Maybe Now They Will Do Something

Commentary By Ron Beasley

Caller ID Spoofing:

On June 27, 2007, the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation approved and submitted to the Senate calendar S.704, a bill that would make it a crime to spoof caller ID. Dubbed the "Truth in Caller ID Act of 2007", the bill would outlaw causing "any caller identification service to transmit misleading or inaccurate caller identification information" via "any telecommunications service or IP-enabled voice service". Law enforcement is exempted from the rule. A similar bill, HR251, was introduced and passed in the House of Representatives. It had been referred to the same Senate committee that approved S.704.  The bill never became law due to the full Senate never voting on it; it was added to the Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders, but no vote was taken, and at the end of the 110th Congress, the bill expired (all pending legislation not voted into law at the end of the House term, a.k.a. end of a session of Congress, is dead). The bill was reintroduced in the Senate on January 7, 2009, by Senator Bill Nelson (FL) and 3 co-sponsors as S.30, the Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009, and referred to the same committee.

Well maybe now Harry Reid will do something:

Anonymous Group Making Robocalls With Fake Harry Reid Caller ID

Congressional staffers have been plagued over the past two days with telephone calls that appear to be coming from Senate Majority Harry Reid's office but are actually from an anonymous organization highly critical of Democrats.

Several aides on the Hill reported receiving calls on Monday and Tuesday that their Caller ID erroneously said were being made from Reid's headquarters. Upon picking up the phone, they were greeted by an automated message of approximately 45 seconds in length.

Neither source recorded the call. But Adrianna Surfas, a press secretary for Rep. Rosa DeLauro, (D-Conn) relayed that the caller said there was "too much spending going on in D.C. but that Republicans weren't to blame."

Jeff Ventura, the director of communications at the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer said that several colleagues had received the automated call. "We don't know who is doing it, but clearly it is some advocacy group, which we believe is against health care reform," he said.

According to Ventura, the group making the calls is engaging in an activity called "caller ID spoofing." Using a certain technology, callers can make an incorrect caller identification appear on the recipient's phone. Both chambers of Congress attempted to outlaw the practice in 2007. But those pieces of legislation have yet to become law.