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FEBRUARY 27, 1968.-Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed

Mr. STAGGERS, from the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, submitted the following

REPORT

[To accompany S. 375]

The Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, to whom was referred the bill (S. 375) to amend the Communications Act of 1934 with respect to obscene or harassing telephone calls in interstate or foreign commerce, having considered the same, report favorably thereon with an amendment and recommend that the bill as amended do pass.

The amendment is as follows:

Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert the following: That title II of the Communications Act of 1934 is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new section:

"OBSCENE OR HARASSING TELEPHONE CALLS IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA OR IN INTERSTATE OR FOREIGN COMMUNICATIONS

"SEC. 223. Whoever

“(1) in the District of Columbia or in interstate or foreign communication by means of telephone

"(A) makes any comment, request, suggestion, or proposal which is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent;

"(B) makes a telephone call, whether or not conversation ensues, without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person at the called number;

"(C) makes or causes the telephone of another repeatedly or continuously to ring, with intent to harass any person at the called number;

or

"(D) makes repeated telephone calls, during which conversation ensues, solely to harass any person at the called number; or

"(2) knowingly permits any telephone under his control to be used for any purpose prohibited by this section,

shall be fined not more than $500 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both."

SEC. 2. Section 3(e) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 153(e)) is amended by inserting "(other than section 223 thereof)" immediately after "title II of this Act".

PURPOSE

The bill makes the use of a telephone (or the granting of such use) for the placing of obscene, abusive, or harassing telephone calls (most of which are anonymous) across State boundary lines or within the District of Columbia a Federal crime punishable by a fine of not more than $500 or imprisonment for not more than 6 months, or both. The bill is reported by your committee with an amendment in the nature of a substitute which makes only technical changes in the bill as passed by the Senate.

NEED FOR LEGISLATION

Since its invention, the telephone has been the source of many and great benefits to the American people. But recently its use has been perverted by some to make it an instrument for inflicting incalculable fear, abuse, annoyance, hardship, disgust, and grief on innocent victims, who, in many instances, are young women and children. It is hard to imagine the terror caused to an innocent person when she answers the telephone, perhaps late at night, to hear nothing but a tirade of threats, curses, and obscenities, or equally frightening, to hear only heavy breathing.

On the other hand, it is easy to sympathize with the anger and uneasiness that develops in persons whose telephones ring repeatedly at various times in the day and night only to have the calling party hand up when the phone is answered.

Even more vicious and cowardly is the practice of calling families of men serving in Vietnam and falsely reporting the serviceman's death, or, if death has in fact occurred, of gloating over it.

These are some of the ways the telephone has been turned into a weapon of cowardice.

The magnitude of the overall problem is readily shown by statistics. Beginning with February 1966, the Bell Telephone System has been filing a monthly report with the Federal Communications Commission setting forth the number of complaints received by the Bell System from its subscribers because of telephone calls received which were of an obscene, harassing, or threatening nature, or which caused interference. In the 11 months of 1966 for which reports were made, there were 568,774 such complaints. For the year 1967 there were 641,821 such complaints.

In considering these statistics, it should be remembered that since approximately 80 percent of the telephones in the United States are serviced by the Bell Telephone System they would have to be increased by about 25 percent to reflect all such complaints in the United States. Furthermore, many persons receive such calls but fail to complain. One reason for such failure is that many of these persons are unaware that techniques and equipment have been developed to identify the persons making such calls.

These techniques and equipment have been effective in bringing about the apprehension and conviction of persons making obscene, abusive, or harassing telephone calls. Two were demonstrated in the course of the hearings on this legislation. Still others are available

1 The breakdown of calls into categories of obscene, harassing, threatening, and interference is one used by the Bell Telephone System.

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but were not demonstrated because widespread knowledge of them would limit their effectiveness. The effectiveness of these techniques and of this equipment is in part responsible for the fact that in the areas served by the Bell Telephone System there were 358 persons convicted in 1965; 788 persons convicted in 1966; and 1,105 persons convicted in 1967 of making telephone calls which were obscene, harassing, or threatening or caused interference. It should be noted that none of these techniques requires monitoring the content of conversations on the calling or called person's line.

Since S. 375 was passed by the Senate in April 1967, the 12 States not having laws dealing with the problem of obscene, abusive, or harassing telephone calls at that time have enacted such laws. Today each of the 50 States has legislation dealing with this problem. This fact has also contributed to the increased number of convictions.

The fact that all the States today have such legislation is even more reason for passage of the bill. It would be ironic, if because of failure to enact this legislation, the risk of conviction for making obscene, abusive, or harassing telephone calls across State lines was less than the risk from making such calls intrastate.

The bill applies only to interstate calls and to those within the District of Columbia. It is not the intention or desire of your committee that the Department of Justice assume any of the investigatory or enforcement responsibilities of the several States in this area. The equipment and techniques developed by the telephone company lend themselves to this purpose since in most cases before apprehension of a caller occurs, the location of the telephone from and to which a call is made is known.

The committee is determined that interstate and foreign telephone communications be kept free of the foul traffic of obscene, abusive, and harassing telephone calls. This should place no inordinate burden on the Department of Justice since the number of such calls is estimated to be approximately 500 a year.

However, the incidence of interstate calls of all types will continue to rise and, unless this legislation is enacted, the obscene, abusive, and harassing calls could grow in proportion. This is attributable to several factors-the increasing simplicity of making such calls because of technological advances such as direct dialing and wide-area telephone service; the decreasing cost of such calls; and the growth of the metropolitan areas which sit astride one or more State boundaries and within which it is as simple and inexpensive to make a call from one State to another as it is to make a call wholly within a State. The Washington, D.C., metropolitan area illustrates this point. It is as simple and inexpensive to call by telephone to the Virginia or Maryland suburbs from the District of Columbia as it is to make a telephone call wholly within the District. Yet the procedural and jurisdictional problems are obvious when one considers what must be done to apprehend and prosecute an individual who makes an abusive, obscene, or harassing telephone call from the District of Columbia where at present individuals making such calls are prosecuted under a disorderly conduct statute (D.C. Code, sec. 22-1121) to the Virginia or Maryland suburbs of the District. But even putting aside these problems, it is the responsibility of the Congress to regulate interstate and foreign commerce-of which interstate and foreign communica

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tions are an essential part. To rely on the several States for this purpose would be dereliction indeed.

In addition to the obvious advantage of giving victims of obscene, abusive, and harassing interstate telephone calls and those in the District of Columbia an effective remedy, your committee feels that enactment of this legislation will also serve to inform the victims of such calls (whether they be interstate or intrastate in character) that effective remedies are available and will also serve as an effective deterrent against such practices.

HEARINGS

Hearings on this legislation and several identical bills (H.R. 611, Gallagher, New Jersey; H.R. 1422, Van Deerlin, California; H.R. 5867, Brasco, New York; H.R. 6283, Murphy, New York; H.R. 7830, Cunningham, Nebraska; H.R. 13323, Halpern, New York) were held on January 30, 1968, before the Subcommittee on Communications and Power of the committee. Testimony was received from several Members of the House, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, a representative of the Department of Defense, and representatives of the American Telephone & Telegraph Co., and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. All of the witnesses supported enactment of this legislation.

COST

Most of the costs to the Federal Government arising from this legislation will be for apprehension and prosecution of persons making obscene, abusive, or harassing telephone interstate calls or calls in the District of Columbia. Since detection under existing effective techniques is largely carried out by the telephone company and the number of such calls is considered to run about 500 calls a year for interstate calls and an equal number wholly within the District of Columbia, such costs should not be great.

CONCLUSION

This legislation was unanimously reported by your committee. The committee urges its passage by the House.

AGENCY REPORTS

EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT,

Hon. HARLEY O. STAGGERS,

BUREAU OF THE BUDGET,
Washington, D.C., January 30, 1968.

Chairman, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce,
House of Representatives,
Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: This is in reply to your request for the views of the Bureau of the Budget on H.R. 611, a bill to amend the Communications Act of 1934 with respect to obscene or harassing telephone calls in interstate or foreign commerce. This report also

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represents our views on H.R. 1422, H.R. 5867, H.R. 6283, H.R. 7830, H.R. 13323, and S. 375, bills which are identical to H.R. 611.

H.R. 611 would prohibit the making of obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent telephone calls, or the making of anonymous calls which intend to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person at the called number. In addition, it would prohibit the making of repeated calls to harass a person, either in interstate or foreign commerce or within the District of Columbia. The bill provides for a fine of $500 or imprisonment up to six months, or both for violations.

While the Bureau favors the objectives of H.R. 611, we believe that the comments and suggestions expressed by the Department of Justice in the report it is making to your committee merit careful consideration.

Sincerely,

WILFRED H. ROMMEL,

Assistant Director for Legislative Reference.

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE,

OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL,

Hon. HARLEY O. STAGGERS,

Washington, D.C., February 9, 1968.

Chairman, Committee on Commerce,

House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.

DEAR CONGRESSMAN: This is in response to your request for the views of the Department of Justice on the several bills (H.R. 611, H.R. 1422, H.R. 5867, H. R. 6283, H.R. 7830, H.R. 13323, and S. 375, which we note passed the Senate on April 24, 1967) to amend the Communications Act of 1934 with respect to obscene or harassing telephone calls in interstate or foreign commerce or in the District of Columbia.

These bills each would add a new section 223 to make it a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of not more than $500 or imprisonment for not more than 6 months, or both, for any person by means of an interstate or foreign commerce or District of Columbia telephone communication, (1) to make a comment, request, suggestion, or proposal which is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent, (2) to make an anonymous call with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass another, (3) to make repeated calls solely to harass a person, or (4) to permit a telephone under his control to be used for a purpose prohibited by the proposed section.

The Department in its testimony on similar bills has agreed that the "obscene and harassing" phone call should properly be punishable as a criminal offense. It has been our position that enforcement of such a penal provision was primarily a matter of State concern and responsibility. We feel that it is significant for the committee to note that there are 38 States with statutes punishing such activity and that 11 of the remaining 12 are considering enactment of similar legislation. We have also stated that if a bill of this kind were enacted into law the Federal Bureau of Investigation would be obligated to investigate large numbers of complaints to determine in the first instance whether the

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