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Senators Attempting To Remove Robocall Loophole

Posted by samzenpus on from the really-do-not-call dept.

New submitter bearded_yak writes: Last week, it was reported here that a loophole for debt collection robocalls had found its way into the budget bill. In the end, the loophole survived. Now, several senators want to remove it with Senator Ed Markey's "Help Americans Never Get Unwanted Phone calls" (HANGUP) Act. Meanwhile, according to an article at Consumerist, "the Federal Communications Commission has nine months to craft rules dictating the conditions under which the government would be allowed to make these robocalls", so perhaps this loophole will meet its end before that time.

5 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. All Robocalls should be illegal by The+Real+Dr+John · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But in case that never happens, you can just buy a call blocker and hook it up to your phone.

    --
    A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
    1. Re:All Robocalls should be illegal by Dredd13 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      But they didn't "contact them from an offshore number". They contacted them from a number in Ohio. It says so right there on their Caller ID.

      That's the trick, right? If the call-center is off-shore, the Caller ID can say whatever they want it to say, because they're not bound by the CNID spoofing rules.

    2. Re:All Robocalls should be illegal by quetwo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, I guess they could make it more illegal than it already is.....

      The people doing it now don't care about the rules. If they get caught, they will just run away, shut down that AWS instance and boot up another one.

  2. If these senators really wanted to help... by Sloppy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's so nice of you to want to protect us from spam. But you know what's even more annoying and threatening and expensive than spam?

    ..found its way into the budget bill.

    Worse than spam, is stuff that "finds its way" into our laws without ever being attributed. The guilty parties are never punished or even informally shamed or identified so that anyone can ever vote approval or disapproval for that person in the next election.

    Put an end to unattributed "malgislation" (eww, let's keep working on finding the right word) and then you'll really be heroes. I want every item in every bill to have a person's name on it. Let them continue to be as evil and un-American as they want with their laws, but let's stop allowing them to be irresponsibly anonymous when they do it.

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    As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
    1. Re:If these senators really wanted to help... by Snotnose · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This. I'd like to see Congress adopt some sort of revision control system. Wanna modify a bill? Check it out, make your change, check it in. Lotsa changes? Branch it. Every commit has somebody's name on it, no more "gee, I dunno how that got in there" BS.

      Much like realistic campaign finance reform this will never happen because the system works the way the weasels in charge want it to work.