The bandwagon in support of the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act, or TRACED Act, is getting pretty full.
Already loaded down with 54 different attorneys general at the state and territory level, as well as an armful of consumer advocates, and all of the commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission, 10 Senators — five Democrats and five Republicans — became co-sponsors of the bill last week. The 10 Senators who attached their names to the bill are: Sen. Jerry Moran [R-Kansas], Sen. Cory Gardner [R-Colo.], Sen. Shelley Moore Capito [R-W.V.], Sen. Amy Klobuchar [D-Minn.], Sen. Richard Blumenthal [D-Conn.], Sen. Tammy Duckworth [D-Ill.], Sen. John Hoeven [R-N.D.], Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse [D-R.I.], Sen. Marco Rubio [R-Fla.], and Sen. Richard Durbin [D-Ill.].
As introduced, the bill would stiffen the fines allowed to be levied against perpetrators of illegal robocalls, give the Federal Communications Commission more time to investigate and take enforcement actions, require carriers to adopt call authentication technology, and direct the FCC to issue a rule protecting individuals from receiving unwanted calls or text messages. It was introduced by in January Sen. John Thune [R-S.D.], and Sen. Edward Markey [D-Mass.].
The credit and collection industry, meanwhile, has some reservations about the proposed legislation, the primary of which being a “failure to draw clear distinctions between legitimate callers and scammers, and to provide important protections for legal calls.”
