and tap into the genius of american consumers. i think it was enormously successful. there were three winners. it is not just those three brothers who submitted proposals. there are others out there. you would be other in courage to when you hear from the second panel. mr. bash, i was wondering if you have the numbers as to whether these robocalls are coming from domestic sources or foreign sources. >> i do not want to go out on a limb for that. it is fair to say they are coming from both -- both places. >> ms. greisman, you talked about abolishing the common carrier regulations. my question to you is, is there any evidence or allegations that these common carriers are a source for these calls? that this way.ss thinkhere we sent, we common carriers can be more proactive in looking at what is going across their transom and flagging what are red flags. we have some concerns that there may be some carriers of their -- there is a blurred distinction given conversions and technology, what is a telemarketer and what is a carrier. we think there is some conduct that may be engaged in that report to be carriers that would more than raise an eyebrow. next panel thehe same question. act on thatd subject, as i have mentioned in my written testimony, we have worked with the federal trade commission in the court may law enforcement. that onlast week various coordination issues with respect to carriers that she is aware of. we are certainly going to be looking at some of the information that was shared with us. >> thank you for your time. chairman, thank you very much. conduct aus about the raises the eyebrows. >> it is too soon to get into at this point. >> ok. i will be waiting. if the next panel can come for. i want to thank this panel. rupy, mr. kevin michael altschul, mr. matthew stein. welcome and thank you for being here. , let softwarefoss developer from nomorobo. we will begin with your testimony, mr. rupy. >> think you for giving me the opportunity to appear before you today. i served as senior director of law and policy at the united states telecom association. our member companies shared the subcommittee also concerns about the problems associated with illegal robocalls. we understand the consumer frustration they cause and we have long worked and coordinating with relevant private and government stakeholders to address this issue. in addition to be harmed because consumers, robocalls impact u.s. telecom's own members. ofrepresent the first line defense on this issue and they must be well versed in explaining to customers the difference between legal and illegal robocalls, providing them with information on how to file a complaint, and pointing them to tools to help to mitigate these calls. robocalls can also adversely impact our company's networks. last calling defense are typically highly localized, high-volume, extremely brief, lasting only a matter of minutes. carriers receive notes advanced warning of these calls. a severe mask calling events can result in disruption to phone - -- mass call events can result in disruption to phone carriers. given these impacts on our customers and our networks, we can sympathize with the frustration you must feel at the apparent growth of this problem over the last few decades in spite of repeated legislative efforts. those efforts illustrate the difficulty of keeping a lot ahead of the lawbreakers and ahead of technology. this is not to say that network operators are passive observers. as mentioned earlier, we serve on the front lines of defense and worked in many other ways to monitor, medicaid, and respond to this problem. many u.s. -- monitor, mitigate, and respond to this problem. trafficbers conduct forensics and the initiate mass calling investigations. our members provide and will continue to develop various services, such as anonymous call blocking and other functionality to help mitigate the problem. they work with standard-setting groups to address issues related to bill -- to robocalls. coordinate with state and federal law enforcement agencies during ongoing investigations and enforcement actions. looked at through the lens of history, the explanation for this is simple. the original phone network was a closed system. voice service was provided by local exchange carriers and long-distance companies through only the public switched telephone network, providing plain old telephone service. today's communications services are provided not by the pspn, but bylosed close to networks. areas of the vulnerability exist throughout the network and cannot be realistically addressed by any single stakeholder. u.s. telecom supports possible technological solutions to the robocall problem by stakeholders throughout the internet ecosystems, most of whom cannot face significant legal limitations outlined in my written statement that constrain our member companies. it is unlikely that any single technological silver bullet and permanently entrench the robocall problem. today's solution could turn -- could have adverse consequences, some examples of which i outlined in my written testimony. the same appears to be the case for legislative and regulatory solutions, which do not seem capable of keeping pace of the evil genius of scammers, who continually invent new ways to evade capture, prosecution, and punishment. let me thank the subcommittee for holding this time the hearing. we shared the subcommittee's and consumers' frustration and look forward to working together in a matter that provides flexibility in addressing this constantly- evolve in a challenge. >> we have been joined by senator prior. this is a subcommittee that has overlapping jurisdiction to his subcommittee on to mentations. i would like to refer to him for his comments. thank you for joining us today. between consumer protection and your committee -- you with the former chairman of the subcommittee, so i appreciate you cooperating with us and allowing us to have this hearing although we could argue about the jurisdiction. >> i am thrilled that you are chairing the subcommittee. it is a great team of people here. have a greatay we leader in chairwoman the pasco mccaskill. we may have overlapping jurisdiction, but i do not care. your coin to handle this hearing just great. -- you are going to handle this hearing just great. looking at the numbers, it is clear that the bill got call registry has been a success. i am please the ftc is working with states to crackown on robocalls and other illegal activities. if everybody is working together, we can solve this. i did not want to interrupt, but thank you. >> michael altschul? >> good morning. thank you forctia, the opportunity to participate in this morning plus a hearing to protect consumers from unlawful robocalls and text messages. we were proud to support additional -- initial adoption of the consumer protection act in 1991. i had just joined the association and it was one of the first legislative issues i worked on. like our customers, wireless carriers are also victims of illegal text message fishing -- scams.g that is why we have called upon the fcc to change the way it reports complaint. as you may know, they are divided into wireless complaints and wire line complaints. these consumer complaint are about calls and messages that original outside the carrier's network and control. -- the waythe way they are reported heights the magnitude of the problem. the magnitude of the problem. we want to bring enforcement actions against robocallers who violate the law. when they can identify the source of the messages come our members have brought loss -- lawsuits against the perpetrators. have heard from other witnesses, it is virtually impossible to trace an interconnected -- and -- anconnectedvoip interconnected voip call, especially when the caller was to hide his or her identity. i would like to use a screen shot of the text message i received on monday to illustrate the difficulties we face in trying to solve this problem. by the way, wireless carriers do screen text messages and successfully blocked millions of them every day. voice calls have to be found at the source to cut off. as you can see, this text message appears to be an informational text message about my account at a local financial institutions. i have provided my prior consent to the financial institution where i have accounts, authorizing them to send me a text message alerts about fraudulent activity, data breeches and other time sensitive account information. because i do not have an account at this institution, i knew immediately it was a phishing scam. thoser as, especially outside the united states, are not deterred from violating the caller id act. audsters scam, the fr local number. this number is not in service. recordingt and got a that it is not a real phone number. could spoofery financial institution's actual 4 phone numbers randomly. numbersl phone randomly. carriers do not know the businesses and agencies the carrier has given prior consent to send informational calls and messages. even of the carrier did not know this information, rosters can spoof numbers and appear to be a legitimate -- fosters can spoof numbers and appear to be a legitimate business -- fraudsters can spruce numbers and appear to be a legitimate business. f legitimate businesses. any technical solution must be subject to a careful and complete consideration. ctia, thank you for your consideration of these suggestions. we look forward to working with you to address these related matters. >> thank you very much. >> thank you, chair, ranking member, and senator prior. and ie is matthew stein officer.hnology -- i am a chief technology officer at primus telecommunications. service calle a telemarketing guard to our customers in canada. the service was developed in 2007 in response to our discontent in limiting uncontrolled calling. they did not want calls interrupting dinner and family time. the inability to make these calls stopped no matter how many times the customer asked to be taken off of one list and on another. it is important to make clear that we view robocalls as a subset of mass unsolicited calling. for convenience, i will refer to them as telemarketing. there hishave told us view of telemarketing does not change if they are called by a live person or by a recording. when a call is placed by a customer protected by us, the system violates -- if i was the call before the phone rings. telemarketer, bacall does not go to our customers. -- the call does not go to our customers. they are invited to press one to record their names. the customer can accept the call, refuse the call, or send it to voice mail without speaking to a telemarketer. the system is completely neutral to all phone numbers until a report from a customer is received. all calls are unimpeded to our customers initially. if a customer receives an on- screen telemarketing call, it is up to them to decide whether or not they choose to report that number, which they can do by dialing a special code. if they choose to report the call and the threshold of other customers also reports that call, the system begins to much of the phone number and scans for a number of the zero characteristics. these can be frequency of calling, -- number of characteristics. they can be fricassee of calling or other characteristics six that can be scanned for. -- it can be frequency of calling or other characteristics that can be scanned for. if enough customers accept a call, the number will cease to be a telemarketer by the system. this is accomplished by a system requires no complicated does your calls to be made whether by network providers, parties or government bodies. it just tally's customer votes to determine who is or is not -- just tallies customer votes to determine who is or is not a telemarketer. customers who do not bother to participate in reporting still benefit from actions of those who do. this is the defining element of telemarketing guard. this is what led us to happen to the system. the system. it is one of the leading reasons customers choose to keep their phone service with us. the system is not complicated or expensive to establish or maintain. we provide telemarketing guard to all our customers without charge. the system can be added to existing phone networks. it can work with traditional land line phones, voip phones or land -- or cell phones. andservice can be adapted configured to address the needs of consumers or legislative and regulatory bodies. in conclusion, besides being a of a consumer tool, it is consistent with the pet to provide -- consistent with consumers interests. thank you. i look forward to any questions you may have. >> i appreciate you being here. mr. foss. .> thank you senator i appreciate this opportunity to testify. i am here to illustrate that the technology exists right now to block these illegal robocalls. there are challenges, such as caller id spoofing and privacy concerns. there are three main points i want to discuss. i will talk about my winning robocall challenge to entry and i will discuss issues involved in blocking robocalls and i will discuss the commercial viability of robocall blocking. the ftc launched a competition to find creative solutions to this problem. solution is called nomorobo. that is a play on no more robo. >> we got that. i know the rest of the country thinks we are idiots, but we got that. nomorobol time, analyzes call frequency across multiple phone lines. if it detects a robocall, the call is automatically disconnected. each call is analyzed. a black list of robocalls is updated. the more calls that come in the system for analysis, the better of the algorithm works. it scales inexpensively to handle millions of calls. andorks on land lines, voip cell phones and does not require any additional hardware. all it requires is a one time setup. as with all new ideas, there is always skepticism. industry players have expressed three major concerns. spoofing caller id, violating consumer privacy, and allowing illegal robocalls. it is easy to spot caller id to show any phone number. you can falsify the call in number, but you cannot falsify the calling pattern. it is a red flag and the same number, whether it is approved or not, has made 5000 calls to different numbers in the same number -- in the same hour. the scenarios indicate robocalling patterns. it would only work in a limited amount of situations. by providing the caller id with real time calling pattern analysis, robocalls can effectively be detected. no need to monitor or listen in to the phone call, thus insuring consumers privacy. the caller id data along with the date and time is enough of a fingerprint to detect robocallers. the final issue that has been raise is school or emergency notification to bypass robocalling. this involves a trusted white list. i have already spoken with legal robocallers. it wants this -- these illegal robocallers put out of business. there is increased consumer demand and consumer liability. -- i commissioned a nationwide survey. 17% said they would pay a monthly fee for such a service. when the ftc announced the winner of the competition, 3600 people signed up on the nomorobo mailing list. based on the feedback i received, robocalls are a serious quality of life issue. many people on the panel have said consumers feel helpless to stop robocalls. is -- if his at a core level. at a core level. someone is trying to sell them something they do not want and do not need. i hope i have successfully explained how this is a technology that can be implemented without note changes to the current infrastructure. is large and the problem is so irritating that consumers have shown a willingness to pay for a solution. i am committed to supporting our efforts in any way i can. >> i appreciate you being here. stein, you have had experience doing this for years. foras worked commercially your carrier. >> absolutely. >> let me just say for the record, the first company smart enough to do this in the united states, i am is switching carriers to that one. like mr. altschul, you to address this. we have heard from two good witnesses that the technology is available. i understand fear of the consequences and the quote for every action there is a reaction. on the other hand, the fear is much less than what the reality is now that people are dealing with. foss' it that mr. technology is not quickly being adapted in these commercial markets. and why is it that mr. stein's product has not been licensed to an american carrier? >> i do not know about the licensing issues with respect to the switch. we still have concerns about overreaching and blocking legitimate calls. senators, i am sure you are more familiar than you would like to callsh the informational and technology you receive -- and because you received from airlines when the weather is bad. these calls are unpredictable and they will flood carrier networks with identical text messages and they will carry a caller id. if that caller id is put on a wide list, it can be spoofed. we all agree how easy it is to split a number. it can have the same fingerprint and pattern as other messages. >> how does his licensed product -- if i can get a conversation between the two of youth -- address the airline is calling with information that a flight has been delayed. in reality, how does that work with your technology. >> the technology has been deployed for a number of years. the reality is that the telemarketing guard system itself will only begin to monitor and take action once there are reports by enough people that say, this is an unwanted telemarketer. once that call comes in, the system will not lock the call. being a carrier, we have viewed it is our responsibility to put the two people on the phone. it is to give a moment of pause and get the other calling party to press one and record their name or so forth. in the event of delayed flights and things like that, these things tend to go right through. there has not been any effect. you have never seen a complaint like that. and say, thel call airline let me know that my it was late. that is the initial beginning of , a critical mass of people calling and saying, these guys are ripoff people or trying to sell me siding. >> they are not objecting. the consumer is not objecting. i talk about this benefit in that nobody other than the consumers decide what is and what is not an unwanted robocop. point is that that number, which is welcome and legitimate, and properly described on caller id, is basically the identifier that the carrier and customer and mr. stein's system has two track unwanted calls. right now, there is no need for scammers to actually pick numbers that consumers would recognize as the source of messages they would like to receive. limitation on a fraudster's ability to use an airline's number to fill out the caller id field in the robo calls and messages they send. >> let me address that. let's assume in canada since 2007 that fraudster got a hold of united airlines numbers, and started using it. how would that work with your system if that happens? legitimateofed a number that no consumer would complain about but they started using it, what would happen? >> two quick comments. first the system is quite smart. over the years we have built it and enhance it, we built in a great many of safeguards to prevent this from happening. i will not elaborate in full detail on all of those, but if such a thing were to happen and reports were to start to come in, one would assume that at the same time the airline using that phone number, a lot of those calls would be getting accepted by our customers. we would be seeing it going in both direct and. the system becomes increasingly skeptical and looks for what distinguishes the two types of calls and is able to break them down based on many other criteria that are no longer using just to save our id. there are a lot of other that areistics available that we use. >> give me a chance. his technology is the same technology or built on the same routes that these scammers are using. particularlyfound in the area of text messages that come across gateways from the internet is that as carriers become more sophisticated and looking at fingerprints, the volume of calls, the number of identical messages, the fraudsters become increasingly better educated and sophisticated. this is a cat and mouse game. you set a threshold originally of 10,000 messages a minute or volume, and any message for identical messages above that would get caught. before long, the front thirds set their threshold at 9000 nationals -- messages. fraudsters will find other messages will not go through. they will change your thresholds to still stay under the limit. this is reallyng almost zero. action and every time you raise the wall, the bad guys come back at you with a taller ladder. >> i think the point that is have thee is we capability of being a sophisticated in terms of technology as the bad guys. there are a number of different algorithms that could be used to identify the bad guys. but currently our american carriers are not bothering to use them. he's onhard for me -- the the precipice of hopefully rolling out a product that will show that canada will not be a decade ahead of us as opposed to -- sixask or seven years for seven years. fall, iguy was going to think you probably would not be here. i will wait for mr. heller to ask questions to come back and ask your take on this. that we are going to say, if we do this to try to catch the bad guys, and they are going to do something else. could you imagine the amount of money we could have saved if we would've given up on trying to injure diet drugs -- interdict drugs? if we do both, they will go over the mexican border. let's not do that because they will go over the mexican border. we keep trying. this is one of these issues that we have not teed up to try hard enough. >> wireless carriers with respect to text messages are doing exactly what you have described. a learning experience. some of the lessons learned -- it is a spam filter, but a spam filter for text messages. it is instructional as to how smart the bad guys are. >> madam chairwoman, thank you. i want to talk about telemarketing guard. is that a unique system in canada? >> yes. >> are there any other carriers that have something similar? >> no. >> you talked about years -- how long has it taken you to develop the system? >> we came up with the idea in early 2006. we had it commercially deployed, built, tested by early 2007. >> any additional weaknesses to this system? >> i would not say there are weaknesses. we learned lots in the initial days. nothing concerning. no complaints from customers. >> have you been approached by any other carriers either in canada or the u.s. to borrow or buy the technology? >> a little bit. we participated in the ftc's robo call summit in the fall of last year. after that, we had a couple of calls, some light inquiries, but nothing pursued. >> you get beaten up? [laughter] >> in fairness, we did not submit the telemarketing guard to the challenge. we were not eligible. we had presented at the summit. >> are you aware of any barriers that may prohibit bringing this kind of technology from canada to the u.s.? >> no, i am not. >> congratulations, mr. fox. you said you had about 3600 people that have -- do they buy your product or download your product? how does someone know to get involved with what the ftc has produced in this case? >> that is the funny part. it does not even available yet. i set up a website. i put in my e-mail and said, it is coming soon. 3600 people said, give this to me. they do not know how much it is going to be, i'll it will work. they know there is a problem. it was the press generated by this. >> when do you think it will be readily available? >> by the end of summer. >> you will have some kind of program to make sure that the american public are aware of what your product is. competition, i wanted talking to a bunch of investors. i got enough money to build this into a beta to launch it and address these exact concerns to see. the best ways to prove that it will work. one thing that mr. stein's product is better at than mine, because he is with carriers, the worst-case scenario in mr. stein's case is that the call gets diverted to voicemail. the thinking that went into it before everybody had voicemail was that the call would be disconnected. you will lose the call forever. if if we can diverted to voicemail, much like spam does into your spam filter, everybody would rather have a voicemail box with five or six robo calls than five or six robo calls. >> you mentioned are in your testimony -- during your testimony that there were industry players that were concerned with this technology could what are those concerns? >> the main concern the caller id spoofing. a lot of players feel and say alwayse caller id will be wrong and therefore we cannot stop this problem. i see it a little bit differently. by using the caller id whether it is real or not with these calling patterns, we can actually start -- even if it is fake, it doesn't matter. the second is consumer privacy. a lot of people have said, this is not like e-mail. an e-mail, you can analyze the content. in order to do that, you would have to listen to everybody's phone calls. i do not think that is correct. using the calling patterns, much like other solutions, some of the reported data, ftc data, we have a stab at making this -- it will not be perfect or 100% -- even with filters today, certain spam gets through. i think we need to try. i think we need to start somewhere. testimonyd in your that technologies cost changes. do you believe a solution like this is a solution that can work? >> senator, that is a fantastic question. think it isy that i absolutely fantastic that there are innovators what mr. ross out there that are working to develop these various solutions. if mr. ross acknowledges there are challenges to some of these technological solutions. my point on the technological issue is that like so many issues that arise in this internet days, it is a constantly evolving and moving target. i think in terms of designing a single to the logical silver bullet -- to the logical silver bullet that can address the issue, that will be an ongoing challenge. one more question. the government agency decided there are a number of complaints -- do you find those numbers to be accurate? >> carriers receive complaints. government agencies at all levels, federal and state, receive these complaints. they are accurate, but our gripe they are actually displayed and recorded by the federal communications commission. they divide out across services. it really does not provide a clear picture of what is going on or the magnitude. >> has the industry had an opportunity to verify the number of complaints? >> i am not in any way challenging the numbers. just how they were reported. >> thank you. when common carriers see mass amounts of calling, short calls and massive quality -- quantity, what do you do? >> that is where during my oral testimony and the written testimony several of our member companies have these network operation centers. there are measures that these addresss can take to these mass culling events. that is where some of these working groups that i mentioned, and. in.- mentioned come >> you do not have to name the carrier, but can you give me an example -- let's assume one of my carriers, each is at&t, let's assume massive amounts come over in a short time in a geographically concentric area -- do you know what they do in that -- when that happens? >> i know they take actions. i do not know what those specific actions are. we would be happy to provide that information. >> i think that would be important for us to know. go ahead. >> just to keep in mind, often times these mass culling events -- they are not all directly attributable to robo calling events. for example, on september 11, we had mass culling events in new york city and washington, d.c. >> i think that is pretty obvious. obviously everybody understands that. i'm talking about all of a sudden it is kansas city -- i was on a radio program talking about this, and they had gone out and on a man on the street interview, and every person they talked to said they had gotten a call about siding -- there has been a massive amount of calling in the kansas city area about siding -- that is what i'm talking about. there is no extraordinary weather event. if a plane is late, we are talking about maybe 100 or 200 people. not thousands. i need to know what if anything these carriers are doing, and do they feel an obligation to do something? >> they are certainly taking action on those issues, but i think one of the points that was raised earlier by various folks on the panel is that under our current legal framework, regardless of whether it is a mass culling event or sort of the standard calling volume, we are under a legal obligation to complete those phone calls. legallyay that you could not adopt mr. stein's technology? it decides whether it goes to voicemail. >> as i understand, the technology to a certain degree -- the decision is removed to a certain degree from the consumer and is made by -- >> that is not true. i do not think that is true. the carrier is not making the decision, is it? >> the carrier does not make that decision. i can only speak to our system. the system does not block a call under any circumstance other than if the customer were to say, here is one give a number that i do not want. in the case of telemarketing guard, it impedes the call and to digitallyer record their name. in all of those cases, those , the phone call is made, and i'm not a lawyer so i cannot speak to the legality of it -- i'm sure we have a lot in the room. >> i would appreciate if you would take that to the legal staff at your organization. the specifics of both esther steins and the other technology -- mr. stein's other technology, get back to us what the specific problems from a legal framework you believe that there are. i think if this were offered by a carrier -- i am shaking my head that american carriers have one of theseadopt technologies, because i think it is such a winner in an open, capitalistic market. by my television ads that i watch, all the carriers are pretty darn competitive. they are desperately not just trying to get new customers, they are trying to hold on to customers. now that we can take our phone numbers, there is this incredible desire to see if you cannot get somebody to walk from somebody else to you. for the life of me, i cannot figure out why you are not more aggressively going after this very desirable technology on behalf of consumers. >> we can absolutely provide that information. to be clear, our member , and i alwaysffer encourage, consumers to reach out to the respective carriers to see the services that they are offering. likedo range from things whether it is color identification to conditional call forwarding to anonymous call blocking -- there are tools that the carriers are providing and continuing to develop. again, we operate under that toy stringent obligation complete those calls. it is very clear to us that that is something that we need to comply with. >> i do not want anybody to break the law. [laughter] i have a feeling we can do this. with the technology out there. without breaking any law. maybe even without us having to write any laws treat wouldn't that be special? that we can special reach a marketplace solution in the private sector -- i know that i am getting a nodding head from senator heller -- it is always better to do it in the marketplace with a competitive solution as it relates to capitalism than it is for the government to come in with a heavy hand and try to impose a solution. important thatty we hear from you about what you see the legal missteps would be since we have an example of technology that has been used in a country that also embraces capitalism. it seems to be working. working well for their companies. youuld really appreciate all with that follow-up. do you have any other questions? >> madam chairwoman, thank you for your comments. this is for the panel. the bottom line with this particular hearing is should the fcc and ftc begins and enforcement powers or additional powers, or can this be solved through the private industry itself? think as senator , thekill mentioned earlier existing legal framework dealing with robo calls appropriately who arethe bad actors engaging in this fraudulent activity. to the extent that we continue to target enforcement and make that enforcement aggressive against those actors, that is the ideal solution. as i have said in my written testimony, our member companies were with agencies like the ftc to prosecute these actors. we want to catch them as much as everybody here in this room. >> i would agree. i think it requires a holistic solution. everybody has to play a role. certainly the response agencies have a critical role, as do consumers, as does the industry. one of the things that our at,stry has begun looking which is far from yielding any results, is how to better map and trace these calls and messages when they cross through internet to -- the traditional networks. as you may know, carrier networks when they were close use the signaling system called billing system seven. there never was the system eight. it was a way of identity i'm calls for billing and tracing. another systemes in mapping or being able to marry these two very different kinds of protocols. it is part of the problem right now, that enforcement agent ,hese and everybody is having and try to trace it back to the source of these messages. if the technical experts who marrying ofn this , messaging protocols are able to solve that problem, we will enable great progress in identifying and stopping these messages at the source. >> i'm going to guess that mr. stein and mr. ross believe there is a private sector solution. i want to ask one more question. if you have any response to the ftc raising the issue of abolishing the common carrier exemption -- any feeling on that? i in terms of the exemption, think as senator mccaskill raised in her testimony this morning, we have these issues where we have sort of conflicting regulations, one for wireline's and for wireless. to the extent you start expanding the scope of numerous agencies regulating similar players, that gets to be problematic. support -- andy it sounds as if a herd in earlier testimony from the ftc -- to the extent that there is an entity out there engaging in illegal activity, they are going to go after that entity as they should greatly voice for that whether they are a common carrier or whomever. as previous testimony stated, there is a working relationship tween the two agencies. they are both enforcing the same loss. i think there are some institutional advantages that each institution has developed in their respective careers -- areas. i am not aware it is a problem that has deterred any kind of investigation or enforcement. >> i want to thank the witnesses for your time and energy. madam chairwoman, thank you for holding this hearing. >> i appreciate everybody being here. i will tell you that i know there is concern about what can be done. concerns are based in wanting to follow the law they to to what your mission is as carriers. the wireless or wired. i do want you to know that i am going to follow-up in three whats and ask to find out your members are doing in this regard and what they feel like they can do and whatever information you can give us in the next three months that would spell out the problems you would have with adopting either the technology that esther -- mr. foss is ready to rollout. do you know what it will cost? >> i'm hoping to offer it for free. >> will have to look at at? -- at ads? myi do not put this in testimony, but this problem does not only affect consumers. it affects businesses. centers, the call fcc put me in touch with the organization that manages a lot of these 911 centers, and it thisover 5000 of them did do not call list is being implemented and i said to them, if there was a real-time blacklist of the numbers you should not be answering, would that be help? -- helpful? if that existed, they said it would be amazing. this data set of the real-time rainbow colors and calls you should not -- real-time robo callers and calls you should not be picking up, thousands of phone lines -- i spoke to some financial services, citibank and all thatvery ball -- c comes in, they have to screen. send itw before they for screening that they should immediately dump it. i think there is a real valuable asset there. i think by doing it with the consumers and offering them a really good service by blocking robo calls, my thesis is that i can make money on the business side. >> ok. you need to worry when you roll it at it i will give it a try. thank you for coming from canada, mr. stein. we will look forward to carrying -- following up with our carriers in america. i know with the technology available, if it is chasing these guys law enforcement-wise run the country, we will never get the results that consumers diverse -- desert. we appreciate it. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] next, "washington journal." after that it is "newsmakers" with representative bob goodlatte of virginia talking about immigration policy. then the confirmation hearing for a dei director nominee james comey. >> i wanted a representative look at american life so i needed politics, business, entertainment, food, finance, art. i also was interested in this recurring pattern that you see with gingrich, oprah, jay-z, sam walton, people who begin in very humble places and are not unlike the main characters, but to reinvent themselves as something new and find a new language and new idea that is riveting to americans. through that, they build an empire. they cannot stop building it. it is almost like an imperative for the corporation, you have to keep growing, even as a person or brand. eventually, a sort of decadence sets in where the language becomes a sort of parody of itself. i know longer seem to be producing something good. --y just continue to produce gingrich writes book after book, oprah is on the cover of every issue of her magazine -- they become celebrities we are familiar with who dominate our imaginations and in a way have come to replace the institutions that have faltered in this time. >> george packer intertwines the struggles of three americans whose american way of life has failed them, tonight at 8:00 on c-span's "q&a." >> next it is "washington journal." elise viebeck joins us to discuss the healthcare law. after that, dean clancy of lodesm works and lori continue the conversation, debating the advantages and disadvantages of delaying its implementation. then former ambassador to morocco marc ginsberg discusses recent events in egypt and the u.s. response so far. ♪ good morning. it is sunday, july 14th, 2013. you will spend the first 45 minutes or so looking at items thehe majors -- in newsprint late last night in sanford, florida, the jury found george zimmerman not guilty of manslaughter and murder charges in the shooting death of trayvon martin. we will read stories and comments on that. we will spend the first 45 minutes on a question about immigration. we are asking you about economic growth rate how important is immigration reform to economic