Senator LEAHY. Thank you very much. Ms. Yupcavage. STATEMENT OF JUDY YUPCAVAGE Ms. YUPCAVAGE. Yes, good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. I am representing the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence. It is a statewide network of domestic violence programs that provide shelter, support, counseling and advocacy to victims of domestic violence. Our coalition was the first one founded in the nation. We have been established since 1976, and we have grown in size from 19 to 57 members. I feel that I need to respond a little bit to what Ms. Blazer is saying when she is talking about telephone terrorism. It has never been the intent of the coalition in challenging callerID to minimize or trivialize the experiences that people such as Ms. Blazer go through. So many battered women experience the same type of terrorism and harassment by telephone. It is just so common. As a matter of fact, recently a law enforcement officer on national news said that 90 percent of individuals who receive obscene phone calls or harassing phone calls know who the caller is, and most of those are domestic. So he talked about a 10 percent where there is anonymous. For many battered women there comes a time when the terrorism becomes so fearful that they have to make a decision to go into hiding. And they come to our shelters. Last year we received 140,000 hot-line calls. We served 70,000 victims, and we provided shelter to 17,000 women and children who were in hiding. For them a matter of remaining in hiding is not just while they are in the shelter, which in Pennsylvania is just for a 30-day time period, for many women it is a lifetime. It is a matter of survival. One of the most frequent and frightening threats women hear is if you will leave, I will find you. If I find you, I will kill you. And I am here today to tell you that men are stalking and they are finding women. I have brought with me a clipping book that I keep that my secretary calls them "Judy's Clips." They come in at an incredible, incredible pace. And this is just our homicides from last November. And they are page after page after page, story after story of women who in the process of leaving were discovered and were killed. It is women, it is children, it is from every little community in Pennsylvania, and every large city. We have I just pulled out a couple as I was waiting to talk to you about. One of them was attached with a note from up in a small rural community. And it said Dawn was one of our clients. We had four or five contacts with her. She finally terminated our relationship with us stating that if he ever found out that she had sought our help, he would kill her. He killed her. OK. This is another woman's story about the death threats were real. She talks about how even after the divorce became final, he followed her everywhere. He spied on her. He intruded on her privacy. He threatened her with physical harm. I can tell you nobody else can ever understand the fear. He shot her. She was paralyzed. He shot her four times. She managed to survive, but one of the things she said we will never forget any of this. It was frightening and frustrating. What happened to me will happen again to others, and sometimes the man will be successful in his attempt to kill the woman. Here is another case, Karen. Karen was a woman who had sought services from a domestic violence shelter. From the beginning of the month, Karen had stayed with various family members and friends at their residences in an effort to avoid her estranged husband. She has not been able to live in her apartment. She told me she felt she was living like a bag lady. She sometimes-this is the woman talking-she sometimes stayed with me, in fact, just stayed here. Sometimes her husband would wait at her parked car while she was at work. She quit her job. It was not enough for her to remain in hiding. He found her and he killed her. The stories go on and on. How much easier it is going to be for these individuals to track and to stalk women if caller-ID is available unrestricted? It is just frightening. It is too frightening. You cannot keep adding statistics to this book. There are solutions, and that is something that we had talked to the phone company about. Please allow there to be free per-call blocking. These are women who live in terror. Do not add an additional level of terror. It is not right. And it is not fair. You cannot do this to families, to women and children. I would like to also respond just a little bit about the idea of allowing local decisionmaking on caller-ID. I think it is ineffective, and I do not think it will work. In Pennsylvania it worked because we have a very organized consumer advocate office, and we have a very large State coalition that had the resources and a pro bono attorney to deal and to challenge callerID. Some States-I am talking about domestic violence-have no coalitions whatsoever and no resources. Domestic violence shelters work on nickels and dimes. They stretch them into dollars to provide services to victims. Each year we turn away almost 10,000 women and children because of lack of shelter space. We cannot ever keep up with the demand and the need of women who are fleeing for their lives. We do not have money to devote to caller-ID issues, and a lot of States do not even have the resources or the individuals to be able to devote the time to it. I think it would be ineffective, and I think it is dangerous, and I really support Senator Kohl's bill, and I would encourage the Senate Judiciary Committee to support it also. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Ms. Yupcavage follows:] TESTIMONY OF THE PENNSYLVANIA COALITION AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE'S TECHNOLOGY AND THE LAW SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING ON CALLER *ID JUNE 7, 1990 WASHINGTON, D.C. Offered by: Judith K. Yupcavage Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence 2505 N. Front Street Harrisburg, PA 17110 The Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence (PCADV) would like to thank Senator Leahy and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee's Technology and the Law Subcommittee for the opportunity to provide testimony regarding the controversial Caller ID technology. The PCADV is a statewide network of programs providing shelter, counseling and advocacy to victims of domestic violence in PA. Founded in 1976 as the first statewide coalition of its kind in the country, this network currently has a membership of 57 programs which last year responded to 141,000 hotline calls; provided services to 70,000 victims; sheltered 17,000 victims, and turned away from shelter doors an additional 9,000 more women and children in crisis because of lack of space. It was in January 1989 that the Coalition first became aware of Caller ID and of Bell of Pennsylvania's intent to seek approval of the PA Public Utility Commission to introduce the service in our state. After several meetings with Bell representatives to determine the scope and the capability of Caller"ID services, the board of the PCADV determined that such services are invasive of the privacy and safety of victims of domestic violence and have the potential to place these victims at risk of injury or death. Thus began what has evolved into an 18-month effort by the Coalition and the PA Office of Consumer Advocate to halt the introduction and implementation of Caller ID in PA. This effort included: Filing a formal complaint with the PUC requesting suspension of a decision pending public input and evidentiary hearings; Coordinating witnesses and providing testimony at public input hearings. (The Administrative Law Judge presiding at these hearings labeled this testimony "clear, compelling, credible and convincing".); Providing expert testimony at evidentiary hearings; Filing an appeal of the PUC decision (See Exhibit A); Obtaining an injunction to delay Caller ID pending the appellate decision (See Exhibit B); and Achieving a stunning victory on the appeal just last week with a Commonwealth Court ruling prohibiting Caller ID in PA. In a 5-0 opinion the Court ruled that Caller ID violates the state's wiretap statute and invades constitutional privacy rights. Even with a blocking mechanism, the Court determined that Caller ID would be illegal in PA (See Exhibit C). Throughout this past year and a half, the Coalition has steadfastly maintained that Caller*ID services jeopardize victims of domestic violence and the individuals who provide them with safety, shelter and support. One of the most frequent and frightening threats a battered women hears from her abuser is "If you leave, I'll find you. If I find you, I'll kill you.". Make no mistake, if Caller"ID is available, it will be used by these abusers in their search to stalk, track and kill innocent women and children fleeing for their lives. Although the PCADV did, in good faith and at Bell's request, negotiate with company officials to reach a compromise position on Caller ID, none of the solutions offered by Bell were reasonable, viable or acceptable to this Coalition. None of the recommended safeguards afforded the same level and standard of safety, privacy and simplicity as our current telephone operations. PCADV maintained that, at the minimum, Bell of PA should be compelled to provide free blocking to all of their customers. If a blocking system were in place at no cost to the telephone user/customer, then the severe adverse impact of Caller ID could be averted for victims of domestic violence and those constituencies who would support them in their escape from violence. It is contrary to the public policy and not in the best interest of society that battered women and their advocates should have to lose or bear the cost of preserving their privacy and safety when free blocking would hardly diminish the profits that Bell of PA will garner from marketing this system. In this testimony I will articulate the special safety and privacy requirements of the victim of domestic violence, of the family and friends of victims seeking to support them in their pursuit of lives free of violence, of the volunteers and staff of domestic violence programs, of the local safe housing providers, and of the other community agents assisting victims and their children. I will also describe how the Caller ID system proposed by Bell of Pennsylvania will fundamentally jeopardize the life-preserving efforts of these various actors. I will attempt to show how the ill-conceived proposed "safeguards" advanced by Bell of Pennsylvania are not workable solutions for victims and the constituencies in the field isted above. I will respond to arguments that Caller ID is the only option for recipients of obscene/annoying calls. |