II 

Calendar No. 368 

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, Mr. REID, Ms. SNOWE, Mr. DORGAN, Ms. CANTWELL, Mr. BAYH, Mr. KERRY, Mr. DEWINE, Mrs. BOXER, Mrs. FEINSTEIN, Mr. LEVIN, Mr. LAUTENBERG, Mr. FEINGOLD, Mr. KYL, Mr. 

BINGAMAN, Mr. KOHL, Mr. STEVENS, Mr. DURBIN, Mr. COLEMAN, Mr. 

SANTORUM, and Mr. COBURN) introduced the following bill; which was 

read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary 

MARCH 2, 2006 

Reported by Mr. SPECTER, without amendment 

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’’. 
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S 2178 RS 

1 SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 

2 Congress finds that— 

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

4 criminals because the information contained in call 

5 logs listed in such records include a wealth of per6 sonal data; 

7 (2) many call logs reveal the names of tele8 phone users’ doctors, public and private relation9 ships, business associates, and more; 

10 (3) although other personal information such as 

11 social security numbers may appear on public docu12 ments, which can be accessed by data brokers, the 

13 only warehouse of telephone records is located at the 

14 phone companies themselves; 

15 (4) telephone records may be accessed without 

16 authorization of the customer by— 

17 (A) an employee of the telephone company 

18 selling the data; 

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

20 other person pretends to be the owner of the 

21 phone and convinces the telephone company’s 

22 employees to release the data to them; or 

23 (C) unauthorized access of accounts via the 

24 Internet; and 

25 (5) because telephone companies encourage cus26 tomers to manage their accounts online, many set up 
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S 2178 RS 

1 the online capability in advance. Many customers 

2 never access their Internet accounts, however. If 

3 someone seeking the information activates the ac4 count before the customer, he or she can gain unfet5 tered access to the telephone records and call logs of 

6 that customer. 

7 SEC. 3. FRAUD AND RELATED ACTIVITY IN CONNECTION 

8 WITH OBTAINING CONFIDENTIAL PHONE 

9 RECORDS INFORMATION FROM A COVERED 

10 ENTITY. 

11 Chapter 47 of title 18, United States Code, is amend12 ed by inserting after section 1038 the following: 

13 ‘‘SEC. 1039. FRAUD AND RELATED ACTIVITY IN CONNEC14 TION WITH OBTAINING CONFIDENTIAL 

15 PHONE RECORDS INFORMATION FROM A 

16 COVERED ENTITY. 

17 ‘‘(a) CRIMINAL VIOLATION.—Whoever obtains, or at18 tempts to obtain, confidential phone records information 

19 from a covered entity, without authorization from the cus20 tomer to whom such confidential phone records informa21 tion relates, by knowingly and intentionally— 

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

23 representations to an employee of a covered entity; 

24 ‘‘(2) making such statements or representations 

25 to a customer of a covered entity; 
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S 2178 RS 

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

2 entity knowing that such document is false; or 

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

4 entity via the Internet; 

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

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

7 both. 

8 ‘‘(b) PROHIBITION ON SALE OF CONFIDENTIAL

9 PHONE RECORDS INFORMATION.—Except as otherwise 

10 provided by applicable law, any person, including any em11 ployee of a covered entity or any data broker, who know12 ingly and intentionally sells, or attempts to sell, confiden13 tial phone records information from a covered entity, with14 out authorization from the customer to whom such con15 fidential phone records information relates, shall be fined 

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

17 5 years, or both. 

18 ‘‘(c) ENHANCED PENALTIES FOR AGGRAVATED

19 CASES.—Whoever violates, or attempts to violate, sub20 section (a) while violating another law of the United 

21 States or as part of a pattern of any illegal activity involv22 ing more than $100,000, or more than 50 customers of 

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

24 the amount provided in subsection (b)(3) or (c)(3) (as the 
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1 case may be) of section 3571 of this title, imprisoned for 

2 not more than 10 years, or both. 

3 ‘‘(d) NONAPPLICABILITY TO LAW ENFORCEMENT

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

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

6 officer, employee, or agent of such agency, to obtain con7 fidential phone records information from a covered entity 

8 in connection with the performance of the official duties 

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

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

11 ‘‘(1) CONFIDENTIAL PHONE RECORDS INFOR12 MATION.—The term ‘confidential phone records in13 formation’ means— 

14 ‘‘(A) information that— 

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

16 configuration, type, destination, location, 

17 and amount of use of a service offered by 

18 a covered entity subscribed to by any cus19 tomer of that covered entity; and 

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

21 entity by a customer solely by virtue of the 

22 relationship between the covered entity and 

23 the customer; and 

24 ‘‘(B) information contained in any bill re25 lated to the product or service offered by a cov-
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S 2178 RS 

1 ered entity and received by any customer of the 

2 covered entity. 

3 ‘‘(2) COVERED ENTITY.—The term ‘covered en4 tity’— 

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

6 ‘telecommunications carrier’ in section 3 of the 

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

8 and 

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

10 voice service. 

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

12 with respect to a covered entity, any person, or au13 thorized representative of a person, to whom the cov14 ered entity provides a product or service. 

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

16 any information in any form. 

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

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

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

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

21 available to the public, transmitted through cus22 tomer premises equipment using TCP/IP protocol, 

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

24 a bundle of services or separately) with 2-way inter25 connection capability such that the service can origi-
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1 nate traffic to, and terminate traffic from, a public 

2 switched telephone network.’’. 
Calendar No. 368 

109TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION S. 2178 

A BILL 

To make the stealing and selling of telephone 

records a criminal offense. 

MARCH 2, 2006 

Reported without amendment