More than 1.5 million Hoosiers now have peaceful dinners due to Indiana's telephone privacy act, which protects them from unsolicited telemarketing calls.\nHowever, in the future they might not be able to enjoy this benefit. Though Indiana's telephone privacy law protects citizens that are registered on the state's "no-call list," a recent ruling in a federal court about the creation of a national no-call list could potentially call this state law into question. \nTelemarketers, who are suing to block the creation of a national no-call telephone registry instituted by the Federal Trade Commission, won the ear of a sympathetic federal judge in Oklahoma this week.\nU.S. District Judge Lee West ruled Tuesday that the FTC does not have the authority to create a national no-call registry, saying in a statement made public Wednesday that "an administrative agency's power to regulate in the public interest must always be grounded in a valid grant of authority from Congress."\nAdding that the court believed the FTC had received no grant of authority, West declared the do-not-call provision invalid. The implementation of the national no-call list, which would fine telemarketers up to $11,000 per call to any of the nearly 50 million numbers on the list, was to have gone into effect Oct.1.\nThe FTC has asked the court to allow the no-call program to take effect while it appeals the court's decision, and both houses of Congress will vote on bills to reinstate the program this week. \nThis disputed federal ruling could possibly affect Indiana's telephone privacy law in the future, though citizens registered on the state no-call list will not be affected immediately, according to state attorney Steve Carter. Around 27 states have no-call lists of their own, and they will continue to operate.\n"We're going to fight to defend Indiana's law," Carter said. "It will not be affected by this ruling, as it was a federal ruling."\nThough telemarketing court challenges to Indiana's privacy law have been unsuccessful, a federal suit claiming that the no-call list is unconstitutional is winding its way through the judicial system in Indiana now. If the list is judged unconstitutional, then the Indiana law will change, though Carter does not believe the case will succeed in Indiana. \nHowever, the telemarketing industry does have a strong interest in blocking the expansion of no-call lists by all possible means. Though the Direct Marketing Association released a statement asking all of its members to respect consumers who have registered for the FTC's National Do Not Call Registry, they also state that they believe the judge ruled correctly. As a member of the DMA, Bloomington's largest telemarketing company, DialAmerica, supports these statements. DialAmerica Inc. marketing manager Nancy Katz solely says, "things are in flux right now for us."\nJunior Will Chu, a former telemarketing employee of the Bloomington branch of DialAmerica and West Telemarketing in Carbondale, Illinois, said he believes telemarketers are suffering greatly from monetary losses due to both state and federally implemented no-call lists.\nThe branch of West Telemarketing Chu worked for closed soon after he quit due to a lack of numbers to call.\n"The no-call list is just killing them all right now," Chu said. \nEven as a former employee of the telemarketing industry, Chu supports the idea of a no-call list. Before either of the state or federal no-call lists were created, consumers had to have their names removed from calling lists by saying what Chu calls the "magic words."\n"You have to say, 'please take me off your calling list,'" Chu said. "You have to specify a calling list. If you just say 'please don't call' they can ignore that."\nBy using these key phrases, Chu has removed his own family from telemarketer calling lists and hopes to see them stay off in the future.\nDespite the protection from unwanted calls that Chu's family and other citizens may enjoy in the future, all that are registered for Indiana's telephone privacy list will remain under the protection of the state telephone privacy law for now.\nParties interested in registering their numbers on the Indiana no-call list can call 1-888-834-9969 or register online at www.nxco.net/telephoneprivacy. \n-- Contact staff reporter Kelly Phillips at kephilli@indiana.edu.
Federal court ruling vetoes national no-call list
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