Dialing For Dollars

Judge blocks a law restricting prerecorded phone sales pitches

RING! HELLO? ARGH! YOU'VE missed the final seconds of an N.F.L. play-off game to answer the phone only to hear a recorded voice pitching some product you don't want. Why, there ought to be a law . . . !

Actually there is. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which restricts telephone solicitation, went into effect Dec. 20, and is already being challenged. Kathryn Moser, who runs a chimney-sweeping business in Keizer, Oregon, says the law hurts her marketing, and got U.S. District Judge James A. Redden to issue a preliminary injunction on the part of the law that deals with prerecorded...

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