US Senate greenlights anti-robocalling bill to combat 'daily deluge'

AppleInsider · May 23, 2019 5:54PM

The U.S. Senate voted 97 to 1 on Thursday to move forward with the TRACED Act, intended to fight a surge of robocalls, in some cases harassing people multiple times per day.

The legislation would create an interagency task force, hike fines the Federal Communications Commission can level against offenders, and extend the statute of limitations on penalties, The Verge said. The bill was introduced by Senators John Thune (R-SD) and Ed Markey (D-MA).

Perhaps most significantly the bill would pressure U.S. carriers to deploy call authentication systems such as STIR/SHAKEN. That technology marks genuine callers as "verified," allowing people to block or ignore anyone else.

The U.S. was bombarded with some 48 billion robocalls in 2018. The problem has become epidemic, particularly with the rise of "neighbor" scams that disguise calls as coming from a person's local area code.

iPhones already have call blocking and ID features as of iOS 10, and other countermeasures are available, but the former require downloading third-party apps and aren't 100 percent effective. Apple is working to bring STIR/SHAKEN to iPhones in the future.

The TRACED Act will still have to survive the House of Representatives to become law. There are already a variety of other anti-robocalling bills awaiting votes.

rgh71 · May 23, 2019 6:00PM

Who is the a-hole that voted against this?

bsbeamer · May 23, 2019 6:10PM

rgh71 said:

Who is the a-hole that voted against this?

https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=116&session=1&vote=00127

Did note vote: Inhofe (R-OK), Rounds (R-SD)

Voted NAY: Paul (R-KY)

macseeker · May 23, 2019 6:11PM

rgh71 said:

Who is the a-hole that voted against this?

Hope this helps: https://trackbill.com/bill/us-congress-senate-bill-151-traced-act/1635649/

sdw2001 · May 23, 2019 6:12PM

rgh71 said:

Who is the a-hole that voted against this?

I just looked it up. It was Rand Paul, which is who I suspected. I don't think he's made a statement on it yet, but he will often vote against things based on his views on government power.

sdw2001 · May 23, 2019 6:14PM

Meanwhile, robocallers everywhere are gearing up to lobby the House not pass the bill

flydog · May 23, 2019 6:17PM

This bill is a piece of crap, and will work about as the do-not-call list in curbing robocalls. All 98 votes should have been against, but 97 voted aye because the bill gives the appearance to voters that congress is doing something about the problem.

The FCC already has the ability to penalize robocallers, and all this does is increase the penalties. The FCC has been completely ineffective, and raising civil penalties will do nothing because robocallers are often foreign entities, can't be located, or couldn't care less about civil penalties.

In addition, the bill:

does not require carriers to implement STIR/SHAKEN for 18 months, giving robocallers plenty of time to find a workaround
gives carriers a means to obtain exemptions and extension to STIR/SHAKEN implementation
does not provide for private right of action against robocallers, which means FCC is the only means of enforcement
does not impose any criminal penalties for spoofing a phone number, nor criminalize robocalls
does not require carriers to give consumers the means to block anonymous calls
does not fix any of the existing problems with the Do Not Call List

What Congress should have done is give consumers the right to sue scumbags who send unsolicited texts and make unsolicited calls, require carriers to immediately give consumers the ability to block anonymous or fake numbers, and criminalize violations of the Do Not Call list. But that will never happen.

StrangeDays · May 23, 2019 6:40PM

sdw2001 said:

rgh71 said:

Who is the a-hole that voted against this?

I just looked it up. It was Rand Paul, which is who I suspected. I don't think he's made a statement on it yet, but he will often vote against things based on his views on government power.

But but but the free market...the free market will solve all our problems! /s

Yeah I get these calls every single day. Multiple calls a day. Often with my local area code and even some variation of my own number. I have ATT’s Call Protect service but it doesn’t help much. It also incorrectly blocks merchants I want to call me, like Capital One and Apple.

I don’t even answer the phone now unless it’s a contact.

dysamoria · May 23, 2019 6:48PM

sdw2001 said:

rgh71 said:

Who is the a-hole that voted against this?

I just looked it up. It was Rand Paul, which is who I suspected. I don't think he's made a statement on it yet, but he will often vote against things based on his views on government power.

Because capitalism and capitalists regulate themselves so well... Proven by how USELESS telephones are now for phone calls thanks to dialer abuse and phone scams. </s>

dysamoria · May 23, 2019 6:50PM

flydog said:

This bill is a piece of crap, and will work about as the do-not-call list in curbing robocalls. All 98 votes should have been against, but 97 voted aye because the bill gives the appearance to voters that congress is doing something about the problem.

The FCC already has the ability to penalize robocallers, and all this does is increase the penalties. The FCC has been completely ineffective, and raising civil penalties will do nothing because robocallers are often foreign entities, can't be located, or couldn't care less about civil penalties.

In addition, the bill:
does not require carriers to implement STIR/SHAKEN for 18 months, giving robocallers plenty of time to find a workaround
gives carriers a means to obtain exemptions and extension to STIR/SHAKEN implementation
does not provide for private right of action against robocallers, which means FCC is the only means of enforcement
does not impose any criminal penalties for spoofing a phone number, nor criminalize robocalls
does not require carriers to give consumers the means to block anonymous calls
does not fix any of the existing problems with the Do Not Call List
What Congress should have done is give consumers the right to sue scumbags who send unsolicited texts and make unsolicited calls, require carriers to immediately give consumers the ability to block anonymous or fake numbers, and criminalize violations of the Do Not Call list. But that will never happen.

I agree with all of this. I came here to comment about how utterly toothless and ineffective this bill is.

JWSC · May 23, 2019 7:11PM

I get ‘em all the time as I imagine most people do. Local spoofing has gotten stupid though. I get calls on my personal iPhone that appear to be coming from my work iPhone. This particular spoof has happened 3 times to my recollection. Once when this happened I held them up side by side for my office buddies to see. They were incredulous.

mike1 · May 23, 2019 7:45PM

JWSC said:

I get ‘em all the time as I imagine most people do. Local spoofing has gotten stupid though. I get calls on my personal iPhone that appear to be coming from my work iPhone. This particular spoof has happened 3 times to my recollection. Once when this happened I held them up side by side for my office buddies to see. They were incredulous.

I got a call from my own number on that same phone.

dewme · May 23, 2019 8:51PM

flydog said:

This bill is a piece of crap, and will work about as the do-not-call list in curbing robocalls. All 98 votes should have been against, but 97 voted aye because the bill gives the appearance to voters that congress is doing something about the problem.

The FCC already has the ability to penalize robocallers, and all this does is increase the penalties. The FCC has been completely ineffective, and raising civil penalties will do nothing because robocallers are often foreign entities, can't be located, or couldn't care less about civil penalties.

In addition, the bill:
does not require carriers to implement STIR/SHAKEN for 18 months, giving robocallers plenty of time to find a workaround
gives carriers a means to obtain exemptions and extension to STIR/SHAKEN implementation
does not provide for private right of action against robocallers, which means FCC is the only means of enforcement
does not impose any criminal penalties for spoofing a phone number, nor criminalize robocalls
does not require carriers to give consumers the means to block anonymous calls
does not fix any of the existing problems with the Do Not Call List
What Congress should have done is give consumers the right to sue scumbags who send unsolicited texts and make unsolicited calls, require carriers to immediately give consumers the ability to block anonymous or fake numbers, and criminalize violations of the Do Not Call list. But that will never happen.

Thanks for providing the necessary context. I'm sure every single one 97 do-nothing spineless wonders who's on the ballot in the next election cycle will tout their "I fought to protect hard working Americans from getting deluged by invasive robocalls... blah blah blah. Vote for me" mantra. Who voted for these useless seat warmers anyway? Oh, we did. Sorry.

redraider11 · May 23, 2019 10:00PM

StrangeDays said:

sdw2001 said:

rgh71 said:

Who is the a-hole that voted against this?

I just looked it up. It was Rand Paul, which is who I suspected. I don't think he's made a statement on it yet, but he will often vote against things based on his views on government power.

But but but the free market...the free market will solve all our problems! /s

Yeah I get these calls every single day. Multiple calls a day. Often with my local area code and even some variation of my own number. I have ATT’s Call Protect service but it doesn’t help much. It also incorrectly blocks merchants I want to call me, like Capital One and Apple.

I don’t even answer the phone now unless it’s a contact.

The first company, Apple or Google, to be able to block them will sell a lot of devices l, so yes the free market is FAR more effective then worthless bureaucrats sucking up taxpayers dollars.

macseeker · May 23, 2019 10:59PM

sdw2001 said:

Meanwhile, robocallers everywhere are gearing up to lobby the House not pass the bill

This post won the thread award.

tommikele · May 24, 2019 12:05AM

Nice idea. Pathetic execution. This bill has no teeth and will not actually change a thing. When the article said "Perhaps most significantly the bill would pressure U.S. carriers to deploy call authentication systems" a little red light went off. What exactly does "pressure" mean? It doesn't mean they have to. It doesn't mean they can be forced. Enforcement is a joke. Who is going to do that? The FCC? Ajit Pai? The current administration?Hahahahahaha.

chasm · May 24, 2019 12:21AM

Once again, this is Congress pretending to do something rather than actually doing something. Kudos to Flydog for ripping the façade off this charade. The choke point here is bought-and-paid-for FCC Chair Ajit Pai -- it's literally his job to stop this, but he too is punting, spinning and otherwise not even paying much lip service to the problem, let alone actually taking any action. What a sellout.

GG1 · May 24, 2019 12:31AM

mike1 said:

JWSC said:

I get ‘em all the time as I imagine most people do. Local spoofing has gotten stupid though. I get calls on my personal iPhone that appear to be coming from my work iPhone. This particular spoof has happened 3 times to my recollection. Once when this happened I held them up side by side for my office buddies to see. They were incredulous.

I got a call from my own number on that same phone.

I did, also. Freaky to see.

And while in Asia on business, I got a spam call (with voicemail) in that Asian country using the correct Asian country code and phone number! It was a normal spam call I get in the USA, just purported to be from that Asian country. So that implies to me that T-Mobile USA either leaks my location continuously (by selling/trading it) or is hacked for this info.

We really need STIR/SHAKEN NOW.

Edit: Flydog's info says that STIR/SHAKEN is already neutered by this bill.

LordeHawk · May 24, 2019 12:49AM

dysamoria said:

sdw2001 said:

rgh71 said:

Who is the a-hole that voted against this?

I just looked it up. It was Rand Paul, which is who I suspected. I don't think he's made a statement on it yet, but he will often vote against things based on his views on government power.

Because capitalism and capitalists regulate themselves so well... Proven by how USELESS telephones are now for phone calls thanks to dialer abuse and phone scams. </s>

The overwhelming majority of technological innovation stems from private industry, that is capitalism. Almost all robocalls originate outside of the US and then rerouted by a bad actor. The calls use VOIP protocols and almost impossible to trace to the real origin.

Not a very helpful bill, wouldn’t want to upset or inconvenience the carriers.

sdw2001 · May 24, 2019 2:05AM

dysamoria said:

sdw2001 said:

rgh71 said:

Who is the a-hole that voted against this?

I just looked it up. It was Rand Paul, which is who I suspected. I don't think he's made a statement on it yet, but he will often vote against things based on his views on government power.

Because capitalism and capitalists regulate themselves so well... Proven by how USELESS telephones are now for phone calls thanks to dialer abuse and phone scams. </s>

Capitalism regulates itself better than any other system. My point was Paul is more of a libertarian and holds a highly skeptical and cautious view of Federal authority.

22july2013 · May 24, 2019 3:08AM

flydog said:

raising civil penalties will do nothing because robocallers are often foreign entities, can't be located, or couldn't care less about civil penalties.

I hope you also understand that for this reason the recent agreement by telcos to not sell your location data is equally useless. Foreign entities have access to your location data via the international SS7 network.

US Senate greenlights anti-robocalling bill to combat 'daily deluge'

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