If you like political calls at home during dinner, skip this item

You say you're lonely. You check your e-mail several times a day and actually read the spam. Same for your voicemail, even the phone calls from robot computers about discount mortgages or construction firms that will be in your neighborhood next week and thought you might like to remodel your kitchen on the spur of the moment.

When the phone rings, especially during dinner, if your heart soars, then this news is not for you.

But it turns out there's a new online service now for people who don't want politicians or their surrogate human or mechanical canvassers calling their house. There was a similar government service established a couple of years ago for people who don't want telephone sales calls. You register your home and cell numbers. The government lists them and companies face fines if they call folks on the list.

However, why are we not surprised that politicians were exempted? Freedom of speech and all that. They have the freedom of speech, you get the obligation to listen.

But not anymore. The new service is a private, nonprofit outfit and, therefore, not legally binding on political campaigns. But they ignore the registrants at their own risk, it seems.

The National Political Do Not Contact Registry is the brainchild of Shaun Dakin, who believes civil discourse has declined in America and one way to combat the decay of discourse is to end unwanted political phone calls, especially the robo ones. He runs Citizens for Civil Discourse, a pending nonpartisan, nonprofit 5-1 (c) 3 that promises not to make commercial use of your registry info.

You sign up with the registry and it spreads the word that you don't want political calls.

"What campaigns understand," Dakin says, "is numbers. The more voters who register with the NPDNC, the louder the collective voice we will have to make sure they listen to us."

Good luck with that.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Comments

[Jesse]

Grow up!
The draft is gone, taxes are lower than anywhere else in the civilized world, economic opportunity is extensive (especially if you've gotten a high-quality education), and you enjoy the most extensive personal freedoms of anybody on earth. And the price you have to pay for all this is a couple of 7pm phone calls once every 4 years? And you complain!

Lord, if one citizen's right to talk to another citizen about an upcoming eleciton isn't protected by freedom of speech, then what the hell is? The founding fathers weren't thinking of Howard Stern when they wrote the 1st Amendment, they were thinking of this.

I may dislike robocalls as much as the next person (I think Congress should ban the automated email-spam equivalents), but at the end of the day, do we really think the problem with American elections is that voters spend TOO MUCH time thinking about who to vote for, and not TOO LITTLE? Really? Are you nuts?

[Shaun Dakin]

Jesse,

Thanks for the comment about what we are up to. I've had similar discussions over the past few months with people from all political parties.

The bottom line is that calling someone at home is but ONE of a myriad of voter communications that campaigns use:

- TV
- Radio
- the Internet (all forms)
- email
- door to door
- PR
- events
- house parties
- phone banks
- etc..

My basic response is that robo calls are TURNING OFF AMERICAN VOTERS from politics and participation.

Phones are different. You can turn off all of the above, but when a call comes in to your home, when you are at dinner with your family, it is an interruption and an invasion of your privacy.

Our goal is to get voters interested again in politics by having politicians actually "listen" to the voters and take the "do not contact" pledge - do not call people at home if they do not want to be called.

Regards,

Shaun Dakin
CEO and Founder
http://www.stoppoliticalcalls.org