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To: Modernman
It's a concept called 'nuisance,' which is a legal tort going back in common law to, oh, Norman times.

Nuisance is local concept and local enforcement works for me. What the statists on this thread want is a Federal bureaucrat to define "nuisance" as a portion of a service that signed up for but don't like. Their phone service includes calls from anyone. There's no restrictions in their contract because they didn't pay for any restrictions. Then they decide they don't like that deal so they ask the politicians for a new deal. The politicians are only too happy to oblige and empower bureacrats to make determinations about what a nuisance is, which speech is protected, which is commercial, etc.

326 posted on 11/12/2003 9:18:41 AM PST by palmer (They've reinserted my posting tube)
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To: palmer
Nuisance is local concept and local enforcement works for me

That statement would only be true if we lived in a world without telephones, fiber-optics etc. There is no real constitutional way for a state to regulate behavior coming from another state- there is just not enough jurisdiction. the federal government needs to step in in such a situation and the Commerce Clause gives it the power to do so. Perhaps if telemarketers only called people in their own state, we could rely on local enforcement. Are you saying there is no way to prosecute crimes that occur over state lines?

Their phone service includes calls from anyone. There's no restrictions in their contract because they didn't pay for any restrictions.

No, it doesn't. Phone service includes only legal phone calls- by signing up for a phone contract, you don't give up the right to charge/sue callers for illegal types of phone calls, such as threats, obscenity, intentional infliction of emotional distress etc. You cannot contract for illegal things. This is no different, a class of phone calls have been made illegal or actionable. Signing a contract with a phone company does not eliminate that illegality.

The politicians are only too happy to oblige and empower bureacrats to make determinations about what a nuisance is, which speech is protected, which is commercial, etc.

Courts do that, not bureacrats. There will be a few lawsuits on the subject, but eventually we'll know where the legal line is.

333 posted on 11/12/2003 9:42:26 AM PST by Modernman (It puts the lotion in the basket or it gets the hose again)
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