From Reuters:
“U.S. Supreme Court bolsters law
banning 'robocalls'”
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday
upheld and strengthened a law banning the broadly unpopular but ubiquitous
telemarketing practice known as robocalls, striking down an exemption to the
measure that had allowed automated calls for collection of certain money owed
to the government. The court’s 7-2 ruling, written by conservative Justice
Brett Kavanaugh, was a defeat for political and polling organizations seeking
to use autodial technology to contact the cellphones of potential voters. They
had argued that the robocall ban under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of
1991 violated free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
Kavanaugh wrote that the exemption for government debt collection, added to the
law in 2015, violated the First Amendment because it favored government speech
over political speech by private entities without sufficient justification. With
few exceptions, autodialed calls to cellphones are illegal in the United States
unless a person has given prior consent. The groups wanted the ban on robocalls
to cellphones struck down entirely, saying the law violated the First
Amendment. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission had urged the court to
uphold both the autodial ban and the government debt exemption. “Americans
passionately disagree about many things. But they are largely united in their
disdain for robocalls. The federal government receives a staggering number of
complaints about robocalls - 3.7 million complaints in 2019 alone. The states
likewise field a constant barrage of complaints,” Kavanaugh wrote. Despite the
ban, the volume of automated calls has surged in recent years, with Americans
receiving 58.5 billion robocalls last year, an increase of 22% from 2018,
according to YouMail, a company that provides a service to block automated
calls. The amendment to the law had allowed robocalls made to collect debts
owed to or guaranteed by the federal government, including many student loan
and mortgage debts. During May arguments in the case - conducted by
teleconference because of the coronavirus pandemic - Kavanaugh sounded
reluctant to rule in a way that would cause Americans to be flooded with even
more robocalls. “If you just take a peek, just a peek, at the real world here,”
Kavanaugh said at the time, “this is one of the more popular laws on the books
because people don’t like cellphone robocalls.”
^ While this is good I doubt it will actually stop or even limit the robocalls that ordinary people get every day. ^
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