occasioned by the leave-taking of their battered partners. One-third of men who kill their partners commit suicide thereafter. Batterers who kill are obsessed with their partners and believe that they are entitled to their loyalty, obedience, and servitude. These batterers believe that they are inalienably entitled to a relationship with their battered partners. Many of these batterers who attempt to kill or succeed in killing their partners have a history of intense scrutiny and control over their partners. (Hart, 1988; Browne, 1986). Thus, when batterers learn that battered women are recipients of services from domestic violence programs, they are put on notice that separation is a possibility and may be the forerunner of relationship termination. Having concluded this, batterers uniformly seek to sabotage the interaction between battered victims and domestic violence programs. Sabotage strategies are many but basically fall into several categories. One strategy is to block contact with the domestic violence program. A second is searching for the battered woman at the domestic violence shelter, in safe housing provided by families in the community, and at the homes of families and friends. This strategy involves stalking, tracking and harassing battered women and their acquaintances to try to gain access to victims in order to persuade or coerce them back into relationships. When a battered woman removes herself to a secret location in order to acquire the safety and protection she deems essential for her well-being, many batterers begin stalking and searching. If the batterer concludes that his partner will stay in touch with her mother or friends, he can gain access to the homes of either and use their telephone display to try to track his battered partner. Under Caller ID, batterers can track partners by manipulating children, to whom they may have access at school, into calling them at home, thereby revealing the telephone number and ultimately the address of the residence in which the battered women has secreted herself and the children. PCADV believes that these examples make it obvious that Caller ID will threaten not just the privacy interests of battered women, but will jeopardize their very lives as it enables batterers to subvert safety plans adopted by battered women. Staff and volunteers of battered women's programs, as well as family and friends, who would provide battered women with safe housing in secret locations will likewise by jeopardized. Family and friends who would resist a batterer's demands to track battered women through reading the displayed numbers in the homes of the family and friends may find their own lives endangered because of their "interference' with a batterer's search. BELL OF PA'S PROPOSED SAFEGUARDS In an attempt to reach a compromise on Caller ID, Bell of PA addressed the concerns of the PCADV by offering several proposed "safeguards". Bell proposed that PCADV could get Identa*Ring and Call Forward installed on all its agencies' lines and Bell would waive all tariff installation fees and surcharges. Bell would also waive charges for operator assistance and would provide credit cards for staff and volunteers of these agencies. Bell also agreed that its proposal should be altered to include public notification that PCADV member programs and similar groups don't subscribe to Caller ID. Advertising of non-participation by PCADV groups would be partially underwritten by Bell. These proposals were determined by PCADV to be defective in two ways. 1. Bell of PA is statutorily required to provide adequate, efficient, safe and reasonable service. PCADV and public input witnesses provided testimony that Bell's current system is efficient and simple to use, provides adequate privacy and is relatively inexpensive in terms of time and money. All of the evidence presented to the Public Utility Commission clearly stated that the "safeguards", as proposed by Bell, would make the phone system less private, more expensive and complicated to use. Moreover, lives of abused persons would unavoidably be endangered by Caller ID as proposed. 2. Bell's "safeguard" proposal did not address the needs of victims of domestic violence who are not clients of the PCADV. As the Coalition pointed out in testimony, statistics indicate that approximately 800,000 women are battered in Pennsylvania each year. Only 70,000 accessed PCADV's services last year, leaving 730,000 abused women who did not utilize the services of PCADV programs. None of Bell's proposals were directed to informing those women who haven't accessed PCADV services of the risks posed by Caller ID and how to maintain the privacy and safety of their telephone communications. These proposal would do nothing to mitigate the danger to these abused women if Caller ID were implemented in PA. Furthermore, Bell's recognition of the dangers that Caller ID pose to certain individuals and their offer to mitigate these dangers does not obviate the fact that Bell's Caller ID proposal is the cause of the increased danger. OPTIONS FOR RECIPIENTS OF OBSCENE/ANNOYING CALLS There has been a tremenndous focus by Bell of PA on the use of Caller ID to curtail obscence, harassing and annonying phone calls. It was never the intent of this Coalition to minimize or downplay the fear or anguish experienced by recipients of these phone calls. To the contrary, we acknowledge that this fear is real since battered women also are recipients of an inordinately high number of such calls from their abusers. These are the same battered women we know to be at risk of injury or death at the hands of these abusers. Battered women have a very real need to have these terroristic calls documented; yet, at the same time, they have a more compelling need to remain hidden. As we have aruged and as the Commonwealth Court has concurred, other Bell IQ services, such as Call Trace or Call Block, will provide adequate protections to all individuals without placing victims of domestic violence at additional and unncessary risk with Caller ID. CONCLUSION In summary, I would like to offer that telephone companies must not retreat from safety in order to advance technology and increase revenues. These companies have been allowed to chip away at our privacy and turn around and sell it back to us one piece at a time. Unfortunately, there are far too many telephone users in this country who would not be able to afford the high cost of privacy. The PCADV fervently believess that the loss of privacy and possible loss of life is far too high a price for any of us to have to pay. We strongly support federal legislation mandating free blocking to all customers in states where Caller ID is available. Brief Biography Judith K. Yupcavage Judith K. Yupcavage is the Public Education Specialist for the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence. In this capacity, she is responsible for the development of education materials, information and resource data for public releases and represents the Coalition at speaking engagements throughout the state, addressing the issue of domestic violence and the work of PCADV. In addition, Ms. Yupcavage provides technical assistance to domestic violence programs statewide, edits the Coalition's quarterly newsletters and networks and provides systems advocacy with agencies and organizations which deal with domestic violence victims. She also reviews and tracks state and federal legislation, assists with drafting language for laws which focus on battered women and children and frequently prepares and presents testimony regarding pending legislation and funding issues. Ms. Yupcavage has worked closely on the Caller ID issue in Pennsylvania. |