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SOUTH CAROLINA - NON-PARTISAN GROUP SEEKS TO SHUT DOWN POLITICAL ROBOCALLS
Monday, September 22, 2008
Advocacy
Group Investigating Un-enforced Law in South
Carolina Banning Robocalls
Washington, D.C. – Monday,
September 22, 2008 – The National Political Do
Not Contact Registry (NPDNC), the nation’s only
political do not call advocacy group located at
StopPoliticalCalls.org, today announced it is
investigating a South Carolina law that bans
robocalls. The NPDNC will move to demand that
the South Carolina Attorney General as well as
the SC Department of Consumer Affairs enforce
the existing law: SECTION 16-17-446.
Regulation of automatically dialed announcing
device (ADAD). The law bans all robo
calls in the state of South Carolina
specifically, “ADAD calls include automatically
announced calls of a political nature
including, but not limited to, calls relating
to political campaigns.”
To our knowledge the
enforcing authorities have not enforced this
law, allowing political campaigns the freedom
to invade the privacy of all SC voters.
With the support of South Carolina voters who
are willing to make an official complaint to
the Department of Consumer Affairs and the
Attorney General, the NPDNC hopes to be able to
shut down robocalls in South Carolina in time
for this November’s election.
“We hope to bring the first
legitimate complaint under Section 16-17-446
and stop robocalls in South Carolina in time
for the election this November,” said Shaun
Dakin, founder and CEO of the NPDNC
Registry. “It is time that South Carolina
voters are able to protect their privacy.
Robocalls in the state are illegal, but we
believe that the law has been un-enforced
to date. In fact, during the most recent
primaries South Carolina voters were inundated
with millions of robocalls from both McCain and
Obama as well as state and local
candidates.”
SECTION 16-17-446.
Regulation of automatically dialed announcing
device (ADAD) clearly prohibits any form of
auto-dialer calls or robocalls being made in
South Carolina. Robo calls include
automatically announced calls of a political
nature including, but not limited to, calls
relating to political campaigns.
The
NPDNC is the nation’s first non-profit group
that is working to bring back voter phone
privacy during the election season.
According to the Pew Internet & American
Life Project
<http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/197/report_display.asp>
81 percent of Iowa voters in the presidential
caucuses received robocalls. Also,
according to Pew, robocalls are now the top
form of Congressional communication.
The NPDNC has already received
over one thousand of complaints by South
Carolina voters who have been robo-called in
their homes this year. As CEO Shaun Dakin
testified in the U.S. Senate this past February
in support of the Robocall Privacy Act, voters
complain that they are sick and tired of having
their privacy invaded by politicians who seem
to have no regard for their constituent’s
quality of life. For example, senior
citizens have told the NPDNC that they live in
fear of having a health emergency occur while
being on the receiving end of anywhere from 10
to 15 robocalls a day during an election
season; many stay-at-home mothers have said
that they are tired of having their infants
woken up by the calls during the must-have naps
in the afternoon; and night shift workers have
commented that they are dead tired at work
after being unable to get a full nights’ sleep
during the day as politicians call them at home
all day long.
The NPDNC has consulted
with several South Carolina legal organizations
to ensure that the complaints brought to the SC
Attorney General and the Department of Consumer
Affairs are relevant, valid and timely.
“With the 2008 presidential
election garnering more attention than
elections in the recent past, it is a sure bet
that campaigns will turn to robocalls as a way
to get their message out, particularly in South
Carolina,” said Dakin. “While we have a
base of voters that have registered their
number for free at StopPoliticalCalls.org to
start with, if other South Carolina voters want
to join the registry, we will be happy to hear
from them and will include them in the
complaint.”
For South Carolina
residents interested in joining the NPDNC’s
complaint they should:
- Go to the NPDNC website at www.StopPoliticalCalls.org and register their phone number for free.
- After activating their account,
they should return to the home page and click
on Action Center --> Report Unwanted
Political Calls --> South Carolina robo call
form and fill out the requested
information. Alternatively, the voter can
go directly to www.StopIllegalSCRobocalls.org
- Who called you?
- What day and time was the call?
- What is your contact information?
The NPDNC will make a public announcement once the first complaint is filed.
“We hope to put a robo-hold on all South Carolina campaign robocalls this fall,” said Dakin. “Campaigns at levels – local, state, and federal - will be calling at their own peril if they continue to ignore the law.”
The full code can be found at: http://www.scstatehouse.net/code/t16c017.htm
About the National Political Do Not Contact Registry
The National Political Do Not Contact Registry is a program of Citizens for Civil Discourse (CCD), non-partisan, non-profit organization (federal 501(c)(3) status pending) dedicated to elevating political discussion in the United States. CCD is based on the premise that the decline of civility in American political dialogue has diminished our nation’s capacity to address urgent problems. Founder and CEO Shaun Dakin believes that citizen action is required to restore decency, respect and common sense to public debate in this country. Unfortunately, political robo calls do not have a place in political discourse. Robo calls invade our privacy and you simply cannot have a two-way discussion with a robot.
Since launching in October 2007, the NPNDC registry has registered over 50,000 concerned voters nationwide and approximately 3 million voters have already received relief from Candidates that have taken the “do not robo call” pledge. Rep. Virginia Fox (R-NC) and Rep. Nancy Boyda (D-KS) were among the first candidates to join the registry. Democratic Dialing, a leading robo call vendor, has also joined the Registry by agreeing to scrub voter phone lists against the NPDNC registry database. CEO Shaun Dakin has testified at the U.S. Senate as the only representative of ordinary American voters at the national level. Learn more at www.StopPoliticalCalls.org