November 9, 2004
The Peace and Quiet Party... Let's take five with Moira Gunn. This is "Five Minutes."
I called home to find eight new voicemail messages and that could mean one and only one thing: an emergency. The most likely candidates were my mother or my kids, and whoever called clearly didn't have access to my cell phone number. I imagined a concerned nurse or a social worker calling information, and reprimanded myself for not calling in earlier. A couple of days on a busy business trip, with email access at every stop, and you fool yourself into thinking that everything is okay everywhere.
I punched in the code and positioned my pen over paper, ready to take down the specifics: One call from Arnold Swartzenegger, another from Rudy Giuliani and two from Mayor Gavin Newsom topped a field of pleas to vote for and against Proposition 71 and several local supervisors and school board wannabe's.
If I'm on the "do not call" list, how exactly could this happen?
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I would return Arnold, Rudy and Gavin's calls to ask how they got my telephone number, but that would be a waste of time. My home telephone number was bought and paid for in some bulk purchase of likely voter phone numbers. Whatever was paid to gain access to it, the only real work for this trio of pols amounted to recording their short messages. After that, the computers took over, dialing and delivering whether or not you picked up the phone.
If I had been home, I would have gotten up out of my chair or interrupted my meal or stopped some ongoing conversation or ceased thinking some great thought, and I would be standing there involuntarily listening to these scattershot canned pitches.
Since these were recorded messages, it doesn't count the live people who also called me, trying to get my input for a poll or blindly asking for my support. And what does it all add up to? At least twelve interruptions total on that day, and I don't even live in a swing state. We keep hearing about the blizzard of television ads in the battleground states, but I haven't heard one word about phone harassment.
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Somehow I feel compelled to whip out one of my Tech Nation Facts of Life in the High-Tech Age: Just because we have the technology to do something, doesn't mean we should. Obviously, it's applicable here: As every new communications technology comes along — from radio and television to telephones, voicemail and the Internet, every opportunity is not only snapped up, it's shaken until it's near worthless.
It may sound funny, but I don't have a problem with someone putting a Bush-Cheney sign on their lawn or a Kerry-Edwards sticker on their car. They are passively announcing their choice and encouraging me to choose along with them. Besides, they're doing it in a public place. But when a campaign reaches into my personal space — uninvited — that invades my life.
I'm starting a movement right here and now, and I invite you to join me. You've heard of the Peace and Freedom Party? Well, I'm announcing the Peace and Quiet Party. A telephone call is a personal intrusion. Let's see if we can't make calling voters with recorded messages — and even calls from live voting advocates — illegal.
Let's do it now, or in another four years, they'll be calling our cell phone.
I'm Moira Gunn. This is Five Minutes.
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