Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/08/31/racist-robocalls-from-an-idaho.html
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I hope this has a significant opposite effect of what they intended. If I was on the fence I would certainly be compelled to cast my vote with someone Idaho Nazis hated.
Nazis notwithstanding, robocalling and Caller ID spoofing is rendering the traditional phone system useless–indeed, a liability, especially during campaign season. It’s not unlike the email spam situation prior to Bayesian and AI filtering.
My cell number has been spoofed to make robocalls to others in my telephone-number neighborhood. I received threats of violence on my voicemail, comfortingly from across the political spectrum. (If there’s one thing that unites us, it’s hatred of spam.)
At least these Nazis were considerate enough to use a 222 exchange/prefix. One imagines the hapless person who happens to have a non-222 spoofed number (were the Nazis to use such a number) getting actionable death threats. And thus Nazi robocalling could be the new swatting.
Using a spoofed Caller ID to promulgate your poisonous political views is a particularly low form of cowardice.
Robocallers. I hate robocallers. (And Nazis.)
Lately, robocalls have been annoying the hell out of me. Around here it’s ads for health insurance, which are not very useful, since I’m an insurance agent. They spoof the number so it looks like it’s local. Is that legal now, or are they just getting away with it?
For the record, I found my number was not on the DNC list. I registered, and they stopped.
Caller ID spoofing is illegal in the US but the law is tricky, if you’re pushing “non-harmful” political ideas then you have some defense. I can’t imagine anyone defending Nazi beliefs in court as “non-harmful,” but the law never ceases to surprise me. Also if you’re killed because you’re unlucky enough to have the spoofed phone number (and people really hate Nazis) then that seems pretty damn harmful.
Robocalling is also illegal, with political exceptions of course.
And all my numbers have been on the US DNC list since inception. The DNC may reduce the volume of stupid but it does not stop it.
Iowa too…
I think you may need to resubscribe every few years…?
If you are getting support from Nazis, you are wrong. QED.
Not according to the website.
I’d be willing to bet the Nazis are getting funding from some foreign power. Gee, I wonder who might want to stir shit up right now…
Lucky you. My cell has been on the DNC since the beginning. I get tons of calls still. I literally tell them I am filing an FCC complaint and still I get the health insurance calls.
When I registered, it just seemed to have a filtering effect on the calls I get - now they’re all pure scams.
My poor mother, also on the DNC list, gets literally dozens of calls every week from “local contractors” (who are probably often neither local nor the contractors themselves, but third-party referral services that exist to drum up business for a fee). I mean, she gets 2-8 calls a day. Some are quite abusive and they clearly have no worries about the possibility of being held accountable.
That didn’t stop Trump.
I wrote too soon. I just got another one.
Ahh, good old Sandpoint.
Unfortunately, in the world we are in, being wrong doesn’t necessarily mean you fail.
After Charlottesville, the imagery of a car deliberately drivng into a crowd seems kind of tone deaf… even if it is aimed at the Nazis.
I put my number in and it told me I subscribed in 2003. Looked to me that it was still active.
Sandpoint Idaho - birthplace of Sarah Palin.
So - who’s funding this guys org? Robo calls aren’t free. And where is the “Road to Power” registered as a Corp entity? Don’t see it in Idaho, Nevada or Delaware Corp records.