Education
The Supreme Court states that government debt collectors can no longer robocall your cell
The US Supreme Court upheld an exemption from government debt collectors for a federal 1991 ban on robocalls to cellular phones.
Americans are passionately dissatisfied with a great deal, reads Justice Brett Kavanaugh's majority opinion. But in their disdain for robocalls they are largely united.
A 2015 amendment to TPA grants an exception to robocalls solely made for debt collection on behalf of the US Government. It refers to the 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), whereby "almost all telephone call robocall calls are prohibited.
The applicants of the American Association of Political Consultants, a group of organizations which included the ban, argued the first amendment was broken by promoting debt collection in exchange for other forms of speech. The Court decided, but the 2015 exemption was abolished instead of striking down the TCPA. This means that the TCPA is again valid for debt collection calls.
The restriction on robocall with the exemption from government debt is content based, reads the opinion. An exception to government debt is the collection of public debt which is stated by the government.
The government recognizes, while the collection of government debt is undoubtedly a worthy target, that the distinction between speeches in government debt collection and other major rubrocall speeches such as political speech, charitable funds, advocacy, commercial advertising, etc. has not been sufficiently justified.
In theory, collectors of government debt are no longer permitted to send robocalls to your cell phone. This is likely to be wishful thinking in practice.
Although the TCPA for decades has banned the most robocals, they are certainly alive and good. In 2019, more than half of all calls placed that year were robocalls estimated by the Federal Communications Commission. Providers such as Comcast, AT&T and T-Mobile are developing promising call verification technology, but the process was slow and it is still unclear how well or when. The fingers still went through.
