U.S. SENATE, Hon. JOHN O. PASTORE, May 11, 1966. Chairman, Communications Subcommittee, Committee on Commerce, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: Due to prior commitments, I regret that it is not possible for me to appear personally before you and your Subcommittee in support of your bill, S. 2825, which would for the first time make obscene or harassing telephone calls a Federal offense, as well as in support of an Amendment which I introduced to your measure which reaches offenses entirely different from those contemplated by your Bill, and would not in any way duplicate the provisions of your proposal, but rather would broaden its scope. In view of my inability to appear before your Subcommittee, I would appreciate this letter being made a matter of record in the hearings on your proposal. On February 24th of this year I introduced S. 2975, which would amend the Universal Military Training and Service Act, to make unlawful certain actions designed to influence individuals to refuse or evade registration and service in the armed forces. The Amendment which I propose to your Bill is identical with S. 2975. I recognize that my measure would amend the Universal Military Training and Service Act, which is under the jurisdiction of the Senate Armed Services Committee. It would appear to me, however, that coordination between your Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee could be worked out so that no difficulty would be encountered with respect to having this Amendment favorably reported as an Amendment to S. 2825. As you know from a reading of the Amendment which I introduced, it does not reach the harassing type of telephone call unless the purpose is to influence a person to evade registration or induction in the armed forces of the United States. It covers the actions of individuals who attempt to compel or advise others in any manner whatsoever to evade military service, which all of us recognize in the world we live in today is a responsibility of citizenship. There have been several bills introduced to cope with this serious problem which could have significant impact on the morale and effectiveness of our fighting men. Each of these measures approaches the problem from a slightly different angle. I believe the Amendment which I propose is a worthy one indeed, and I cannot urge too strongly that you and the Members of your Subcommittee act favorably so that what I believe is a major gap in our Federal laws can be closed. I sincerely trust that you will give favorable consideration to my Amendment to your Bill which I wholeheartedly support. With kind regards, I am Sincerely yours, GEORGE A. SMATHERS, Hon. JOHN O. PASTORE, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF., April 30, 1966. DEAR MR. PASTORE: In the 26 January 1966 issue of the Congressional Record, there appeared the text of a bill (S 2825) which you introduced on that day. This bill, which would amend Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, was referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce and to the best of my knowledge, its status remains unchanged. I am therefore forwarding a copy of this letter to the Committee's distinguished Chairman, Mr. Magnuson. The need for legislation to deal with telephone harassment is obvious. That the Federal government is the proper vehicle of such legislation can be argued, but for the moment I will allow that it is. Of course any restriction of spoken material must necessarily take cognizance of the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of the individual. I believe that S. 2825 in its present form does not fulfill this criterion, specifically in paragraph "(i)". Recent Supreme Court decisions which seek to define “obscene" have given it a very narrow meaning. Thus, in the courts, convictions under paragraph “(i)" will be almost certainly reversed. According to the Constitution, there is a formal enjoinment on the Congress which states that Congress shall make no laws which amend the rights of the indi vidual to certain actions. Since you can be reasonably sure that paragraph "(i)" is unconstitutional by today's standards, Congress is obliged not to pass this bill. I urge the Committee to amend S. 2825 so as to delete this paragraph. I further urge my Senators (Mr. Kuchel and Mr. Murphy) to vote "NAY" should this bill come to the floor unaltered. Yours truly, STEPHEN M. LONG. [From the Evening Bulletin, Providence, Apr. 28, 1966] PHONE COMPANY ACTING ON SMUT CALLERS Bad news came from the New England Telephone Co. today for persons who use phones to spout obscenities or threats to subscribers. But it was good news for lone women and other victims that modern electronic devices are being used to trap abusive callers. The telephone company has adopted a system through which sensitive instruments, trained personnel, and the subscriber can cooperate in tracing improper calls to their source. The action was made necessary by the disturbing increase in telephone misuse. In Rhode Island 465 annoyance calls were reported last month. In the whole of New England there were more than 3,420 such calls. A large number of these calls involve indecent overtures to women who live alone and have phones listed in their names. In the past these calls have been hard to trace, partly because the offender did not remain on the line long enough. "But his days are surely numbered now," telephone company officials said today. The new equipment has been tested in isolated cases. Now it has been improved to a point where its use can be general. When a pattern of harassment seems to be developing, the customer will be asked to keep a record on forms supplied to him by the phone company for one week. On them the customer will describe the nature of the call and the caller's voice. He will say who was at home when the call came. If the same caller repeats, the customer will record any trend or variation in the message. Meanwhile, the company will keep a log containing such data as duration of call, time it was made, whether the receiver was a public figure or had been in the news recently and other information taken from the customer's fact sheet. These details will be studied by a central office expert who will decide whether they warrant installation of electronics surveillance equipment. One device can intercept calls before the telephone of the receiving party rings. This means that calls to a particular place can be screened by the telephone company and their source identified in advance. Another enables a customer to signal the central office so tracing can be started immediately. A third instrument can be attached to the line of a suspect to record his outgoing calls for comparison with the log kept on a complaining subscriber. "With the combined efforts of the customer, the phone company and law enforcement officials, telephone service will remain what it was designed to be-a convenience and not a nuisance," phone officials said. The company reminded the public that a person found guilty in Rhode Island of making an obscene phone call is subject to a $500 fine or imprisonment up to one year or both. The company suggested some practices customers may follow to help protect themselves from nuisance calls: Hang up if the caller hesitates unnecessarily or doesn't identify himself at once. Give him a maximum of two hellos and then a firm goodbye. Don't talk if an indecent remark is made-unless you have arranged with phone officials and police to keep the nuisance on the line to trap him. Instruct children and baby sitters in protective use of the phone. Report all improper calls to police and phone officials at once. Senator PASTORE. We have a number of distinguished witnesses here today. I notice that my colleague, Senator Long from Missouri, is here. So in order to expedite his getting to his other official duties, he can be the first witness if he chooses so to do. STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD V. LONG, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MISSOURI Senator LONG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would be very happy. Senator PASTORE. All right, Senator. You may proceed in any way you like. Senator LONG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure for me to have this opportunity to appear before the Subcommittee on Communications and testify on S. 3072, a bill I introduced on March 10, 1966, to amend the Communications Act of 1934, to prohibit threatening and harassing telephone communications, very similar, Senator, to the bill that you introduced. I need not inform this subcommittee of the growing problem of telephone harassment. I have been informed that the Bell System alone receives approximately 375,000 complaints a year concerning threatening, harassing, or otherwise abusive telephone calls. And how many of our American citizens are so ashamed or so frightened that they do not report the disgusting phone call to proper authorities. Mr. Chairman, recently I received a letter from a constituent who must remain nameless. He is a prominent citizen from the State of Missouri, and he and his family have suffered enough at the hands of mischievous and even malicious phone callers. My constituent writes, and I quote: On many occasions I have seen (my wife) leave the telephone in tears, although she should be a hardened veteran after receiving these calls for over 20 years. On one rainy evening, I went to a dinner meeting, and prior to the time I returned home she received a telephone call from an individual representing himself to be the coroner and told her that my mutilated body was found on the street car tracks near the station, that my body was identified by half of a driver's license which was found near the scene of the accident. You can imagine how frantic my wife was when (she) initiated calls to various hospitals, the police department, and other agencies trying to obtain more information. My constituent then says: Now I ask you, Senator, should any man's family endure such abuse? Forgive me for writing such a long letter, but an accumulation of so many years of abuse and frustration reduced even the strongest of us to the state of a drowning man reaching for a straw. Please give us more than that. Mr. Chairman, it is in response to this and many other letters that I have introduced S. 3072. And before I proceed, I notice that it was reported in last night's Washington Star that one of the suspects in the tragic slaying of the 9-year-old Montgomery County boy is a man who calls up mothers and tells them he has their children and he is committing unnatural sex acts with them. With the Chair's permission, I would like that to be made part of the record. Senator PASTORE. Without objection, so ordered. (The article referred to follows:) [From the Evening Star, May 10, 1966] BOY FOUGHT SLAYER, BODY BRUISES HINT Several suspects have been questioned in the search by more than two dozen Montgomery County detectives for the slayer of a 9-year-old boy found yesterday stabbed to death in a wooded area near his Bethesda home. None is being held, a police official said today. Det. Capt. Fred P. Thraikill said: "We really have little to go on" and urged anyone who noticed anything that might be helpful in the search for the killer of Stephen F. Johnston to telephone police. Thrailkill said one possible suspect police still are looking for is believed to have taken part in the last year in four offenses involving 12 to 14 children, including indecent exposure. He said that this suspect is a white man, between 18 and 21, 5 feet 11 inches to 6 feet tall, weighing 175 to 185 pounds, with broad shoulders, a prominent Adam's apple, generally bad complexion with acne marks and light brown to reddish hair. ANOTHER PHONES MOTHERS Thrailkill also said that another possible suspect is being sought who calls up mothers, tells them he has their children and is committing unnatural sex acts with them. The detective captain said that this man called up a mother in the area today and said he had her daughter and that he was the one who had killed the Johnston boy. But the daughter was later found safe in school. The body of the Johnston boy, son of Mr. and Mrs. Francis Johnston, 5117 Fairglen Lane, was found lying on its side in a clump of bushes and wild undergrowth about 100 yards from the Little Falls parkway. The boy choked to death on his own blood, according to an autopsy by Dr. J. Thornton Boswell, a Suburban Hospital pathologist. Most of the wounds from a long, narrow-bladed instrument were about the neck and head, and two had penetrated the trachea and throat, Boswell said. Police suspect a sexual motive for the attack, although there were no bodily signs of molestation. The boy's clothing was disarranged. Dr. John G. Ball, Montgomery County deputy medical examiner, said there were scratches and bruises on the boy's body and "we think he put up quite a fight. That's probably why he got stabbed." He also said the youngster had been stabbed about 20 times. Known sex deviates in the area are being checked by police to determine if they have any connection with the case, Thrailkill said. He said that police believe the killing occurred where the youngster's body was found. The Johnston boy was last seen about 2:30 p.m. Sunday when he left his home to search for golf balls near Kenwood Country Club and look for turtles in a nearby creek, police said. $1,000 REWARD POSTED Samuel Delvecchio, grandfather of the slain boy, posted a reward of $1,000 this morning for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the slayer. He asked anyone with information on the case to call Lt. M. A. Leahy at the Bethesda police department. Private funeral services are being arranged by Joseph Gawler's Sons, Inc., Wisconsin Avenue and Harrison Street, NW. The burial in Arlington Cemetery also will be private. Senator LONG. Mr. Chairman, in response to this letter that I have just read and many other letters, I have introduced S. 3072. I was surprised to learn that although there are some 12 State laws which prohibit harassing or annoying telephone calls, there is today no Federal statute to cover the threatening, the harassing, or the abusive telephone call. Recently this problem of the so-called crank calls became so epidemic an evil that the New York Telephone Co. set up an annoyance call bureau to shield the victims. After a 7-day period of receiving the unwanted phone calls, and after keeping a detailed log of these calls, an individual phone subscriber can request the annoyance call bureau to screen all incoming telephone calls. I want to point out that the bureau will not listen in on any conversations-not wiretapping, a matter I have been having some discussions on in the past. It will merely intercept incoming calls, putting them through after obtaining the calling number. In addition, the Bell System itself is attempting to solve the problem of identifying where the malicious call comes from. I am happy to inform this committee that recently the Bell Telephone Laboratories developed a system which permits a customer whose line has been temporarily equipped for this service to "lock up" a connection by dialing a designated digit and thus permit identification of the calling line. Thus, Mr. Chairman, we have reached a stage in our technology where it is now possible to identify, almost instantly, the calling number. Not all of these malicious calls originate from pay telephone booths where identity is difficult to establish; many anonymous callers like to hide in the security of their own room and dial a victim. But it is my understanding that where the phone call crosses interstate lines, no Federal law is violated, no matter how vicious or how malicious it may be. S. 3072, if enacted, would make it a Federal crime-punishable by not more than $500 or imprisonment for not more than 2 years-for anyone by means of telephone communication to threaten physical injury to another person. Similarly, it would be a Federal crime for anyone, with intent to harass or torment another person, to repeatedly contact such person by means of telephone communication. I have introduced this bill as an amendment to the Federal Communications Act so as to include all of these phone calls, whether interstate or intrastate. It seems senseless to say that calls which originate in the District of Columbia, for example, and go across the Potomac into Virginia would be in violation of the law, whereas if the harassment stopped at the water's edge it could be made with impunity. The harm to the citizen is the same, Mr. Chairman. The bill requires that these calls be made repeatedly. I do not mean to suggest that one telephone call cannot harass or torment its recipient. The only purpose in requiring repetition is to preclude persons from running to our already overworked law enforcement agencies when there may be no reason to believe that another such call will ever again be made. I do want it made perfectly clear, however, that the silent callwhere the caller hangs up immediately or where only heavy breathing is heard-falls under the definition of "intent to harass or torment.' Mr. Chairman, I have purposely omitted the word "obscenity” from S. 3072 because of my deep interest in the first amendment. The use of the telephone is closely tied to freedom of speech, and we certainly do not want to impede the use of the telephone as a free and open means of communication. I am well aware that protection of public morals is one of the traditionally proper restraints upon speech and press. But it nevertheless poses important civil liberty problems. Serious abuses have too often occurred in connection with the methods and procedures by which the standards of obscenity are applied and enforced by our law enforcement agencies. It is my belief that repeated obscene phone calls are usually made with intent to harass or torment the recipient. Thus, repeated phone calls-whether overtly obscene or only suggestive-fall within the purview of S. 3072, while at the same time preserving our basic first amendment freedoms. |