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California Judge Routes Campaign Robocalls Through Colorado
Thomas Hawk writes "Victoria Kolakowski, a current sitting law judge at the California PUC, is running for Alameda Superior Court judge in California. As part of her campaign she is robodialing people in California with a pre-recorded message. The only problem is that in Califorina robodials are actually illegal unless first introduced by a non-recorded natural person who gains consent to play the call. Ironically, the agency set up to protect our privacy and enforce this law, the California PUC, is the very agency where Kolakowski works today. Kolakowski originally apologized for the calls but then later deleted messages on her Facebook account from people objecting to her use of these calls. Now Kolakowski is trying to argue that because 'technically' she is routing her calls through Colorado from outside the state that her robodials are actually legal."
For the last week or two I've frequently received three robocalls a day. I'd say this law's effectiveness is on par with the hands-free laws.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
The use of such a device by any person, either individually or acting as an officer, agent, or employee of a person or corporation operating automatic dialing-announcing devices, is subject to this article.
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate?WAISdocID=85394713794+1+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve
2872(d) lists exemptions.. I don't see anything regarding political messages
Politician thinks the rules only apply to other people. News at 11.
Where I live, they're right. All telemarketing and Robo-calling laws in Canada have specific exceptions for political campaigns...
Of course as soon as I get one from a candidate I immediately remove them from my list of parties to vote for in that election...
I just got a robocall that was not compliant with the law (incoming caller-id blocked, no human intro, no phone number given) "by" Mitt Romney on behalf of Meg Whitman.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Full law shows lots of wiggle room - go figure:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=puc&group=02001-03000&file=2871-2876 (parent link is blank)
Jurisdiction opening:
"2872. (a) The connection of automatic dialing-announcing devices to a telephone line is subject to this article and to the jurisdiction, control, and regulation of the commission."
Allowance for calling an organization's members (political parties?):
"2872. (d) This article does not prohibit the use of an automatic dialing-announcing device by any person exclusively on behalf of any of the following: (2) An exempt organization under the Bank and Corporation Tax Law (Part 11 (commencing with Section 23001) of Division 2 of the Revenue and Taxation Code) for purposes of contacting its members."
This looks like the biggest exception:
"2872. (f) This article does not apply to any automatic dialing-announcing device that is not used to randomly or sequentially dial telephone numbers but that is used solely to transmit a message to an established business associate, customer, or other person having an established relationship with the person using the automatic dialing-announcing device to transmit the message, or to any call generated at the request of the recipient."
I'll just leave this here: http://public.ifbyphone.com/services/voice-broadcasting
Just make sure the call is from the candidate they're advocating and not their opponent. I don't know about Canadian law but US political campaign calls are required to state who sponsored it. Unfortunately that notice is at the very end meaning you have to listen to the whole thing.