“Computerized calls are the scourge of modern civilization. They wake us up in the morning; they interrupt our dinner at night; they force the sick and elderly out of bed; they hound us until we want to rip the telephone right out of the wall.”
These were the words of Senator Fritz Hollings, a champion of consumer rights, as he argued for the passage of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) in 1991. Over the years since the statute became law, Americans have shown they agree with Hollings—no one likes getting spammed with robocalls. That’s why the TCPA, which protects citizens’ privacy and sanity by limiting telephone solicitations such as unauthorized calls to people’s cell phones, is more popular than ever.
Except, apparently, with House Republicans. Members of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice are holding a hearing Tuesday to review the TCPA, and they’re bringing in witnesses who will say that the TCPA makes it too difficult for businesses to contact people.
Here’s why that’s scary: Republicans appear poised to gut or seriously reconfigure the TCPA, which would mean allowing telemarketers to bombard citizens with more robocalls than ever. This would be the latest in a long line of Republican attacks on consumer protection efforts, including their ongoing attempt to repeal Dodd-Frank.
Hassan Zavareei, an attorney who represents consumers, will speak to the committee about the importance of the TCPA Tuesday. He’ll tell the Members that “if anything, the TCPA should be expanded, to make it harder—not easier—for businesses to bombard consumers with unwanted robocalls.”
Even with the TCPA in place, consumers still receive 2.6 billion robocalls per month. And they clearly don’t like it—the FTC and FCC received nearly 4 million complaints about telemarketing in 2016 alone. So why would it make sense to gut the statute, making it even easier for nuisance telemarketers to bother Americans on their cell phones?
Senator Bill Nelson said it best: “There are few things that unite Americans more than their visceral dislike of robocalls.” Watering down or eliminating the TCPA would be another blatant example of Republicans in Congress prioritizing companies over people.
Photo by Mike Licht, via Flickr