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Washington Judge Overturns Privacy Law
joeflies writes "Washington state regulations were enacted to protect phone customer privacy. The opt-in policy regulation was overturned by a judge who found in favor of Verizon, seeing it as a potential violation of free speech."
The law wasn't overturned, a preliminary injuction was granted suspending the law while the case is pending.
RTFA!
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
All US residents should expect a copy of the Judge's ruling to be mailed to their homes unless they contact the court by phone to "opt-out."
A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself.
So, would it be free speech to sign the Judge up for every mailing list and phone call list we can find?
<knee-jerk-without-reading-article>
Oh well... What seems to bother me the most is not the phone calls that I can tell someone, "don't call me!" What really bothers me is when you get like 5 phone calls a night and no one is there when you pick up. You can't tell them to remove you from the calling list if you don't get to talk to them.
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
Would it also be 1st-Amendment-protected free speach to call the Judge at home to inform her of one's own opinions on the right to privacy?
Or would that be harassment, since the victim would be one of the more-equal-than-us rich & powerful class, not a peon (like most of the folks suffering from endless telemarketing calls)?
It's easy to make up & spread cool- and credible-sounding stuff. Finding & checking hard facts is hard work.
Would he mind if i stood up in the middle of HIS courtroom, and started reading from ALT.SEX.GERBILS at the top of my lungs?
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Do judges not get telemarketing calls, or are they just not bothered by them? Conspiracy theory might suggest that telemarketers are careful not to call judges so that they won't understand why the public hates this so much.
What bothers me the most about this is that the primary consideration here is there ability to sell and share this information with other entities. If they have a business relationship with you, at least there is some justification for them calling, although it is weak if they are selling other services. On the other hand, they do have to be more careful with customers, since they might decide to 'opt-out' of their service altogether.
...this isn't about free speech. Its about free listening.
People are just as free to speak as they are to listen, and should not be FORCED to listen to what they don't want.
Steve.
That's an interesting question. If would be speech, but would it be free? If you called once privately, probably not harassment. If you called repeatedly, probably harassment. If you called once as a member of a campaign to call this person, probably harassment (conspiracy).
A letter, though, would be appropriate. Not that judges are supposed to respond to public opinion in the slightest.
A few weeks back NPR had an article on this topic, centered around a court case in California involving Nike, sweatshop allegations, and Nike's "our act is now clean" ad campaign.
I don't remember all of the details, but the news article left the impression that the court is chomping at the bit to have a case that allows them to examine the merits of 'individual speech' vs 'commercial speech.' It left me with the feeling that the concept of 'truth in advertising' is about to be gutted in favor of 'freedom of commercial speech.'
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
One call from every slashdot reader. That should do it.
It's all about whether they can sell customer's account information.
They may not be able to target me directly, and don't have all the information about me, but how does that stop them from saying what they want to say?
This is like saying that laws against stealing blank paper are a violation of freedom of speech because they prevent me from printing.
Are you suggesting we /. the telephone switchboards?
Can they phone companies handle that?
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
And if they value their customer's business, they'll value their customers privacy. The fact that a judge is saying that they can sell customer information means I will NEVER use Verizon as a phone company/ISP.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
Actually, that's something I meant to mention. From my point of view, they're a telephone company! They make money selling a telephone service, and the information was supplied for this purpose.
Does anyone else see a problem with Verizon taking this stance here, but taking the opposing stff when third parties request their records to pursue piracy concerns?
Verizon has no problem divulging your records. They just don't want to do it for free.
"You're never ready, just less unprepared."
What this case seems to really be able are the rights of Verizon as a corporate citizen. As Americans, the First Amendment prevents the government from restricting our right to speak. But what about a corporation? Does it have a right to speak? Can the government limit corporations in different ways than it can or can't limit individuals? Do corporations have the same rights and responsibilities as individual citizens?
Imagine this: in the next election, Verizon votes to... or, how about, Verizon elected senator... do these seem plausible? No? Then why do we ever suggest that there could be such a thing as a "corporate citizen" -- it's entirely a sham, and a dangerous one, too. This concept allows enormous and potentially immortal corporations to work their way into the fabric of America in a way that, if you think now is bad, you would not be able to imagine. It's scary. And there's a simple bottom line: Corporations are NOT citizens.
How is Verizon not being able to sell information on their customers a violation of free speech? Selling personal customer data doesn't fall into free speech!
Govenrment seems so concerned about private property rights these days while free speach protection seems to be loosing ground. Why not in this case? Look at it this way. I can't silence the person standing on the sidewalk in front of my house but I surely can kick him out of my yard. Why should my phone be any different?
By Minnesota state law, it is illegal for an auto dialer to dial unless there is someone on their end to take the call. Hanging up because more people answered than you have operators for is illegal. Since one end point is in minnesota, this law applies for out of state tellemarketers too. (Though enforcing it for out of the US is tricky, that hasn't been a problem)
This seems to work fairly well, At least I don't know anyone in MN who complains about hangups.
Personally I have a better option that works for me: my cell phone. I have a land line because DSL requires it (and no other broadbad is avaible to me for less) but I don't attach a phone to the line. Call my cell phone or you won't get me. Telemarketing calls are illegal to cell phones.
Yes, they are a telephone service. I pay them (the tel-co) for a phone number and the right to make calls. In addition, the telephone number is considered my private property for how ever long I keep the account. That being said, I also get to choose whether I can block other people from seeing my number (caller id block) and whether it's listed in the phone book or not. For the Direct Marketers Association to claim they have unlimited rights to MY phone number pisses me off. It pisses me off even more when I know my own phone company is providing them these lists (with other personal information, just the other day I got a telemarkter trying to sell me an unsecured Visa, he knew ME SPECIFICALLY (I'm Joseph A Nagy Jr, my father is (obviously) Sr)). If my telco was selling my info and I knew about it, I'd switch to another phone company, whether or not the price was higher. If there was no other company, I'd look into re-activating my cellphone (which I just might do anyways).
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
What would you do if there literally was a CongressCritter Verizon however!?
That can't happen for at least the next few years. Verizon Communications is the married name of Bell Atlantic, daughter of AT&T, born in 1984. Under the U.S. Constitution, Article I, House members must be at least 25 years of age (section 2), and Senate members must be at least 30 (section 3).
Will I retire or break 10K?