[Badray]

I guess that I'm the last person in America that is opposed to this stupid law. Who needs a freaking federal law so that the phone doesn't ring at dinner time? And no, I'm not a telemarketer.

If you don't want to answer the phone during dinner, don't.

If you don't want to miss a call, get an answering machine.

If you don't want to talk to a telemarketer (or your brother in law), get Caller ID.

All that said, what passes for judicial wisdom these days is pathetic. Free speech does not include the right to be heard or the wherewithall to make your speech.

This judge along with many others should be impeached.

[hotpotato]

I was waiting for a call from my husband's friend who was with him at an emergency room, waiting to hear the outcome. The phone rang and it was a telemarketer. I hung up on the telemarketer (I was distraught and waiting to hear about my husband). The phone rang again. I picked it up and the person at the other end hung up on me. Happened another time. I realized the telemarketer was having some fun at my expense because I had hung up on him first. Rang again and I let it ring about 25 times before they hung up and hoped it wasn't my husband's friend at the emergency room.

Telemarketers are scum.

[kingu]

If you don't want to talk to a telemarketer (or your brother in law), get Caller ID

This makes sense, buy more stuff, pay for more telephone services, so that you can stop telemarketers from using the phone you pay for (plus taxes.)

[eno_]

One reason this isn't unreasonable is that the entire mobile phone industry works just FINE without telemarketers.

There are numerous laws on the books against nuisances. As a small-l libertarian, I have no problem with laws against leaving dog poop on the sidewalk. Telemarketing calls are verbal dog poop delivered right to your dinner table. Unless you assiduously ID every caller, and don't find a ringing phone to be an intrusion that ought to come with a good reason behind it, laws against telemarketers are perfectly reasonable.