*Pages 1--1 from  Microsoft Word - 58338.doc*
 SEPARATE  STATEMENT  OF  COMMISSIONER  MICHAEL  J.  COPPS 
 Re:  1  st  Source  Information  Specialists,  Inc.,  d/  b/  a  LocateCell.  com,  Apparent  Liability  for  Forfeiture,  Notice  of  Apparent  Liability  for  Forfeiture,  EB  File  No.  EB-  05-  TC-  059;  FRN 
 0014762439;  NAL  Acct.  No.  200632170005. 


 Few  rights  are  so  fundamental  as  the  right  to  privacy  in  our  daily  lives  –  and  few  are  under  such  constant  attack.  Americans  must  have  the  security  of  knowing  that  their  private 
 phone  records  are  not  for  sale.  I  therefore  support  our  decision  today  to  assess  the  statutorily  maximum  forfeiture  against  a  company  that  has  egregiously  failed  to  comply  with  our  subpoena 
 and  that  must  be  called  to  account. 
 Even  though  today’s  decision  is  a  step  in  the  right  direction,  let’s  be  sure  we  don’t  lose  sight  of  the  bigger  picture  here.  Data  brokers  continue  to  flout  the  law,  invade  our  privacy,  and 
 put  each  of  us  at  risk.  As  the  Electronic  Privacy  Information  Center  (EPIC)  demonstrated  so  forcefully  in  its  petition  for  rulemaking  last  summer,  data  brokers  are  capable  of  obtaining  a 
 history  of  calls  made  to  and  from  a  particular  phone  number,  the  customer  name  associated  with  that  number,  and  perhaps  even  the  geographic  location  of  a  mobile  phone  user.  This  is  an 
 unsettling  and  entirely  intolerable  state  of  affairs.  The  Commission  simply  cannot  stop  until  the  root  problem  has  been  solved.  This  company’s  failure  to  respond  to  our  subpoena  about  how  it 
 came  to  possess  private  data  underscores  just  how  badly  further  action  is  needed. 
 In  order  to  provide  consumers  with  the  level  of  protection  they  expect  and  deserve,  I  hope  we  will  move  on  from  here  to  issue  rules  in  the  Customer  Proprietary  Network  Information 
 (CPNI)  docket  that  we  opened  last  February.  For  too  long  the  Commission  treated  privacy  as  a  “back-  burner”  issue.  It  has  been  four  years  since  the  Arizona  Corporation  Commission  initiated 
 a  petition  regarding  dissemination  of  CPNI  to  unaffiliated  third  parties.  Last  year  we  reclassified  wireline  broadband  Internet  access  services  but  left  for  another  day  the  chilling  question  of 
 whether  privacy  protections  even  apply  to  this  regulatory  remix.  It  is  time  to  stop  putting  Americans’  digital  privacy  unnecessarily  at  risk. 


 So  I  hope  this  decision  today  signals  a  commitment  to  get  privacy  right  for  the  digital  age.  Where  breaches  of  data  security  become  easier  and  more  common  every  day,  privacy  still 
 has  to  matter.  The  Commission’s  challenge  is  to  catch  up  with  the  American  people  who  are  demonstrably  tired  of  unlawful  violations  of  their  digital  privacy.  They  need  our  help  and  they 
 need  it  now. 
1