0004133373@mcimail.com (Donald E. Kimberlin) (07/19/90)
Sub-title: Barbarians of the Phone Multiply in Florida
While it's never as glamorous as "Miami Vice," there's no doubt that
chasing drug dealers involves a lot fo telephone use for law
enforcement in Florida. The following AP story, as printed in the
{Tampa (FL) TRIBUNE} for 7/15/90, reveals its impact on Florida's
Caller ID acceptance:
STATE PLANS HEARINGS ON 'CALLER ID'
LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS SAY THE SERVICE COULD ENDANGER
UNDERCOVER WORK AND THREATEN THE LIVES OF AGENTS,
PARTICULARLY IN DRUG TRAFFICKING
By Curt Anderson, Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE -- State utility regulators Tuesday (7/17) ordered
formal hearings into telephone 'caller ID' services after law
enforcement officials said easy access tothe number of those calling
will jeoparadize undercover operations.
The decision by the Public Service Commission means yet
another delay in the 8-month-old proposal by Florida's largest
utility, Southern Bell, to offer a service oroginally intended to
deter crank and obscene callers. Other companies are awaiting the
outcome of the Southern Bell case.
PSC Chairman Michael Wilson daid the panel needs a chance to
take sworn testimony and separate fiction from fact. A hearing will
be held in the next several weeks in Tallahassee, to be followed by
other hearings around the state.
"We need to take a look at how this is going to be
structured," he said. "We're going to try to get the emotion out of
this and get to the facts."
Southern Bell wants to offer Caller ID to its 4.5-million
customers in Florida at a cost of $80 for the unit to display incoming
numbers and $7.50 amonth after that. At present, caller ID is
available in severn other states.
The company contends that Caller ID cuts obscene and
fraudulent telephone calls and that most customers believe they have a
right to know who is on the other end of the line, said (Southern
Bell) spokesman Spero Canton.
But Tuesday, representatives of the FBI, the federal Drug
Enforcement Adminstration,federal and state prosecutors, the Florida
Department of Law Enforcement and others insisted that caller ID would
endanger undercover work and threaten the lives of agents, particularly
in high-stakes drug trafficking.
Southern Bell and a task force of law enforcement agencies met
several times over the past months but were unable to resolve an
impasse over how to protect the undercover work.
According to a PSC staff analysis of the case, Southern Bell
offered to allow police to mask the source of calls by using false
numbers, by making single phone lines appear to come from various
parts of town and by blocking a number from coming up on a suspect's
caller ID machine.
Those offers were rejected. Law enforcement officials are
holding out for unlimited ability of all Southern Bell customers to
block out numbers, which company officials contend would render the
service meaningless.
Another issue is how Florida's strict privacy amendment would
apply to Caller ID, particularly in light of a recent state Supreme
Court ruling that people have a right to know who is getting
information about them over the telephone.
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So there we have the Florida twist. Surprising that despite
California's drug enforcement burden, the police (and not even the
Feds there) didn't raise their issue. Also, PacBell didn't seem to
object to general blockability, as does Southern Bell.
Then, there's Florida's own unique privacy law mentioned at the end
of the piece. A lot of that seems to stem from what is becoming
multiple daily occurrences of unidentified, coarse people who start
off a phone conversation with a series of demanding questions. It is
becoming impossible to be a courteous person when you answer the phone
here in the "Sunshine State." Barbarians of the Phone won't let you
be that way!