For the 3rd consecutive term, the US Senate has introduced the "Truth in caller ID Act of 2009".
It was passed by the Senate (finally) in January, and has moved to the House for a vote. A lot of states have ambiguous or overly restrictive language on how caller ID may be manipulated. For instance, if you have a PBX, and a call comes in from the PSTN, which you then loop back out or "hairpin" (without a redirect) to the PSTN (therefore as two separate but bridged call legs) and put the caller ID of the 1st call onto the 2nd leg (which is, by the way, the default behavior of Asterisk) you may be breaking the law in some states. This law introduces uniformity across all states (it's nice to have a level playing field, whether you agree with this law or not). It also very specifically defines under what condition spoofing/swatting is illegal: (1)IN GENERAL- It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States,in connection with any real time voice communications service, regardless of the technology or network utilized, to cause anycaller ID service to transmit misleading or inaccuratecaller ID information, with the intent to defraud or deceive. http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc111/h1258_eh.xml which is nice, because it's less ambiguous about when the activity is illegal (and avoids unnecessary contention between customers, telcos, and PUC's). For instance, if you're implementing "single number calling" for your employees, so that their cell-originated calls indicates their primary (deskphone) work number, the "the intent to defraud or deceive" is absent. This act delivers a badly needed brightline definition of what can and can't be done within the limits of the law. If you agree with this law, and believe that it facilitates the deployment of useful calling features, then please contact your congressman. And if you don't, well, you have a voice too, so tell them why it falls short. Either way, this act has been backburnered way too long and it's time to have a final conclusion on the matter. -Philip -- _____________________________________________________________________ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- New to Asterisk? Join us for a live introductory webinar every Thurs: http://www.asterisk.org/hello asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
