National "Don't Call" Registry
The Federal Trade Commission has announced plans to set up a national "Don't Call" registry to allow citizens to register once and prevent telemarketers from calling them. Sounds like a great idea at first. Then you read on and they explain how it will be a year or more before the registry is in place and before ground rules for fines, etc. are set.
Why have to register to not be called? Let's require those few fools who like being bothered at all times of the day or night be the ones to have to register. Oh, the telemarketers complain about their first amendment rights. First amendment rights don't include interrupting someone, in their home, to tell them about something they have no interest in. The telemarketers can advertise in newspapers, magazines, radio and television. In those cases, you can choose to listen to, or read their pitch. When I'm busy, I don't have a choice other than to listen to the phone ring and ring and ring, or get up to check my caller-id display, dropping whatever it was I was busy doing.
Telemarketing should ONLY be to citizens who have signed up to receive telemarketer calls. If that is found to be un-constitutional, another idea is to require a distinctive telephone ring for all telemarketer calls. Hear the distinctive ring, and you ignore it without having to go to the trouble of answering or checking tha caller-id display. That would be even easier than dealing with junk mail!
02/01/02 ( 724 )
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