Pallone Vows to Close 'Loopholes' in Current Anti-Robocall Laws
House Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., said Thursday he plans to file legislation "in the coming months" aimed at fixing "loopholes" in existing anti-robocall statutes that "allow these calls to continue, update the authorities of our expert agencies,…
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and empower consumers." He was "proud" in 2019 when then-President Donald Trump signed the Pallone-Thune Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (Traced) Act (see 1912310028) because of "the commonsense restrictions" the law "imposed on annoying robocalls and looked forward to it dramatically reducing them." The U.S. Supreme Court's unanimous 2021 ruling in Facebook v. Duguid "undermined the very foundation of existing anti-robocalls protections, and the unwanted calls almost immediately picked back up," Pallone said: "Since then, it has been disturbing to see the volume of robocalls and texts remain high. Americans are tired of them." The top court in Duguid backed a narrow definition of what constitutes an automatic telephone dialing system under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (see 2104010063).