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Judge Rules Political Robocalls Are Protected By First Amendment (onthewire.io)
Trailrunner7 quotes a report from On the Wire: A federal judge has ruled that robocalls made on behalf of political candidates are protected by the First Amendment and cannot be outlawed. The decision came in a case in Arkansas, where political robocalls had been illegal for more than 30 years. On Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Leon Holmes ruled that banning political robocalls amounts to an infringement of free speech protections and also constitutes prior restraint of speech. Political campaigns have been using robocalls for decades, and some states have sought to ban them, arguing that they are intrusive and violate recipients' privacy. In the Arkansas case, the state attorney general put forward both of these arguments, and also argued that the calls can tie up phone lines, making them unusable in an emergency. Holmes said in his decision that there was no evidence that political robocalls prevent emergency communications, and also said that the Arkansas statute should have banned all robocalls, not just commercial and political ones. "The statute at issue here imposes a content-based restriction on speech; it is not one of the rare cases that survives strict scrutiny. The state has failed to prove that the statute at issue advances a compelling state interest and is narrowly tailored to serve that interest," Holmes wrote.
Does this mean that robots are protected under the U.S. Constitution?
Can they vote for the candidate they are calling for?
It is "equally first amendment" to block them. The actual issue here is just that the ban singled out specific types of robocall instead of blocking them all. The Judge didn't say you can't block them because first amendment, he said you can't single them out to be blocked based on their content.
I'd require that those robocalls be done by humans for it to count as "free speech". If we go by this judge's ruling, then, hey, putting a tape recorder on the assembly floor would be an acceptable fillibuster strategy, no?
A federal judge has ruled that robocalls made on behalf of political candidates are protected by the First Amendment and cannot be outlawed.
It should be illegal for them to ignore the federal do-not-call list, and for them to call cell phones period. The First Amendment doesn't say I have to provide anyone a platform at my expense or my inconvenience.
The state has failed to prove that the statute at issue advances a compelling state interest
Wouldn't it be novel if a law only had to show that it advances a compelling CITIZEN interest?
The judge didn't rule that political robocalls couldn't be banned, but rather that you couldn't JUST ban political robocalls. Generally, content-based restrictions on speech face a much higher hurdle than form-based restrictions. If the law had banned ALL robocalls, it might still have been overturned, but by only trying to ban SOME robocalls, the law was banning speech based on its content (political vs. charity message), and that's a very tough hurdle to get over.
Free speech is not the right to blast your message into someones bedroom at four in the morning. It is also not the right to break into your house and talk to you incessantly while you are having dinner. And it is also, therefore, not the right to break into your house electronically (using a phone) to talk to you incessantly while you are having dinner.
The federal Do Not Call list should be strictly enforced.
Politicians and charities and polling are three exemptions that the politicians wrote into the DNC list. It can be as strictly enforced as you like and you'll still get calls from politicians, charities, and pollsters (even push-pollers.)
Time to close those loopholes.
Tell him how you feel: 501-604-5380 US District Judge J. Leon Holmes 500 West Capitol Avenue, Room D469 Little Rock, AR 72201 501-604-5380 Courtroom 4D Staff Information Law Clerks: Nicole Swisher, Lauren Summerhill Courtroom Deputy: 501-604-5384
The state law closed the loophole the politicians left in the federal do-not-call system. Yay for the state.
The state could have accomplished the same end by banning all robocalls that the recipient didn't specifically sign up for. Since that wouldn't be based on the content of the calls it wouldn't be subject to this particular 1st Amendment challenge. By banning politicial robocalls in particular they guaranteed that the law would be found to violate the 1st Amendment.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
That judge just pretty much declared my phone to be a public place, in other words, I am under no obligation to pay for it, it's tax funded now. Yay!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I know it has been out of fashion for quite a while, but RTFA. In fact, just read all of the summary. The judges did not say that there is a general right to robocall your phone at any hour. What they said was that the government could not ban calls with a specific type of content -- in this case political calls.
Had the law enacted a ban on robocalls that was independent of content, it would have been OK.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Funny how autodailers were illegal when...
But that is exactly what the judge is pointing out. The judge is quite correct here, it is a simple matter and the law is invalid on its face.
If they banned ALL unsolicited autodialers -- which many states do -- then it is constitutional. Prohibiting the activity for everyone is proper.
By banning ONLY political autodialers it becomes a limitation on a specific type of speech. Limiting only a group of people or a specific type of speech is generally improper.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
The scammers and political Robocalls have enticed me to not answer the phone unless I know exactly who is calling. The Telephone system is now a liability, and not much more. The home phone displays who it is, and the mobile phone doesn't even ring unless the number is in the contacts list. So they can both go fornicate themselves/
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The Republican candidate did not win by coin toss, they won by popular vote
Sure, but let's not pretend that Trump was the friend of the Republican establishment and that they didn't want him taken down.
The Democratic candidate won by coin toss, drawing cards, collusion within the Democratic party and it's insiders, and collusion with media.
Clinton won because far more people voted for her than voted for Bernie. That's also a fact. I have grave doubts that the DNC really managed to do much of anything -- certainly nothing on the level of Ron Paul getting screwed in 2012. The fact is that Bernie Sanders is a socialist. Sorry, "Democratic Socialist," and more Democrats are more interested in a "mainstream" candidate than a socialist. Bernie Sanders had an extremely hard road uphill, and once Clinton got to the South (where few people like Bernie), it was over.