Comment by lettergram
1 year ago
Glad to see Chevron Deference at the top here. Basically, the FCC can’t “rule” they can “dictate” and this isn’t a power explicitly granted by congress. It’s some made up judicial rules that say these federal agencies can do it
The controlling legislation here, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, prohibits initiating "any telephone call to any residential telephone line using an artificial or prerecorded voice to deliver a message without the prior express consent of the called party" (I got this quote directly from the FCC ruling). The legislation does not define "artificial or prerecorded voice". The FCC here is stating that they interpret "artificial voice" as including interactive AI voice agents, which did not exist in 1991. Do you think this is an unreasonable interpretation? Or should Congress be required to list exactly what technologies are prohibited in this context and update that list every time something new comes around?
In 1991 "artificial" probably meant something like "pre-recorded and re-cut". Which is basically AI voice generation, but at scale.
>Do you think this is an unreasonable interpretation? Or should Congress be required to list exactly what technologies are prohibited in this context and update that list every time something new comes around?
Not OP but this is the right question to ask. My answer is yes, congress is quite literally required to update statute to reflect modern technology (ensuring it conforms to the founding principles of course).
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Chevron Reference is the idea that when a statute is ambiguous the agencies can interpret it according to their expert opinion.
The alternative is requiring Congress to write every single rule explicitly and pass a law adapting to any change in circumstance or technology. In practice this means "no regulation" because Congress is pretty slow and adding more detail would only make them slower.
All that has to happen is the agency propose a set of rules and let congress vote. If they can't get it through congress then it should be a rule.
It’s unworkably dysfunctional for “everything” to have to go through congress.
If and when agencies overstep that gets resolved through legal challenges.
Many of these regulatory agencies were created by Congress, of my limited knowledge on the subject is to be believed.
Executive agencies are granted authority by the legislature. The legislature can at any time make additional legislation overriding or limiting specific actions taken by executive agencies. It isn't made up.
Nonsense. The law in question explicitly grants the FCC the right to make this determination via regulation.
Chevron deference is about whose interpretation governs when a law is ambiguous; that’s not even close to being the case here.
Be careful using strong language like "nonsense" unless you're very sure that's you're right. For starters, it's hostile. Also, I think you're incorrect.
Who do you think determines whether or not a particular voice is an 'artificial' voice? The FCC or the Courts? If it's the former, that's Chevron deference. You haven't quoted any legislation which expressly confers power on the FCC to interpret the law (which is typically the province of courts) and determine themselves whether or not a particular 'voice' is an 'artificial' ... 'voice'. But the legislation, at least arguably, impliedly confers that power per Chevron - like in Chevron, it was within the EPA's power to determine what a "source" of pollution was.
Compare Australia, where Chevron deference was rejected as forming part of Australian administrative law (Enfield v Development Assessment Commission (2000) 199 CLR 135), it would be a question for the courts whether the agency was authorised to make this regulation, without deferring to the agency's interpretation. The agency does it's best to conform with the law, but it's ultimately the courts that say what the law is.
Who will think of the poor corporations and their armies of on-retainer lawyers?
Of course government is incompetent and can't be reasonable in regulation? Is that the idea? How dare these corporations not be given minutely detailed regulations that they can easily tear apart to pollute to their convenience? You mean you want REASON in government and regulation?