Mr. TIM MURPHY of 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 woman’s
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.

[Time: 12:30]
My bill passed the full House on December 9, 2006, and while it didn’t
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 413-1. And I would like to thank my colleagues in this session
of Congress for overwhelmingly voting in favor of the Murphy-Scott Phone
Act a year ago tomorrow by a vote of 418-1.

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 well-known 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 official’s office, that is not the worst
case.

In several cases, police and FBI have been subjected to so-called
“swatting” calls when a caller uses another person’s 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 people’s 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 let’s 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.