Letter to the Editor

Calling on Congress for passage of bill

Sunday, December 23, 2007

To the Editor:

We all get frustrated when telemarketers call at home, especially when they interrupt family dinner.

In 2003, Congress took action to prevent these unwanted telemarketing solicitations by passing a national "do not call" registry.

Since its passage, more than 145 million numbers have been registered in the database, 2.3 million in Indiana alone.

Unfortunately, when Congress originally created the registry, it only authorized the program for five years. That means in 2008, numbers will start to be deleted from the list unless Congress steps in.

I am pleased to report the House took action (recently) to extend the program permanently.

At the same time, we eliminated the requirement for households to re-register their numbers, preventing 50 million numbers from being deleted.

I was proud to support this commonsense policy, and I hope the Senate will take swift action to continue this important program.

To add your local number to the national "do not call" list, please visit the Federal Trade Commission's National Do Not Call Registry website.

There, you can also file a complaint against telemarketing companies who contact you after your number has been registered.

Sincerely,

Brad Ellsworth,

U.S. Representative