/>iWe are pleased to present our latest Monthly TCPA Digest, providing insights and news related to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). This month we cover a federal district court decision, Creasy v. Charter Communications, Inc., which held that the TCPA’s robocalling ban was unconstitutional from the time Congress added the government-debt exception in 2015 until July 6, 2020. The district court based its decision on the Supreme Court’s July opinion in Barr v. AAPC that severed the government-debt exception from the TCPA provision prohibiting robocalling cellular telephones. In Creasy, the court concluded that because the government-debt exception was an unconstitutional content-based restriction on speech, the addition of the government-debt exception to the statute “converted a theretofore neutral speech restriction into an invalid content-discriminatory one.”
In this month’s Regulatory Update, we look at the FCC’s ongoing implementation of the TRACED Act aimed at reducing unwanted and illegal robocalls. Late last month, the agency adopted an Order designed to promote the use of caller ID authentication technology through the implementation of the STIR/SHAKEN framework. The FCC also asked for comments on a proposed rulemaking process concerning whether existing exceptions granted under the TCPA include certain requirements. We also discuss the FCC’s Public Notice seeking comment on a filing related to FCC guidance that the TCPA’s emergency purposes exception applies to communications about COVID-19.
If you have suggestions for topics you’d like us to feature in this newsletter, or any questions about the content in this issue, please feel free to reach out to an attorney on Mintz’s TCPA and Consumer Calling Practice team.
