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After Bomb Threats, FCC Proposes Letting Police Unveil Anonymous Callers (cnbc.com)
Police should be allowed to unmask anonymous callers who have made serious threats over the phone, the Federal Communications Commission has proposed. From a report: The proposal would allow law enforcement, and potentially the person who's been called, to learn the phone number of an anonymous caller if they receive a "serious and imminent" threat that poses "substantial risk to property, life, safety, or health." Specifics are still up in the air. The FCC is asking (PDF), for instance, whether unveiled caller ID information should only be provided to law enforcement officials investigating a threat, to ensure that this exemption isn't abused.
That privacy laws don't already provide for this scenario.
WTF?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
GET A WARRANT YOU LAZY BONES
showing probable cause for a warrant is your job
you fucking lazy cowards think the surveillance state solves every thing
At least on landlines isn't that what *57 is for?
If people aren't truly anonymous then some won't submit their tips.
there's too much anonymity nowadays, and that leads to bad things
I think we should just turn off the ability to block or spoof CallerID (except for the verified commercial numbers who are granted exceptions after proving their identity). Problem solved.
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
Buy a phone at Goodwill or a swap meet for cash. Keep it charged. Call the police from a random location only once. Destroy the phone.
I don't trust the police to keep my identity private regardless. I could call on my crazy neighbor and have them say, "The person that lives next to you called us so you would keep it down." I prefer my car without scratches, my tires with air, and my pets not poisoned.
If you're a bomber, terrorist, or hoaxter and you're fucking dumb enough to call in "anonymously" from a phone line that can be traced to your personal information, you kinda deserve what you get.
And I think everyone knows this already.
As with most privacy/rights degradation rules and laws, they aren't done for their stated purposes. They will twist this for uses in other situations in order to repress freedom of speech.
So we complain about unwanted unblockable robo calls for a decade and are ignored, but when it bothers the government then we have to fix it? Fuck you fcc. Fuck you.
My problem is all the shits calling about crap scams ranging from claims of being the IRS, FBI, or Microsoft, or some stupid offer for Direct TV, Mary Kay or a damn Condo.
If the FCC wants to do some good, they'll propose bombing the call centers where these things originate. That would be a proper use of resources. According to the calculations of Mr Pump, they commit 3.62 9-11s every week.
Fuck, Donald Trump could win re-election by a landslide if he shot a call center operator in Times Square. I'd buy him the Nathan's Hot Dog myself. It's no Dodger Dog, but eh, he can have bad taste if he wants.
When a person is "unmasked" so law enforcement (i.e. the National Security Advisor) can get a better understanding of who is colluding with a foreign government to undermine the U.S. election or government, that's horrible. But when law enforcement (i.e. police) wants to know who is calling in a bomb threat, that's acceptable?
The hypocrisy runs deep.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The telephone system existed just fine for a century BEFORE the advent of Caller ID. There are already ways for the phone companies to provide the caller's information to law enforcement if they can demonstrate that a crime occurred or is going to occur. That, and I'm fairly certain that blocking Caller ID doesn't have any effect on emergency calls, the E911 systems get your info and location regardless of whether or not the consumer CID is blocked.
This sounds more like businesses and politicians are probably butthurt that people can call them up and anonymously tell them what fuckwits they are. Bomb threats didn't just start happening in the 1990s, and there have always been ways to trace those types of calls. Fuck this shit.
Can't they just assume it is from Sharron, my Google specialist....
Surely the phone company can figure out who it is already if they really want to, after all SOMEONE is being billed and I am sure they keep good track of that!
Certainly a bomb threat would support a warrant to get that info.
So what ELSE is in the proposal that they really want?!?
...stopping tips of Anonymous. The end result more people will died and more crime will go unsolved. Let the depopulation begin!
The FCC, of all people, should show leadership in implementing the obvious. It's a shame they haven't. My PowerPoints somehow ended up on the internet with my cell number still on the last slide. My phone gets flooded with SIP-spoofing robocallers.
There are times you need high security, trust and credential-based accountability. Different times, you need cheap, easy, free-wheeling communication that allows high anonymity and will accept a lot of junk communication as a consequence. I think we currently have this, and just pretend it's well regulated, when it's obviously not.
1. We need one very secure phone system in which spoofing is extremely difficult and well regulated. It's misuse involves tough criminal penalties and a well-funded unit, with global reach, for investigation of its mis-use. It's okay if its expensive. For many it will be worth it.
2. We need one phone system that is very lightly regulated and allows spoofing, anonymity, etc. It must allow for rapid innovation, have stable, well-understood interconnect standards, allow lots of small competitors, be cheap and globally available.
A reasonable conceptual starting point is something similar to SIPRNet and NIPRNet, but architected for citizens and businesses.
I mean, if you can't bombard the people you don't like with death threats, then what's the alternative? Civilized debate? Perish the thought.
Make using a stingray without a public court order illegal and punishable by death by bomb and we have a deal.
all this piecemeal crap, hell, just kill the ability to mask the caller!
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Given that the orange Commander-in-Chief gets his 'news' from Fox, I think we can expect to see a sharp rise in emergency actions like this based on shows like 24. We are, as a nation, fairly itching for waterboarding, call tracing, bad-guy-blowing-up men of *action*. Disagree? Whatcha got to hide, snowflake?
How could this be "abused?" I can think of no reason that anonymous calls should EVER be allowed in the first place. This is ridiculous. At the very least, people should be able to choose to block all anonymous calls. Obviously anyone with half a brain isn't going to make a threatening call over a traceable line anyone, so this only affects non-criminals. Again. Every. Single. Time.
If the exemption is granted, it will be abused. No question.
Isn't there some sort of law that covers this. If not, I propose Comey's Law: Any special privilege or exemption granted to government, no matter how narrowly-defined its scope, will inevitably be broadened to include any use case the government sees fit.
(Or something like that. Help me out, guys -- improve the wording.)
Traditionally the IRA (or a schoolboy with a bad fake Irish accent trying to get his maths test cancelled) would phone up to say there was a bomb planted in a particular place, and the call would be referred to as a "warning", not a "threat". It would usually be made from a public telephone box: one of those traditional red things. Preventing people from making such (genuine) warnings anonymously might have resulted in unnecessary bloodshed, but you probably couldn't prevent it, anyway.
"only be provided to law enforcement officials investigating a threat, to ensure that this exemption isn't abused."
The national criminal databases are abused by cops all the time and at extraordinary rates that are most likely conservative because little data is available. In the last 4 years I can think of 2 cases in my town where the cops used the NCIC or DOL database to try and get a girl's number and address for a date. These are the ones that were caught! There is story have story of cops using this data to stalk their exes or harass their lovers. I have access to CJIS information myself and it is very easy to abuse the system. Having this added unmasking would only clamp down on our already disastrous police state.
What the fuck, no integrity, you reveal my name and I have to deal with the media---I promise I won't call a tip line ever.
I'm observant. I see things before they happen. I can pick out weird stuff in a crowd. I've never been trained to do it.
I'm just a tad OCD and it isn't 'right' and triggers my notice. There are hundreds of eyes just like me. But, if this goes
through you might as well get rid of anonymous tip lines, because I know that without tens of thousands of dollars in a
reward I just don't want the trouble.
I will absolutely let one -or- a hundred million people die instead of making one phone call for help if it exposes me to the media.
I don't want to be involved. Just as I know I will watch a police offer bleed to death instead of getting them help because of fines from traffic court. Society
has sold me out so many times. It's just better to walk away.
The PSTN is a cesspool of spammers, scammers, frauds, imposters, and cheats looking to con you and I out of our hard-earned money. Federal regulation and the common carriers are just as much the culprits as the bogus callers for letting it get this way. The only way it changes is if we can apply a reputation system to it (voluntary or involuntary) to favor our personal contacts and distance ourselves from the garbage calls and texts. Curb your natural human curiosity and don't answer calls from numbers you don't recognize. If they don't leave voice mail then it probably wasn't that important, was it? Keep your contacts list current. There may be instances where you may be expecting a call from an unknown number. Mentally compartmentalize that call and be prepared to hang up if it isn't who you think it might be. Don't give away any personal info if you don't recognized the caller. Use Whisper Systems Signal or WhatsApp in place of voice calls or text messages. Encrypting "data in motion" goes a long way towards protecting your privacy. Maybe it's time to update the "8 Simple Rules".
8 Simple Rules For NOT Dialing My Number:
1. If you're selling something, don't call me. Period. If I want something, I'll call you.
2. If you're a politician or a pollster, don't call me. Period. I don't care if you're protected by the Do Not Call List. That legislation was damaged good when it passed into law.
3. If I don't recognize your number you're going to voice mail. Get over it and leave a message.
4. If Caller ID is blocked, missing, or obviously spoofed you're going to voice mail. Get over that, too, and leave a message.
5. Every carrier should have the ability and facility in this day and age to "Back Bill" any call, anywhere. If a "boiler room," or even my own mother, calls me I should be able to dial "*BACB" (or something similar) and charge them some nominal amount for the call to the device that I'm paying the bill for if I don't want them contacting me.
6. Spoofing Caller ID information should be considered Wire Fraud and, therefore, illegal.
7. I'm paying for my air time on my cellular phone even when you call me, that makes it trespassing if I don't want you there and I should be able to prosecute you if you become a nuisance.
8. Unsolicited Text Messages are no different from Unsolicited Voice Calls and therefore no exception to the above rules.
9. Bonus Rule: Wireless carriers should enact voluntary number blocking/filtering systems with no arbitrary limits (like, say, MORE than 5 numbers, Verizon Wireless) with Opt-IN policies (NOT Opt-OUT) for scam services like Premium Text Messages.
Burner phones. Breaks this, no?