I agree with the person that says that they pay for a telephone line to conduct their own personal business, and to communicate with family and friends.
Here is a thought. One can post a "no trespassing" sign on their land, and no one is permitted to enter upon that person's land. If a person violates, the land owner can call the police and have the violator removed, by force if necessary.
Yet, telemarketers, political organizations, media organizations, and "charities" routinely electronically trespass into our homes via telephone. We deal with spoofed caller id's, refusal by the caller to stop calling even after being specifically instructed to not call again, ignoring of the "do not call" registry, and a variety of other unethical business practices. I won't even go into the abuses of personally identifiable information that lead to another form of tresspass, junk mail.
The industry asserts a free speech right to "communicate" their offer. A recognized principle of constitutional law is that one person's rights terminate where they infringe on the rights of another. We all have a common law right to the peaceful and quiet enjoyment of our homes, free from intrusions by anyone. The industry insults our intelligence by presuming that we are incapable of determining for ourselves what goods and services we require in our household, and finding for ourselves companies that can provide those goods and services. (As one poster indicated, we all know how to operate the yellow pages.) The industry presumes that we have the time or patience to interrupt what we are doing to talk to them for even one moment. Has it occurred to the industry that their unethical, sometimes unlawful practices result in a permanent ban in some households from ever being considered for a contract?
When I am at work, I spend time as dictated by my employer in exchange for my income and other benefits. When I reach home, I alone dictate how my time will be used, and how the services (including telephone service, trash removal, etc.) will be utilized. The amount of time it takes to answer a telephone and tell an electronic intruder "not interested" is more time than they are entitled. Further, the amount of time necessary to consider a junk mail piece and throw it away is more than I am willing to spend on them. Since I pay for trash collection service, these organizations do not have the right provide me with more paper trash in the form of junk mail, for which I must pay to have removed.
To the industry, your free speech right terminates at my property line. You have no rights to enter my property electronically. You can exercise your free speech right concerning your fabulous offer, your charitable organization, your candidate for public office, or your survey, somewhere else.
We have warned every vendor with whom we have personally identifiable information that if we trace any junk mail piece or telephone call of any kind to them, we will terminate our contract with them. Three vendors in recent months have learned the hard way that we are not kidding, and we accept no excuses. We are tired of people who come into personally identifiable information concerning us, feeling that the information is theirs to do with as they please. Now we just cut them off, and let them know why we are doing so.
We haven't answered our land line since the last election season. We drew the line when we had two calls in one afternoon consisting of recordings of the governor of this state endorsing two candidates for public office. Callers now receive an exercise of our own free speech right, after which the answering machine hangs up on the caller. The ringers are turned off, so we have no clue how many callers have attempted to call.
