telemarketing activity that victimizes both consumers and legitimate businesses.  While Cox 

applauds many of the proposed amendments to the Rule, others appear to stray from the 

Commission's mandate to focus its telemarketing regulations on  unscrupulous activities from 

which no one benefits but the perpetrator. 

3

  Several facets of the proposed amended TSR 

threaten to unduly disrupt the continuity of existing business relationships, create competitive 

imbalances in vital sectors of the Internet economy, and otherwise unduly burden  legitimate, 

mutually beneficial activities  that Congress did not intend the Commission to regulate.

4

Certain aspects of the Commission's telemarketing proposal also fail to account for the 

core First Amendment rights possessed by CEI and other media.  As other commentators have 

noted, there are substantial First Amendment issues that have to be considered before the 

Commission institutes any new telemarketing proposal.  Courts have long recognized that 

government regulations that restrict the ability of newspapers and other speakers to effectively 

distribute news, opinion, and other content are attacking an essential part of the right of speech 

itself.

5

  This fact is as true for publications and information sold to the public as it is for 

expression given away on a street corner.

6

  This protection of the right to distribute publications 

and alert the public to the content of  those publications is essential, even in the face of 

3

House Report on the Telemarketing Act

, H.R. Rep. No. 103 20, at 2 (1993), 

reprinted in

 1993 U.S.C.C.A.N. 1626, 

1627. 

4

Id.

 at 2. 

5

E.g., Lovell v. City of Griffin

, 303 U.S. 444, 452 (1938) (distribution as well as publication is subject to First 

Amendment protection); 

Ex Parte Jackson

, 96 U.S. 727, 733 (1878) ( Liberty of circulating is as essential to 

[freedom of expression] as liberty of publishing; indeed, without the circulation, the publication would be of little 

value. ) 

6

Murdock v. Pennsylvania

, 319 U.S. 105, 111 ( The right to use the press for expressing one's views is not to be 

measured by the protection afforded commercial handbills.  It should be remembered that the pamphlets of Thomas 

Paine were not distributed free of charge. ). 

2