King of Fools

Hello?...First Amendment?

On Thursday, the United States House of Representatives and Senate responsed in a most amazing manner to the ruling of an Oklahoma Judge's ruling the Federal Do-Not-Call Registry. Perhaps they were a little too early:

Minutes after both houses of Congress concluded a remarkable scramble Thursday to make a popular "do not call" registry pass muster with a federal judge, a second jurist ruled the program has deeper problems: It violates telemarketers' First Amendment rights.

The surprise ruling by U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham in Denver handed the telemarketing industry its second legal victory this week and put in doubt the future of the Federal Trade Commission's national registry.

Although Nottingham's ruling is certain to be appealed, legal experts said that at the very least it will delay implementation of the program, which was scheduled to start Wednesday.

The first amendment defines Freedom of Speech in this country. Does that mean that a salesperson has the right to burst through my front door at dinner time and tell me about a vacation package I have won or perhaps a new credit card they have pre-approved just for me? If that happened, and I called the Police, would the response would be "I'm sorry sir, but we cannot remove them from your premises because it might violate their first amendment rights"? I was channel surfing the other night and flipped right past the Home Shopping Network...did I violate their first amendment rights also? If an infomercial airs, and no one watches, are rights being violated? In the future, will telephone or even television ownership going to be required to help protect these rights? Will it be illegal to wear earplugs in the future because of the potential of suppressing free speech?

A little research yielded the following explanation for this judicial ruling:

For the Federal Trade Commission, Judge Edward W. Nottingham's ruling invalidating the nationwide do-not-call registry illustrates the adage that no good deed goes unpunished.

Nottingham voided the FTC registry because it offered consumers the option of banning unwanted calls from for-profit businesses but not calls from charitable organizations, which, the judge reasoned, are just as intrusive. This 'content-based' discrimination between two otherwise indistinguishable forms of speech, Nottingham ruled, violated the First Amendment.

Is that the only problem? That can be resolved without even thinking. Simply extend the ban of unwanted calls to all organizations. Nearly one half of all residential phone numbers have signed up for the Do-Not-Call Registry. It is extremely apparent that most Americans do not want their telephone to be a sales tool used against them. I pay for my telephone services and I have every right to limit its use to the purposes I desire.

Telemarketing is dead. They need a new business model (or maybe just a legitimate line of business). One suggestion: if you insist on using the telephone as a marketing tool, then set up a service where you pay for a portion of a household's telephone service in exchange for occasional sales calls. I honestly do not know anyone who would go for such an arrangment, but I'm sure some people would.

As long as you didn't call them during dinner to discuss it.

King of Fools | 09/27/03 - 08:27 AM
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Comments

[...]

Does that mean that a salesperson has the right to burst through my front door at dinner time [...]

At this point you would be allowed to shoot the offending person in some states!

I nominate you as the next judge to hear this case. Where are all those class action lawyers? Oops! I forgot there are no deep pockets to attack.