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paulddraper

> Why aren't these kinds of calls straight up illegal in the first place?

Free speech.

You may not agree, but that is at least the reason.

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Do automated systems / robots have first amendment rights? (Honestly curious if this has been brought up in the courts)

The companies that run them do.

Commercial speech is not protected under the 1st amendment. However, political and religious speech, which makes up most of the robocalls during the election season isn't covered.

That's not quite true. Restrictions on commercial speech are subject to intermediate scrutiny, whereas the default for most other restrictions speech is strict scrutiny. That's not nearly the same as totally unprotected, like obscenity for example.

It amazes me that this completely nonsensical distinction passed muster in the courts.

There is no meaningfuk distinction between political, commerce, and religion, and the First Amendment specifically prohibits granting special legal status to religious activity.

What are you talking about?

CAN-SPAM laws dictate and prevent e-mail communications that are distinctly for marketing purposes.

That is the same justification used by junk mailers, and the USPS actively courts them - because they are the customer, not you. I only check my mailbox once a week, and only because it quickly gets stuffed with junk and then the USPS starts holding the mail at the PO. Once I actually went down there with a copy of "Penny Saver", the worst offender, and declared that I found the coupon rag sexually stimulating and demanded that they halt the flow of the pornography. That is the only way to find relief, but it only works for the specific mailer that you complain about - and it is a best effort sort of filtering (and since they don't care, they don't put in much effort).

You can unsubscribe from the DMA junk mail list, and it works for most generic mailers.

>When you register with this service, your name will be put on a "delete" file and made available to direct-mail marketers and organizations.

Yeah, I'm not super trusting that sending my name and address to marketing companies isn't going to somehow result in that same information getting passed on to companies who don't give a shit.

Thanks for the tip, I'll give it a try. I'll honestly be surprised if it makes a perceivable dent though, the root cause of the problem being carrier route level sortation discounts. They blast apartment complexes indiscriminately (most stuff addressed to "Our friend", "Valued customer"), because the cost per mail piece is pennies.

Read the article. They are illegal, but callers get around it by setting up shop outside the US.

Nope - Freedom of speech isn't a blank check for communication.

It only protects from government censorship, and even then, situations deemed harmful (such as death threats against individuals) are exempt.

It is a lot more complicated than that unfortunately:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowan_v._United_States_Post_Of...

The consideration of a "captive audience" is relevant to the topic under discussion, prior restraint (in general) as well.

That's not complicated at all. That's people censoring what they receive, not the government.

"people" aren't "censoring", they don't have the power to do so. In this specific case the state acts at the behest of those who fill out a USPS Form 1500. It is complicated when you consider what is actually happening, the rationale behind it, and the convoluted exceptions. To say otherwise would be like saying that the internet is uncomplicated, as it is simply a series of tubes.

>In this specific case the state acts at the behest of those who fill out a USPS Form 1500.

That is "people" "censoring". This really isn't as complex or difficult as you're trying to make it be.

I'll give it one more shot. You are a child at the store and you ask your mommy for a lollipop, she hands you one and pays the cashier... who bought the lollipop?

Hahah, nothing in what you just said adds up to censorship. Since the direct marketers are paying for it, I guess they're the mother? Is the government the lollipop? Is censorship the grocery store?

Ahem - "You have a duck in a pond with a frog, and an elderly couple is throwing bread... Who threw the bread?" Lol.

While trying to understand what attribution means to you I accidentally tested your skills in reading comprehension.

But who threw the bread, woodman? You still haven't passed your reading comprehension test.

This is very important for the discussion of human-selected censorship.

A: Why aren't these kinds of calls straight up illegal in the first place?

B: Free speech.

A: Freedom of speech isn't a blank check for communication. It only protects from government censorship.

B: Um...yeah, "illegal".

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