I know that our obvious focus is on the outcome of Tuesday's election, but after reading more diaries about Robocall's in various states, an idea occurred to me. I don't know if such a thing already exists (I doubt it, but I'd love input) - a National Robocall Legislation that requires text, funding, and frequency to be recorded into a publicly available database - BEFORE - calls are made. I think it's easy, and straightforward. Here's my thoughts.
A political campaign is about to send out a Robocall. The legislation would in no way prevent such activity (although I think it's annoying as all get out). BUT, at the onset of said calling, the following would need to take place:
A standardized format submission would take place to input the following information into a national public database.
a. The date and time range that the calls will take place, including the number of estimated calls. I don't think that submission of called phone numbers would be viewed positively by many, so I'm not going to include that point.
b. The funding source / campaign planning to make the calls. The source must list a designated campaign designed to benefit from the calls, and all campaigns must in the database include list of approved robocall sources - i.e., this would prevent the "our campaign would never approve such a message" - it's inherent to the process.
c. The text/transcript of robocalls must be included - BEFORE the calls are made. This would provide a definitive record of text, and due to b., an inherent approval of the campaigns for such a message. I would assume that submission of an audio file in place of transcript is another possibility. Perhaps both could be required.
After the period of robocalling (as defined by the submission, but no greater than 48 hours after calls are made), a followup submission must be made. This would include total number of calls made (must not be greater than that listed in a.)
My thoughts are, the FEC has so many regulations about amount of money people can donate, but there doesn't appear to be much regulation of how campaigns use that money for Robocalling. It's a way to "under the radar" slam political campaigns with smears, lies, and overtly biased information with unclear sources - I'm not asking to ban it (as I'm a free speech person), but I do think that for public campaigns we have a right to know the text of said calls. Campaigns should be responsible for the information they distribute - certainly not banned for sharing it - but the technology clearly exists for such a submission / databse system to exist.
Why not?