WASHINGTON-Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) chairman of the House Commerce Committee, shocked, surprised and pleased lawmakers during two days of hearings on pretexting by announcing that a long-stalled bill to make the sale of telephone records illegal could come up for a vote at any point as the House races to get out of town for upcoming mid-term elections.
“There is a good chance it could pop up and we might get to vote on it today,” said Barton early Friday. At press time there was no further word on whether the bill had been scheduled for a vote. The House schedule was a bit unclear, but lawmakers were expected to work at least some of the weekend to finish their business. They also are expected to return to Washington in November for a lame-duck session.
The news came as the House Commerce oversight & investigations subcommittee held two days of hearings on pretexting, which is the practice of impersonating someone else to obtain their personal information, including telecommunications call records.
Hearings initially focused on the Hewlett-Packard Co. pretexting scandal. That hearing quickly became a forum for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to try to prod the Republican leadership to pass legislation to make pretexting explicitly illegal.
Pretexting hit the attention of policy-makers at all levels of government earlier this year following media reports that telecom customer call records were for sale on the Internet. Immediately, bills were introduced in Congress to address the issue, and both the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission began taking action to tighten customer-privacy rules.
Months later, the bills were stalled in Congress and the regulatory agencies have not completed their work. Indeed, the issue appeared dead until the Hewlett-Packard scandal erupted.
Hewlett-Packard executives collected the phone records of board members and journalists to ascertain who had been speaking with the news media.
Two wireless carriers, Cingular Wireless L.L.C. and Verizon Wireless, announced Friday that after listening to the H-P testimony, they filed lawsuit against the pretexters.
On the regulatory front, the FCC is investigating whether carriers violated any commission rules in giving customer call information to the pretexters in the H-P scandal.
Verizon Wireless was the only carrier to testify that it still gives customer call information over the telephone. Michael Holden, Verizon Wireless litigation counsel, said that many of Verizon Wireless’ 54 million customers have opted not to have detailed billing so when their bill amount changes and they inquire about it, giving out customer call record data may be the only way to alleviate the customer’s concerns.
All of the carriers testifying said they also offer no-detail billing.
None of the carrier witnesses were willing to say their companies supported the Fraudulent Access to Phone Records Act, but the companies have one week to tell Congress the answer to that question.
“We are trying to figure out who has their foot on this bill,” said Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.).
There has been a consistent rumor that the House Intelligence Committee was refusing to let the legislation come up for a vote for fear that strengthening the rules for telecommunications carriers would make it harder for police and government to conduct surveillance. Rep. Janice Schakowsky (D-Ill.), ranking member of the House consumer-protection subcommittee, said the bill was pulled from consideration on the House floor eight days before a USA Today story outlined the National Security Agency’s program to mine phone-record information. Inslee said he has been told the House Intelligence Committee is not stalling the matter.
Friday’s hearing started the same as Thursday’s, with an alleged pretexter invoking his Fifth Amendment protection rights. It was more dramatic Thursday when 10 witnesses, including the just-resigned general counsel of H-P, took the same action.
