Don't Call On Me
by Christina Hazelwood
On October 4, 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court turned away a challenge to the federal do-not-call registry. By doing so, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s decision, confirming the legality of the registry. This move puts an end to telemarketer attempts to invoke the right of free speech to overthrow the registry and continue invading people’s privacy.

Under the 2003 federal law, businesses who persist in calling any of the 57 million phone numbers on the registry face fines of up to $11,000. Nonprofit entities, politicians, and pollsters are allowed to call as well as those who have done business or are doing business with individuals associated with the listed phone numbers.

This little ruling is a momentous act, not just in our nation, but around the globe. It demonstrates a shift in thinking. A shift by the people who live in a nation that sets the pace for the rest of the world.

Throughout most of America’s history we, as individuals, as citizens, as groups, as a nation, have been thrusting forward with the philosophy of individual freedom and individual rights. Since our founding we have crisscrossed the globe in an attempt to spread freedom in the form of free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of and from religion, and a host of other freedoms we enjoy in the U.S.

We have now reached a point where our "freedom" has plunged us headfirst into other people’s freedom. We now have to confront exactly where my freedom ends and yours begins; where your freedom stops and mine starts. We are in a new era in which we are discovering that boundaries and limits must be established in order to safeguard the freedoms we have fought so long and hard to secure. We are, in fact, finding out that setting individual limits and restrictions is, in itself, a right.

The long-debated 1996 V-chip law is another example of our entrance in this new era of limits and boundaries. The V-chip was a provision included in the 1996 Telecommunications Act, requiring the broadcast and computer industry to join forces to create a chip that allows individuals to control the kind of media that enters their homes, hearts and minds. This set limits on the media industry’s ability to download any information, moving pictures and sound it wanted to, into our brains.

We have clearly reached a new phase in our development as a society, in which we are discovering that we not only need to ensure our own individual freedom, but ensure the freedom of "the other guy." In order to do this, we need to set limits and boundaries on acceptable behavior. This refers not just individual behavior, but our behavior as a group, a society and a nation, including our beloved American media and marketing machine. Why? Because tomorrow the other guy might be you.

As a nation and as a people, America has started to mature. We have reached a point in our societal development when we realize, in responsible adult-fashion, that drawing a line in the sand, is the only way to assure that our freedom will perpetuate. Only by setting limits, restrictions, boundaries, laws, that say your freedom stops here, where mine begins, and mine ends where yours starts, can we really maintain any freedoms at all.

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