Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: John Higdon Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Phone Solicitation (Ag Message-ID: <1746@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 2 Dec 89 05:22:55 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: Green Hills and Cows Lines: 38 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 9, Issue 545, message 4 of 7 In article , bparrish@hprnd.hp.com (Bill Parrish) writes: > [Story of woman receiving junk call while giving birth, deleted.] > > My feeling is that this kind of thing is gettiing out-of-hand and will > have to be dealt with just because of the volume of junk calls. If a > woman in labor can't even be free of this kind of peskiness, something > legislative is probably called for. > Please do not feel the the following remarks indicate a lack of sympathy for a woman being harassed by junk call while having a baby. I would say the matter was handled very well on the spot, and without having our local, state, and federal legislators meddle in matters that they know nothing about. Any time something annoying happens there is that irresistable tendancy to say, "There ought to be a law..." But really, does everything need to be legislated? In the case of junk phone calls, for any legislation to be effective it would have to be at the federal level. States have absolutely no legal control over messages originating from outside their jurisdiction. And who is going to enforce all of these federal "phone etiquette" regulations and investigate violations? The FBI? Our police, courts, and other enforcement agencies are overloaded already. The best and cheapest way to handle junk calls? Utter a few choice words and hang up the phone. And remember, if all this phone soliciting doesn't utimately pay off for those engaged in it, they'll cut it out. It's the American way. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !