Dipping deeper into its bottomless well of unbridled hypocrisy, FedGov is forcing privacy businesses to surrender customer lists and copies of their business transactions. During a tumultuous period of alleged privacy protection wherein Congress is poised to (Gasp!) introduce new legislation to ensure private investigators cannot obtain cellular subscriber’s call records, the swastika-wavers at the FCC are demanding that privacy companies TeleSpoof and NuFone who allow customers to place calls showing spoofed info on the receiver’s caller ID device, provide our public servants with every customer name and every call they made, according to a Wired News article.
It appears the FCC’s new chief, Kevin Martin, is well acquainted with the ways of the tyrant, as the investigation (for now) seems to be focused on an abject vagueness.
A seven-page demand from the FCC’s enforcement bureau sent to one such service, called TeleSpoof, says the commission is investigating whether the site is violating the federal Communications Act by failing to send accurate “originating calling party telephone number information” on interstate calls.
Even at this early stage, it is clear that the government’s position will be one of sainted protector regurgitating of of two lines of nonsense: “There is no conceivable legitimate purpose that anyone would want to make a call pretending to be someone else” or “These privacy-seeking customers are potential terrorists bent on releasing nerve gas into a crowded football stadium.”
The article, illustrating one example of legitimacy out of probable hundreds, lays waste to the former excuse of government intervention, leaving the absurdity of the latter to invalidate itself:
TeleSpoof’s operator says he has about 600 users. Private investigators were his earliest customers, but ordinary consumers have found uses for his service as well, he says. In one case, a divorced father was able to talk to his child on Christmas by spoofing his Caller ID to slip the call past his estranged ex-wife, he says.
The nerve of this man. If it were truly important that he speak to his child, government employees would have arranged the conversation.
In any case, the unwarranted action, illegal seizure and unjustified harassment of these companies won’t be the fault of Kevin Martin, his underlings or whatever agency ultimately closes down these and scores of other legitimate businesses. Martin, like his predecessor, will claim he is only doing his job. A job that clearly includes making certain that potential dissenters enjoy no anonymity, ensuring their place as “persons of interest.”
sucker, ʟʟᴄ