Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday November 17 2019, @09:02AM   Printer-friendly
from the good-luck-with-that dept.

Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956__

The House and Senate finally agree on something: Robocalls – TechCrunch

In these times of political strife, it’s nice that despite our differences we can still band together as a nation in the face of a catastrophe that affects us all equally. I speak, of course, of robocalls, and it seems that the House and Senate have put their differences aside for the present in order to collaborate on a law combating this scourge.

[...] As often happens in Congress, two competing versions of the bill emerged to address this issue, and both passed in their respective chambers earlier this year. Now the leaders of the committees involved have announced an “agreement in principle” that will hopefully allow them to pass a unified version of the bill.

The “Pallone-Thune TRACED Act” owes its name to its primary sponsors — Rep. Pallone (D-NJ) and Sen. John Thune (R-SD) — and the earlier and superior acronym from the House act, Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence.

“Our agreement will require telephone carriers to verify calls and allow robocalls to be blocked in a consistent and transparent way, all at no extra charge to consumers. The agreement also gives the FCC and law enforcement the ability to quickly go after scammers,” said Rep. Pallone in a statement accompanying the news.

The bill text is expected to be finalized in a matter of days, and it will hopefully make it onto the legislative calendar in a hurry.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Sunday November 17 2019, @11:31AM (7 children)

    by jmichaelhudsondotnet (8122) on Sunday November 17 2019, @11:31AM (#921235) Journal

    This will be a 1000 page monstrosity and we will learn next year that only the first 20 pages deal with robocalls, the rest will be a surprise authoritarian power grab festival unless somehow the world flipped upside down overnight.

    Prove me wrong. I don't bother to read many things that are intended to be difficult to read anymore.

    Thesesystemsarefailing.net, but the u.s. congress is one of the things that should be working and it would work if the republican party were not a cult bent on selling everyone out to foreign interests and dissolving the republic.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Insightful=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   4  
  • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday November 17 2019, @04:05PM

    by hemocyanin (186) on Sunday November 17 2019, @04:05PM (#921254) Journal

    Bailout without prosecution
    Ukraine
    Libya
    Syria
    Due process free execution
    Forced subsidization of the private insurance industry
    Mass surveillance
    Abuse of the Espionage Act

    Our problems are the cults which believe Democrats aren't equally responsible for the shit.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 17 2019, @04:18PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 17 2019, @04:18PM (#921255)

    Prove me wrong

    Okay. The 38 page bill [house.gov] has nothing except stuff related to robocalls, authentication of presented caller id, phone scams and related stuff.

    You're wrong. That was easy.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 17 2019, @06:29PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 17 2019, @06:29PM (#921276)

      Read it,

      It boils down to this. They are creating a committee (whose members are undefined, but will assuredly comprise those telcos whose dicks Congress regularly sucks) to figure out how to do what they say they have already done. Since of course they have no idea how to do what they say they just did. Second that criminal charges against perpetrators (who are mostly outside of U.S. jurisdiction) will be more severe. And third, they are instituting yet another quasi governmental agency of warrantless surveillance who will be responsible for doing what they don't know how to do, and as yet have not even articulated how to BEGIN to do.

      So I read the bill. All I am seeing is a lot of heads bobbing under the tablecloths of congressional fund raisers, and yet another fire sale of article one and the the bill of rights to the same old corporate oligarchy.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 17 2019, @06:56PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 17 2019, @06:56PM (#921283)

        Give us specifics, friend. Not your interpretation/regurgitation of talking points, but specific sections of the bill that *directly* support your assertions that:

        assuredly comprise those telcos whose dicks Congress regularly sucks

        instituting yet another quasi governmental agency of warrantless surveillance

        Your comment is of pretty much null semantic content. It's just a screed filled with innuendo, unsupported assumptions and ignores the important (if incomplete and too narrow) stuff that this bill does:

        Requires that voice service providers authenticate calls and block spoofed caller IDs. And requires them to do so without charging their customers for it.
        Implements (and while many perpetrators are outside the US, there are plenty here too) sanctions for those engaging in telephone-based scams.

        You claim that Congress doesn't know what to do. That's not true. They are doing the above (which is appropriate, IMHO) and charges a variety of folks to make sure that that stuff is being done and to examine the landscape to improve/enhance these efforts.

        The whole "Gub'mint bad! Bad Gub'mint!" rolled-up newspaper schtick is pretty tired.

        So back up what you say with *facts* instead of innuendo and nasty hyperbole. But you won't, because you can't. All you have is bullshit to spew. Unfortunately for you, not everyone is dumb enough to fall for your verbal (or in this case, textual) diarrhea.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 18 2019, @04:18PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 18 2019, @04:18PM (#921555)

          Not your fucking stenographer bitch. You've got the link, read it.

      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 17 2019, @11:27PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 17 2019, @11:27PM (#921331)

        They are charging the FCC (referred to as the "Commission" and whose members a quite well-known) to promulgate regulations within 1 year of enactment. They are also increasing the enforcement powers, including confiscation of dial-out numbers, lengthening the statute of limitations, increasing other penalties. They are requiring U.S. telecom companies to implement call authentication (probably with a mind on SHAKEN/STIR, but not limited to it) and allow people to reject unauthenticated calls. They are making it illegal for a telecom company to charge their customers directly for call-blocking technology. They are also requiring telecom companies submit any evidence of repeated robocalls to the FBI. They make one-ring scams illegal. They are making a working group of member of the federal government on what inter-agency policies and inter-governmental MoUs should be issued regarding criminal enforcement of robocall violations. They create a commission to see if there are any special requirements to specifically block robocalls to hospitals. And then, finally, they allocate no additional funds to anyone for this legislation.

      • (Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Monday November 18 2019, @04:12PM

        by jmichaelhudsondotnet (8122) on Monday November 18 2019, @04:12PM (#921553) Journal

        Thank you for supporting my point.

        It doesn't have to be a long bill if it just says 'Give a mcguffin and monkeypaw to a council of people to be named at a later date.'

        +1 informative