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House Votes to Launch Do-Not-Call List
Zendar writes "Yahoo! has a story on how it took less than an hour with a final vote of 412-8 to approve the 'do not call list'. "Votes to overturn the judge's order are expected mid-afternoon in both chambers, according to Republican leadership aides." The President is expected to sign today. Some choice quotes: "Fifty million Americans can't be wrong." and "This bill will pass faster than a consumer hanging up on a telemarker at dinner time." CNN also has the story."
Why can't they pass an anti-spam bill as quickly?
Hopefully voters will remember how well the dissenting congressmen "represented" them the next time they go to the polls.
..hell just froze over.
Harald
Wait, my government went against a bussiness interest for the sake of the people?
They did a good thing?
I take back some of the bad things I have said about them. Now if only they could continue this trend...think about it...RIAA ruled unconstitutional, it's members shot. MS seperated into many different companies, forced to develop OSS.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
"Fifty million Americans can't be wrong."
Unless those same 50 million people are using P2P software.
Trolling is a art,
Shouldn't you have predicted that the telemarketers would have just passed on some cash to the campaign funds and won? Ooops.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Small industry to offend
plus
Lots of voters to please
equals
Lopsided vote
plus
Passage in record time
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
I posted my incisive and witty commentary on this matter of vital national importance earlier this afternoon.
While I am on the list and would very much like to see it go through, it irratates me when I hear statements like "Fifty million Americans can't be wrong.".
Popular votes are routinely wrong and a number of them have had horrible consequences.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Several analysts have ponted out that this coud mean milions of lost jobs in an important industry.
Yeah, and laws against murder have thrown millions of hitmen out of work.
While many of us don't like people selling us things we don't like but thats capiatalism you know.
If I want to buy something, I will contact them, or I will leave myself off the list. People on the list have made their decision. They don't want to buy telemarketed crap.
No, of course not. Not like 50 million Americans still believe in frikkin' astrology or anything.
Hell, 25 million Americans still probably believe in Santa Claus. Sure, they're children, but that's really no excuse. ;)
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Telemarketing will die because the telemarkers finally managed to make themselves obsolete by increasing their most annoying habits (pre-recorded autodialers, calling during dinner every night) that people had finally just had enough. This will be bad for the economy in the short term in some places where this business thrives, but it's not as devastating as some would have you believe.
Industries form and evaporate all the time, yet the economy survives. Those people that are currently engaged in telemarketing will find some other way to make money, and markets will adapt. The economy didn't implode when the automobile devastated the buggy whip business, and it won't implode due to this either. The real fear is what sort of even more annoying marketing tactics will be invented now that this one is being slapped down.
Anyone want to bet these Congressman have telemarketers in their districts?
Fezzik: "Actually, it seems to be coming from the direction of the Direct Marketing Association Washington offices..."
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
And more importantly, what does this have to do with my right online?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I cannot stand bad thinking. And bad thinking is just what the Telemarketers are engaged in when they argue that the DNC list will cost jobs.
They could make an arguemnt for free-speech. I say the could make it (without me laughing), but I will disagree in the end with that one too.
But as for jobs -- it will actually make the telemarketer MORE money -- if there are less telemarketers! The current game plan is simply to call everyone on the planet from the time they are born until the time they die like every second of every day. I would suggest that TARGETED, AGREED, and WARRANTED solicition will result in a lower-cost of SALES OVERHEAD than currently spamming everyone on the plantet, with the same rate of success!
Of course, the telephone companies sit quietly in a corner and pout as it was their corner upon which the pimp was solicting his wares.
I would love to wake up in an opt-in world, but until that day I have to have some way to say, "No, I don't want a year's subscription to volvo-hotrod magazine.".
Peace Out.
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
It's certainly pleasing to see that on at least one issue of national import, our elected reprentatives can all pull together for an effective resolution.
I'm rather disappointed by the negativity that has been heaped on Judge West for his ruling suspending enforcement of the law, though. It's the job of the judiciary to keep the executive branch (in this case, the FTC) from overstepping the bounds of their authority granted to them by the legislative branch. If there was a question as to whether or not Congress granted the FTC sufficient authority to create such a list, enforcement of it certainly should be suspended until the matter is resolved. In this case, Congress (well, the House, anyway) has made itself clear on the matter -- they have explicitly placed the creation and enforcement of the list in the mandate. Unless West does something foolish at this juncture, like continuing to try to fight the enforcement of the list, he should be commended for doing his job of keeping the government consistent.
Funnily enough, in the UK, many people find that most of their spam comes from the USA. If you could kindly get your government to do a similarly fine job on spam, I would get less offers for enlargement of body parts and other tempting offers...
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
How long have telephones been around?
Doesn't sound quick to me at all. They aren't passing a bill saying No Telemarketing, they are passing a bill saying the FCC can have a Do Not Call List. BIG DIFFERENCE.
Call the FCC for a Do Not SPAM list.
Just to clarify - the judge held that the FTC did not have Congressional authority to implement the list. This vote simply gives explicit Congressional authority to the FTC to maintain a "Do Not Call" list.
The role of a judge is to interpret the laws, and he interpreted the law as he saw it. Congress took note and now fixed it. Now, unless there's a serious Constitutional question (doubtful), and if the FTC now has explicit authority from Congress, then this *should* be the end of litigation by the DMA.
So, just to clarify, the judges ruling was complied with, not really overruled.
The judge didn't overturn a law written in congress and signed by the president. The ujudge overturned regulation implemented by the FTC because he felt that the FTC had no authority to do what it did, but the FCC could've done it. The FTC claimed that a small section of last year's budget provided them with the authority to do what they did.
So with congress passing this bill, and the president signing it, the case becomes pointless.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
Based on today's vote, I think it is pretty clear that the legislature had given the F.T.C. this authority. The reason for the hurried vote is not just the public outcry from yesterday's ruling. Legislators take offense when a court misreads their intent. They are simply clarifying their earlier position.
And why is the end of telemarketing a bad thing? Sure people will lose their jobs, but industries die and employees are forced to gain new skills everyday. This was an industry that made their profit by harrassing people in their own homes. The telemarketing industry should never have been allowed to exist to begin with.
As far as those employees who lose their jobs, perhaps the fines collected for violation of the do-not-call list could go to a fund to pay for skill training programs for former telemarketing workers? Sounds like a plan to me.
--Kobayashi--
Fifty million Americans can't be wrong. That's going to be the mantra in Congress for the next two weeks as frantic resolutions are passed authorizing the Federal Trade Commission to implement the proposed National Do Not Call lists. It is ideal legislation; what self-respecting member of Congress is going to vote against those annoying calls at dinner to sell you vacation rentals or offer a credit card.
Ignored in the fracas is a startling truth: The Do-Not-Call list is going to be a failure. It's also an example of the worst sort of government regulation. The two arguments against a Do Not Call list are job loss and the power of marketing. The direct marketing industry has been crying out about potential job losses. Losing two million jobs, many going to low income rural Americans, is a bad thing. And I can believe that the choice direct telemarketing offers (would you like to switch your phone service for 2.9 cents a minute?) helps consumers in the long term. But let's break down why the Do Not Call list is going to fail: Nonprofits, Politicians and Business Process.
The two biggest abusers of telemarketing are politicians and nonprofits. I can't tell you how many times the Virginia State Police Association has called me asking for money. And my phone rings off the hook come election time with Get Out the Vote Calls. These two groups are exempted under the Do Not Call list.
But the exemptions, once created, can only be expanded. Do nonprofits that hire commercials solicitors need apply? What about nonprofits cross-selling commercial products (Greenpeace offering a MBNA Credit card? The NRA offering AT&T phone service). If our intent is to create a zone of privacy, why let in two industries off the bat. And why it may reduce the number of calls, the FTC does not have the staff or expertise to go after the multitude of nonprofit cross selling opportunities which will arise.
I can understand the hypocrisy of politicians removing themselves from the Do No Call regulations, but how is the average American going to react when they get 15 calls to vote for their local congressmen, city council members or Senator come election time. Didn't we sign up for the Do Not Call list, dear? Oh, yes, but Politicians can still call you.
But the biggest weakness, and why the Do-Not-Call act is going to fail, it that it trying to regulate an admirable process (stop telemarketing) but isn't setting out the tools necessary to do so. Let's look at how a telemarketer works. They buy data from a data company - say 15 million records on people who moved recently. They run that through some sorts and come up with 250,000 phone calls they need to make, and then hit the digits.
The national data companies will take the data a few times a year and add a field for people who signed up for Do Not Call. What that means is that if you move, or change phone numbers, it's going to take a while for that information to be updated. And if you name was already sold, say two years ago to a telemarketing firm, how is that company going to find out you where on the Do-Not-call list. Are they going to take their existing data and clean it (which costs money that the companies don't want to spend). And what if you run a business out of your house? Business to business calls are still open, so that means you are still open for calls. There's a hundred other examples of this, and the net result is that a lot of the 50 million Americans who signed up are still going to be gettings calls at 6 pm, and after a long and complicated procedure they are going to find out there's not much you can do. The Do Not Call list is government regulation that ignore business process, and it is going to do very little to stop the calls.
Congress created the FTC, and Congress can change the FTC's mission. Congress explicitedly told the FTC to create the Do-Not-Call list. Hence, they did not stray outside their area.
It has been pointed out that this claim is hyperbole. Most people who work for call banks work for a specific company. For example, a bank which calls its own customers. Such calls are still legal.
But that is laisse faire captialism, which we don't have in this country.
Here's the correct link : Creationism vs Evolution
Does that mean we have now voted god into existence?
Does this mean that astrology is real?
Does this mean I can talk to the dead?
Does this mean that Friends is really a good show?
I think not. 50 million people can sometimes be real doofuses.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
It's clear that the F.T.C. has been engaging in regulatory imperialism and ruled outside it's area.
Clear? Outside its area? How so? That is the Federal Trade Commission. It would seem that they are in charge of regulating trade that crosses state lines.
Several analysts have ponted out that this coud mean milions of lost jobs in an important industry.
Boo hoo. No one ever guaranteed that "industry" a profit.
Everyone knows that this could mean the end off telemarketing as an economical way of doing bussiness.
So be it. See above. Let them find a different business model. One that is not so intrusive upon the consumer.
While many of us don't like people selling us things we don't like but thats capiatalism you know.
Capitalism does not include the forcing of your selling mechanism upon me. You can advertise all you want. I have the right not to be bothered with it if I don't want to.
With telephone advertising, there is really no method, short of unplugging the phone, to turn it off. The DNC list provides citizens that method.
Your article only says that 40% believed that only creationism should be taught in public school. It does not say anything about how old they thought the earth is.
i.e. my grandfather has been a deacon in his church for a few decades, he'd probably say that creationism should be taught in schools. That does not allow you to make the *HUGE* jump that he believes the earth is only 6k years old. Let alone your overly massive generlization of a huge population.
Nope. Though the following pertains to bulk mail, and as an extension also to spam, it fits here, too. Cheif Justice Berger, c. 1970: "Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit. We categorically reject the argument that a vendor has a right under the Constitution or otherwise to send unwanted material into the home of another. If this prohibition operates to impede the flow of even valid ideas, the answer is that no one has a right to press even 'good' ideas on anunwilling recipient. The asserted right of a mailer, we repeat, stops at the out er boundary of every person's domain."
I think that this law is a bad one.
If a citizen wants to choose to have a telephone hooked up to the entire rest of the world, then that citizen should accept the responsibilities that come along with that.
If you don't want strangers calling you and selling you things, there are several solutions to that problem that don't involve the government.
You can have all phone calls with blocked numbers (the ones that telemarketers use) go into a special queue for screening. This is a service available to just about everybody with a phone. I don't see why the government has to solve this problem.
I think that if you're too dumb to configure your phone to not take calls you don't want, that you deserve to get called at dinner time by a stranger selling discount vacations to Mexico.
Um, no, they were influenced by citizens. Fifty million pissed-off citizens.
If we're worried about killing off industries that employ, hey, let's legalize heroin trafficking. Plenty of folks gainfully employed there.
It's a shame that the FTC needs help from Congress to carry out its mission, actually.
Everyone knows that this could mean the end off telemarketing as an economical way of doing [sic] bussiness.
Why do you think we all signed up for it?
While many of us don't like people selling us things we don't like but thats capiatalism you know.
I have some Viagra substitutes to sell you, along with an opportunity to move money out of Nigeria. What's your phone number?
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
In case anyone's interested, the actual text of the bill that was just passed is here.
How To Get Humans To Mars
"Fifty million Americans can't be wrong."
That's funny, I seem to remember the US government putting out a PSA saying 'only 20% of americans smoke weed.' Well, if we have around 300 mil americans, that means around 60 mil weed smokers, right? Yet I don't see congress saying that those 60 million americans aren't wrong. Not that more proof of government hypocrisy was needed, but there it is anyway.
http://xkcd.com/386/
The real outcome of this is that the direct marketing industry will realize that they don't spend nearly enough money on Washington lobbyists and campaign contributions (like the tech industry realized after they started getting beaten up by the hill).
Expect a significant increase in spending by the direct marketing industry on lobbyists and campaign contributions. Then, a few years from now, expect several new bills expanding the list of exemptions to the do-not-call list.
Well then, just post your email address and I'll sign you up to make sure a lot of spammers can put food on the table.
Frankly, another person's right to earn a living ends when it invades on my right to privacy.
Millions of lost jobs in an important industry? End of telemarketing as an economical way of doing business?
Millions of lost jobs, yeah tell that to the damned auto-recording that calls my number almost every freaking day, I'm sure that machine's job will be missed. Why not move telemarketers over to call support - about the same thing. Better service is why I cancelled one telco to choose another - at least one telemarketer a week wanting to switch my local but 45 minutes to get support, from the same company... If my number is on the list, it is saving a telemarketer money - I'm not buying so why waste time calling?
Advertising as a whole is a scary business model to build upon. This is just one of many examples where people are just plain sick of it.The year and a half I spent without a land line (all cell) was heaven, I'm ready to go back. Caller ID never worked and neither did "take me off your list, don't call." I'm not going to pay extra for a privacy manager or a private PBX so what am I supposed to do? IMHO telemarketers inflated their own worth and ignored growing anger towards them for at least four years now, so good riddance...
-Phil
Shoot questions, first ask later...
The DMA, our worst domestic terror organization, has finally been stifled thanks to the bipartisan efforts of congress. Hopefully its 5,000 members can now be captured, tarred and feather, and executed. We truly are winning the war on terror.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
Well then, I think we can add this to the Non-Libertarian FAQ. Which incidentally is the first thing on google that shows up when you search for "libertarian faq". I guess that probably means there are less Libertarians than there are people out there who are extremely annoyed by them.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Ron Paul, R-Texas - 202-225-2831
Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. - 202-225-2635
Kendrick Meek, D-Fla. - 202-225-4506
Tim Ryan, D-Ohio - 202-225-5261
Ted Strickland, D-Ohio - 202-225-5705
Lee Terry, R-Neb. - 202-225-4155
Rob Bishop, R-Utah - 202-225-0453
Chris Cannon, R-Utah. - 202-225-7751
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
"This legislation got to the House floor faster than a consumer can hang up on a telemarketer at dinnertime"
Even as I post this comment, my phone is ringing yet again.
Caller ID says: Unavailable
Fifth telemarketing call today, and it's not even 3PM. In the last few months, the calls have gotten much more frequent. They call from 9:30 AM until 9:30 PM, making at least 10 calls daily. I guess it's a last ditch effort before the DNC list goes into effect.
I haven't said anything until today, but I've gotten annoyed with this whole 50 millions people being on the list thing. There's a lot of bad assumptions around this estimate which could amek the actual number higher or lower.
First of all, you're assuming that each person registered one phone number. Let's assume that each person registered their cell phone, their home phone, their beeper, their fax machine, their dsl line and their office line. That's six lines for a single person. Let's say corporate IBM registered every one of it's office lines, even though the individual's using the lines didn't have any particular problem with telemarketer phone calls. The actual number of people who support this could be much lower than 50 million.
On the other hand, let's say one person registered their house's phone on behalf of an entire family. Now that one phone number should really count for all ten people who live under the roof and use the same line, the actual number of people who support this legislation by that logic could be much higher than 50 million.
And what about people who went stir crazy the day the list was unveiled and started registering every phone number they could get their hands on. Their friends, their coworkers, their family members... they probably thought they were doing everyone a public service. OR, how about if someone set up a script to register a LOT of phone numbers, just to try to put the telemarketers out of business. How hard would it be to automatically register EVERY US phone number? Not very, is the answer.
So, everyone should be saying that 50 million phone numbers were registered, not that 50 million people support the registry. There's really no way to know how popular the registry is without doing (wait for it)... phone surveys.
Sigh.
--
RumorsDaily
It won't. It doesn't stand a chance.
I was an evil one. I used to call you during dinner.
3 days later you had a dude at your house selling you windows, and it costed you $850 a window.
Our business was on the up and up. We didn't break any laws. We confirmed all of our appoitments and kicked old single people off our schedules.
But what always impressed me about the company was there resiliancy.
I see at least two tools they can use to get out from under this.
The first is the polling hole. If politicians are serious about this thing they need to close that hole. They won't do it, cause politicians can't make up there mind without a poll, but the only way to make it work is to close that hole.
'Hello Mr. Smith I am calling on behalf of Windows company.
We are conducting a poll. Does your house have windows?
How many?'
---end of polling portion of call----
See how easy that hole is to exploit?
There is another hole. I can't really think of a way to close this one. But if the consumer is careful they don't have to worry about it.
That one has to do with the customer contacting the business first. If the business can show that the customer contacted them then it really isn't the kind of telemarketing call that this 'do not call' registry covers.
I know what you are thinking.
And you are wrong.
There is nothing new about this hole, or the exploit.
All you have to do is offer a 'free' drawing.
When will people learn that only 'nothing' is free?
We used to set up kiosk stands in malls, fairs, home shows and just about anywhere else we could find to put them. We would put up a couple samples of windows and offer a free drawing for windows.
It was on the up and up we did give away free windows just like we said.
But once you fill out that card, guess what you have done?
You got it. You have now made a contact with our business. You have given us permission to call you.
Even if I am wrong on this, I am not very wrong. All these cards have small print (think EULA) on the back. All that really needs to be done is add a sentence that says 'by filling out this card homeowner gives permission to window company to make farther contact and phone calls to the homeowner.'.
I will be quite honest with you. I don't do that anymore. Now I am a computer operator. I make good money, I enjoy my job, I could do without the night work though. I don't really regret the 5 years I spent in that industry. On the contrary, I learned some very valuable lessons. Hell I don't think I would be doing what I am doing today without them.
But I am probably more annoyed with telemarketing calls then the average person. I work nights, 6pm-6am.
Know what 11am phone calls do to me?
That being said I have pity for the honest people in the industry. There are a lot of people that are honest, hard working and intelligent. There are retired people that need extra income. I would hate to see the industry shut down and these people all be out of work.
With that attitude I kind of look at telemarketing calls as my problem. When I get one I tell them to take me off the list. That is a legal thing by the way, there is more byte to that phrase then you would think. If they get too annoying I unplug the phone until I wake up.
I agree with you that I shouldn't have to do that. I understand everyones point as well. That is why I am not saying that the 'do not call registry' is evil.
It is not.
It just won't work.
Google for "corporate personhood". It will blow your mind.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Just think if we used popular vote for the presidential election, Al Gore would be president. On the other thing think of all the things he could have invented....
Unless those 50 Million Americans want P2P trading of music.
Does this mean that the RIAA gives more money to political campaings than the ATA?
I'm not saying that using other peoples creative works without compensating them is right. But if 50 Million Americans can't be wrong shouldn't compulsary liscensing been more of a slam dunk?
Denying political speech would essentially set the bill up for a potential legal challenge on first ammendment basis that would be much tougher to defend it from than a bill that restricts only commercial speech.
If the do-not-call list goes into effect because "fifty million Americans can't be wrong," then... How can sixty-five million Americans be wrong about file sharing?
Just wondering...
Reader #7 says: "I am a telemarketer who has been feeding my family through this type of work for 17 years...[cut]...Telemarketing has made jobs available to those that were laid off from Corporate America. Unfortunately more people will be laid off if this law takes effect. I'm not saying we shouldn't respect people's rights. I'm just saying leave our jobs alone."
I didn't touch your job, b****. Quit calling me! Come on. Times change. Our family newspaper went under due to the popularity of eBay. Should I sue ebay? (RIAA would).
Honestly though, no one is touching these jobs. People survived before phones, they'll have to survive now.
Check out Reader #9: "I guess the only question for the people who advocate the Do Not Call List is: What would you rather have us do? Should we loot, burn, and take what we need to survive? Or would you rather look at the caller i.d. and not answer the phone?
Excuse me? You're saying 2 million workers are suddenly going to loot & burn just to survive. Because they are unable to get a job besides Telebitchemarketer? I don't remember looting after the dot com bubble. Listen, I'm quite the liberal & democrat, but even I don't mind sounding like Ronald Reagan on this issue. Get another fsking job!
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
Any business model which pisses off the majority of your customer base is doomed to failure.
Of course one could argue that an unsolicited call is a violation of property rights. "I didn't give you permission to send a phone signal into my household. You're trespassing!" Perhaps that is an argument even a libertarian could accept. Though since that argument is certainly a grey one, let's look at it this way: is legislation really needed?
Handling telemarketing is quite easy. One can use caller ID. Then you only answer the phone when you want to talk to the other person. Though not the norm, I personally know about when I can expect phone calls, and I know the hours when telemarketers don't call; I'm pretty accurate in only answering calls I want without caller ID by keeping this in mind. So with either approach, you can easily not answer telemarketers. I've found that not answering their calls makes the amount of calls come down drastically. I probably get only 1 telemarketing call every week or two that gets to talk to my answering machine.
Furthermore, many telemarketers get people's number because people are too lazy to read privacy statements and mark off what is needed to tell a company not to contact you or share your information. For example, when my mortgage got sold to another bank, I actually read the "junk mail" the new bank sent me to find an easy way to let them know that I do not want any telemarketing from them. Most people probably would have just tossed it out without reading it.
And finally, there is a telemarketer's alliance you can contact to have your number removed from all its member companies, and if you bother to tell a telemarketer on the phone not to call you again then they are legally obligated not to call you. (Some people have gotten rich suing those who disobeyed, so there's a good revenue oppurtunity if it fails!)
So in summary, it seems to me that there are plenty of options for stopping telemarketing. I believe the thrust of this demand for legislation is due to people's laziness/stupidity in taking advantage of these options to take care of themselves. Now granted, some will rhetorically ask why they must do this? That only holds water if you believe that you have some sort of divine right to use phones in an omnipotent manner to your liking. Using these methods to take care of yourself is no different than paying money for a Tivo and taking the effort to push a button to skip comercials on the cable networks you already pay to see.
I think it all boils down to the "inertness of mankind", demanding that other people take care of them because they are too lazy to take the minimal effort needed to stop the telemarketing problem. It seems an example of what Bastiat pointed out in "The Law", as per my sig.
"The State is that great fiction by which everyone lives at the expense of everyone else." -Frederic Bastiat.
"How come the Republican party can call me, but Sears can't?"
Because you can vote the Republicans out of office, but you can't vote Sears out of business.
If God had had a computer it would have taken him 7 months to create the earth...if he even bothered to do it at all.
When did bending-over for big business become "defending the constitution?"
Read the document sometime, you'll see the ideals of the Enlightement in print which include but are not limited to protection from government, protection from others, personal autonomy, democratic voice, freedom from religion, etc.
If an industry is considered a nuisance by a vast majority of Americans and is limited through grassroots effort this can easily be seen as a democratic action at work. Dissenters might say its the tyranny of the majority, but they can have my telemarking calls if they truly believe that. Something tells me they won't volunteer. Would Ron Paul "defender of the Constitution" let coal burning plants pollute your neighborhood because an overisght comission via the EPA is more "big bad government?"
Just because an industry exists doesn't mean that limiting it is 'big government.' Does Ron Paul want to live in country where we're citizens of corporations because of an irrational fear of "big bad government?" Probably. Would he let Microsoft go with a light slap on the wrist like Bush did. Definiately. Sorry about how your upstart was illegally crushed by the big business, but better that then more "big government" eh?
All the neolib economists, starting with old man Milton, would just love to tear down the state and the protections it provides and let us become modern day serfs.
Funny thing about free markets, they have a problem remaining free. Don't let that fact get in the way of a some irrational ideology though.
6 of the 8 who voted against this were from states centrally located in the U.S.
:)
It makes sense because long distance rates are cheaper there. A few cents a minute savings really adds up when you've got a phone room filled with hundreds of people working the phones.
I own a business programming online surveys and a lot of my work comes from research studies that used to be conducted by huge phone centers out in the midwest. I like to think that I'm helping put them out of business. Too bad that telephone surveys aren't affected by the do not call list. It would earn me more work!
Here's a fairly comprehensive list of CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing) phone centers in the U.S. sorted by state.
This would be the same FCC that voted for media consolidation? I think that the current makeup of the FCC favors corporations over individuals, and would probably not advocate creating a do-not-call list in the first place.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
A mere couple weeks ago I was somewhat surprised how few people I know in real life have heard of the Do Not Call list until I told them about it. Now that the telemarketing companies won a court decision and forced Congress' hand, the news (TV, newspaper, Internet) has been abuzz with this story.
So now instead of losing out on 50 million people, most of which one would assume are very ANTI-telemarketing and extremely unlikely to buy anything from them anyway, the industry will probably lose many millions more who didn't even know about the list until it hit front pages everywhere in the nation, thanks to the court ruling.
So now when the list DOES go into effect, and it will since the ruling was just a temporary setback, the industry will probably have doubled the names on the list simply by bringing the existence of it to the national forefront with their stupid lawsuits.
Way to go telemarketers! Keep up the good work!
The phone system is all regulated and controlled. While anyone can get a line and use it, only certian people can provide the service. It requires right of way to lay copper, millions of dollars of equipment and so on. So, all the companies that do it, have to coperate and obey regulations. One side effect is that they always can tell where a call came from. If someone blocks calling line ID for you, that just means that your box doesn't show you. The phone switch that serves your line knows where it came form, it must by the nature of the system. IT logs it too.
So, if you get an unauthorised call and you file your complaint, it is a simply matter for the FTC to check on. They get records from the phone company confirm that, yes, the telemarketer DID call you and so on.
However with e-mail, they can use some anonymous relay off in Asia with an admin that won't respond to e-mails. It is then much harder to track anyone down and prove anything. Not saying it can't be done, it is just a more difficult job and one the FTC understand less well.
How do you figure that? If it's 50 million phone lines, then the number of people involved is going to be less than the number of lines because for all people N, some number own at least one and possibly more (e.g., if you signed up the main home line, the office line, and the cell). Now, of course, if we're talking 80-100 million lines....
What is your Slash Rating?
ring ring ring who's there?
opted out, why a call this evening?
Mexico, you have phone too
You're missing a critical element here, as I pointed out in a reply further down. Congress is telling one group of people that they cannot talk to another group of people; people that have specifically requested not to be talked to. It basically boils down to "They don't want to talk to you, so stop calling them." The government is not selecting people to put on the list, they aren't paying incentives to be on the list, nor are they forcing people to sign up. This is no different than each individual telling the telemarketers "put me on your do not call list," except now there's just one big do not call list.
It's called following the spirit of the law instead of the letter.
... To condone in these instances the practice of talking in terms of the intent of the legislature, as if the legislature had attributed a particular meaning to certain words, when it is apparent that the intent is that of the judge, is to condone atavistic practices too reminiscent of the medicine man."
More accurately, this is called "judicial activism". Also known as, "when the judge substitutes his or her idea of what the law ought to do for what the text of the law really does."
I don't want to be at trial and have the judge decide, "you know, Mr. Hansen, the law as written in the books doesn't work the way I think it should work. So instead of applying the law, I'm going to apply what I think ought to be instead. Deal with it."
That, Zath, is called judicial tyranny. Some very sharp people wrote some essays warning against allowing this to happen. You can find these essays collected into convenient book form and sold as the Federalist Papers. I strongly suggest you read them.
Let me give you a couple of scholarly references here, too--this one comes courtesy of Justice Antonin Scalia's monograph, A Matter Of Interpretation, which argues compellingly against judicial activism:
"It is the law that governs, not the intent of the lawgiver. That seems to be the essence of the famous American ideal set forth in the Massachusetts constitution: A government of laws, not of men. Men may intend what they will; but it is only the laws that they enact which bind us."
Or, as Dean James M. Landis of Harvard Law School wrote in Harvard's 1930 law review,
"The gravest sins are perpetrated in the name of the intent of the legislature.
Moving again to Scalia:
"Of all the criticisms leveled against [strict interpretation of laws], the most mindless is that it is `formalistic'. The answer to that is, of course it's formalistic! The rule of law is about form. If, for example, a citizen performs an act--let us say the sale of a certain technology to a foreign country--which is prohibited by a widely publicized bill proposed by the Administration and passed by both houses of Congress, but not yet signed by the President, that sale is lawful. It is of no consequence that everyone knows both houses of Congress and the President wish to prevent that sale. Before the wish becomes a binding law, it must be embodied in a bill that passes both houses and is signed by the President. Is that not formalism? A murderer has been caught with blood on his hands, bending over the body of the victim; a neighbor with a video camera has filmed the crime; and the murderer has confessed in writing and on videotape. We nonetheless insist that before the state can punish this miscreant, it must conduct a full-dress criminal trial that results in a verdict of guilty. Is that not formalism? Long live formalism! It is what makes a government a government of laws and not of men."
(All emphasis is as found in the original documents.)
Of course, his position is nothing to sneeze at either, but it worries me to have such a strict justice in that position.
Only those appointed to the Supreme Court are called "justices". Everyone else is just called "judge".