Pretexting, Data Protection Bills Won’t Stay Stuck, Barton Promises

Ranking Member DeGette (D-Colo.) had earlier protested that HR-4943, which bars pretexting for phone records, had “mysteriously” disappeared from the May 2 suspension calendar. HR-4127, which requires “reasonable security policies” to protect computerized personal information and nationwide notification for breaches, “seems to be stuck somewhere too,” she said. Concerned members planned to send a letter to House Speaker Hastert (R-Ill.) asking for the bills to be sent to the floor quickly, she said. Barton said “committee jurisdictional issues and stakeholder issues” were probably holding up the bills, and he would take it up with Boehner.

The 3rd panel of the hearing featured 11 witnesses from data brokers, all of whom took the 5th Amendment. “The American people whose private records they exploit… deserve answers,” Chmn. Whitfield (R-Ky.) said in opening remarks. The other panels -- featuring a pretexting victim and ex- brokers that described pretexting methods -- promised to show that “this industry needs to be shut down as soon as possible,” he said.

Barton is “open to the prospect that we may have to take additional legislative action” to prevent data brokers from selling personal information besides call records, he said in prepared remarks. He called it ironic that some data brokers were claiming the congressional investigation invaded their privacy: “People who cheat and lie for the purpose of making money are now complaining that they cannot cheat and lie in private.” The data broker witnesses’ silence “will not prevent this subcommittee from doing its job and uncovering the facts,” Barton added.

Victim Adam Yuzuk described the horror of learning someone had set up a fake online account for his Cingular subscription and gave his experience with Cingular employees. Through a U.S. Dist. Court, N.Y., suit last fall, Yuzuk learned that his cellphone records had been purchased for $300 through Gambino Information Services. The documents showed “someone broke into my Cingular account 2 additional times after my account was password protected and I was given what I believed was the highest level of security,” he said in prepared testimony. Cingular employees were “unfailingly polite” but “refused to push my request higher up the chain,” he said. After reaching Cingular Gen. Counsel Tom Meiss through the FTC’s help, Yuzuk learned the same e-mail address that registered his Cingular online account came up in several more accounts.

The man identified as the “number one con man in America” by America’s Most Wanted described how he came to attract alternating good and bad attention from authorities. James Rapp told the subcommittee he formerly ran several data broker companies, helping attorneys, private investigators and news organizations, among others. But he admitted teaching employees how to impersonate those who could get access to records. Contacted by the FBI to learn the identity of the client who requested President Clinton’s records related to Monica Lewinsky, Rapp said he was told his activities were legal -- shortly before the Colo. Bureau of Investigation threatened indictment for his company’s activities. He got probation shortened to 3 years.

Congress’s intervention in the industry has had real effects, Rapp said. The industry won’t go away, but brokers he’s talked to in the past few months have said “some information is getting tougher to achieve.” Utility companies’ customer service departments “are the only ones that can make or break most of these attempts” to pretext, he said. Rapp said he opposes the elimination of “these investigative techniques” but admitted some are illegal, “giving a bad name to all investigators.”

A “skip tracer” for the automobile finance and repossession industries told the subcommittee that he stopped collecting cellphone call information after talking to the committee following early hearings. David Gandal cited “sweeping changes in credit” in the 1970s, which drew a class of shady consumers with questionable credit. Financial institutions and agents need to use pretexting to stop name fraud in auto purchasing, he said. But if Congress declines that route, it should create a liaison between his industry and the govt. “where information could be related to the telephone companies via their subpoena compliance departments” and information relayed to the auto industry.