

8 Chapter 47 of title 18, United States Code, is amend9 ed by inserting after section 1038 the following: 

10 ‘‘SEC. 1039. FRAUD AND RELATED ACTIVITY IN CONNEC11 TION WITH OBTAINING CONFIDENTIAL 

12 PHONE RECORDS INFORMATION FROM A 

13 COVERED ENTITY. 

14 ‘‘(a) CRIMINAL VIOLATION.—Whoever obtains, or at15 tempts to obtain, confidential phone records information 

16 from a covered entity, without authorization from the cus17 tomer to whom such confidential phone records informa18 tion relates, by knowingly and intentionally— 

19 ‘‘(1) making false or fraudulent statements or 

20 representations to an employee of a covered entity; 

21 ‘‘(2) making such statements or representations 

22 to a customer of a covered entity; 

23 ‘‘(3) providing false documentation to a covered 

24 entity knowing that such document is false; or 
4 

•S 2178 IS

1 ‘‘(4) accessing customer accounts of a covered 

2 entity via the Internet; 

3 shall, for each such occurrence, be fined in accordance 

4 with this title, imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or 

5 both. 

6 ‘‘(b) PROHIBITION ON SALE OF CONFIDENTIAL

7 PHONE RECORDS INFORMATION.—Except as otherwise 

8 provided by applicable law, any person, including any em9 ployee of a covered entity or any data broker, who know10 ingly and intentionally sells, or attempts to sell, confiden11 tial phone records information from a covered entity, with12 out authorization from the customer to whom such con13 fidential phone records information relates, shall be fined 

14 in accordance with this title, imprisoned for not more than 

15 5 years, or both. 

16 ‘‘(c) ENHANCED PENALTIES FOR AGGRAVATED

17 CASES.—Whoever violates, or attempts to violate, sub18 section (a) while violating another law of the United 

19 States or as part of a pattern of any illegal activity involv20 ing more than $100,000, or more than 50 customers of 

21 a covered entity, in a 12-month period shall be fined twice 

22 the amount provided in subsection (b)(3) or (c)(3) (as the 

23 case may be) of section 3571 of this title, imprisoned for 

24 not more than 10 years, or both. 
5 

•S 2178 IS

1 ‘‘(d) NONAPPLICABILITY TO LAW ENFORCEMENT

2 AGENCIES.—Subsection (a) shall be construed so as to not 

3 prevent any action by a law enforcement agency, or any 

4 officer, employee, or agent of such agency, to obtain con5 fidential phone records information from a covered entity 

6 in connection with the performance of the official duties 

7 of the agency, in accordance with other applicable laws. 

8 ‘‘(e) DEFINITIONS.—In this section: 

9 ‘‘(1) CONFIDENTIAL PHONE RECORDS INFOR10 MATION.—The term ‘confidential phone records in11 formation’ means— 

12 ‘‘(A) information that— 

13 ‘‘(i) relates to the quantity, technical 

14 configuration, type, destination, location, 

15 and amount of use of a service offered by 

16 a covered entity subscribed to by any cus17 tomer of that covered entity; and 

18 ‘‘(ii) is made available to a covered 

19 entity by a customer solely by virtue of the 

20 relationship between the covered entity and 

21 the customer; and 

22 ‘‘(B) information contained in any bill re23 lated to the product or service offered by a cov24 ered entity and received by any customer of the 

25 covered entity. 
6 

•S 2178 IS

1 ‘‘(2) COVERED ENTITY.—The term ‘covered en2 tity’— 

3 ‘‘(A) has the same meaning given the term 

4 ‘telecommunications carrier’ in section 3 of the 

5 Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 153); 

6 and 

7 ‘‘(B) includes any provider of IP-enabled 

8 voice service. 

9 ‘‘(3) CUSTOMER.—The term ‘customer’ means, 

10 with respect to a covered entity, any person, or au11 thorized representative of a person, to whom the cov12 ered entity provides a product or service. 

13 ‘‘(4) DOCUMENT.—The term ‘document’ means 

14 any information in any form. 

15 ‘‘(5) IP-ENABLED VOICE SERVICE.—The term 

16 ‘IP-enabled voice service’ means the provision of 

17 real-time 2-way voice communications offered to the 

18 public, or such class of users as to be effectively 

19 available to the public, transmitted through cus20 tomer premises equipment using TCP/IP protocol, 

21 or a successor protocol, for a fee (whether part of 

22 a bundle of services or separately) with 2-way inter23 connection capability such that the service can origi-
7 

•S 2178 IS

1 nate traffic to, and terminate traffic from, a public 

2 switched telephone network.’’. 

Æ