FCC is here to help on protecting our phone records:

[The Straight Story]

Protecting Your Telephone Calling Records

Information that Your Telephone Company Collects

Your local, long distance and wireless telephone companies, as well as your Voice over Internet Provider (VoIP), collect information such as the numbers you call and when you call them, as well as the particular services you use, such as call forwarding or voice mail. These companies collect this customer information, also called Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) so they can provide the services you have requested and send you bills for them.

Protecting Your Customer Information

Both Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) impose requirements on telephone companies and VoIP providers about how they can use this personal information and what they must do to protect it from disclosure. Both Congress and the FCC have strengthened their rules to combat a practice known as “pretexting,” or posing as the actual customer or a law enforcement official to obtain telephone calling records. In some cases, data brokers offer calling records for sale on the Internet. Congress has passed a law making it a crime punishable by fine or imprisonment of up to 10 years to obtain calling records from a telephone company or VoIP provider by: making false or fraudulent statements, providing fraudulent documents, or accessing customer records without prior authorization through the Internet or fraudulent computer-related activities. The law also prohibits the unauthorized sale or transfer of confidential phone records or the purchase or receipt of such information with knowledge that it was obtained fraudulently or without authorization.

Both a law passed by Congress and FCC rules impose a general duty on telephone companies and VoIP providers to protect the confidentiality of your customer information. Telephone companies and VoIP providers may use, disclose or permit access to your customer information in these circumstances: (1) as required by law; (2) with your approval; and (3) in providing the service from which the customer information is derived.

...

The FCC requires your telephone company or VoIP provider to report to you and law enforcement officials such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation if your customer information is disclosed without your permission.

http://www.fcc.gov/guides/protecting-your-telephone-calling-records

[tech3149]

1. Good to know the government has a sense of humor! n/t

[OnyxCollie]

2. HP used pretexting to spy on its board members and employees.

Hewlett-Packard spying scandal sheds new light on US corporate “ethics”
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2006/10/hepa-o02.html

The chairman and a half dozen other top officials have resigned or been fired at Hewlett-Packard, the biggest US personal computer and printer manufacturer, amid a scandal over illegal corporate spying that has unfolded over the past month.

The spying campaign, launched by H-P board Chairwoman Patricia Dunn in response to leaks to the press of internal corporate discussions, included surreptitiously obtaining the phone records of H-P board members and employees, surveillance of board members and journalists, and the emailing of spyware to journalists in an effort to learn the identity of their sources within the company.

Private telephone records on hundreds of cell and home telephones were obtained by a method called “pretexting,” in which investigators made repeated calls to telephone companies, pretending to be the individuals targeted, until they were able to convince a phone company employee to release the information.

Viet Dihn, the author of the USA PATRIOT Act, is representing a former HP director.

Viet D. Dinh
http://www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/dinh-viet-d.cfm#

During his time at the Department of Justice, Dinh played a key role in developing legal policy initiatives to combat terrorism—namely, the USA Patriot Act.

News Corp. Independent Directors Hire Debevoise Law Firm
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-19/news-corp-independent-directors-hire-debevoise-firm-s-white-mukasey.html

Dinh, who runs a small law firm in Washington that specializes in damage control, and venture capital executive Tom Perkins are leading the efforts of independent directors, who hold nine of 16 board seats. Dinh, also a professor at Georgetown University and the chief architect of the USA Patriot Act, represented Perkins, a former Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) director, during a scandal at that company.

And former Attorney General Michael Mukasey's law firm is advising Dinh in News Corp's phone hacking scandal. (Dinh is on the Board of Directors for News Corp.)

News Corp. (NWSA)’s independent directors hired the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, according to Mary Jo White, a partner at the firm and the former U.S. attorney in New York.

Michael Mukasey, who served as U.S. attorney general under George W. Bush, will join White in representing directors, Suzanne Elio, a spokeswoman for the firm, said today.

“Debevoise & Plimpton has been retained to advise Viet Dinh in his supervision of the Management and Standards Committee on behalf of the independent members of the board,” Elio said in an e-mail. She declined to comment further.

Board of Directors
http://www.newscorp.com/corp_gov/bod.html

Dinh has a close relationship with Rupert Murdoch.

News Corp. Director Leading Phone-Hack Probe Has Personal Ties to Murdoch
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-06/dinh-s-ties-to-murdoch-under-fire-as-point-man-in-hacking-probe.html

News Corp. (NWSA)’s independent directors, obligated to assess Rupert Murdoch and other top executives’ handling of the company’s phone-hacking scandal, are relying for guidance on Viet Dinh, a board member with personal ties to the Murdoch family.

Dinh, 43, is point man between the independent board members and a panel that New York-based News Corp. (NWS) created to cooperate with authorities probing phone hacking by the defunct News of the World tabloid and to evaluate company standards.

A Washington attorney and Georgetown University Law Center professor, Dinh has been a friend of Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch’s oldest son Lachlan since 2003 and is godfather to Lachlan’s second child. In 1992, a decade before they met, the South China Morning Post, then owned by Murdoch, helped Dinh free his sister from a Hong Kong refugee camp.

“Usually it’s required that an investigation like this is undertaken by a committee of independent directors,” said Jay Lorsch, a Harvard Business School professor who has served on the boards of four publicly traded companies. “It’s very hard to be objective if you’re involved in any way -- financially or emotionally -- with the family of the chief executive you are supposed to be supervising.”

[The Straight Story]

3. Why does that not surprise me?