The Republicans Followed the Law, Investigations Called For

That's the message of this entry. We should be upset because the Republicans did nothing immoral or unethical, but were merely annoying. This somehow justifies an FCC/FEC/DOJ probe, according to incoming House judiciary chair John Conyers.

To reiterate: there is not even a single allegation of actual wrongdoing in that entry, that I can see.

The crux of the actual complaint seems to be that the identification comes at the end of the message. This is not illegal. Several liberal blogs are quoting the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 47, Chapter I, Part 64, Section 1200, which is subtitled "Subpart L -- Restrictions on Telemarketing, Telephone Solicitation, and Facsimile Advertising."

The complainers are citing (b)(1), which states:

(b) All artificial or prerecorded telephone messages shall:

(1) At the beginning of the message, state clearly the identity of the business, individual, or other entity that is responsible for initiating the call. If a business is responsible for initiating the call, the name under which the entity is registered to conduct business with the State Corporation Commission (or comparable regulatory authority) must be stated

The problem is that this is in the context of the entire section, which is specific to "Restrictions on Telemarketing, Telephone Solicitation, and Facsimile Advertising." The section has these definitions, none of which fit:

(10) The term telemarketing means the initiation of a telephone call or message for the purpose of encouraging the purchase or rental of, or investment in, property, goods, or services, which is transmitted to any person.

(11) The term telephone facsimile machine means equipment which has the capacity to transcribe text or images, or both, from paper into an electronic signal and to transmit that signal over a regular telephone line, or to transcribe text or images (or both) from an electronic signal received over a regular telephone line onto paper.

(12) The term telephone solicitation means the initiation of a telephone call or message for the purpose of encouraging the purchase or rental of, or investment in, property, goods, or services, which is transmitted to any person, but such term does not include a call or message:

(i) To any person with that person's prior express invitation or permission;

(ii) To any person with whom the caller has an established business relationship; or

(iii) By or on behalf of a tax-exempt nonprofit organization.

Bottom line, this has to be about money changing hands. Commerce. It's not: it's about voting. It doesn't apply. This is a lot of nothing (as you may have guessed from the beginning). The other complaints all stem from this one: since they did not follow the FCC law regarding identification, therefore it is fraudulent. But it did follow the FCC law, and the FEC law, which does not specify where in the message the identification must come.

What's scariest of all is that our new House judiciary chairman, John Conyers, actually is selling this line of B.S. Shouldn't the judiciary chair be able to read the law? And shouldn't have the liberal bloggers who picked this up, bothered to look it up?