Would I Pretext You?

Corporate spies take notice.  "Pretexting" (the most euphemistic way to say "lying" since August 17, 1998) is now illegal and can land you in the clink for up to a decade.

President Bush on Friday affixed his signature to the Telephone Records and Privacy Protection Act of 2006. The measure threatens up to 10 years behind bars to anyone who pretends to be someone else, or otherwise employs fraudulent tactics, to persuade phone companies to hand over what is supposed to be confidential data about customers' calling habits.

Timing notwithstanding, posterity should note the unanimous vote that carried this fraud countermeasure occurred during the do-nothing 109th Congress, not amid the 100-hour 110th kick-off panderthon with which we're now being honored.

Calls for criminalizing such a practice took on renewed urgency last summer after Hewlett-Packard admitted that its investigators had used false pretenses to obtain the phone records of journalists, including three from CNET News.com, and board members in an elaborate effort to uncover the source of boardroom media leaks. One data broker hired by HP pleaded guilty on Friday to using "fraud and deceit" to nab such records.