Congressional Dinosaurs outlaw Spoofing

From this article in Arts Technica:

Today the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation has passed S. 704, a bill that would make it a crime to spoof caller ID. Dubbed the "Truth in Caller ID Act of 2007," the bill would outlaw causing "any caller identification service to transmit misleading or inaccurate caller identification information" via "any telecommunications service or IP-enabled voice service." Law enforcement is exempted from the rule.

This will, of course be of no help to us in frazzled pharma-hell. First of all, I've noticed that probably less than a third of pharmacies calling me use a bogus number. Most of the numbers can be called back, which thankfully for me, gives me legitimate targets to harass.

And secondly, these guys are overseas. There's no doubt about it. Even if they were in the country, they obviously don't want to be bothered by the Do Not Call list - so why would this law change anything?

Congress needs to get its head out of you know where regarding consumer privacy. Probably the best thing they've done in the last ten years is LNP - local number portability. Remember how the carriers screamed and hollered about its cost? Well, Congress mandated it - and I would argue that everyone, even the carriers, won.

What we need is a law mandating cell phone carriers to give us the ability to block numbers, kind of like Outlook allows you to "add person to blocked list". Until carriers do this, and it seems they aren't in a big rush - everyone is a potential victim of these pharmacy rats.

Finally, I was enjoying a nice night at the Harborlights Pavilion here in Boston before the Wilco show... and guess who called - a pharmacy. Their number was (866) 838-0738. I tried calling them back but had no luck, even though they are listed in the whocalled.us database.