Lock up the people responsible at the companies allowing anonymous VOIP calls to 911. If the ultimately responsible party is overseas or untraceable, the company at the end of what was able to be traced assumes responsibility.
They're not calling 911 over VOIP, they're calling the listed local police lines[0].
>The belief that these are false 911 calls or the narratives that these are 911 calls needs to change, because they’re not calling the 911 system. They’re not able to call 911. They’re calling the main line or the visible nonemergency number listed on the internet for a lot of these police departments and these dispatches.
This article explains the issue and is a good read.
I'd love to see the stats on real vs. fake reports on 911 vs. the local line, because it sounds dumb as hell to respond with SWAT to the local line.
Anyway, yeah, like the other commenter mentioned, treat the local police lines the same.
Actually, treat all calls to any number the same. Carriers should be required to understand provenance for every single call. All nuisance calls get fines or jail time. If the carrier cannot locate a responsible party, the carrier themselves are liable.
911 handles multiple non-police emergency services, though. Also, 911 is way easier to remember than a full local number, and works outside your home city.
I meant literally substitute "local non-emergency police line" for "911" in this comment:
"Lock up the people responsible at the companies allowing anonymous VOIP calls to 911"
It shouldn't matter if these spoofed calls are going to 911 or to the local non-emergency line. They shouldn't be sending swat for spoofed calls from other states. The comment I was responding to seemed to imply that there's some meaningful difference that the calls are coming through the local non-emergency line. There really shouldn't be any difference in terms of what response these spoofed calls generate.
As a sibling points out, they're using the local lines.
But you don't need anonymous VoIP. You just buy a burner phone with cash. In the US, carriers are required to route emergency calls even if the phone has no SIM card in it, or if you do have a SIM, but your phone can only see a carrier network you don't have permission to use. The idea being emergencies trump silly things like whether or not you've paid your phone bill or picked the "right" carrier for that location. Or if, say, your SIM card got damaged or dislodged in the accident that caused you to need emergency services.
And I think this is a good thing. But it's of course a vector for abuse, too.
I read that interview. They also think it is ridiculous to respond with SWAT to those local line calls. But companies should be liable for those as well. Let's have accountability. Let's make them liable for all calls that they don't fully understand the origin of.
If swatters had to buy burner phones instead of using a free trial on a VOIP service, first of all the price and effort would put this out of range for the typical teenage griefer. Furthermore then the phone call itself would be traceable to a cell tower so people who did a number of these could be tracked down and prosecuted. I think a carrier tracing back to a physical device could fulfill what I am asking for.
Edit: also, similar to how I feel about the payphones comment; let's simply not send a SWAT team out when the caller is nowhere near the area of the reported crime.
You know what would be a great policy? Not sending SWAT teams when the call reporting whatever situation is coming from a phone physically on the other side of the state.
> When smoking move out of bars most bars seemed to close.
Pretty good outcome, IMO. If you can't make money without giving all your customers cancer, even if they don't smoke... maybe you shouldn't be in business.
