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FCC To Enforce Do Not Call List, Not FTC
Iphtashu Fitz writes "The Associated Press is reporting that the Federal Communications Commission will step in and enforce the national Do Not Call list for the Federal Trade Commission. The FCC is coming to the aid of the FTC because of the recent lawsuit filed against the FTC over the list."
Fine. Let's not discriminate: Make the other two organizations obey the list as well. An unwanted phone solicitation is just that, no matter who it's from.
Two government agencies cooperating to implement a consumer-popular policy?
Who are these people, and what have they done with my real government?
paintball
Have you ever seen such resolve and support on a single issue in the U.S.? I mean, after 9/11 politicians and government agencies weren't moving this quickly.
I guess that's what happens when an entire nation faces down an association with no lobbying skills. Now if we could just be this effective on a few of the slightly more important issues like civil rights, pre-emptive wars, and so forth.
Since the phone line is paid for by the person receiving the call this is a problem of communication, not trade. If the FCC had this job from the get-go maybe the exemption for charities and political groups wouldn't have been considered. After all the FTC has no authority over those groups.
I'm no fan of W but this makes sense.
From the New York Times(no reg required):
"another federal judge issued a ruling that would prevent the government from carrying out the do-not-call registry, citing First Amendment grounds."
According to this, the FCC has no more right to enforce it than the FTC.
Why do I h8 apple?
Even free speach has it's bounds. For example, I believe that I have the right to kick protestors Off my private property. Since my telephone is on my private property I should think that the same rules apply.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
And you shall know that the end times have arrived because US government agencies shall cooperate to implement things the tax payers actually want! And Apple shall have the fastest computers available! Linux will go mainstream! BeOS will come back from the dead! Behold and repent for surely we have reached the end of times!
(Brought to you by MrLizardo, your local not-for-profit prophet)
-AX
^I'm with stupid.^
The bold print giveth, and the fine print taketh away
You seem to have no understanding of the law when it comes to political fundraising. Political speech is ALWAYS the most protected because politicians make the laws.
It is also the nature of a state of oppression to restrict political speech that disagrees with those in power. This is, iirc, the fundamental reason political speech is protected.
However, freedom of speech doesn't mean that *I* have to hear what you have to say. While I agree that you have the right to say it, that doesn't mean I have an obligation to listen. To get back ontopic, that means that if I don't want political solicitation phone calls, then those people can't call me.
Where I disagree with the Denver court is that I think the do-not-call list should be split according to preference, rather than a blanket rule that applies to all or none, depending on who signs up. I don't mind political and charity phone calls. I can shrug them off. There's these people that call every now and then wanting stuff for the blind, and I don't mind the calls. One of these days, they'll call whenever I'm about to dump a bunch of stuff, and they'll get it. But my wife actually minds these calls because they're intrusive to her. Point is, some people want these calls, and some don't, and if it's going to be an issue with the do-not-call list, then let's let the people signing up for the list decide what calls are allowed and what aren't.
Like what I said? You might like my music
The FTC basically wants to give telemarketers a list of people who, 99% of the time, will just hang up on them anyway. The amount of time and money telemarketers will save just by not having to call those people has got to be substantial. Someone who hasn't gone to the trouble of putting themselves on the do not call list is almost certainly going to be much more receptive to an unsolicited sales pitch.
The government is doing telemarketers a huge favor, while at the same time benefitting the general public. It's a win-win situation. What's the problem?
His phone number is on the list!
That, and there's all those phone calls he's been getting from consumers who wanted to show what tehy could with the "rights" he was upholding.
Ever dream you could fly? Get up from the Flight Sim. I Fly
Can someone explain how this is restricting telemarketers' First Amendment right? They can still "speak" all they want - I just don't want them to speak to me. Does the right to free speech mean there's a REQUIREMENT that they have an audience to listen? An unwilling audience?
A quick Google search turns up the history. To summarize, it's a matter of whether or not commercial interests have the same rights as citizens. The Nike case that the Supreme Court recently dimissed highlighted very passionate arguments from both sides of the issue of Corporate Personhood.
The DNC does restrict speech. It restricts the ability of a telemarketer to call you up and talk to you. "Free speech" in its most literal form cannot be taken to mean anything different. However, the Supreme Court has ruled numerous times that several forms of speech are not protected. Libelous or slanderous speech is not protected. Speech that leads directly to physical harm, such as the classic "yelling, 'Fire!' in a crowded theater" is not protected. Speech that somehow violates your property rights, such as political or religious campaigning on your doorstep or in your house is not protected. For many years, neither was commercial speech in many ways, and discrimination of content based on the fact that it is commercial in nature has been allowed. This is the discrimination that the telemarketers seek to attack.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Very good! However, this is still not a completely settled issue. The Supreme Court has been very slow to allow any restriction of truthful speech, even commercial, based upon content -- as in, they've never done so except with regard to pornography (which they seem to be backing away from over time). At the same time, they have recognized a right to privacy (abortion clinic cases) and noted the right to free association.
The end result I'd like to see is a list various categories which I can elect to receive or not receive (e.g. commercial, religious, charitable cash, charitable other, political). I don't know how to fit this into the legal landscape, but I'd ban all but charitable other from my house. (I'm willing to give old clothes to charity, and that is about it.)
Big Brother Bush is doubleplus ungood.
Actually.....
In the US calls placed to a residential land line are paid for by the caller.
Calls places to a cell phone are paid for by the caller AND have the potential to use the cells mins.. hence why it is illegal to call cell phones for telemarketing.
...is that the FCC doesn't have to deal with "prevention of free speech", because the telephone is a regulated medium. The FCC can state that the telemarketting firms are not allowed to call people who are paying for telephone lines since the people didn't obtain their phone lines for someone else to use, but for they themselves to use. So, since the telemarketting firm isn't paying for the phone line, they can't legally call on it for unsolicited business purposes.
As far as "Free Speech" goes, they are fully entitled to get a billboard, print a publication, run an ad in a magazine or newspaper, the act of presentation isn't being stopped. The medium is already regulated and has been since inception.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
If my telephone is a free-speech public forum, then one could easily argue that anyone should be able to knock on my front door and demand to be allowed into my house to make their sales pitch under the U.S. Constitution. They're not -- and neither is my phone.
Btw, I've heard that not only is the Denver judge's office telephone already on the Do Not Call List, but also that large numbers of people are demanding his home phone so that they can exercise their own First Amendment rights.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
This argument has been overused and misapplied. I understand how you don't have an obligation to listen to anybody, but non-existence of such obligation does not on its own trump others' free speech rights. i.e. their rights to speak to you, and to others.
Imagine, now, if the argument you are making was valid in all circumstances, then it would be constitutional to outlaw peaceful demonstrations; it would be constitutional to outlaw a person approaching you on the street and offering you a brochure about a peaceful demonstration. Telephone lines are one of the methods delivering such "speech", like newspapers, TV, books. If strictly enforced, the only "free speech" that could be allowed under such laws would be a whisper in your basement.
Obviously, you don't have an obligation to listen to anybody's speech - you can ignore demonstrators on the street, you can say "no thank you" to a person offering you a brochure and keep walking, and you can simply hang up the phone, or ask to be taken off some list you somehow got on.
If you look carefully, the actual problem of telemarketing does not lie in whether speech over the phone lines is any of government's business, and how they can regulate it. The actual problem lies with your local phone service providers selling your personal information to anyone who requests it without your consent. You rightly mention that some people do not mind, or would like to get some types of calls, others none at all. The solution should be an "opt-in" type of system if you'd like your phone number shared for this purpose; otherwise, it should be illegal for phone service providers to share your information without your consent. It's simple and easy! Yet, it's not popular with big corporate interests, not good for campaign contributions, and, therefore, will never come up!
The difference here is that this is an opt-in list (ie, I have to take action to prevent telemarketers from reaching me), as opposed to an opt-out list, where the free speech of telemarketers would be abridged.
I believe this makes a huge difference. Putting things in a standard free-speech context, solicitors have a right to come up to my door and knock, UNLESS I have told them to go away OR posted "No solicitation." In other words, when I have expressed my opinion as not wanting to hear their speech, they're obligated to cease disturbing me.
The DNC list is similar. If it were a blanket "no telemarketing" law that placed people on the list unless they personally removed themselves, that would likely be a huge free speech violation. But at the point where I have told them NOT to contact me, they're obliged to cease. The DNC list simply serves as an efficient means of processing my request not to be disturbed. However, it is fundamentally no different on the phone vs. at my door - I have personally requested not to be disturbed, and they are required to honor that request.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat