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from the that's-one-way-to-garner-notoriety dept.
FCC wants to fine one man almost $13 million for making 6,000 robocalls:
When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) typically fines robocallers, they're usually operations that involve shady companies. Not so with the agency's latest proposed action, which targets a single individual. On Thursday, the FCC said it wants to fine one man $12,910,000 for carrying out massive robocalling campaigns in six states. In all, the person made more than 6,000 calls in California, Flordia, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa and Virginia using an online tool that allowed them to mask their calls as coming from a local number.
[...] In one campaign, for instance, the person made 827 calls to people in the town of Brooklyn, Iowa, "following the murder of a local college student and the arrest of an illegal alien from Mexico for the crime." [...]The agency says the robocaller's racist messages talked about a "brown horde" that the murder victim would have wanted the town to "kill them all." The robocaller even went so far as to phone the parents of the victim.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Sunday February 02 2020, @12:44AM (3 children)
100,000 times your disposable income, or several dozen times your lifetime potential earnings. Basically any financial penalty that is over a fraction of their yearly earnings, or that which can be reasonably garnished from wages. That would be excessive as a fine. Restitution can involve the seizing of your current net worth, if there were monetary damages that extensive, and then even then, there are exceptions I believe. I don't know if we would actually take a home away from somebody.
In terms of punishment, obviously anything physical like torture is excessive, and a few years in prison really is a serious punishment. Harassment, and even hate speech, don't deserve 10 years in prison. I would say anything over 5 years is excessive, and 5 years being a very serious punishment in my estimation.
This punishment is extremely excessive, because no reasonable person is every going to expect that this person can pay it. So what do we call uncollectable fines designed solely to punish? Also, consider who is getting punished. You punish somebody too hard, and you inevitably punish society as well. That's because we didn't mercifully kill the person, but made sure they could never get back on their feet again. So you don't actually collect any money from this person, and now society has to pay for it in terms of the cost of homelessness and chronic material deprivation.
If I'm wrong about that, and this new debt can by discharged by bankruptcy courts, then what is the whole point of setting a fine so high? You may as well just say 100% instead of X.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 02 2020, @01:44AM
These fines are assessed per call and each call is a crime. It's not our fault he did so many crimes. Or should the fines for identity theft, serious assault, kidnapping, grand theft auto, etc. be reduced because you happen to do it to multiple people before being caught?
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Sunday February 02 2020, @04:32PM (1 child)
So $2000 would be ok?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 03 2020, @01:57AM
Absolutely, it could be. This guy may not make much more than that in a month for all we know. We don't know if that number is right, but it should be a number very similar to what courts would determine in garnishment cases. There are also special court proceedings just for discovering assets.
Remember, even if this guy makes $2100/mo after taxes, that doesn't mean we can instantly take it. That's why garnishment courts exist. To let the person actually be able to live and survive while paying restitution. I'm not opposed to taking away the majority of this guys disposable income for a year or two, but I'm very much opposed to doing anything that will push him towards homelessness and destitution. Those two being situations that are quite costly to society.
Moreover, I'm not sure that financial penalties here were warranted at all. At least not in isolation. A month in jail sounds appropriate for the harassment of innocent people.
- Posted as AC from a Kiosk - Ed3