Sen. Amy Klobuchar today officially introduced legislation that would make it legal for consumers to unlock their cell phones without carrier permission.
Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, joined with Utah Republican Mike Lee and Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal to unveil the Wireless Consumer Choice Act. The bill calls on the Federal Communications Commission to take action to make sure consumers are able to lawfully unlock their phones.
Rep. Anna Eshoo, a California Democrat, introduced companion legislation in the House.
"Consumers should have flexibility and choice when it comes to their wireless service and they deserve to keep and use cell phones they have already purchased," Klobuchar said in a statement. "This legislation will help allow consumers to unlock their phones. I will continue to work with my colleagues to promote policies to meet the needs of consumers and boost competition."
"Consumers shouldn't have to fear criminal charges if they want to unlock their cell phones and switch carriers," Sen. Lee said. "Enhanced competition among wireless services is the surest way to increase consumer welfare."
Sen. Blumenthal, meanwhile, said the bill "is common sense, crucial for protecting consumer choice, and important for ensuring healthy competition in the market."
Sens. Blumenthal and Klobuchar sit on the Senate Commerce Committee, which will hold a hearing with the FCC on March 12. That "will be an opportunity for Congress to further examine the issue of consumer rights in the wireless marketplace," the senators said.
At issue is an October decision from the Library of Congress's (LOC) Copyright Office, which gave consumers a 90-day window to unlock their phones without carrier permission before that practice became illegal in January.
The Copyright Office reviews the rules on unlocking (and jailbreaking) every three years, as required by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This time around, regulators found that "there are ample alternatives to circumvention. That is, the marketplace has evolved such that there is now a wide array of unlocked phone options available to consumers."
That did not sit well with OpenSignal's Sina Khanifar, who added a petition to the White House site asking for the decision to be reversed. It recently passed the 100,000 e-signature threshold needed for an official White House response, and that response was posted Monday afternoon. In it, the administration called on Congress and the FCC to make cell phone unlocking legal.
Khanifar was cheered by the White House's response, but thinks Congress should go further than simply making cell phone unlocking legal and instead focus on a revamp of the DMCA. He launched a new site this week, FixTheDMCA.org, that takes aim at Section 1201 of the law, which has drawn support from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Y Combinator, iFixit, Reddit, Mozilla, and the Internet Archive, among others.
"Originally passed by Congress to protect music labels and the movie industry from piracy, Section 1201 is now being used to prevent Americans from making fair use of the things we buy," the site says. "The law specifies that the Librarian of Congress can make exemptions every three years."
By fixing Section 1201, Congress could make cell phone unlocking, jailbreaking, screen-reading sofware for the blind, and software and hardware modifications permanently legal, the site argues, rather than subject to review every few years.
FixTheDMCA.org is calling on supporters to share the page on social media, as well as tweet and email legislators.
Klobuchar and Eshoo, meanwhile, are not the only ones who have crafted or plan to craft cell phone unlocking bills. Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Jason Chaffetz have also announced plans for similar legislation.
For more, see Could Obama's Support Hurt Phone Unlocking?