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Senators Attempting To Remove Robocall Loophole
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.
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.
... love of "clever" backronyms? They're neither cute nor clever.
Do you have a source for this? I do like the fact that they are trying to close the loophole before it is implemented but I can find little to back up your claim.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
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?
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.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
You seem to be giving the republican party a free pass on this even though they voted for it, and not one of them is supporting this move to repeal it.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
>Why would you ever answer the phone anyway?
Because I am an adult.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
You do realize the president is not all democrats right? He is a single democrat.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Investigating "a loophole for debt collection robocalls had found its way into the budget bill":
I can narrow this down to having been introduced by the House. Commit 2015-10-28 pushed by House shows:
https://www.govtrack.us/congre...
Previous 2015-05-22 revision committed by Senate
https://www.govtrack.us/congre...
Diff places blame on house.
Perhaps an improvement would be
"The United States House of Representatives added a loophole for debt collection robocalls into the budget bill":
This is the limit of my journalism abilities here, but just hoping to make some improvement.
I would glad pay money for Slashdot if somehow the journalism could be improved.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
Who gives a shit about Democrat/Republican anymore? It's one big morass called "government" that screws over the people of the USA on a consistent basis. Arguing R vs. D only perpetuates this system and has gotten us precisely nowhere.
In my adult lifetime, I've seen Democrats in control of the House, Senate and Presidency concurrently (1993-1994 & 2009-2010) and I've seen Republicans have the same control (2001-2005). In each case, things only got worse for the average citizen.
Government is the problem regardless of which of these two asshat parties happens to be in charge.
This loophole has come from the White House for at least 3 years:
I quote from page 168:
Improve Treasury Debt Collection. -- ”The Budget includes two proposals that would increase collections of delinquent debt:
Provide authority to contact delinquent debtors via their cell phones.—The Budget proposes to clarify that the use of automatic dialing systems and prerecorded voice messages is allowed when contacting wireless phones in the collection of debt owed to or granted by the United States. In this time of fiscal constraint, the Administration believes that the Federal Government should ensure that all debt owed to the United States is collected as quickly and efficiently as possible and this provision could result in millions of defaulted debt being collected. While protections against abuse and harassment are appropriate, changing technology should not absolve these citizens from paying back the debt they owe their fellow citizens. The proposal would also allow the Federal Communications Commission to implement rules to protect consumers from being harassed and contacted unreasonably. This proposal would result in PAYGO savings of $120 million over 10 years.
A measly $12 million a year. Congress spends more than that on toothpicks. The pay-per-minute cell phone plan users would see more than $120 million in extra cell phone minutes.
Each subsequent year (2013, 2014, and 2015) budget from the White House has the same loophole. Google:
"Fiscal Year 2015 Analytical Perspectives: Budget of the U.S. Government" and go to page 123.
I'm an adult, and I rarely answer any number I don't recognize immediately. If it's important, they'll leave a voicemail and I'll call them right back at the number they provide.
But since 99.99% of the calls I receive from un-recognized numbers are horseshit robo-calls, no, I agree with commenter above: Why on earth would someone answer the phone any more?
And the budget from the House and senate also had the loophole. Blaming it on one person is childish. The question is realized who is fighting to stop it.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Robocalls from political campaigns are exempted too. My parents made a largish political donation a few years back, which apparently put them on some sort of list. They were harassed by robocalls asking for more political donations for over a year. It was so bad that when I visited a few months before the election, they didn't even bother answering the phone anymore, letting it go straight to voicemail and answering only if it was someone they knew leaving a message. They got 5-10 of these calls every night while I was there. When they moved and I asked if they wanted to keep their old phone number, their answer was hell no.
Most Americans hate robocalls. More Americans put themselves on the “Do Not Call” (DNC) list than voted for any presidential candidate. The law does not work for two reasons. First, the federal government refuses to enforce it so none of the robocallers end up in jail. Second, the politicians wrote loopholes for themselves and friends. Political campaigns are allowed to make robocalls as are certain kinds of political non-profits.
The only answer I can see is to create a political non-profit to advocate for the end of all robocals by using.... robocalls. Let’s call it the “ National Association To Stop ALL Robocalls” (NATSAR), and have the organization distribute to its members free software that allows them to randomly robo-call area code 301, 703, 202 and 212 numbers with a message saying “Hi, we are NATSAR and we want your support for legislation to make it a crime to send ANY unwanted /Marketing/Polling/Political message to a person on the DNC list. Would you like to join us?”. When the people in the DC area and NYC who run our government start getting 20 “political”- and thus legal- robocalls every day at dinner they’ll do something about it.
I spend time in the Virginia suburbs of DC and take my word for it they don’t get tons of spam calls like people in the rest of the country. Why? For the same reason that in the 1960s every city in the U.S. except Washington had a Mafia crime family. The deal was “We’ll leave you alone in DC as long as we get a free hand to operate in the rest of the country”.
Orlando. If you want to infiltrate the organization it's not that difficult. They place ads in craigslist there.
Do you have ESP?
Do you have a source for this? I do like the fact that they are trying to close the loophole before it is implemented but I can find little to back up your claim.
You might try to do your own homework at thomas.loc.gov, where everything is published for all to see.
No, when you cite an alleged fact, you should give the citation.
Presumably you have a citation, if it's a real fact and not something you made up. When you don't provide it, a pretty good guess is that either
(1) it's something you just made up, and hence I shouldn't waste my time to try to track the non-existent fact down with an internet search, or
(2) it was too much trouble for you to do the internet search to find-- and if it was too hard for you to find, being sarcastic about why I won't spend my time finding it is completely hypocritical.
Executive summary: when you cite a fact, it is your burden of proof to provide the citation.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Sorry for the self reply, but I want a Pay Wall option on my Phone that says if you're not on the white list and you want to donate $0.50 to my phone bill, you have to have pre-funded an account that lets you Pay the $0.50 to my bill if I pick it up. If a phone company wants to rule the world, make this an option.