House Approves Penalties for False Web Records
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The US House of Representatives on Tuesday approved a bill that would increase jail time for identity thieves and other fraudulent Web users who register sites under false identities.
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The House passed legislation Tuesday that would prevent gamblers from using credit cards to bet online and could block access to gambling Web sites.
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(InfoWorld) - Obtaining private records under false pretenses is bad, but some in the technology industry say it happens all the time and wonder whether new federal legislation will curb "pretexting." Pretexting came up in a discussion about tech industry legislation at the Tech Policy Forum Tuesday in San Jose, California. State charges are pending in San Jose against people charged inÂ the pretexting scandal at Hewlett-Packard (HP). Four people, including ousted HP Chairman Patricia Dunn,Â were charged in October 2006 for their part in a scheme to identify leaks to media by HP directors by obtaining their phone records and those of some reporters. Agents working on behalf of HP allegedly tricked phone companies into divulging people's phone records by pretending to be them. In the wake of the HP pretexting scandal, which promptedÂ a House subcommittee to call HP executives and others to testify, Congress passed federal legislation signed by President George Bush in JanuaryÂ outlawing pretexting. But a new bill has been introduced in the current session of Congress to direct the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to enforce the ban on pretexting. The FTC already enforces a ban on pretexting, but it is narrowly defined, said Mozelle Thompson, a consultant who once served as an FTC commissioner. "It only covers pretexting for the purpose of identity theft, and you have to show a direct harm to a consumer" because of it, Thompson said at the summit. Although some speakers at the summit criticized phone companies for not protecting call records well enough, another wondered how pretexting could be stopped. "This has been happening for years," said Shari Steele, president of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The latest bill, co-authored by Representatives Jay Inslee, a Washington Democrat, and Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, is a complement to the earlier pretexting ban. The FTC should enforce the pretexting ban because it has more expertise and interest in prosecuting identity theft cases than local prosecutors, a spokeswoman for Inslee said. The two introduced their bill in 2006, but it never came up for a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives.
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The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed legislation to hike fines to as much as &#36;500,000 on broadcasters and entertainers who violate decency limits on the air.
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The House voted narrowly Wednesday to approve stiff penalties for those found guilty of gasoline price gouging
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(InfoWorld) - When the U.S. Congress adjourned in the early morning hours Saturday, it left a number of technology-related bills unfinished, including two bills addressingÂ fraudulent access to personal telephone records. Despite pressure from members of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, the full House failed to act on the Prevention of Fraudulent Access to Phone Records Act. The law would have allowed the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to seek civil penalties against businesses that obtain personal data under false pretenses. The committee has been looking into privacy concerns related to so-called pretexting since early this year, but the issue came to a head last month, whenÂ Hewlett-Packard revealedÂ it had used questionable investigative techniques in the surveillance of board members, employees, and reporters. With pretexting, private investigators or identity thieves pretend to be customers of mobile phone carriers or other companies in order to gain access to personal records such as call logs. Congress still has more time to act on the pretexting legislation or six related bills this year, however. After a month-plus break allowing lawmakers to focus on the Nov. 7 election, Congress will return for a lame-duck session Nov. 9. Democrats last week complained that the House Republican leadership had held up the pretexting legislation, but Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican and Energy and Commerce chairman, said he'd continue to push for the legislation. Congress alsoÂ failed to pass a wide-ranging broadband billÂ that would replace local franchise rules with a national system for telecom providers launching Internet Protocol-based television services in competition with cable TV. And although U.S. President George Bush called on Congress to pass legislation authorizing a controversial National Security Agency (NSA)Â surveillance program, two bills making it easier for the government to conduct surveillance without court-ordered warrants also stalled. One piece of Internet-related legislation did pass early Saturday. The Senate passed a bill providing money for seaport security, and added to the bill was a provision prohibiting U.S. banks and credit-card companies from processing payments to online gambling sites. A group of professional poker players had asked Congress to reject the bill, but a group of House Republicans pushed for the legislation, saying offshore gambling sites were breaking U.S. gambling-control laws. Bush had called for legislation to authorize the NSA program, which has listened in on the electronic communications of U.S. residents without court-ordered warrants, as a way to head off multiple lawsuits targeting the program. He has argued the program is necessary to help keep U.S. residents safe from terrorism. The HouseÂ passed one surveillance bill, but the Senate failed to act. The House bill would allow federal law enforcement officials to spy on U.S. residents for up to 90 days without a court order in the period after a terrorist attack. The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), a civil liberties and privacy advocacy group, said it was happy to see the surveillance and broadband bills stall. Republicans supporting the surveillance bill were pushing it as a way to show they were focused on national security during the last weeks of the congressional campaign, said Nancy Libin, a staff counsel at CDT. "Now that they've gone home, I'm not sure what kind of priority it will be when they come back," she said. Several civil liberties groups had opposed the broadband bill as it lacked protections for so-called net neutrality. Net neutrality advocates want a law that would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or slowing service to Web sites offering competing content, and they have successfully halted the Senate version of the broadband bill, despiteÂ heavy lobbying from large broadband providers.
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Those who knowingly convey false information with the intent to keep others from voting would face up to five years in prison under voter deception legislation that passed the House on Monday.
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The US House of Representatives passes tough legislation against immigration.
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Using video cameras to record films in movie theatres would become a federal crime punishable by up to six years in prison under a bill passed Tuesday by the House.
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The House on Thursday approved an intelligence bill that bans the CIA from using waterboarding, mock executions and other harsh interrogation methods
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The US House of Representatives backs a bill which would ban the use of harsh interrogation techniques by the CIA.
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A resolution that urges the United States Congress to take action to help stop children and employees from accessing Internet pornography passed the House with unanimous approval Tuesday.  Sponsoring Rep.
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The US House of Representatives approved legislation Tuesday night that could put some peer-to-peer (define) file swappers in jail for up to five years.
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House panel approves "minimum standards"--backed by hefty fines--aimed at curbing American companies' cooperation with Internet-restricting governments like China's.
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The US House of Representatives yesterday passed a bill that will make it illegal to use peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa to share copyrighted works over the internet.
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The U.S. House of Representatives on  Thursday unanimously passed a second bill targeting  perpetrators of computer "spyware" that hides in users'  computers and monitors their activities.
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Users of Internet "peer to peer" networks, already dodging lawsuits from the recording industry, could face up to three years in prison under a bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday.