WASHINGTON WATCH
TRAC Applauds Legislation to Protect Cell Phone Records - TRAC applauds the introduction this Wednesday by U.S. Senators Charles Schumer, Arlen Specter, and Bill Nelson of legislation to protect the privacy of consumers’ cell phone records. The Consumer Telephone Records Protection Act of 2006 criminalizes the practice of both stealing and selling records for cell phone, landline and voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) subscribers. This phenomenon, while not new, has grown in prominence recently thanks in part to the practice of “pretexting” where a scammer pretends to be the owner of a phone in order to obtain the subscriber’s records which are then sold to an interested party.
Today, TRAC Chairman Samuel A. Simon released the following statement in support of the legislation:
"TRAC firmly supports the common sense legislation introduced Wednesday by Senators Schumer, Specter, and Nelson. This bill will help greatly in protecting consumer privacy from unscrupulous scam artists. Criminals who seek to profit from stealing other people’s personal records should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. We believe that this legislation will give law enforcement the tools they need to do so and we urge the Congress to pass this law quickly."
To read more about this legislation, click here.
BUCKS WATCH
Kentucky AT&T Subscribers To See a Tax Hike - AT&T long distance subscribers in Kentucky may feel a little sick next month thanks to the new Gross Receipts Tax. The new tax will equal 1.3% of all interstate and international long distance charges. According to AT&T, the Gross Receipts Tax, or GROAX, is a revenue surcharge on money spent for telecommunications services. For more information on this change, click here.
TRAC AND YOU
Readers Sound Off on Driving While Dialing – Our article last week about drivers using their cell phones while behind the wheel prompted a number of readers to write in with their thoughts. Here is what a few of them had to say:
The practice is very dangerous and not used by me while driving - not even [with a] hands-free [unit]. – John T.
With [speech recognition] technology I see no reason a person should take their hands off the wheel. In 1995 I had and old bag phone where you could press one number to ring a reprogrammed person, one number to answer a call, and one number to hang up. A simple microphone on the sun visor was all I had to purchase. That was eleven years ago. – Paul B.
As an observation, here locally I've witnessed several on-duty policemen, in marked patrol cars talking on a phone while driving. Talk about setting a bad example! The real problem is not that there needs to be more laws and better enforcement, we need to relieve our collective selves of the idea that driving is a God-given right. – Greg D.
More Ways to Text Message Cell Phones From PCs – Last week’s article on ways to text-message cell phones from a PC prompted an astute reader to remind us of a previous TRACNotes article on easier ways PC users can send text messages to cell phones. By sending e-mails to the following e-mail addresses, PC users can easily text back and forth with mobile phone users:
- Cingular: 10-digit-number@mobile.mycingular.com
- Sprint: 10-digit-number@messaging.sprintpcs.com
- Former Nextel phones: 10-digit-number@messaging.nextel.com
- Former AT&T Wireless phones: 10-digit-number@mmode.com
- T-Mobile: 10-digit-number@tmomail.net
- Verizon Wireless: 10-digit-number@vtext.com
Teleflip, an independent company, will also deliver text messages to any North American wireless carrier that supports SMS messaging. Simply e-mail you message to 10-digit-number@teleflip.com and the message will be delivered to the owner of that cell phone number. The only cost incurred will be the charge your wireless carrier levies for retrieving a text message. For more information on Teleflip, click here.
INTERESTING LINKS
FCC Main Page: http://www.fcc.gov
FCC Complaint Form - http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/cib/fcc475.cfm
List of State Regulatory Commissions: http://www.naruc.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=15
What do you think? Got a tip you want to share? Nominate your "Scam of the Week" and your "Tip of the Week" - If we select your submission, we'll give you a one-year free membership in TRAC and acknowledge your contribution by name in TRACNotes. Send an e-mail to trac@trac.org to submit your ideas!
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©2005 Telecommunications Research and Action Center. TRAC grants unlimited rights to reproduce TRACNotes or any information contained in it provided attribution is given as follows: "Source: Telecommunications Research and Action Center. http://www.trac.org"
