bparrish <bparrish@hpcc01.corp.hp.com> (06/03/91)
Re: HR1304 (Markey) Bill If anyone is interested in getting a copy of the bill, just give a call to your congressman ... I did so last week, and have a copy on my desk right now. The bill basically sets up a database that telemarketers must query before calling to sell things ... anyone who wants to can request to be in the database indicating that they do not wish to receive unsolicited sales calls. Much of the text deals with the FCC's responsibility to figure out how to set up and pay for the database. Interesting points ... It includes lots of rules about faxes ... "Telephone Solicitation" is defined as "the initiation of a telephone message for the purpose of encouraging a person to purchase, rent, or invest in property, goods, or services without that person's prior express invitation or permission". Note the exclusion of fund-raising. Maybe the politicians still want to be able to do it themselves? There is a restriction making it unlawful to "...use any automatic dialing system to make unsolicited calls -- (A) To any emergency telephone line or pager of any hospital, medical physician or service office, health care facility, or fire protection or law enforcement agency; or (B) to any telephone number assigned to paging or cellular telephone service" Notably missing from this are non-emergency lines in hospitals (i.e. patient rooms) although I suppose a hospital could list all their patient rooms on the "restricted" database. I personally know of a case of a telemarketeer making a call to a labor room at a local hospital ... my wife was labor coach for a friend and told the telemarketer to go soak his head. Autodialers must state the identity of the company making the call, and "when technically practible (given the limitations of the telephone exchange service facilities) after the called party hangs up, automatically create a disconnect signal or on-hook condition which allows the called party's line to be released." The bill is 12 pages long,(double-spaced) and makes pretty interesting reading. I personally would prefer that "solicitation" included fund-raising. I don't know the status of the bill wrt committees and whatnot, except what is on the cover "referred to the Committee on Enery[sic] and Commerce"... but it's kind of fun to finally see something in writing. Bill Parrish (bparrish@hprnd.rose.hp.com) HP Roseville CA
linc@tongue1.berkeley.edu (Linc Madison) (06/05/91)
In article <telecom11.422.1@eecs.nwu.edu> Bill Parrish (bparrish@hprnd. rose.hp.com) writes: > Re: HR1304 (Markey) Bill > "Telephone Solicitation" is defined as "the initiation of a telephone > message for the purpose of encouraging a person to purchase, rent, or > invest in property, goods, or services without that person's prior > express invitation or permission". Note the exclusion of > fund-raising. Maybe the politicians still want to be able to do it > themselves? [No, I'm not a lawyer, but...] There's an interesting point of Constitutional law involved. It turns out that if you have a "NO SOLICITING" sign on the front of your house, it is entirely legal for someone to come to your door anyway and solicit you for POLITICAL purposes, because the First Amendment right of the solicitor to engage in political speech outweighs the right of the would-not-be solicitee to discourage it. ...or so I was told when I had a summer job soliciting for a political organization (CalPIRG). Of course, there is the practical consideration that the "yield" from houses with "NO SOLICITING" signs was rather lower than the incidence of rather nasty-looking Dobermans growling through the screen door. Regarding the Florida state tax on interstate telephone charges, the Supreme Court ruled about three years ago that it is legal for them to tax interstate telephone charges, notwithstanding obviously contradictory clauses of the U.S. Constitution. I pay the City of Berkeley 6.5% for my out-of-state calls, although, oddly, it appears that the State of California hasn't hitched onto this gravy train. Linc Madison = linc@tongue1.berkeley.edu
Dan_Jacobson@att.com (06/09/91)
"Linc" == Linc Madison <linc@tongue1.berkeley.edu> writes: > It turns out that if you have a "NO SOLICITING" sign on the > front of your house, it is entirely legal for someone to come to > your door anyway and solicit you for POLITICAL purposes, because > the First Amendment right of the solicitor [...] Same apparently applies to [major brand name religious group] as they left me at a loss for words when they countered my routine of pointing at my official City of Naperville, IL "No Solicitors Invited" sticker with "We're not soliciting anything". Seems like I need some kind of super sticker. [Moderator's Note: In a couple cases where there have been challenges to the 'no solicitors' sign by religious or political groups the courts have held the sign referred to *commercial* solicitation and *commercial* speech ... not political or religious speech. However, a 'no trespassing' or 'do not disturb' sign was held to mean exactly what it said even where politics and religion was conerned. PAT]
Scott Horne <horne-scott@cs.yale.edu> (06/14/91)
In article <telecom11.426.7@eecs.nwu.edu>, linc@tongue1.berkeley.edu writes: > [No, I'm not a lawyer, but...] There's an interesting point of > Constitutional law involved. It turns out that if you have a "NO > SOLICITING" sign on the front of your house, it is entirely legal for > someone to come to your door anyway and solicit you for POLITICAL > purposes, because the First Amendment right of the solicitor to > engage <in political speech outweighs the right of the would-not-be > solicitee <to discourage it. I'm not a lawyer, either, but I think you've been misinformed. First, the First Amendment doesn't give anyone else the right to speak about anything on your property. Second, the First Amendment (_q.v._) doesn't differentiate between political speech and other speech, anyway; hence, either "NO SOLICITING" signs apply to all solicitations or they apply to none. Third, "the First Amendment right of the solicitor to engage in political speech" guarantees only that the government can't prevent political speech; it says nothing about the rights of others to keep you from annoying them on their property. Scott Horne ...!{harvard,cmcl2,decvax}!yale!horne horne@cs.Yale.edu SnailMail: Box 7196 Yale Station, New Haven, CT 06520 203 624-9263 Summer residence: 25 High St, Apt 32, New Haven, CT
doug@uunet.uu.net> (06/18/91)
In article <telecom11.454.6@eecs.nwu.edu> Scott Horne <horne-scott@ cs.yale.edu> writes: > I'm not a lawyer, either, but I think you've been misinformed. First, > the First Amendment doesn't give anyone else the right to speak about > anything on your property. Second, the First Amendment (_q.v._) > doesn't differentiate between political speech and other speech, > anyway; hence, either "NO SOLICITING" signs apply to all solicitations > or they apply to none. Third, "the First Amendment right of the > solicitor to engage in political speech" guarantees only that the > government can't prevent political speech; it says nothing about the > rights of others to keep you from annoying them on their property. I thought the first amendment gave you the right to say anything to anyone anywhere. While you may be welcome on someone's private property, the "No soliciting" sign might imply if you say something then you are automatically unwelcome, turning you from a welcome guest to an unwanted tresspasser. Thus, you can still say what you want, but you have another problem: you are tresspassing, and there are certain rights property owners have over tresspassers. Remember -- "the pursuit of happiness" was "the pursuit of property" ... indicating (to me, IMHO) that owning your own piece of property is a place where you can have your own private happiness -- and you can't have that if someone is annoying you. Doug Fields -- 100 Midwood Road, Greenwich, CT 06830 --- (FAX) +1 203 661 2996 uucp: uunet!areyes!admiral!doug ------- Thank you areyes/mail and wizkid/news! Internet: fields-doug@cs.yale.edu --------------- (Voice@Home) +1 203 661 2967 BBS: (HST/V32) +1 203 661 1279; (MNP6) -2967; (PEP/V32) -2873; (V32/V42) -0450