New legislation proposed by Senator Chuck Schumer (D, NY) and backed by heavyweights from both major parties, seeks to criminalize both the practitioners and the dupes of "social engineering". That's just a fancy way of smooth-talking someone out of some information they shouldn't normally impart, but it has been the most effective technique for fraudsters, hackers and private eyes over the years.

Schumer's bill, the proposed Consumer Telephone Records Protection Act of 2006, makes disclosing a subscriber's phone records an offence.

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