Congress adds prison time for robocall spammers, doubles caller-ID spoofing fines
S. 3370 — DO NOT Call Act · Filed by Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) · 3 cosponsors · Introduced Dec 4, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill adds criminal penalties to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by making willful violations punishable by up to 1 year in prison and fines, with enhanced penalties (up to 3 years) for repeat offenders or those making massive volumes of calls (100,000+ in 24 hours, 1M+ in 30 days, or 10M+ in a year), calls tied to felonies, or calls causing $5,000+ in losses. It also doubles civil penalties for providing false caller ID information from $10,000 to $20,000 per violation.
Why we flagged it
The bill strengthens enforcement of existing consumer protections by adding criminal penalties and raising civil fines for robocall and caller-ID spoofing violations. It is a straightforward anti-fraud and anti-harassment measure.
What the text implies
- Criminal penalties may create prosecutorial discretion issues: prosecutors must prove 'willful and knowing' violation, which may be difficult for borderline cases or technical violations.
- The $5,000 loss threshold for aggravated offense is relatively low and may capture smaller-scale bad actors; enforcement burden on DOJ could increase significantly.
- Definition of 'call' includes text messages via automatic dialing systems, expanding scope beyond traditional voice calls to SMS spam and text-to-emergency-number abuse.
- No explicit safe harbor for legitimate business communications (e.g., appointment reminders, account alerts) that use automated systems; compliance risk for lawful callers.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Ordinary citizens are protected from robocalls, spam calls, and caller-ID spoofing through new criminal penalties and doubled civil fines that deter bad actors. The bill directly addresses a widespread consumer harm with meaningful enforcement teeth.
Named in the bill
Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1993, Communications Act of 1934, Section 227, Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission
Where it stands
3 cosponsors: 2 Democrats, 1 Independents.
- Dec 4, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Dec 4, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (2,439 characters) on Aug 31, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-10-20.
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