From: a2@ah.com (Arthur Abraham)
Date: Mon, 16 May 94 20:04:41 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: caller ID outrage from the FCC -- time to act (fwd)
Message-ID: <9405170306.AA03223@ah.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text


> 
> 
> Forwarded message:
> Date: Sun, 15 May 1994 21:15:06 -0700
> >From: Phil Agre <pagre@weber.ucsd.edu>
> To: rre@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: caller ID outrage from the FCC -- time to act
> 
> I've enclosed two messages from the Privacy digest about an outrageous 
> FCC plan to undermine crucial privacy protections on caller-ID systems 
> for telephones.  Caller-ID exists so that marketing companies can collect
> information on unwitting consumers, and those same companies have lobbied
> long and hard to eliminate simple, ordinary schemes to give people control
> over whether this information is made available from their telephones.
> Having lost this battle in many states, they have evidently moved to the
> federal level.  But time remains for your comments to make a difference.
> Please read the enclosed messages, judge for yourself, and act.
> 
> Phil
> 
> Encl:
> 
> Date: Sun, 15 May 94 13:23 PDT
> >From: privacy@vortex.com (PRIVACY Forum)
> To: PRIVACY-Forum-List@vortex.com
> Subject: PRIVACY Forum Digest V03 #10
> 
> PRIVACY Forum Digest      Sunday, 15 May 1994       Volume 03 : Issue 10
> 
>           Moderated by Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com)
>             Vortex Technology, Woodland Hills, CA, U.S.A.
> 	
>                      ===== PRIVACY FORUM =====
> 
>    	  The PRIVACY Forum digest is supported in part by the 
> 	      ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy.
> 
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Date: Fri, 6 May 94 12:10:59 PDT
> >From: carl_page@rainbow.mentorg.com (Carl Page @ DAD)
> Subject: FCC attacks
> 
> Private Unlisted Phone Numbers Banned Nationwide.
> Law Enforcement Explicitly Compromised.
> Women's Shelters Security Threatened.
> Telephone Rules of 30 States Overturned.
> Direct Marketing Association Anticipates Profit.
> 
> The FCC released its Report and Order And Notice of Proposed Rulemaking of
> March 29th, 1994 (CC Docket No. 91-281)
> 
> With the arrogance that only federal bureaucrats can muster, the Federal
> Communications Commission has turned the clock back on Calling Number ID
> and privacy protection rules nationwide.
> 
> Have you ever had any trouble giving a direct marketer your phone number?
> You won't any more.  Your Per Line Caller ID blocking will be banned,
> thanks to the FCC Order which preempts the privacy protections provided by
> 30 states.
> 
> The order carefully enumerates the concerns of law-enforcement agencies
> which need per-line blocking to do their jobs.  It mentions the need
> Women's shelters have for per-line blocking.  (A matter of life and death
> on a day-to-day basis)  It mentions that the customers who attempt to keep
> unlisted numbers confidential will be certainly be thwarted.  (Can one
> train all kids and house-guests to dial *67 before every call?  Can you
> remember to do it yourself?)
> 
> But the Order dismisses all of these problems, and determines that the
> greatest good for the greater number will be accomplished if RBOC's can
> profit a bit more by selling our numbers and if the direct marketers have
> less trouble gathering them.
> 
> The FCC doesn't seem to trust consumers to be able to decide whether they
> want per-line blocking.  It praises the $40 cost of an automatic *67 dialer
> as an appropriate disincentive that will benefit the nation by discouraging
> people's choice of per-line blocking.
> 
> There was one part of the order I was pretty happy about, until I read it.
> The FCC has also banned the sale of numbers gathered by 800-900 number
> subscribers using the ANI system, unless they obtain verbal consent.  (Note
> that no rules prevent sale of numbers from the presumably blockable CNID
> system.)  The problem is that the only enforcement of the rule seems to be
> that the requirement must be included in the fine print of the ANI sale
> contract between the common-carrier and the ANI subscriber.  So it seems to
> be up to the common-carrier to enforce a rule which is contrary to their
> financial interest.  How can a person who suffers from publication or sale
> of their number recover compensation?
> 
> The FCC is soliciting comments, due May 18th
> in their Further Notice Of Proposed Rulemaking on two issues:
> 
> o       Whether the Commission should prescribe more precise educational
> 	requirements.
> o	Whether and how the policies adopted on caller ID should be extended to
> 	other identification services, such as caller party name or CPNI.
> 
> I can think of some suggestions...
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Wed, 11 May 94 02:39:45 EDT
> >From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine)
> Subject: FCC order on interstate Caller ID
> 
> 	[ From TELECOM Digest V14 #208 -- MODERATOR ]
> 
> I picked up a copy of the FCC's Caller ID order, which is available by
> FTP as /pub/Orders/Common_Carrier/orcc4001.txt or orcc4001.wp.  (Kudos
> to the FCC for making this info available so easily and quickly, by
> the way.)
> 
> Much of the order is straightforward and not contentious, e.g.
> delivering CNID between local and long distance carriers is so cheap
> to implement that neither may charge the other for the data.  They
> also note that per-call blocking is a good idea, and that *67 should
> be the universal code to block CNID delivery.
> 
> But the arguments they list against per-line CNID seem, to me, to be
> astonishingly specious.
> 
> There are three blocking options 1) per call for anyone, 2) per line
> for anyone, and 3) per line for special groups.  The FCC thinks, not
> unreasonably, that it's a mare's nest to ask the telco to implement 3,
> since they have to determine who's in the special groups and who
> isn't.  Then they say:
> 
> 	 43.  In the NPRM, we tentatively concluded that per line
>     blocking unduly burdens calling party number based services
>     overall by failing to limit its applicability to those calls for
>     which  privacy is of concern to the caller.  The Commission noted
>     that even in the case of law enforcement personnel, there may be
>     a need to maintain calling number privacy on some calls, but that
>     the same number may be used to telephone other law enforcement
>     personnel, victims of crimes, cooperative witnesses, and family
>     or friends.  The Commission asserted that in these types of
>     calls, calling number privacy is not needed and calling number
>     identification can actually be a valuable piece of information
>     for both the caller and called parties.  The record reflects the
>     useful nature of CPN based services, and the comments of
>     Rochester illustrate that callers are likely to be interested in
>     blocking only a small percentage of their calls.  The comments of
>     USCG illustrate the usefulness of caller ID to emergency
>     services.  In contrast, Missouri Counsel's analogy to unlisted
>     numbers is inapposite because caller ID only permits parties
>     called by the calling party to capture the calling party number,
>     and then only if the calling party has not activated a per call
>     blocking mechanism.  We find that the availability of per call
>     unblocking does not cure the ill effects of per line blocking. 
> 
>     Moreover, in an emergency, a caller is not likely to remember to
>     dial or even to know to dial an unblocking code.  For the
>     foregoing reasons, we find that a federal per line blocking
>     requirement for interstate CPN based services, including caller
>     ID, is not the best policy choice of those available to recognize
>     the privacy interests of callers.  Thus, carriers may not offer
>     per line blocking as a privacy protection mechanism on interstate
>     calls.  We agree that certain uses of captured calling numbers
>     need to be controlled, and address that issue infra.  
> 
> 
> In other words, per-line blocking is a bad idea because subscribers
> are too dumb to unblock calls when they want to unblock them, although
> they're not to dumb to block calls when they want to block them.
> 
> In paragraph 47 they note that where per-line blocking is offered,
> telcos use *67 as a blocking toggle, so users can't really tell what
> *67 does, but it doesn't seem to occur to them that the problem is
> easily solved by requiring a different code for unblock than for
> block.  In paragraph 48 they wave their hands and say that people who
> care about privacy can just buy a box for "as little as $40.00 per
> unit" that will stuff *67 in front of each call.  Thanks, guys.
> 
> The docket number is 91-281, with comments due by May 18th.  Comments
> must reference the docket number.  Send ten copies (yes, 10) to:
> 
> Office of the Secretary
> Federal Communications Commission
> Washington DC 20554
> 
> Before you fire off a comment, please get a copy of the order, since
> there's a lot of material beyond what I've summarized.  For people
> without FTP access, I've put them on my mail server.  Send:
> 
> send fcc-cnid.txt	(for the text version)
> 
> send fcc-cnid.wp.uu	(for uuencoded compressed WP version)
> 
> to compilers-server@iecc.com.
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, jlevine@delphi.com, 1037498@mcimail.com
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> End of PRIVACY Forum Digest 03.10
> ************************
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Stanton McCandlish * mech@eff.org * Electronic Frontier Found. OnlineActivist
> "In a Time/CNN poll of 1,000 Americans conducted last week by Yankelovich
> Partners, two-thirds said it was more important to protect the privacy of
> phone calls than to preserve the ability of police to conduct wiretaps.
> When informed about the Clipper Chip, 80% said they opposed it."
> - Philip Elmer-Dewitt, "Who Should Keep the Keys", TIME, Mar. 14 1994
>