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posted by mrpg on Friday April 02 2021, @07:03AM   Printer-friendly
from the hello-this-is-lenny dept.

Supreme Court's pro-Facebook ruling could unleash "flood" of robocalls:

A Supreme Court ruling today in favor of Facebook limits the reach of a 1991 US law that bans certain kinds of robocalls and texts. The court found that the anti-robocall law only applies to systems that have the ability to generate random or sequential phone numbers. Systems that lack that capability are thus not considered autodialers under the law, even if they can store numbers and send calls and texts automatically.

Advocates say the ruling will make it harder to block automated calls and texts, potentially unleashing a "flood" of new robocalls.

[...] "Companies will use autodialers that are not covered by the Supreme Court's narrow definition to flood our cellphones with even more unwanted robocalls and automated texts," said Margot Saunders, the group's senior counsel. The court ruling "interpreted the statute's definition of autodialer so narrowly that it applies to few or none of the autodialers in use today," the NCLC also said.


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  • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday April 02 2021, @07:11AM (17 children)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Friday April 02 2021, @07:11AM (#1132420) Journal

    Now's the time, lots to do

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @07:54AM (11 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @07:54AM (#1132424)

      What happened the last time the Democrats had a majority in Congress and had a lot to do? Oh, right, they stalled for two years until the next election and enough of them were voted out that they could blame the Republicans again. That was their 'Hope and Change'. The most Biden promised was 'not Trump' so I'm not holding my breath this time either.

      • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @03:32PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @03:32PM (#1132518)

        What happened the last time the Democrats had a majority in Congress and had a lot to do? Oh, right, they stalled for two years until the next election and enough of them were voted out that they could blame the Republicans again.

        Oh no you don't, you revisionist piece of shit. It's the Cons that have blocked everything they could.

        https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna35643530 [nbcnews.com]

        The only thing Democrats are naive about is that this was just a temporary phase for the Cons instead of an impending swing to fascism as we've seen with the QAnons and the Trumpers. Yeah, fascism has arrived in America as predicted

        • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday April 02 2021, @04:34PM

          by fustakrakich (6150) on Friday April 02 2021, @04:34PM (#1132535) Journal

          Democrats can kill the filibuster. They have no excuse.

          --
          La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 03 2021, @01:06PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday April 03 2021, @01:06PM (#1132845) Journal
          Hell of a lot of projection there. The grandparent had it right.

          The only thing Democrats are naive about is that this was just a temporary phase for the Cons instead of an impending swing to fascism as we've seen with the QAnons and the Trumpers. Yeah, fascism has arrived in America as predicted

          Unless you have a cure to deal with that problem which isn't worse than the disease, I recommend shutting up. There's a lot more potential fascists out there than a handful of QAnons and Trumpers. Three other groups that come to mind: religious extremists, environmental nuts, and the Woke. There's a lot of overlap with all these groups (and I'm probably missing a few), but that's better coverage at least.

      • (Score: 2) by Tork on Friday April 02 2021, @04:43PM (7 children)

        by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 02 2021, @04:43PM (#1132539)

        Oh, right, they stalled for two years until the next election and enough of them were voted out that they could blame the Republicans again.

        So... whatcha think of Mitch McConnell?

        --
        🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
        • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @05:02PM (6 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @05:02PM (#1132549)

          I think he is doing the job the Democrats want him to do. In fact it almost looks like he is working for them,

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @09:30PM (5 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @09:30PM (#1132642)
            Democrats wanted McConnell to hold up anything Obama-related....? Why?
            • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 03 2021, @01:28AM (4 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 03 2021, @01:28AM (#1132701)

              He provides an excuse for not doing the things that their corporate owners don't want but that rank and file democrats do want. eg. Single payer healthcare, minimum wage increases, environment protection, renewable power generation, UBI, student loan forgiveness, tax reductions for workers, tax increases for wealthy companies, etc, etc.

              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 03 2021, @01:08PM (3 children)

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday April 03 2021, @01:08PM (#1132848) Journal

                Single payer healthcare, minimum wage increases, environment protection, renewable power generation, UBI, student loan forgiveness, tax reductions for workers, tax increases for wealthy companies, etc, etc.

                It's no wonder that voters like that get politicians like that. That's a terrible list.

                • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday April 03 2021, @11:56PM

                  by fustakrakich (6150) on Saturday April 03 2021, @11:56PM (#1132993) Journal

                  Yeah, really! Where's the quantitative easing and the airline bailouts?

                  --
                  La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 04 2021, @01:38AM (1 child)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 04 2021, @01:38AM (#1133032)

                  I didn't make any value judgements on those policies. They are just things that wage slave democrat voters are mostly in favor of, so democrat politicians give lip service to them but will never actually implement.
                  "Sure, we'd love a health care system that is first world standard, but Mitch won't let us"
                  "Yeah, we'd love to give workers a tax break and charge companies more but Mitch won't let us"
                  etc.

                  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 04 2021, @02:47AM

                    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 04 2021, @02:47AM (#1133044) Journal
                    I did apply judgment on that list, which I agree is representative of such voters have. Most of it is a wishlist for ponies: fancy healthcare, handouts, forgiveness for stupid financial shit, and put it all on the rich guy's bill. I find that the sort of person who brings that list to the ballot booth, generally is incredible gullible - voting for politicians who make the right noises on the campaign trail.

                    As to environment protection and renewable power generation, huge progress has been made in each - to the point that both problems are almost as solved as they can get today. This sort of person ignores that.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @03:12PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @03:12PM (#1132504)

      What is the number for SCOTUS?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @11:45PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @11:45PM (#1132673)

      Or not? All the Trump years we got several junk calls per day. Since Biden they have tapered off and in March 2021 our junk call volume was down to one or two per week.

      We haven't done anything else different and for whatever reason that nuisance has mostly gone away. Three cheers for President Joe!

      • (Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday April 03 2021, @12:25AM (2 children)

        by anubi (2828) on Saturday April 03 2021, @12:25AM (#1132687) Journal

        Once I started using a smartphone, and whitelisted my incoming calls to my contacts list, my unwanted calls virtually disappeared.

        Telemarketers know better than to give someone else THEIR number!

        --
        "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 03 2021, @10:07AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 03 2021, @10:07AM (#1132808)

          I've still gotten dinged even after doing that. Thanks to them faking the area code and prefix, they have matched my contacts list more than once.

          • (Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday April 03 2021, @12:53PM

            by anubi (2828) on Saturday April 03 2021, @12:53PM (#1132841) Journal

            That would piss me off if I got a call thinking it was family, and it was a telemarketer. I would not be in a very receptive mood for a sales pitch.

            I remain quite pissed at the phone companies for allowing inaccurate callerID. If fake callerID is used in a scam, why is this not aiding and abetting criminal activity?

            --
            "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
  • (Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday April 02 2021, @08:54AM (19 children)

    by Nuke (3162) on Friday April 02 2021, @08:54AM (#1132432)

    So instead of using a random number generator, or simply dialling every possible nunber working upwards from 1, their computer is allowed to work through a database of actual numbers? Such databases are easy to find, and don't the robot callers mostly do that anyway, to save their own time?

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Unixnut on Friday April 02 2021, @08:59AM (13 children)

      by Unixnut (5779) on Friday April 02 2021, @08:59AM (#1132433)

      More to the point, it would seem that just pre-generating the telephone numbers on another system, that is then loading into the auto dialer , would suffice as a loophole.

      IANAL, but in theory, a server that returns a set of numbers each time an auto-dialer requests it, is perfectly fine under this law, as the auto dialer itself is not doing the number generation.
      If there are many auto dialers working in parallel, they probably already have a server controlling what numbers get dialed, so that they don't dial the same number within a short space of time,

      • (Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday April 02 2021, @09:29AM (12 children)

        by Nuke (3162) on Friday April 02 2021, @09:29AM (#1132438)

        In other words, the judge has ruled that it is illegal for a robot to dial a nonexistent number. But it is OK to dial one that exists, because that will be on a database.

        BTW, is a brain part of the requirement for being a judge in the USA?

        • (Score: 2) by Unixnut on Friday April 02 2021, @10:25AM (11 children)

          by Unixnut (5779) on Friday April 02 2021, @10:25AM (#1132441)

          > BTW, is a brain part of the requirement for being a judge in the USA?

          Yes, like in every single other place. I've never met a stupid judge (or lawyer for that matter), they don't last long in the business.

          So in these situations, I presume either ignorance of the technology (judges are rarely techies), or corruption (i.e. The judges wanted to rule in FBs favour somehow, and this was the best they could come up without being seen as obviously siding with one side over the other).

          Saying that, not sure if this is the end of the legal drama, or will it be appealed. I am not familiar with the US court system, or whether you can appeal supreme court rulings (being no higher court in the land, I guess you would appeal to them to re-review?).

          • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @01:38PM (9 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @01:38PM (#1132468)

            ignorance of the technology

            Indeed, if you read the first page of the linked PDF, you'll see immediately that it is ignorance of the technology that is at fault. But it is not the Judges. It was the politicians who wrote the statute back in 1991 that were ignorant of technology.

            From the linked PDF:

            ... The TCPA defines such "autodialers" as equipment with the capacity both "to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, us- ing a random or sequential number generator," and to dial those num- bers. 47 U. S. C. §227(a)(1). ...

            The technology ignorant politicians that wrote the law circa. 1991 were the ignorant ones, because they defined an "autodialer" to be "a [device] using a random or sequential number generator". Which was how Facebook got out of this one, their "autodialer" did not use "a random or sequential number generator".

            Now, how should the illiterate politicians have defined an "autodialer", hmm, mabye just as: "a device which automatically dials telephone numbers". Then no matter how the "number" was obtained (random, sequential, database lookup), if it was "automatically dialed" then it would be an "auto-dialer".

            So for this one, yes, you can blame someone, but it is not the Judges, it is the politicians responsible for this idiotic definition of auto-dialer in the statute.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @03:53PM (6 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @03:53PM (#1132525)

              > ... The TCPA defines such "autodialers" as equipment with the capacity both "to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, us- ing a random or sequential number generator," and to dial those num- bers. 47 U. S. C. §227(a)(1). ...

              When I read that, I think it would be reasonable to assume that the intended reading was:

              The TCPA defines such "autodialers" as equipment with the capacity to store telephone numbers to be called and to dial those numbers. Or, equipment with the capacity to produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator," and to dial those numbers.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @04:02PM (4 children)

                by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @04:02PM (#1132530)

                Yeah, that also seems a reasonable interpretation.

                The problem is the phrasing in the statute is somewhat ambiguous (which is where the courts come in to decide which side of the ambiguity things fall out upon).

                What would have been better is if the statute had been written with your alternate above, as that would have removed the ambiguity of the original.

                • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday April 02 2021, @05:32PM (2 children)

                  by maxwell demon (1608) on Friday April 02 2021, @05:32PM (#1132559) Journal

                  Actually, it's the only reasonable interpretation, as you cannot store a number using a random number generator, therefore the part after the comma can only apply to the “produce”, not the “store”.

                  --
                  The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 04 2021, @07:33PM (1 child)

                    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 04 2021, @07:33PM (#1133221)
                    You can store numbers generated by a random number generator though. Then call them later.
                    • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday April 04 2021, @08:24PM

                      by maxwell demon (1608) on Sunday April 04 2021, @08:24PM (#1133232) Journal

                      Yes. But that's not what the sentence says.

                      --
                      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
                • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Saturday April 03 2021, @01:33AM

                  by deimtee (3272) on Saturday April 03 2021, @01:33AM (#1132703) Journal

                  While I dislike Faecebook, there is a general principal that laws written ambiguously should be interpreted as NOT being broken when that is one of the possible interpretations of the law.

                  It is similar to how ambiguous contracts are interpreted to favour the party that did not write it. In this case the Law is a contract between the Gov and a citizen. The Gov wrote the Law, it is up to them to make it unambiguous.

                  --
                  If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @11:30PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @11:30PM (#1132670)

                if( (is_stored || (is_generated && (is_seq || is_rand))) && can_dial ) {
                  autodialer = 1;
                }

            • (Score: 2) by Unixnut on Saturday April 03 2021, @09:09AM (1 child)

              by Unixnut (5779) on Saturday April 03 2021, @09:09AM (#1132803)

              > Now, how should the illiterate politicians have defined an "autodialer", hmm, mabye just as: "a device which automatically dials telephone numbers". Then no matter how the "number" was obtained (random, sequential, database lookup), if it was "automatically dialed" then it would be an "auto-dialer".

              Surely if it was defined that broadly, the law would apply to anything from landline phones with a "redial" function (or number memory), to every single mobile phone in existence? They can all automatically dial numbers.

              Sounds like something that would result in a lot of frivolous lawsuits, until case history narrows the scope somewhat. Would be good money for lawyers for a long while though.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 04 2021, @02:43AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 04 2021, @02:43AM (#1133043)

                I think that was part of the issue. In addition, all of those politicians wanted to be able to robo-call potential voters from a voter database.

          • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by crafoo on Friday April 02 2021, @02:16PM

            by crafoo (6639) on Friday April 02 2021, @02:16PM (#1132480)

            I've met many of judges and especially lawyers, personally. There are most definitely stupid ones. Quite stupid actually. Apparently, you aren't a very good judge of intelligence, for some reason. Interesting.

    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday April 02 2021, @09:03AM (2 children)

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday April 02 2021, @09:03AM (#1132435) Homepage
      It seems the old law was idiotically over-specific, and the current SCOTUS is acting like an autist to extract the most retarded interpretation of it possible.

      If you know in advance a number is a real number (because it's from a list) apparently you're less evil - not evil at all, it appears - than if you just dial blind.

      It's another example of making the mechanism of performing the undesirable action the illegal thing, rather than the action, or its outcome, itself. If you can be inventive enough to create a new way of achieving the outcome your victims don't want - have at it! Hell, here's a patent too, as a reward for being so geniouse. Progress!
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @01:44PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @01:44PM (#1132469)

        It seems the old law was idiotically over-specific, and the current SCOTUS is acting like an autist to extract the most retarded interpretation of it possible.

        No, they are limiting its application because the old law was idiotically over-specific. That is how the law works. If a statute is idiotically over-specific and you (the defendant) and find a way to argue that your thing you are doing does not fit into the idiotically over-specific definition in the statute, then you are not guilty of breaking the statute.

        The blame here should go towards the politicians who wrote an over-specific law back in the 1990-1991 timeframe. Sadly, most of the idiots responsible for this instance have probably died from old age by now, so we don't actually have anyone to yell at.

        The fix is for you to now contact your congress critters and demand that they amend this law to remove the "generated by random or sequential" from the definition and instead define autodialer as a system meant to automatically dial phone numbers (which is what an autodialer is in the end).

        • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday April 02 2021, @02:21PM

          by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 02 2021, @02:21PM (#1132482) Journal

          Well, it's how the law is supposed to work. Oddly enough it often doesn't work that way when the side pushing an alternate interpretation is the one with the large financial backing. If it always worked that way I'd object to this ruling a lot less.

          --
          Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by rigrig on Friday April 02 2021, @11:16AM (1 child)

      by rigrig (5129) Subscriber Badge <soylentnews@tubul.net> on Friday April 02 2021, @11:16AM (#1132444) Homepage

      Facebook wasn't "working it's way through a database", it was specifically targeting this number with warning messages: it somehow ended up in their database as connected with an account he never created himself, and someone was logging into that account from an "untrusted" device.

      There might (or ought to be one) be a law against storing/using his phone number when he didn't made an account, but I'd agree with the SC that this isn't robocalling.

      --
      No one remembers the singer.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 04 2021, @01:42AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 04 2021, @01:42AM (#1133034)

        He should have just asked for a password reset, set the account as viewable by friends only, and set goatse etc, as family pictures.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @03:49PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @03:49PM (#1132523)

    “to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, us-ing a random or sequential number generator,”

    1. you don't 'store' numbers using a random number generator
    2. the random or sequential number generator is for producing numbers to dial

    It's difficult to understand how any educated individual could possibly interpret this differently but it looks like the Supreme Court of the great US can't be arsed to understand the context. Instead, Aleto goes on to analyze random sentences,

    “At the Super Bowl party, she ate, drank, and cheered raucously.”“On Saturday, he relaxes and exercises vigorously.” “When his owner comes home, the dog wags his tail and barks loudly.”“It is illegal to hunt rhinos and giraffes with necks longer than three feet.”“She likes to swim and run wearing track spikes.”

    It's almost like the US law is useless if you are rich enough to the argue what the definition of is is.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @10:16PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @10:16PM (#1132655)

    Supreme Court Fears Democrats Packing The Court

    In their continuing policy of not doing anything that might cause a shortage of black robes in DC, the Supreme Court again punts.

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