Wednesday, November 15, 2006

HB 124 and HB 211 Are Also Pre-filed

Most of the press attention has been on Rep. Peña's bill HB 123, regarding the need for a paper trail on all electronic voting machines. The Rep has also pre-filed two other bills.

HB 124 is an amendment to the Penal Code that deals with impersonating an officer. Currently, it's a 3rd degree felony to impersonate a police officer. The amendment would raise that to a 2nd degree felony if you impersonate an officer in order to commit another crime. In addition, it adds "uniform" as one of the items that a person is prohibited from using to appear to be a law enforcement officer. Currently, cards, certificates, badges, insignias, and other items with insignias of law enforcement agencies are prohibited.

HB 211 would prohibit wireless phone companies from selling your call records or other personal information. It would also penalize anybody getting that information by fraudulent means. Violations would result in a $5,000 fine payable to the State of Texas.

I'll keep you posted as new bills are filed. I need to go through all the bills on file to get an idea of what is already in the pipeline and to learn the language.

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