CALL ME SNAKE

Don’t worry citizens, Congress is looking out for your best interests. Lawmakers are now debating whether “pretexting”–fraudulently obtaining and selling people’s phone records–should be illegal. Two things about that strike me as odd, one being that the practice–involving lies, deception, and fraud–is still permissible under federal law. The second is that Congress would actually have to debate about it. Internet entrepreneurs and scam artists need not panic, however. If the proposed legislation passes, they can still go after utility records and other confidential material with impunity.