Mr. STEARNS. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in support of S. 30, the Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009, which
addresses an issue that Mr. Barton and Mr. Engel and the Energy and
Commerce Committee have been working on since the 109th Congress. In
fact, back in April of this year, the House passed our version, H.R.
1258. The legislation protects consumers by prohibiting the deceptive
practice of manipulating caller ID information, a practice known as
caller ID spoofing.

Everyone is now familiar with the caller ID product that provides to a
consumer the name and number of who is placing an incoming call. Madam
Speaker, unfortunately, caller ID spoofing is yet another tool available
to criminals to hijack the identity of consumers.

As with other scams, the Internet is making caller ID spoofing even
easier today. There are Web sites that offer subscribers, for a nominal
fee, a simple Web interface to caller ID spoofing systems that lets them
appear to be calling from any number they so choose. Some of these Web
services have boasted that they do not maintain logs and fail to provide
any contact information. Some even offer voice scrambling services to
further the deception of the consumer.

The FCC has investigated this spoofing problem, but currently there
is no prohibition against manipulating caller ID information with the
intent to harm others. Today’s bill remedies this problem.

This bill specifically prohibits knowingly sending misleading or
inaccurate caller ID information with the intent to defraud, cause harm,
or wrongfully obtain anything of value. Deception with intent is our
target. We drafted and amended the language carefully to ensure that we
only prohibit those practices intending to do harm.

There are sometimes legitimate reasons why someone may need to
manipulate caller ID. For example, domestic violence shelters often
alter their caller ID information to simply protect the safety of
victims of violence. Furthermore, a wide array of legitimate uses of
caller ID management technologies exists today, and this bill protects
those legitimate business practices.

For example, caller ID management services provide a local presence
for teleservices and collection companies. These calling services
companies are regulated by the Federal Trade Commission and Federal
Communications Commission, which require commercial callers to project a
caller ID that can be called back. This bill is not intended to target
lawful practices protecting people from harm or serving a legitimate
business interest.

My colleagues, this is a good piece of bipartisan consumer protection
legislation. And while I normally hesitate to take the Senate’s work
product without some kind of amendment on our side, I want to thank my
friends on both sides of the Capitol, on both sides of the aisle here in
the House of Representatives, including the many chairmen over the
years, including Mr. Barton, Mr. Dingell, Mr. Waxman, Mr. Markey, and
Mr. Boucher, as well as Mr. Upton,
who was also chairman of this subcommittee. I also want to thank this
Congress’ lead sponsor and hardworking member of the Energy and Commerce
Committee, my good friend, ELIOT ENGEL from New York.

I support this legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.