The Senate Commerce subcommittee on Technology Held a hearing on illegal robo calls and what the federal Communications Commission is doing to combat them. South dakota senator john thune chaired the hearing. Illegal and abusive robo calls are a clear problem. Automated calls are not inherently negative. Many Important Services are carried out by such calls and companies have a preestablished relationship. If you are on the way to the airport and your flight is canceled, if theres a fraud alert on your credit card, or if you are being reminded of a medical important, those calls are important to consumers. Our focus today is on the unscrupulous use of robo calls. Almost a year ago, when i was chairman of the Commerce Committee, i subpoenaed an operation. Hes facing fcc penalties for making robo calls throughout the country. His testimony shed light on the reality that many robo callers view getting caught and getting fines as a cost of business. Acttroduced the deterrence with senator markey, Bipartisan Legislation targeting the worst of the worst. Scam artists who knowingly violate the law. A credible threat is necessary and appropriate for those who flout laws to prey on the elderly and other vulnerable populations. This act mandates that Law Enforcement and Telecommunications ExpertsWork Together to determine what systems and what modifications to our laws will create a credible threat of pop of prosecution and present for those that violate the law. Requiring a warning citation before the fcc can act in the current one year statute of hampering their ability to hold bad actors accountable. This act will give the fcc three years to identify callers who intentionally violate the law. New technologies have made it easier for scammers to hide from Law Enforcement and seek to gain their victims trust, displaying fake caller id information. The goal is often to get money out of unsuspecting recipients. This act tackles the frustrating issue by requiring the fcc to adopt a framework for Call Authentication. The bill makes it easier for carriers to block calls that arent properly authenticated. Ultimately this will help stop such calls from reaching your phone. These improvements may not stop every illegal robo call, but they will go a long way. That is why im pleased that the Commerce Committee is moving to the full senate for consideration. Im also grateful for senator markey for partnering with me on this legislation. Earlier resolving this issue is going to require stakeholders to get together. Today we had the opportunity to hear from the honorable doug peterson. State attorneys general are enforcing do not call laws and educating consumers. The industry has been working to develop new Call Authentication technology to provide consumers relief. Im glad to welcome mr. Kevin rippey and ms. Margo sanders of the National Consumer law center. I want to thank you for being here today and i will hand it off now to senator schatz for an opening statement. Thank you for being here. This is an important issue that crosses state lines, party lines, phone lines, and unites all americans. Weve all heard complaints from constituents, stories about people being harassed by debt lookingrs, familiar call id numbers that turn out to be fake. I got a text from my mother on tuesday, im reaching out to my senator. I just got spam calls on my landline supposedly from my landline. I texted back, on it. [laughter] robo calls have turned us into a nation of call screeners, only picking up when we are sure it is a number that we know. I think this is an underappreciated downside to robo calls. Certainly the fraud is the biggest deal, but the fact that a lot of people dont use their phones for that reason is a significant economic issue. The First Step Towards taking on robo calls is to make sure the enforcers have the authority they need. That is why i reintroduced the robo call enforcement enhancement act, which would extend the statute of limitations and give authority to fine bad actors without a warning. That is why i voted to advance the act last week. But we are not going to stop this problem with enforcement alone. With goodght back technology. Im looking forward to hearing from our witnesses about validation and blocking tools to fight back. These tools should not be an excuse for providers to make more money or invade privacy. Finally, there may be more we can do to educate consumers. Are we doing enough to help people being tricked . Do they know about the tools to block unwarranted calls . I look forward to the hearing today and working with members of the subcommittee to address this issue. Thank you. We are glad to be joined by the chairman of the full committee, who was instrumental in helping us move the bill out of the committee. Thank you, chairman and senator. This is an important hearing and a very important issue that has long plagued consumers, particularly the nations most vulnerable. Got a callatz, i too from mississippi, from my dad just last month about a malicious phone call. Join the club. Im doing my best on that matter. As Technology Evolves and becomes more sophisticated, criminals and bad actors take advantage of new calling features to engage in illegal activity. Numberslers use local in hopes that recipients will be more likely to pick up the phone. Other times, callers engage in malicious roofing, where the perpetrator is able to alter or manipulate call information. Support the traced act which passed out of the full Committee Last week. This legislation would provide many forms to curb fraudulent of , and a thinkalls the authors of this legislation i thank them for their leadership on this act and hope we can bring it to the floor in a bipartisan fashion. And thank you to the witnesses for being with us. We look forward to a nice discussion. Mr. Chairman thank you, senator wicker. Seems sen. Peters is it an Armed Services committee hearing, sociable by here later. The attorney general for the state of nebraska, mr. Doug therson, followed by representative from the u. S. Telecom broadband association, and mrs. Margot saunders of washington, d. C. Counsel for the National Consumer law center. And look forward to hearing from you and asking some questions. We will start from the right and proceed, and if you could confirm your remarks to about five minutes, that would give us optimum time to ask questions. Please proceed. Good morning chairman, and esteemed members of the subcommittee, i am from nebraska, and am here to provide a state attorney generals perspective of protecting consumers from phone scammers. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. The state attorney generals are on the front line of helping consumers who are harassed by unwanted calls. Robocalls and telemarketing calls are the number one. Onsumer complaint in response, attorney general spring Enforcement Actions against telemarketers and verbal robocalleder state rs. In 2015, 10 attorney generals attorneys general partner to thathe Cruise Line Company issued billions of robo calls. In 2018, the department of justice obtained a judgment against dish network for knowingly engaging in conduct such as placing a repeated calls to people on the do not call registry and using prerecorded messages. However, Law Enforcement alone is not enough as an alleged in the fccs staff report on robocalls released this year. Stopping illegal calls before they reach consumers is important, because these nuisance callers will not be returned by private enforcement, knowing that it will be difficult to locate. For more than four years, we have been a loud and sometimes critical voice in the fight to make Call Blocking in reality for consumers. Ultimately in 2015, the scc clarified that federal law does not prohibit Voice Service uponders from offering consumer request, Call Blocking technology. We uly of 2017, responded to the calls from Service Providers on blocking phone calls. 35 attorneys general submitter comments in october of 2018 to the scc. We have known for years that the Technological Solutions are significant come up part of the answer. It has been up to consumers to find come approaches and otherwise adopt Call Blocking technology. They have downloaded apps to enroll in Service Provided by the carrier, yet the problem continues to grow. We must do more, which is why i appreciate actions taken by the senate. The last two years, industry participants have made significant progress towards development and implementation , but even therk best solutions will not help consumers of industry participants and regulators theed to collaborate on petition the Widespread Adoption of the 27th consumers benefit from the caller i. D. Authentication as much as possible. It also means cooperation so that more enforcement can easily identify the perpetrators of callings. Gal mass. Just last month, attorney generals from all 50 states and the district of columbia, 33 u. S. Territories selected to chairman wicker, a letter expressing our support for the act. I must say, when you get 50 ags and three territories jeez, you have accomplished a significant task. It shows how significant this is to all the states. We believe this legislation effectively addresses many of the concerns raised by regulatory Service Providers, private business, and other interested parties to combat spoofing and illegal calls. Act affirms that tovice providers Authority Block certain calls and creates a safe harbor for the blocking of illegitimate calls. Furthermore, the attorney generals are very encouraged by the interagency working group. We feel it will be an Important Partnership for state attorneys general to work closely with federal authorities in order to consult with solutions for this problem. I think senator thune, senator markey and many of the cosponsors of the traced act for their support of this important fight. The ag look forward to providings comment, and i look forward to answering your questions. Thank you, mr. Peterson. Chairman soon, Ranking Member senator schatz, members of the subcommittee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to appear before you today. I am a partner in the Telecommunications Media at my law practice firm, and i am here today to talk to you about the u. S. Association. We share the concerns on is a probable cause that we are pleased to support the traced act. Since i last testified before the senate in 2018, there have been through Significant Developments in the area, and i would like to mention a fourth point. First, since last year, industry has taken considerable efforts caller identification policies, commonly referred to as a shake and star that the diminish ability of a legal robo callers to spoof caller i. D. Information. Companies are deploying the standards into the Networks Today and will continue to do so through 2019. Second, consumers today have more tools than ever at their disposal to mitigate easy or unwanted robocalls. Hundred of such tools are available to consumers under ofrtphones and a broad range providers are integrating these tools into their networks. U. S. Telecom has been significantly enhanced automation. The time it takes to traced back a legal robocalls has been reduced from weeks two days, sometimes even hours. Forth, while the federal Civil Enforcement act of the f. C. C. And f. T. C. Are lauded if, increased protection is needed. Let me address these issues. First, the industryled Governance Authority for the shake and star standard was established last year. The organization will identify a policy administrator in may, and will oversee daytoday operations of the shake and standard. Industries moving swiftly to implement this important Call Authentication technology. Once implemented, the ability of illegal spoofing will be significantly reduced. And we are going to break a way from this recorder program and bringing the entire News Conference with congresswoman ilhan omar and rashida tlaib. We are unaware to bring you the whole thing uninterrupted when it took place a few minutes ago live. We will bring it to you live from car to finish here on cspan. Thank you, everyone for being here. Sorry for being late, there were some traffic detours. I am so glad to be here with my sister rashida today. Today we are here to highlight before i actually start, we were supposed to have a couple other speakers. Are they in the room . Which elect to join us . [cheers and applause]