The Advocate reports that despite numerous bills introduced by legislatures not a single one made it to the for for a vote. Why? Because these politicians thought it was all about protecting free speech. Here’s some news for all legislators. If you have a cell phone as your primary phone number, that incoming all is not free, you are paying for it. And the constant stream of robo-calls aren’t just political, there are calls to get a business loan, refinance a mortgage, surveys, satellite tv and a various other sales pitches that all don’t have any human attached to them, and thus no easy way to inform the caller to take the number off the list.

People who move to new areas are not getting new phone numbers, they are getting recycled numbers, often with the history of some other demographic attached to the phone number.

Computer assisted dialing is a great technology. But the person receiving the call has to be able to get off that list. You don’t need a live voice at the beginning, but you do need the name of the company sponsoring the call and the phone number to contact them back, or mailing address. Then, using that same technology, press 1 to remove the phone number from the list. That’s the elegant solution.

From The Advocate:

Despite bipartisan support - several lawmakers, including many from southwestern Connecticut, proposed more than a dozen bills restricting the automated tape-recorded phone calls - none survived the legislative session.

The one bill that did make it to the Senate was so watered down by the General Law and Judiciary committees that one of its supporters did not bring it up for a vote.

After the increase in robo-calls before last fall’s elections, many legislators arrived in Hartford in January prepared to make them subject to the state’s do-not-call list.

In 2001, two years before the federal government enacted a National Do Not Call List, Connecticut allowed residents who registered to limit unwanted telephone solicitations.

In January, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said subjecting political robo-calls to the do-not-call list would be constitutional.

source: The Advocate, Lawmakers fail to restrict ‘robo-calls’, By Brian Lockhart, June 15 2007