TheOtherView
Opinions from around the country

Do-not-call list does not violate free speech

It’s 8:30 p.m. on a Sunday night and the phone rings. He mispronounces your name and asks for Mr. or Mrs. when you are not married. He rattles on and on about a service or product you do not want and certainly do not need. Is this an invasion of privacy or is this free speech? Should the courts of the United States be protecting telemarketers or the people whose homes they invade?

Last spring the Do-Not-Call Implementation Act was passed with 50.6 million people’s telephone numbers signed up to be added to the list. Telemarketing companies were instantly enraged and despondent that their flourishing business of aggravating the stuffing out of anybody they come in contact with was going down the toilet.

But now a district court judge in Oklahoma is saying that the Federal Trade Commission does not have the authority to enforce the list, and that until they have that authority specifically granted from Congress, the bill is considered illegal.

This is not exactly what the telemarketing companies had in mind when they sued to stop the implementation of the do-not-call list; they wanted their freedom of speech protected. But what in the world does selling discount long-distance to a bunch of people who don’t care have to do with the freedom of speech, and how does this law violate it?

The idea of whether or not telemarketing should be protected as free speech and whether or not this do-not-call legislation violates that right was not discussed in this ruling, but the idea is one that at some point may be brought forward by the telemarketing companies. What must be remembered is that there has not been a total ban on calls, only on that one-fifth of the population who signed the do-not-call list.

What the telemarketers must realize is that any form of invasive speech, such as that on television or radio that actually comes into the homes of citizens has always been more stringently regulated than that speech which can be avoided or tuned out. But it is hard to tune out five telephone calls a day from people who want your money and your time.

This is a staff editorial from the Daily Forty-Niner at California State University-Long Beach.
This editorial was distributed by U-Wire.