On Political Voicemail
The other day I got voice mail from Bill Clinton. Yes, Bill himself apparently took the time to call me and leave me a message reminding me to vote against Prop. 8. It must have been the real Bill, because my phone number is on the national do-not-call list, so I’m protected from annoying phone calls sent out by machinery. I’m only sorry I wasn’t home to talk to him myself, assure him that I will vote against Prop. 8, and ask how Hillary is feeling these days.
But seriously, it’s funny how phone calls from political campaigns get free reign under the rules around the national do-not-call list. Somehow it was decided that sales calls from for-profit businesses are in a different category from calls trying to sell you on a political agenda. Surveys by for-profit companies seem also to have escaped being categorized as sales calls. The argument for keeping things this way is that some people want to receive calls from nonprofits and some presumably would like to be included in surveys. Assuming that’s true, what we need is more granularity in the do-not-call list. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all decide for ourselves whether sales calls, surveys, and political calls can be categorized as annoying? As I’m sure there are a few people out there who would not want to miss out on their yearly call from Bill Clinton, they would be able to set their political-call option to “useful” rather than “annoying” and have it still come through. The problem here is not so much that things have been classified wrong but that someone else is calling the shots on everyone else’s personal space of information.
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