Editorial: Continuing battle over privacy rights

Friday, Jan. 25, 2002 | 9:16 a.m.

You've slogged it out at work for eight hours. Traffic was a nightmare until you got home. Finally, you get ready to sit down for a relaxing dinner with the family, and then it happens -- the phone rings. And, no, it's not a relative or a friend calling with important news, it's another telemarketer with a high-pressure pitch to get you to buy something you don't need or don't want. The annoying interruptions can happen several times a night, even after you've asked to be taken off a company's mailing list. But help may be on the way to end these invasions of privacy.

The Federal Trade Commission announced this week that it plans to create a national "do-not-call" registry, which would allow consumers to go to a single place to get their names removed from telemarketing lists. A company could be fined as much as $11,000 if it called someone on the list. The Direct Marketing Association, an industry trade group, contends that a registry could limit free speech, but that just doesn't hold water. In the same way that a homeowner can keep solicitors off his property, a homeowner should have the ability to block unwanted phone calls and preserve his privacy rights.

There is a downside to the FTC's plan -- it won't be able to go into effect for another year. In addition, the FTC doesn't have authority over banks and phone companies, so, with respect to the phone companies, we'll have to wait for another government agency, the Federal Communications Commission, to implement a similar registry. Congress should simplify the matter by passing legislation that requires all telephone marketers to be a member of a "do-not-call" registry. Then maybe we can all get a little peace and quiet at home.