85 Congressmen call for SWAT-ting investigation.

No Democrats on list.

We have mentioned the practice of Swatting here before, where leftists have spoofed phone calls from right wing bloggers to police claiming a murder had been committed at their residence. The result in most cases is a visit from the local SWAT squad, creating an extremely dangerous and volatile situation.

Now at last 85 Congress members have demanded an investigation. Three things are amazing about this:

(1) Only 85 signed.
(2) It has taken so long, and;
(3) Not one of the signatures is from a Democrat.

From Big Government:

The following letter is being submitted to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder today …

Dear Attorney General Holder:

We write you concerning the growing threat of “SWAT-ting” and its costly ramifications. These crimes occur when individuals call emergency dispatchers under the guise of another person’s name with fraudulent claims, causing local law enforcement to swarm the home of innocent Americans. SWAT-ting first arose in 2002, but as technology and the Internet has expanded, the dangers of SWAT-ting are also on the rise.

Investigators have concluded that the majority of SWAT-ting cases utilize voice over Internet (VOIP) connections between the suspect’s computer and a distant telephone network, and then dialing 911. This enables the suspect to falsify their identifying information, such as their telephone number and address, and make it nearly impossible for emergency dispatchers to identify or track the true origin of the call, or even pin-point calls from VOIP connections. …

… We urge you to hold true to those promises and work to ensure that criminals using fear in hopes to preventing others from exercising their First Amendment rights are held to the highest standard of the law. To this end, we implore you to thoroughly review each of these cases, determine whether any federal laws have been breached, and prosecute those crimes accordingly.

Sincerely, (Followed by the 85 signatures.)

It is unsurprising that such a call has been made, in reality it should not have to be made. Law enforcement should have been all over it immediately it first happened; indeed it is in the interests of such agencies to stamp out this practice. For a start, it causes a huge waste of time and resources and secondly, it creates the danger of innocent people being shot.