Slate – Congratulations! You Lost. The Do Not Call list was supposed to defeat telemarketers. Now scammy robocalls are out of control. What happened?

“….The problem is not that the government isn’t enforcing the Do Not Call list. It’s not that it isn’t upholding laws banning automated calls to cellphones. Instead, it’s that telecom giants could take more steps to make life better for customers, and they haven’t. And to top it all off, their lack of aggressive action has allowed the government to take the bulk of the blame. “If you want to be mad at someone,” says Tim Marvin, the campaign manager for the Consumers Union’s End Robocalls campaign, “call your phone company.” At least one person is listening. Rep. Jackie Speier recently introduced legislation demanding that telephone companies offer their customers free and easy access to robocall-blocking technology. It’s called the Repeated Objectionable Bothering of Consumers on Phones Act—the RoboCop Act. “Technology to block robocalls exists,” the California Democrat noted in the press release announcing her effort last month, “but it’s not widely available or easy to use.”…