Spoofing Law Faces Court Challenge

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – A challenge to Mississippi’s “anti-spoofing” law will be heard Oct. 4 by a federal appeals court in New Orleans.

Mississippi enacted the law 2010. Other states and Congress have since enacted similar laws.

Backers of the laws say caller ID “spoofing” is a growing threat to people because of new technology making it cheap and easy to change the name and number that phone call recipients see on caller ID.

A spoofing service provider, TelTech Systems, challenged the Mississippi law as unconstitutional in 2010. A federal judge in Mississippi sided with the company a year later, and the case is now pending in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.