|
It's evening. You've just gotten home from work and you're tired. The kids are screaming and you're trying to fix dinner when the phone rings.
It's not your mother, your sweetie or a friend. It's an automated, computer-generated phone call from some politician running for office who wants to say how wonderful he or she is. Or how awful his opponent is. You can't tell the caller to buzz off because it's a recorded message. Sometimes, if you hang up before the call ends, you get automatically redialed.
It's a "robo-call,'' and don't you just hate them?
Well, so does state Rep. Michael McGeehan, D-Philadelphia, who is drafting a bill aimed at stopping political robo-calls by adding them to the state's "Do Not Call" list, officially known as the Telemarketer Restriction Act. Residents could sign up and demand not to be called by political telemarketers just as they can now do with telemarketers for various unwanted products and services.
Sounding a bit like superhero actor (and now California Gov.) Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mr. McGeehan quipped, "I want to terminate the robo-calls.''
He said that just about everywhere he goes, "People tell me that they hate these calls from candidates running for office at almost every level of government.''
His bill would not prohibit live human beings from making calls before an election urging a vote for a certain politician, as long as the caller clearly identified himself and his candidate.
The use of robo-calls by political candidates seems to be on the rise because the automated calls are relatively inexpensive to produce and reach thousands of people quickly.
Mr. McGeehan said that with the ever-rising cost of political campaigning, and especially the high cost of TV ads, "Robo-calls are becoming a tactic of choice because they reach out to many people at a relatively modest cost.''
He actually introduced his anti-robo-call bill last week, just as legislators were wrapping up the 2005-06 session and heading home for Thanksgiving. He said he wanted to do it while the anger about such calls made during the recent election campaign was still fresh in the minds of voters and lawmakers. He'll reintroduce the bill in February, when things start cranking up for the new session.
Mr. McGeehan admitted he himself has used robo-calls a couple times in the past, politely asking constituents to vote for him. But he said the just-ended election cycle set new records for obnoxious computerized calls.
The ugliest robo-call he knows of contained the voice of an unidentified woman sobbing and talking about an unfortunate, abortion-related experience she claimed she'd had at a women's health clinic founded 20 years ago by Allyson Schwartz, a Democratic congresswoman from Philadelphia who was seeking (and won) re-election Nov. 7. The clinic is no longer in business.
The first thought for most people who pick up a phone and hear a woman crying is probably that one of their family members is in trouble, which could cause them to panic, Mr. McGeehan said.
"Dirty trickery is increasing in the robo-call business,'' he said.
Because robo-callers don't have to identify themselves, there is no accountability for the claims they make about political candidates. "The door is wide open to robo-call fraud and it should be nipped in the bud,'' Mr. McGeehan said.
He recently read an article online about New Hampshire cracking down on robo-calls and decided to do the same thing in Pennsylvania.
While it may initially seem strange that politicians would take a publicity weapon out of their own hands, Mr. McGeehan said some of his House colleagues have been victimized by robo-calls by their opponents and now want to end the practice. He said he will seek support from additional state legislators before he reintroduces the bill.
"Some folks here [in the Legislature] have been the victims of opposition robo-calling and in many cases there's no disclaimer [about who is making the calls] so you don't know who is behind it,'' he said.
|
Print
Send