No, make theft of other people's phone lines illegal.
The DNC list would have made it illegal for me to call my clients if they hadn't done business with me within 18 months.
Well, then, make sure you touch base every 18 months to be sure they still want to hear from you. Duh.
What if I called a wrong number
The law has always recognized lack of criminal intent as a defense.
The free market was doing a fantastic, and profitable job, of fighting unwanted telephone solicitation.
The reason matters came to this is precisely the telepests' refusal to accept free market solutions. For instance, they started configuring their call systems to defeat "TeleZapper" devices (which, IMO, should have been illegal in and of itself, just like picking a lock in order to trespass into somebody's house).
Funny how the DNC also allowed for certain exemptions. It exempted charities, polling companies, and politicians.
That is the one flaw in the concept -- your private property right to your own phone line should apply against all intruders.
The govt tried to ram this down Americas throat and at the same time not prepare business, legit or not, any way to actually monitor or prepare for this.
BS. Businesses were given three months before the Do Not Call list went into effect.
Should the DNC list have gone into effect, the true beauty would have been realized by the left, MASSIVE unemployment. Overnight, pink slips well in excess of 1 MILLION people would have been delivered, 2 million according to the head of the telemarketing association.
If you believe those numbers, then you might be interested in an opportunity I've heard about to get a 10% cut from the former president of the Democratic People's Republic of Kleptrocria.
America says it hates telemarketing. Well, the numbers don't bear that out.
Fifty million signups to the Do Not Call list bear it out beyond your poor ability to add or detract.
The telephone is the cheapest and most effective way, by FAR, to build many businesses. Let me tell you, there would be no telemarketing if it didn't produce results.
Burglary is the cheapest and most effective way, by FAR, to obtain consumer electronic equipment. Let me tell you, there would be no burglars if it didn't produce results.
If you don't want to be solicited, there are long lists of ways to stop it from happening.
Again, the fact that telemarketers kept getting around previous attempts by phone owners to be left alone is the reason the Do Not Call list was finally adopted.
Opt out at your banks, brokerage firms, mutual fund companies, phone companies, etc. for starters. If someone calls that you don't want, simply tell them that you want to be on their do not call list (this IS enforcable not only federally but in many states regardless of the DNC list).
First, it is absurd and unacceptable to expect me to individually "opt out" from each of the millions of telepests who might take it into their heads to call me. It is as if physical property were required to carry 250 million individual "NO TRESPASSING" signs, each addressed to a single citizen of the United States.
Second, even if individual "opt out" were acceptable, telepests have adopted various tactics to avoid it. They use Clintonian parsing (e.g. if you say "Take me off your list", they interpret it as a request to be removed from their "do not call" list), they hang up before you finish the sentence directing them to quit calling, they pretend to have suddenly forgotten the English language -- anything to avoid their obligations under the (pre-DNC-list) law.
Have your phone company provide you with caller id and the do not solicit message (not expensive at all).
Why on earth should I pay for that? It's as if a trespasser ignored my "NO TRESPASSING" sign (equivalent to a Do Not Call listing) and argued that if I really wanted to keep him out then I should have installed a full security system.
Lastly, be VERY very careful when signing up for things. Magazines, internet sites, surveys, and all sorts of things are meant to collect data on you so it can be shared or sold. These firms can be very tricky wiht their language and in the case of the internet, switch your settings should you miss a field.
This is the first sensible statement you've made.