"Do Not Call" Means Poorest May Lose Jobs

Cato Institute ^ | various | Various

[LowCountryJoe]

According to The Los Angeles Times, "Last summer, the federal government announced a national registry for consumers who want to block telemarketers from calling them. Americans rushed to sign up.

"Of the nation's 166 million residential numbers, 51 million are now off-limits to telemarketers. Despite ongoing court challenges, the list went into effect last month.

"The crackdown might be welcomed by consumers, but not by telemarketers like Millican, many of whom survive on the economic fringe. The nation has lost 2.6 million jobs in two years, and the 'do not call' list is expected to put hundreds of thousands more people out of work."

In "Like It Or Not, Free Speech Protects Telemarketers, Too", Cato's Robert Levy, senior fellow in constitutional studies, argues that "when government sets the rules, it must not discriminate based on the content of the calls. That's what the First Amendment means. Free speech is not subject to plebiscite, no matter how many millions sign up for no-call. [Supreme Court] Justice William Brennan got it right: 'If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.'"

[Modernman]

You can't ban it since it is obviously not illegal.

Telemarketing could probably be banned altogether, but I don't support doing that. I do support giving people an out.

The market is able to provide phone service without commercial calls. My cell phone company for example sued a commercial spammer who misused their network

You're assuming everyone wants to go wireless and not have a land line. Your solution here is to allow telemarketers to kill off another industry through their abusive behavior. Talk about entitlement,

But you want a cheaper land line service with the same feature that I pay more for. So you lobbied and had it given to you.

You want to allow a small group (call it 2.6 million) to force a much larger group of people (50+ million) to change their lives, or pay more money for their phone service, just so that smaller group can keep engaging in commercial activity that the much larger group does not want to be part of.

At the end of the day, the telemarketing industry has nobody but itself to blame for this. I'm not shedding any tears over them.

[palmer]

At the end of the day, the telemarketing industry has nobody but itself to blame for this. I'm not shedding any tears over them.

Neither am I. I am dismayed that we chose to solve a problem with Federal government regulation, when the primary problem was State regulations (supressing local phone competition). I chuckle at the rationalizations and leaps of logic that people on this forum make to justify the blatant abuse of Federal power.

But mostly I am dismayed that we have chosen to make the government larger and more powerful. The bureaucrats may decide that some political group is really commercial and fine them into oblivion for making calls at election time. That group might eventually prevail in court, but it will obviously be too late for them. That is just one possible bad consequence from a law like this. I guarantee there will be many more.

[LowCountryJoe]

Okay, you almost have me swayed (actually at this point I'm neutral on the matter). But first some more objections from a devil's advocate position.

What if I'm not okay with my tax money paying for this government protection?

What if the way you've estimated costs is not accurate, and the median household cost is something closer to $20 annually? Would that change things knowing you could get a device or service cheaper than that?

We know that e-mail is going to be next and some people are fine with that too. How will we react when the come after commercial mail? Is this far fetched? Then billboards!

[Held_to_Ransom]

Property rights? Well then, let's look at it from property rights. When they call you they don't set foot on, in or near your property. They don't even leave theirs. But when you set rules on phone usage, you tell them how they can use their private property on their own premises. The fact that they call you does not dictate how you must use your phone, or even that you have to. The government fines them for using their property on their premises, but no one tells you to answer the phone. Your problem is that you are so conditioned to respond to the ringing of the bell like a test animal that you have to rely on your government to prevent you from succumbing to your habits.

Whenever someone sends you a piece of junkmail it can take you longer to get rid of it, and their property is actually put into yours like so much litter by the postman. Odd how you let most people walk all over you. Perhaps that is why when you get a chance to let the government walk over others, you do it thinking it's something that could never happen to you.

[TJFLSTRAT]

Let them go back to stuffing envelopes.

[Modernman]

What if I'm not okay with my tax money paying for this government protection?

Well, I don't think you want to open that door. Everyone disagrees with some portion of what taxes are spent on. The only way to remedy this would be to allow people to choose what their taxes went towards. Not a good idea- what if the peaceniks in this country don't like spending money on defense and want all their tax dollars to go to welfare? Essentially, you'd allow people to circumvent our representative system when it comes to taxes- Congress, elected by us, chooses where tax money goes.

What if the way you've estimated costs is not accurate, and the median household cost is something closer to $20 annually?

My view might be different if this program ends up costing an incredible amount of money. However, the problem with devices that block calls is that there's a constant arms battle between technology used by telemarketers and blocking technology. The major advantage of the FDNC list is that it really doesn't require anything that isn't already in place to work.

[kevao]

You just don't want to address my point. Part of the phone line (what's inside my house) and the apparatus itself is my property. The telephone company will tell you that. You even conceded this point yesterday.

That's an impressive argument you wrote in favor of property rights. But why don't I have any say over how my property is used, my property in this case being my part of the phone line and the appartus? How can you defend telemarketers' property rights and trample mine at the same time? Certainly you're not suggesting that their rights trump mine?

[Held_to_Ransom]

You have complete control over how your property is used. You can use it to prop a door open. You can use it as a paperweight, whatever. But you can't use it to talk to people on the phone systems we all share without sharing the common network and systems we all share. Those don't belong to you and you don't have the right to tell other people what they can or can not do with them. You have ample means to stop all telemarket calls yourself. Turn off the phone, screen calls from those who block their numbers, use a phone machine, turn off the ringer etc. All of these are the equivalent of putting up a 'do not trespass' sign. Inflicting more stupid bureaucracy on the country and taking jobs away from those who need them are not.

[Held_to_Ransom]

Consider this analogy. Let's say you have a well for your water. It's on your property, only you use it. That well goes down to the watertable and the water under your house. No one else can come in and use your well, but your neighbor can use his well to pump the water out of the ground beneath your house. Although the watertable sits on your property, it's not solely yours, and you don't have a right to stop other people from using it.

[Modernman]

Although the watertable sits on your property, it's not solely yours, and you don't have a right to stop other people from using it.

True, but I would have the right to prevent people from coming onto my property to use my well to extract water from the watertable. Similarly, I have a right to prevent telemarketers from using my phone equipment for their business. They're free to use their own phone lines and the phone company's lines for their business, but they can't use my property if I've posted the electronic "do not trespass" sign.

[Held_to_Ransom]

True, but I would have the right to prevent people from coming onto my property to use my well to extract water from the watertable.

When was the last time a telemarket came onto your property? Telephone conversations are a wave phenomenon. It's like owning half a lake. You can keep the fellow off your half of the lake, but you can't stop him from making those little ripples that wash up on your beach when he dives in on his property. Neither can you use the fact that you don't like those waves to make him stop swimming in his water.

What do you want to bet you never had a telemarket step onto your property?

[Held_to_Ransom]

Similarly, I have a right to prevent telemarketers from using my phone equipment for their business

Yes, you can disconnect you phone or turn it off. If they have no right to affect how you chose to use your equipment in your home, you have no right to affect how they use their equipment in their business. You have the right to hand that do not call sign, and it's turning off the phone.

[maineman]

that's the good news

[steve-b]

A phone customer does not own the lines coming into his home, so he may not restrict their use.

I didn't know that the Cato Institute had started hiring from the shallow end of the gene pool.

This argument is idiotic on its face. If it were correct, people who live in apartments would have to admit any damn fool who felt like dropping in.

[steve-b]

Free market solutions that currently exist.

The telemarketers brought this on themselves by wilfully circumventing the existing free market solutions (e.g. blocking their Caller ID tags, reprogramming their dialers to evade the TeleZapper[tm], etc. Frankly, they ought to have been busted for phone phreaking -- if some pimple-faced teenager runs a wardialer, it's a federal felony, and we're supposed to have one law for all in this Republic.

[steve-b]

Cato's Robert Levy, senior fellow in constitutional studies, argues that "when government sets the rules, it must not discriminate based on the content of the calls."

Government discriminates based on content all the time. For instance, the government will react very differently to the messages: 1. "Our herbal tea tastes great." 2. "Our herbal tea cures cancer."

[steve-b]

The market is able to provide phone service without commercial calls. My cell phone company for example sued a commercial spammer who misused their network. But you want a cheaper land line service with the same feature that I pay more for. So you lobbied and had it given to you.

The market is able to provide barbed-wire fences and private security guards. But you want a cheaper house with police protection. So you lobbied and had it given to you.

[steve-b]

But you can't use it to talk to people on the phone systems we all share without sharing the common network and systems we all share. Those don't belong to you and you don't have the right to tell other people what they can or can not do with them.

You can't drive your car around on the road system we all share without sharing the common network and systems we all share. Those don't belong to you and you don't have the right to tell other people what they can or can not do with them. If somebody wants to drive up to your house and park in your driveway, tough -- if you can't get your own car out, then you need to build a wider driveway.

[palmer]

You're wasting your time. This thread is dead and we banned Held_to_Ransom over the weekend.

[steve-b]

What gives you a right to trespass on their right to earn a living

They don't have a right to "earn a living". They have a right to try. If they fail because people post an electronic NO SOLICITORS sign on their phones, tough -- find a new line of work.