美国最高法院周一宣布被击倒规定允许政府收债人使用手机机器人,同时禁止所有其他团体使用同样的技术。
六名法官表示,政府在1991年的一项法律中明确禁止手机和家庭电话使用自动电话,违反了第一修正案的言论自由保护。
“尽管征收政府债务无疑是一个有价值的目标,”正义写道Brett Kavanaugh在大多数人看来,“政府承认,它没有充分证明区分政府讨债演讲和其他重要类别的robocall演讲是合理的,例如政治演讲、慈善筹款、问题宣传、商业广告等等。”
七名法官得出结论认为,该条款应该无效,但robocall法律的其余部分仍然有效。
卡瓦诺写道:“持续的机器人手机限制禁止了数千万个本来每天都会出现的潜在机器人手机。”。"国会继续广泛禁止机器人手机,这充分表明了国会对消费者隐私的持续关注。"
特朗普政府为了收回更多逾期资金,曾寻求支持联邦机器人球禁令的所谓政府债务豁免。
一群提起诉讼的民主党政治民意调查者认为,这一例外歧视了他们进行机器人投票的愿望。
法院的判决意味着政府或授权的第三方不能再通过电话向美国人收取过去的税款或其他国税局债务,而是可以继续使用真人电话和直接邮件。
Supreme Court says government debt collectors can't robocall cellphones
The U.S. Supreme Court on Mondaystruck downrules allowing government debt collectors to use cellphone robocalls while banning all other groups using the same technique.
Six justices said the government carve out in a 1991 law broadly prohibiting robocalls to cell phones and home phones violates free speech protections of the First Amendment.
"Although collecting government debt is no doubt a worthy goal," writes JusticeBrett Kavanaughin the majority opinion, "the government concedes that it has not sufficiently justified the differentiation between government-debt collection speech and other important categories of robocall speech, such as political speech, charitable fundraising, issue advocacy, commercial advertising and the like."
Seven justices concluded that the provision should be invalidated but that the remainder of the robocall law still stands.
"The continuing robocall restriction proscribes tens of millions of would-be robocalls that would otherwise occur every day," Kavanaugh writes. "Congress's continuing broad prohibition of robocalls amply demonstrates Congress's continuing interest in consumer privacy."
The Trump administration had sought to uphold the so-called government debt exemption to the federal robocall ban in the interest of recouping more overdue funds.
A group of Democratic political pollsters who brought the case argued that the exception discriminated against their desire to conduct robocall polling.
The court's decision means the government or an authorized third party can no longer robocall Americans to collect on past taxes or other IRS debts but can continue to use real person calling and direct mail.