Shopsmith Forums

I just received an email from Consumer Reports that may be of interest to many of you. It seems that there is an anti-robocall bill that has already passed the House, and is up for vote in the Senate. Clearly, this is an area where the law hasn't yet caught up with technology, and it's well past time to fix that.

The link below took me to a page where I could provide my contact info, and have CR send an email to my senators urging them to vote for the bill. I subscribe to CR, so I didn't give them any information that they don't already have. Also, I'm not certain that the link will work if you don't have a CR subscription, but it might be worth a try. Alternatively, you could email your senators directly.

https://action.consumerreports.org/robo ... engagewkly

Here's a capture of the CR page, after I gave them my contact info and clicked the Send Email button:

Probably more important than what Congress is trying to do is the action earlier this year by the FCC that pushes the phone companies to "authenticate" all calls originating in their systems. If the "caller ID" number they are using doesn't match the number of the line calling, the phone companies will be required to block the call. That already has cut out most of the spoofed number calls by late this year.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/26/fcc-war ... tions.html

The junk calls to my phone have already dropped from 10-15 a week to around 3 just due to the action taken by the FCC.

garys wrote:Probably more important than what Congress is trying to do is the action earlier this year by the FCC that pushes the phone companies to "authenticate" all calls originating in their systems. If the "caller ID" number they are using doesn't match the number of the line calling, the phone companies will be required to block the call. That already has cut out most of the spoofed number calls by late this year.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/26/fcc-war ... tions.html

The junk calls to my phone have already dropped from 10-15 a week to around 3 just due to the action taken by the FCC.

Not sure if it universally applied but here I Florida we get tons of robo calls using no numbers, our own phone number, our neighbors phone numbers in the caller iD. We almost never answer our home phone but it rings almost constantly throughout the day (actually 5-6 calls a day)

The warning by the FCC earlier this year applies to the entire country. The phone companies are on notice that they need to use the technology they have to block those spoofed calls. The bill in Congress right now will likely make it mandatory that it gets done. And, once it is written into official law, there will also likely be significant penalties to the scammers and also to the phone companies that don't get it done.

How DARE the FCC or Congress consider legislating my First Amendment rights to spread my message using robocalling equipment and to do so anonymously!

This is typical nanny-state stuff. If you don't want to receive anonymous robocalls, don't buy a phone.

We don't need more laws on robocalling! Just enforce the ones already on the books (which are too many anyway).

When you ban robocalling, only criminals will have robocalling ability.

Only a good guy with robocalling equipment can stop a bad guy with robocalling equipment.

You can ban robocalls when you pry my robocalling equipment from my cold, dead hand.

If you ban robocalls, they'll just spam you with direct mail.

This message brought to you by the NASRA (National Anonymous Spoofing Robocallers Assocation).

So, Pass the bill and some liberal judge will rule that is an infringement of free speech. Happened before and it will happen again.
Bill V

I think a 'right' to free speech ends when my privacy is abridged by any 'one' who lies to get me to answer my phone. A legitimate caller has no need to spoof. I think that means no one should be able to spoof. Caller id should be set by the phone company, not the caller.

Oh BTW a 'private caller' does not get answered by me.

The jackasses from New Jersey are already at it.
https://bismarcktribune.com/business/co ... 4350b.html

So bug thy US congress folks to 'fix' federal idiocy!!!

JPG wrote: Caller id should be set by the phone company, not the caller.

Bingo! That would take care of it.