[Congressional Bills 114th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 791 Introduced in House (IH)]

114th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 791

   To prohibit the unauthorized remote shut down of a cellular phone.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            February 5, 2015

 Mr. Griffith introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                       Committee on the Judiciary

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
   To prohibit the unauthorized remote shut down of a cellular phone.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Cell Phone Freedom Act of 2015''.

SEC. 2. UNAUTHORIZED REMOTE SHUTDOWN OF A MOBILE DEVICE.

    (a) In General.--Chapter 13 of title 18, United States Code, is 
amended by adding at the end the following:
``Sec. 250. Unauthorized remote shutdown of a mobile device
    ``(a) In General.--Whoever, being an officer or employee of the 
United States, any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or 
District, or of any department or agency thereof, knowingly causes a 
mobile device phone to be shut down without the consent of the owner or 
account holder of that mobile device phone or without the order of a 
court authorizing such shut down shall be imprisoned not more than 5 
years or fined under this title, or both, and shall be removed from 
such office or employment.
    ``(b) Definitions.--In this section--
            ``(1) the term `account holder', with respect to a mobile 
        device--
                    ``(A) means the person who holds the account 
                through which commercial mobile service or commercial 
                mobile data service is provided on the device; and
                    ``(B) includes a person authorized by the person 
                described in subparagraph (A) to take actions with 
                respect to the device;
            ``(2) the term `commercial mobile data service' means any 
        mobile service (as defined in Section 3 of the Communications 
        Act of 1934) that is--
                    ``(A) a data service;
                    ``(B) provided for profit; and
                    ``(C) available to the public or such classes of 
                eligible users as to be effectively available to a 
                substantial portion of the public, as specified by 
                regulation by the Commission;
            ``(3) the term `commercial mobile service' has the meaning 
        given the term in section 332 of Communications Act of 1934;
            ``(4) the term `mobile device' means a personal electronic 
        device on which commercial mobile service or commercial mobile 
        data service is provided; and
            ``(5) the term `shut down' means to make use of a hardware 
        or software function to remotely--
                    ``(A) delete or render inaccessible from the device 
                all information relating to the account holder that has 
                been placed on the device;
                    ``(B) render the device inoperable on the network 
                of any provider of commercial mobile service or 
                commercial mobile data service globally, even if the 
                device is turned off or has the data storage medium 
                removed;
                    ``(C) prevent the device from being reactivated or 
                reprogrammed without a passcode or similar 
                authorization after the device has been--
                            ``(i) rendered inoperable as described in 
                        subparagraph (B); or
                            ``(ii) subject to an unauthorized factory 
                        reset; and
                    ``(D) reverse any action described in subparagraph 
                (A), (B), or (C) if the device is recovered by the 
                account holder.''.
    (b) Clerical Amendment.--The table of sections for such chapter is 
amended by adding at the end the following:

``250. Unauthorized remote shutdown of a mobile device.''.
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