Posted on Tue, Oct. 21, 2008
Firms sue Florida over law prohibiting fake caller IDs
BY PATRICK DANNER
A new Florida law makes it a crime for callers to change the phone number that appears on a recipient's caller ID system. Legislators believed the practice, called spoofing, was used by pranksters to harass people or, worse, steal their money or their identities.
Now two companies claim the ''anti-spoofing'' law eliminates plenty of legitimate purposes for using another number for calls.

For example, an abused woman can't legally hide the phone number of a battered wives' shelter to call her kids, the firms' lawyer says. Nor can a private investigator use an altered phone number to track down a parent who has failed to pay child support.

The companies want the Florida law, which took effect Oct. 1, declared unconstitutional. Last week, they sued the state of Florida in Fort Lauderdale federal court, claiming the law violates their free-speech rights.

The lawsuit seeks a court order preventing the state from bringing any criminal prosecution or civil action under the law.

It's a first-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in prison and a $1,000 fine, to enter false information into a caller ID system ``with the intent to deceive, defraud, or mislead the recipient of [a] call.''

The companies say the law is too broad.

''How did misleading get to be a crime?'' said Mark C. Del Bianco, a Maryland lawyer who sued on behalf of the two companies. ``There are a lot of valid commercial and personal privacy uses of caller ID spoofing that are made criminal by the law.''

Sandi Copes, a spokeswoman for state Attorney General Bill McCollum, had not seen the suit but said her office doesn't comment on pending litigation.

Rep. Martin Kiar, the Davie Democrat who authored the legislation in the House, doesn't believe the law infringes on free speech.

''All we are doing is prohibiting and criminalizing unscrupulous individuals who are attempting to take advantage of innocent people,'' Kiar said.

Both houses of the Legislature unanimously passed the bill. Gov. Charlie Crist signed it in June.

The lawsuit against the state was filed by TelTech Systems of Toms River, N.J., and Wonderland Rentals of Grand Rapids, Mich.

TelTech markets the ''SpoofCard,'' which operates like a long-distance calling card but has the capability of changing the caller ID that is displayed on a called party's telephone. In court papers, a company principal says its customers make about 1,500 telephone calls to or from Florida each day.

Wonderland Rentals, operator of Shoppers' View, says it uses caller ID spoofing ''many times every day.'' It uses ''mystery shoppers'' to pose as potential customers to provide an ''unbiased measurement'' of the performance of its clients' customer-service representatives.

A Wonderland Rentals principal says in a court filing that it has ''no choice'' but to spoof with actual phone numbers of its clients' customers. That's because it's the phone number that calls up the customer data.

Kiar said the vast majority of spoofing isn't for legitimate purposes. Nonetheless, he said, ''I don't think people should be making money at the expense of deceiving the public.'' He added he'd be willing to draft legislation if there are any glitches in the law.

Thomas Julin, a Miami First Amendment lawyer, believes the companies have a good chance of winning their case.

''The statute is a regulation of speech and it reaches speech protected by the First Amendment, because it will chill the use of this technology for legitimate purposes,'' Julin said.

A spokesman for the Broward state attorney's office said in an e-mail no police agencies have filed charges under the new law. A spokesman for the Miami-Dade state attorney's office did not respond to a request for comment.
http://www.miamiherald.com/business/story/734410.html