William F. Smith: “since I introduced this legislation, I rise in strong support of the ``Telephone Records and Privacy Protection Act of…”

“since I introduced this legislation, I rise in strong support of the ``Telephone Records and Privacy Protection Act of 2006 (the TRAPP Act).'' And I want to thank Chairman Sensenbrenner for his leadership and continuing support of this bicameral and bipartisan bill. Madam Speaker, few things are more personal and potentially more revealing than our phone records. Who we call can reveal much about our business and personal lives, including intimate details about one's medical or financial condition. Calling records can even be used to identify a caller's location. In some cases, the unauthorized release of personal information like a phone record can lead to a tragic result. Unfortunately, existing Federal statutes that could be used to target data thieves are inadequate. These statutes have clearly not deterred data burglars from treating confidential phone records information as a commodity, to be bought and sold on the Internet, without the consent of consumers, for about $100. The underlying bill targets companies and individuals who traffic in fraudulently obtained confidential phone records and provides new protections for the privacy of calling logs. It establishes a new section 1039 in Title 18 of the United States Code that will provide explicit penalties for those who use fraud to obtain confidential phone records.…”