Caller ID fraud is legal???

Everywhere you turn, there's somebody or something telling you that you're doing something illegal.

If you're an adult of any age trying to buy beer in some counties in Kentucky, well, that's illegal.

If you're an allergy sufferer buying too much Sudafed at Walgreen's, that's illegal now too - thanks to the Patriot Act.

Shooting off a firecracker in Ohio? Illegal.

Cohabitating in certain American towns? Illegal.

You can't do this. You can't do that. No fireworks, no beer, no nothing.

But it appears to be perfectly legal now for any corporation or individual to commit the fraudulent act of caller ID spoofing. Spoofing is kind of like forging a phone number: It involves somehow making your phone number appear as a different number on the caller ID of the person you're calling.

When was this legalized?

I never in my foggiest imagination thought such an obvious falsification and fraud would be legal, but apparently it is.

Now, however, the U.S. House has finally approved a bill to outlaw caller ID spoofing.

The question is, why has it taken this long to approve this bill??? Congress wasted absolutely no time in renewing the scuzzo Patriot Act.

Do the states have laws against phone number spoofing, which should be considered fraud in all cases? I am absolutely floored that there are no longer any federal laws against it. If there were, they wouldn't be passing a bill against it now.

I want to know whose idiotic idea it was to gut the federal laws, and when it happened - because I am quite certain that this was absolutely illegal back in the early days of caller ID.

I know exactly why it was legalized: Some corporate hucksters or maybe some collection agency said that not being allowed to defraud the public violated their True Free Speach Now (tm), so they lobbied to repeal the laws against it. To them, forging a phone number is "free speech."

(Source: http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=cqmidday-000003640464)