New And Improved Rant Thread, now with 50% more profanity!

[lisarea]

How would a law like that be worded without preventing private parties from calling you without your explicit permission? Would you limit the number of discrete phone calls someone can make in a day, or how many of their neighbors people are allowed to visit? Could you write a law that would effectively prevent political calls without preventing your neighbor from calling you to invite you to a block party or tell you about some recent break ins or local police corruption or a city council meeting?

[Ymir's blood]

I'm just referring to political campaigns and associated non-profits. Make them obey the Do Not Call list like telemarketers do. Possibly remove voter's telephone numbers from the public record. They could still send junk mail, of course, but that's a lot less of a hassle to deal with.

[Janet]

I'm fine with barring my neighbors from calling me unsolicited. None of them ever have and I don't see why they'd start. I would say that anyone you have not explicitly given your telephone number, therefore implicitly giving them permission to call you, should be barred. And if a company requires you to provide your telephone number, they also have to have an opt-in for solicitation with that number.

[Angakuk]

None of my neighbors make it a habit of calling me with pre-recorded announcements or invitiations. As I said earlier, I think that automated calling with pre-recorded messages, except for emergency services, ought to be illegal. What effect would this have on political campaigns and charitable appeals? If these organizations had to rely on living, breathing, human beings to make those calls they would often find it too expensive and would make fewer such calls. Even if outlawing robocalls did not eliminate unsolicited political or charitable telephone calls, it would guarantee that there was a live human being on the line to whom I could give a piece of my mind. At the very least I would feel better for having someone to cuss out.

[lisarea]

And how are you going to actually write that law so that it passes all of those constitutional mustards that the white guys on TV talk about?

I am all about making personal information private property of the person in question so that people can control their own information themselves.

But it's not just as simple as writing legislation that limits non-commercial speech in the same way that commercial speech is limited. When they try that, the legislation gets challenged on first amendment grounds and is subsequently found unconstitutional. So if you want to know why the no call law doesn't cover political and charitable calls, that's your answer, and the arguments are sound.

In order to limit the way people use information for non-commercial purposes, you'd pretty much have to fundamentally and probably constitutionally change the way that information is classified, so it could be legally treated as property rather than as information.

The first amendment is a big fat pain in the ass because it protects all kinds of stupid, intrusive, annoying, and obnoxious speech, which is the kind that usually needs protection.

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by Angakuk

None of my neighbors make it a habit of calling me with pre-recorded announcements or invitiations. As I said earlier, I think that automated calling with pre-recorded messages, except for emergency services, ought to be illegal. What effect would this have on political campaigns and charitable appeals? If these organizations had to rely on living, breathing, human beings to make those calls they would often find it too expensive and would make fewer such calls. Even if outlawing robocalls did not eliminate unsolicited political or charitable telephone calls, it would guarantee that there was a live human being on the line to whom I could give a piece of my mind. At the very least I would feel better for having someone to cuss out.

Robocalls are regulated nationally in the Telemarketing Sales Rule, and individually in many states.

What additional regulations would you add, and how would you defend them against lawsuits brought on constitutional grounds?

[Ymir's blood]

Perhaps what I think is right doesn't pass constitutional muster. That's probably because I don't get decide how to interpret the constitution. I still think that the issue has zero to do with free speech. Again, I'm not in charge. That's probably a good thing because power corrupts and given my sometimes strong misanthropy, I would be very corruptible. Oh, I'd start out with the very best intentions, but then things would go wrong and I'd get pissed and then all hell would break loose. Perhaps you might lead La Resistance! Do you have a red beret? I'd love to be opposed by someone in a red beret. I'm sort of thinking of installing a huge countdown timer near my doomsday device so that the heroic resistance (comprised of a ragtag bunch of misfits) could struggle to stop me from launching my kill sat or activating my earthquake machine and still have the timer in the shot. Touches like that are important to me. I mean, anyone can be a power mad, corrupt fiend but it really is important to think about visuals.

Anyway, I'm not planning on violently seizing power anytime soon but I have been working on my maniacal laughter.

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by lisarea

Robocalls are regulated nationally in the Telemarketing Sales Rule, and individually in many states.

What additional regulations would you add, and how would you defend them against lawsuits brought on constitutional grounds?

It is really pretty simple. I would prohibit the use of any device or software to automatically generate calls and I would prohibit the use of pre-recorded calls. The sole exception to these rules would be for emergency notifications by public safety organizations. This should present no constitutional impediment as live human beings, who do have a constitutional right to free speech, would not be prohibited from making such calls while machines, which have no such rights, would be prohibited from making such calls.

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by Angakuk

It is really pretty simple. I would prohibit the use of any device or software to automatically generate calls and I would prohibit the use of pre-recorded calls. The sole exception to these rules would be for emergency notifications by public safety organizations. This should present no constitutional impediment as live human beings, who do have a constitutional right to free speech, would not be prohibited from making such calls while machines, which have no such rights, would be prohibited from making such calls.

Using that argument, though, you could say that printing presses and computers don't have the right to free speech, either, and that free speech protections would only apply to individually spoken messages.

Anyway, Indiana does have a pretty thorough ban on robo calls, in that recorded messages, including non-commercial ones, are only allowed when they're preceded by a live operator, who has to get explicit permission to play the message. That should suffice, probably, for your needs; but that law is currently being challenged on first amendment grounds. (And it's worth noting, too, that a lot of the prerecorded political calls that we get already violate existing laws, so enforcing those might be a good place to start.)

The main point, though, is that it's just not as easy as outlawing it because it's annoying and intrusive and nobody likes it. Any laws that limit non-commercial speech have to stand up to some pretty strong first amendment arguments. Robocalls are probably a good place to start because it's easier to prohibit use of a specific technology than it is to prohibit the speech itself, but even that isn't as simple as that, really.

[inland wave]

Why on earth did I major in Business--I despise working with teams......

[Janet]

To the self-serving assholes in Administration,

I am well aware that the library has lost a large chunk of its budget due to the GM tax abatement. I also understand and am fine with the idea that we have to shorten library hours to make up for it. I can accept closing on Monday and working every Saturday for the next year and a half as a necessary evil. But HOW THE FUCK do you expect me to accept that when you and the people in Tech Services will still be working Monday to Friday, thus not only giving yourself all weekends off but keeping the building lit and heated on Mondays? Where the fuck is the cost savings in that, you selfish bastards?

[SharonDee]

I'm angry at myself that I can't find that nifty pantry site lisarea posted about sometime this year. You could, like, list all the stuff in your kitchen and then it would totally make suggestions for dishes you could make.

Now I can't find it! And ... AND!! The search function isn't helping! I couldn't even find this thread by searching for "profanity" in thread titles. Hello! It's right fucking there!!!

[Crumb]

You can use google, just put site:http://www.freethought-forum.com on the end of your query.

[lisarea]

And now I am all thinking wow, that sounds like a good site that this lisarea fellow poasted.

But then I kind of started to remember it a little bit, so I guess it actually was me.

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

Supercook: recipe search by ingredients you have at home

[Ensign Steve]

Originally Posted by SharonDee

Now I can't find it! And ... AND!! The search function isn't helping! I couldn't even find this thread by searching for "profanity" in thread titles. Hello! It's right fucking there!!!

There's a couple of threads here that are like that. It happens when someone changes the thread title after creating it. The original title stays in the search table FOREVER.

[Sock Puppet]

Shit, and I don't even remember editing in the profanity. But maybe I felt behooved to add it as an additional selling point.

But hey, it seems to have worked.

[livius drusus]

Yeah, I never refresh the thread or user tables, so artifacts like that stay around forever. TOUGH TITTY.

[Shelli]

Really? On top of everything else, now the douche up front feels the need to sing for the office all afternoon?!

Srsly?! Are you fucking kidding me?!

[SharonDee]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

TOUGH TITTY.

Meanie!

[Naru]

Originally Posted by Naru

I ordered a really sweet new laptop from Dell. Two weeks ago. It isn't scheduled to ship for another week.

WHYYYYYY

Delayed another week

Damn you vm

[Shelli]

Right there, Bank of America! You can suck my non-existent dick!

Since you absolutely refuse to take my phone number off of your list of numbers to call to collect a debt from someone whom I've repeatedly told you does not live at this address/phone number, I've gone and done what I fucking said I'd do. Stupid fucks.

I've filed a complaint online to the Comptroller of the Currency Administrator of National Banks / US Department of Treasury

And I'll also be faxing a complaint to the Office of Thrift Supervision tomorrow as they do not do email, only fax or .

This was all AFTER I called the Office of the CEO, listed here: contacthelp.com, unbelievably got connected to a real person right away, an "advocate", just to be given the same crapinabag.

Fucking fuckwads. I am soooooo fucking glad that I never opened a credit card with that fucking asinine, rude, infuriating, harassing, of a poor excuse of a company.


.
BOA (Bank of Asshats)

[Crumb]

BOA (Bank of Asshats)

[curses]

It's Thanksgiving. It's 20 minutes before we have to leave for my parents' house. Why, then, is my husband's job calling and asking him to make changes to something that doesn't go live till next week?

[lisarea]

I can be a little sloppy sometimes about unsubscribing from email alerts and shit, but today, I get an email titled, "Put down your shopping list and read this," which automatically switches me into FUCK YOU mode.

Turns out that someone from change.org wants me to stop being a fat, self centered, pieheaded shopoholic American for five or six minutes and sign some kind of pledge to support the eradication of AIDS in Africa.

I can't imagine how anyone thinks it's a good idea to a) send a bossy, insulting email to people to try to convince them to b) sign some kind of petition declaring their opposition to AIDS.