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.

Comments

I am Surprised

[sycodon]

That privacy laws don't already provide for this scenario.

WTF?

Bad idea

[Anonymous Coward]

If people aren't truly anonymous then some won't submit their tips.

Don't allow blocking or spoofing of CallerID

[MikeDataLink]

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.

Re:Don't allow blocking or spoofing of CallerID

[omnichad]

Go right for the anger and miss the point, then.

Let's say I put a local pizza place's phone number into my cell phone's contacts. I call them and place a pizza order. A few minutes later, they realize they are out of a topping and call me back - but line 1 is busy, so the call goes out on line 2. I don't recognize the number, so I don't answer.

With Caller ID spoofing, they can ensure that their primary number shows up for all outbound calls. With Google Voice, this is how Caller ID works at all for calls forwarded to your real number.

It's already illegal to spoof with a number that you don't own. Registering the alternate numbers or requiring proof of ownership of the number before passing over the phone network would be fine - but there's no reason to put a stop to it just because you don't understand it.

Re:Don't allow blocking or spoofing of CallerID

[Theaetetus]

I don't see why commercial interests should be able to spoof their CallerID even after verification. What makes them so special?

It was a good idea originally - big companies with internal PBX systems could spoof all of their office phones to appear with the main line, so that if you call back, you get their reception. That's not unreasonable, but either they should have to verify their identity and make a publicly available list of all those internal numbers they're spoofing, or it should be like email where you've got both a "from" and "reply to" field. As is, it's just abused by spammers.

Because it bugs the people in power....

[Puls4r]

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.

So unmasking should be okay?

[smooth wombat]

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.

Re:Landline call trace

[gnick]

What's a "landline"?

Re:Landline call trace

[bobbied]

What idiot uses a land line to make a threat from? Besides, who on earth has land lines anyway...

Also, I may be wrong, but the *57 doesn't work for calls where the caller has requested to block his Caller ID information, or for instances where the caller ID information has been spoofed (which is an exceptionally easy thing to do from a PBX or a lot of VOIP services).

Re: Landline call trace

[gnick]

Their reliability is pretty good in some situations. It sucks when I'm driving.

Re:Landline call trace

[bobbied]

Sorry, I made a bad assumption... The *57 causes the complete signaling information for the call to be recorded for disclosure to the police upon request but only for the last call.