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Ajit Pai Celebrates After Court Strikes Down Obama-Era Robocall Rule (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Federal judges have struck down an anti-robocall rule, saying that the Federal Communications Commission improperly treated every American who owns a smartphone as a potential robocaller. The FCC won't be appealing the court decision, as Chairman Ajit Pai opposed the rule changes when they were implemented by the commission's then-Democratic majority in 2015. Pai issued a statement praising the judges for the decision Friday, calling the now-vacated rule "yet another example of the prior FCC's disregard for the law and regulatory overreach." The FCC's 2015 decision said that a device meets the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) definition of an "autodialer" if it can be modified to make robocalls, even if the smartphone user hasn't actually downloaded an autodialing app. That interpretation treats all smartphones as autodialers because any smartphone has the capability of downloading an autodialing app, judges ruled. Since any call made by an autodialer could violate anti-robocall rules, this led to a troubling conclusion: judges said that an unwanted call from a smartphone could violate anti-robocall rules even if the smartphone user hasn't downloaded an autodialing app.
"The Commission's understanding would appear to subject ordinary calls from any conventional smartphone to the Act's coverage, an unreasonably expansive interpretation of the statute," a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said in a unanimous ruling Friday. The ruling came in a case filed against the FCC by the Association of Credit and Collection Professionals, which says it represents "third-party collection agencies, law firms, asset buying companies, creditors, and vendor affiliates." Judges also invalidated an FCC rule that helped protect consumers from robocalls to reassigned phone numbers.
"The Commission's understanding would appear to subject ordinary calls from any conventional smartphone to the Act's coverage, an unreasonably expansive interpretation of the statute," a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said in a unanimous ruling Friday. The ruling came in a case filed against the FCC by the Association of Credit and Collection Professionals, which says it represents "third-party collection agencies, law firms, asset buying companies, creditors, and vendor affiliates." Judges also invalidated an FCC rule that helped protect consumers from robocalls to reassigned phone numbers.
So we can give him a few robocalls.
Look, I'm no fan of Pai, but on its face, this ruling looks reasonable. From TFS, I gather that until now, a smartphone could be considered an autodialer even if it was not configured to be one. Now, if I read this correctly, you have to install autodialing software on your phone for it to be considered an autodialer.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Why isn't it considered trespassing when someone uses my property to sell me something or to deliver a political spiel?
If you read the court's opinion (or even the summary), it clearly says the FCC's overreach was considering "ordinary calls from any conventional smartphone" to fall under robocall regulation. Putting aside your obvious dislike of Pai, do you honestly believe they should?
As I say, if they can't leave a voicemail, I'm not going to answer. Technology may have made this irrelevant anyway, not that I like it.
Besides that, all these rules should be made in congress, and not the FCC. That's the real takeaway here, a do-nothing congress that really is the problem. Not an a-hole FCC chairman.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Do you disagree with Obama that made the decision to appoint him to the FCC? You should revisit your position against Obama.
Obama had no choice but to appoint Pai to the FCC board. A Republican seat was open. The Republicans nominated Pai.
It was Trump who appointed Pai to the chair of that board. I think it's that appointment that the GP was talking about.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Sorry for self-replying. TFA, and another poster, point out that this rule has been vacated (not just modified) so now there may be no legal restrictions on robocall devices.
Unless, of course, the current board passes a new regulation. [*crickets*]
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Why does the FCC have Republican seats? The working parts of the government should not be concerned with party affiliation, they should be about getting on and doing their job, taking directions from the elected representatives - leave the party partisanship to those we can vote out every 4 years.
We're supposed to believe that the ruling reduced robocalls? And that they might pick up in volume?
I don't know if anyone has noticed, but robocalls from spoofed numbers have been out of control for years. Neither this rule, nor any other rules are doing anything about them.
Did I miss something about a party? I said no such thing.
If these assholes were actually anything other than disingenuous, overpaid lickspittles, they'd do something about Caller ID spoofing. Fix that and ALL the motherfucking tele-spam would STOP the next day, if the originators could be easily found and held accountable for the many, many violations of the law and human decency standards.
Fuck Them.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
My understanding is that the FCC rule in question presumed that anybody using a cellphone was guilty of making robocalls until the accused proved that he wasn't. This is in direct contradiction of The Presumption of Innocence, one of the cornerstones of American law. IANAL, but I can't see how any case based on it would possibly hold up in court. Now, if the rule required there to be autodialing software on the phone, that would be different.
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Actually, they just spoof the first 6 digits of your number and add a random 4 digits on the end, to make you think it's one of your neighbors calling. Problem is, like most people, my number just indicates where I lived 15 years ago when I first got my cell phone, so I literally don't know anybody with a similar number!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Making it political is the only way to ensure people like Pai get in there. Otherwise you run the risk of things like 'scientists' or old IT professionals being appointed because of disgusting left-wing things like "experience working with these things" or "not owned by the industry he's supposed to regulate". These are hideously uncorrupt ideas and they will not stand with any industry.
I'm probably wasting my keystrokes since your post suggests you're more into trying to score cheap partisan points rather than actually understanding the issues, but one of the primary issues with overbroad laws with harsh penalties and one of the primary reasons courts strike them down (you realize this was a federal district court decision, not the FCC, right?) is the chilling effect they have on legitimate behavior.
Using smaller words, when the FCC states an intent to levy fines of $500 per "uninvited call" from a cell phone, a small business with no land line would have to feel exquisitely lucky to call someone from a cell phone who didn't call them first. The amount of explicit enforcement action says nothing about how many people simply forego behavior that everyone agrees should be lawful out of fear that they'll be one of the first examples.
Did you READ the article, or are you an illiterate millenial moron who's been "triggered"?
Seriously! WTF is wrong with you Trump haters? The Obama FCC passed a rule classifying any device that could be made capable of robo-dialing (which incluses ALL smartphones, since they can insstall auto-dial apps) as being a robo-dialer and thus ANYBODY making an unwanted phone call with one (including YOU calling your mom/boyfriend/girlfriend etc at an inconvemient moment) into a criminal. And beacuase Trump's FCC guy opposed your beloved "net neutrality"
scam (also known as the "help Apple/Facebook/Netflix get richer at the expense of telcos" rule) and because you hate Trump, you decide that this cell phone move to resore sanity is in some way EVIL.
Personally, I am happy that I can use a smartphone safe in the knowledge that if I call somebody at a bad time (or dial a wrong number) and they're in a bad mood at the time, they cannot sick the FCC on me and get me classified as a criminal. Thanks, Ajit Pai!
There are plenty of ways to go after robo-callers, and the big evil telcos (who sell these people hundreds of phone lines to make those damnable calls, while telling congress they have NO WAY of knowing who is doing it) without trying to make any smartphone user into a potential recipient of a huge fine and a criminal record (which was the Obama scheme you apparently love - YOU must be a robo-dialing junk call kingpin).
TFA, and another poster, point out that this rule has been vacated (not just modified) so now there may be no legal restrictions on robocall devices.
Unless, of course, the current board passes a new regulation. [*crickets*]
TFA and the other poster clearly didn't read the opinion. The TCPA as a whole remains intact -- the only nuances that were rolled back were (1) the FCC's prior interpretation that smartphones constituted automated telephone dialing systems, and (2) the FCC's prior interpretation that companies using automatic dialers could be held liable for calling a phone number that used to be owned by someone who had given the company consent to call them, but then was (unbeknownst to the caller) transferred to someone else.
Meanwhile, as was all over the news at the time, the FCC actually issued MORE rules clamping down MORE on actual robocallers back in November. Crickets indeed.
you probably missed this part of Pai's statement:
Instead of sweeping into a regulatory dragnet the hundreds of millions of American consumers who place calls or send text messages from smartphones, the FCC should be targeting bad actors who bombard Americans with unlawful robocalls. That’s why I’m pleased today’s ruling does not impact (and, in fact, acknowledges) the current FCC’s efforts to combat illegal robocalls and spoofing. We will continue to pursue consumer-friendly policies on this issue, from reducing robocalls to reassigned numbers to call authentication to blocking illegal robocalls. And we’ll maintain our strong approach to enforcement against spoofers and scammers, including the over $200 million in fines that we proposed last year.
so now there may be no legal restrictions on robocall devices.
Sure there are. The FTC already regulates robocallers (and the Do Not Call list) separately from the FCC.
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/f...
As much as I don’t like Pai, this ruling, at least on its face, isn’t necessarily the horrible thing it’s being made out to be, since the FTC has been providing better regulation on this issue for far longer, and has been enlisting technology companies to provide solutions to the issue as well.
Were Obama-era's FCC-members "disingenuous, overpaid lickspittles" because they've done nothing about that for eight years either?
And just what would you have them do about it? E-mail spammers still spam with fake From-headers in e-mails — despite various attempts to legislate against it. And I mean, properly legislate — as in "write a law, pass it through both chambers, have it signed by the President", not the unelected FCC's usurping the law-making power of Congress.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
... the current FCC’s efforts to combat illegal robocalls and spoofing.
I don't know the current legal definition of an illegal rebocall, but I know what it SHOULD be. ANY robocall placed without the recipient's prior and ongoing consent, should be punishable by a fine of $10K per call for the first offense, $50K per call for the second offense, and loss of corporate, charitable, or party status for the third offense. In short, with VERY FEW exceptions, (public safety, life-or-death, and the like), ALL robocalls should be illegal, and violations of the laws forbidding them ought to result in the harshest penalties. For that matter, these rules should also apply to the non-automated forms of telemarketing as well.
Of course, that will never happen, because we have government 'by the corporations, for the corporations'. That's what we get for allowing collectives to be treated as 'persons before the law'.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
If these assholes were actually anything other than disingenuous, overpaid lickspittles, they'd do something about Caller ID spoofing.
Um, they did exactly that last November. And even before they issued the new rules, they cracked down on two spoofing robocallers last year to the tune of $82 million and $120 million.
Maybe you would have known that had you spent just a bit more time actually reading up on the subject and a bit less time throwing around inflammatory rhetoric.
There are a large number of people who assume that any set of federal rules are bad by the mere fact that they are rules coming from the federal government. At the moment several of those people hold important positions of power in the US.
I would LOVE to have included ANY phone. That way NO business could call me unless there has been a call from me to them (or there is a prior connection of up to one year).
There is no reason any company, be they small or large, to call me, un less I call them first.
Next there must be a difference between marketing calls and other calls and I should be able to not want marketing calls, but still the other calls. While I am at it, they also should not be allowed to sell my information to others to call me.
Oh wait. I have all that living in Belgium, Europe. I must be a communist.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
All this, and i still don't like the asshole. :)
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Is this why I've gotten three "we have a warrant for your arrest" robocalls in the past twenty-four hours? Same recording, but each is from a different state. and I'm not American.