“To modify the penalties for violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1993.”
No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section amends the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (47 U.S.C. 227) to (1) establish criminal penalties for willful and knowing violations, including imprisonment for not more than one year, a fine under 18 U.S.C., or both, with aggravated offenses carrying not more than three years imprisonment if the offender has a prior conviction under the new provision, initiated more than 100,000 calls in a 24-hour period, 1,000,000 calls in a 30-day period, or 10,000,000 calls in a one-year period, committed the offense to further a felony, or caused losses aggregating $5,000 or more in a one-year period; (2) define "call" for these purposes to include certain messages or texts sent to North American Numbering Plan numbers using an automatic telephone dialing system, artificial or prerecorded voice, or without prior consent; (3) make a conforming amendment to reference the new criminal provision; and (4) double civil penalties for providing inaccurate caller identification information to $20,000 (from $10,000) per violation. (Thus, the TCPA, which prohibits robocalls, autodialed calls without consent, and unsolicited fax advertisements, gains criminal enforcement for the first time alongside its existing private right of action and FCC enforcement.)