[asterisk-biz] US Bill could affect telecom industry in the US

[Trixter aka Bret McDanel]

Senator Dodd (D-CT) appears to have a rider attached to a bill that
forces reporting of all transactions to the government.  Ebay, google,
mastercard, visa, etc.  It can be quite scary the amounts of information
that the government would get.  Everything the poindexter system wanted.

The telecom tie in is that your transactions may fall victim to this
law, and you would have to report all of them to the government, who
buys minutes etc, probably not who they called though, but you may have
to report the deduction of credits on a prepaid.  You may want to get
your legal people to look at this and see if it would affect you in any
way if it passes.

I havent yet had time to read it to see if it would actually require
telecom reporting, but it appears to on its surface.  Some have claimed
that this this is the groundwork for a internet based tax, although I
see far worse things than a mere tax if it passes.

relevant URLs

http://dodd.senate.gov
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/93xx/doc9366/Senate_Housing.pdf  CBO report
on its costs
http://banking.senate.gov/public/_files/GSEBill.pdf  committee report
http://rpc.senate.gov/public/_files/L62HR3221Houseamendments0618SN.pdf
and yet even more

The article that I got the tip from which gives a summary is at 
http://freedomworks.org/newsroom/press_template.php?press_id=2571
which gives their summary of what the changes would be and information
about where its hidden (its a rider not the main point of the bill).



-- 
Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
Belfast +44 28 9099 6461        US +1 516 687 5200
http://www.trxtel.com the phone company that pays you!