Date: 2010-12-15
Speaker: TIM MURPHY (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Pennsylvania

I thank my colleague. I rise to speak about S. 30. the Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009. addressing the serious problem of caller ID fraud that allows a caller to hide his true identity. They do this through Web sites that will let you choose any number to show up on the caller ID. The Web sites even offer options to disguise your voice. such as making a man or womans voice appear as the opposite gender. I am glad to see the Senate is finally acting on this issue that I first raised in 2006 when I introduced H.R. 5304. known as the PHONE Act. or the Preventing Harassment Through Outbound Number Enforcement Act. My bill passed the full House on December 9. 2006. and while it didnt make it through the Senate. several Members of the House pressed on. Congressman BOBBY SCOTT and I reintroduced this legislation in the 110th and 111th Congresses. The House passed the bill in March of 2007 by a vote of 4131. And I would like to thank my colleagues in this session of Congress for overwhelmingly voting in favor of the MurphyScott Phone Act a year ago tomorrow by a vote of 4181. Caller ID can have legitimate uses to protect victims or when law enforcement are trying to track down criminals. However. here we are concerned about illegitimate uses. When I first introduced the PHONE Act. several problems were already beginning to emerge. On one level friends were using it to prank others. and just to annoy them. On another level. there were famous or infamous cases where the harassment involved wellknown personalities. * * * But caller ID is also employed for more sinister reasons. My own office experienced this when an organization used a phony caller ID system to make it appear as though my congressional office was calling constituents. Constituents were understandably puzzled and annoyed when bombarded by these calls. Unfortunately. we were not able to track down the perpetrators. In total. at least 42 House Republicans from 14 States were targeted in their home districts by similar harassing phone calls using call spoofing. Although I believe that action alone constitutes a fraud in posing as a Federal elected officials office. that is not the worst case. In several cases. police and FBI have been subjected to socalled "swatting" calls when a caller uses another persons caller ID to phone the authorities. report a fake crime in progress. which draws a police and SWAT team response. Luckily. no one has been harmed in these cases. but you can imagine the potential tragedy when a team of police with guns drawn respond to the scene of what they believe is a dangerous ongoing crime. It is more than just a false alarm to a fire department. It can lead to serious injury for police and the community. and that is why we must pass this bill before someone gets hurt. Here are some other reports. A woman from Pennsylvania discovered her phone number was appearing on other peoples caller ID. and it was being used as a vehicle to harass people. In the wake of the Haitian earthquake. the Virginia State Police warned citizens to be vigilant against scam artists using phony caller ID numbers to obtain donations. Under such circumstances. perpetrators can pose as a legitimate charity to fool others into donating to an illegitimate account. We have heard of cases where a county courthouse number appears as citizens are told they missed jury duty and are asked to give their credit card number to pay a fine. Last December. another case in Pennsylvania occurred when a woman claimed to have shot her baby. It turned out to be a hoax. The police and detectives were forced to spend their Christmas Day wasting valuable resources investigating what was presented as a gruesome crime that was never committed. These are just a few examples. and if we do not enact this legislation into law. I worry we will read about many more cases of call spoofing. including some that will inevitably end in tragedy. Because of these. I am still a supporter of enhanced penalties when caller ID spoofing is used in the commission of a crime. Therefore. we should not stop with this legislation. The Truth in Caller ID Act provides for civil penalties under the Communications Act of 1934. My legislation. the PHONE Act. which has already passed the full House. provides for criminal penalties under the U.S. criminal code. But I want to thank Congressman ENGEL and Congressman BARTON for being leaders on this issue in the House of Representatives in introducing their version. I urge my colleagues to vote for the Truth in Caller ID Act. and lets hope in the future we can pass enhanced criminal penalties such as those in my PHONE Act bill. Together these pieces of legislation would create a comprehensive set of civil and criminal penalties to enable us to effectively combat caller ID spoofing.