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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Thursday, October 2, 2003

FCC pledges to enforce national do-not-call list despite judicial setbacks

 •  Hawai'i, 44 other states back FTC

By Frank James
Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON — With legal uncertainty hanging over efforts to rein in annoying telemarketing calls, the head of the Federal Communications Commission said yesterday that his agency would enforce the new rules barring most sales pitches to Americans on the national do-not-call list.

Chairman Michael K. Powell said he was sending a letter to the nation's major telemarketers asking if they had access to the database with more than 50 million phone numbers on the list. The letter also asked the companies to respect the wishes of those on the list who don't want to receive telemarketing calls.

"The FCC is very, very committed to this database; very, very committed to the protection of consumers under it," Powell said. "And (it) intends to be extremely aggressive within whatever limits or parameters we can finely divine in the legal quagmire to enforce it."

The do-not-call effort became official yesterday after millions of consumers, in an unprecedented response to an initiative by the federal government, added their home and cell phone numbers to a national registry created by the Federal Trade Commission to halt telemarketing calls.

But recent federal court decisions raised questions about the authority of federal regulators to impose the rules as well as the constitutionality of the telemarketing restrictions.

A U.S. District Court judge in Oklahoma City ruled for telemarketers that the FTC exceeded Congress's intent.

Spurred by the political message sent by millions of Americans, Congress took just two days to draft, consider and pass through both chambers new legislation clarifying that it supported the regulators' actions. President Bush quickly signed it into law.

Then a U.S. District Court judge in Denver ruled that the do-not-call list violated telemarketers' First Amendment free-speech rights and ordered the FTC not to enforce the rules. Questions were raised about what appeared to be discrimination against telemarketers, because the rule allowed political pollsters and charitable organizations to continue to make unsolicited calls.

The FCC has its own do-not-call regulation, however, and decided to push ahead despite the legal rulings. But because of the action of the courts, the FCC did not have access to the database created by the FTC.

So yesterday, the FCC was in the unusual situation of asking the Direct Marketing Association, the trade group that represents telemarketers, to share its database of Americans not wanting to be disturbed by telemarketing calls.

Powell said the do-not-call initiative was at the top of his agency's enforcement agenda.

"We have tools available to us, up to and including subpoena power if it's in the context of an investigation, to potentially get the evidentiary information we need to prosecute," Powell said.

Companies found in violation of the rules could be faced with large monetary fines.

Powell acknowledged the court rulings meant that the FCC now had to engage in a messy process, but he said the agency was putting a significant amount of its staff into the effort.