Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 10:06:56 -0600 (CST) From: Kevyn Jacobs Subject: KSU Collegian: Phelps Faxes must stop FROM THE KSU COLLEGIAN MANHATTAN, KANSAS, USA WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1995 REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION =========================== FAX HARASSMENT NEEDS TO STOP By Scott Allen Miller Collegian The Fred Phelps saga continues. Topeka lawyer Jerry Palmer has challenged Southwestern Bell to pull the plug on Phelps' notorious gay-bashing fax machine. He claims that a Kansas Corporation Commission regulation that allows Southwestern Bell to revoke telephone services from a client who is making harassing calls to another person should be used against Phelps. In the past, the KCC regulation has been enforced against people who make obscene or harassing phone calls that harass the person receiving the call. Palmer now wants it to be applied to third-party harassment. In Palmer's opinion, the regulation should also be enforced against people who send unwanted faxes that are hostile to someone other than the recipient. It seems a little strange to comprehend at first because most people don't have fax machines, and even fewer receive faxes from Phelps. To help put it in perspective, imagine Phelps was making unsolicited calls to you to tell you that God hates someone. This is what Phelps does with his fax machine. Who could argue that after months and months of this behavior that it wasn't a form of harassment against the person Phelps is targeting, to say nothing of the fax recipient? Apparently Southwestern Bell doesn't think it is. The corporation claims it doesn't have enough standing or proof to do anything about it right now. In a letter recently published in the Topeka Capitol-Journal, Southwestern Bell of Kansas President Melanie Fannin said the corporation is working to solve the problem. She said one solution to the Phelps problem would be for customers who receive his faxes to use the call blocker feature that Southwestern Bell offers. In effect, this solution lets Phelps keep paying for his service while Southwestern Bell gets more people to sign up and pay for those nifty feature packages. Southwestern Bell ends up making more money than before while the responsibility shifts from the fax sender and the medium of the fax onto the fax recipient. Maybe Southwestern Bell could offer a "Phelps Phax" package with call blocker, caller ID and call return (so you can tell him how much you appreciate his faxes) for a snazzy $15 or so a month. Southwestern Bell must have all the guts of a cockroach. Southwestern Bell set up a telephone number that customers could call to voice their concerns about Phelps' faxing and the possible solutions to stop it. Fannin said that some callers favored pulling his service while others were concerned about free speech. She said Southwestern Bell is trying to balance the two issues. Where SW Bell and these Phelps apologists go astray in their logic is in believing there is such a thing as absolute free speech. Phelps does not have an absolute right to tell whomever he wants whatever he wants anymore than anyone else does. Not only does Southwestern Bell have the guts of a cockroach, it also has the backbone of one. It's obvious that SW Bell is less concerned with free speech -- or their customers' peace of mind -- and more concerned with the inevitable lawsuits that Phelps, a disbarred lawyer, will hurl its way if Southwestern Bell has the courage to do what it would do to any other person who calls women in the middle of the night to whisper obscenities about other women. Phelps will call hellfire and brimstone down on Topeka if his fax machine gets disconnected, not to mention civil suits. That's why few people (Jerry Palmer excluded) ever challenge Phelps. In its defense, Southwestern Bell has some due process to give to Phelps before it could consider pulling his service. It has to make sure that the faxes are coming directly from him and not from some third party. This means people who receive Phelps' faxes have to agree to have a trap put on their phone lines so that Southwestern Bell can verify where the faxes are coming from. If you receive unwanted faxes from Phelps, call the phone company and have a trap put on. If enough people prove that the faxes are coming from Phelps, Southwestern Bell will be short one more excuse for not cutting off phone service to his fax machine. There's also something you can do even if you don't own a fax machine. Southwestern Bell has established a number at which you can voice your opinion about this situation. You can speak to a Southwestern Bell employee about this at (913) 276-6570. Meanwhile, we'll all be waiting to see if Southwestern Bell develops anymore guts and backbone, or if it will instead continue to be an accomplice to Phelps' hate ministry. Scott Allen Miller is a junior in interdisciplinary social sciences ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright 1995, Student Publications Inc. All rights reserved. This document may be distributed electronically, provided it is distributed in its entirety and includes this notice. However, it cannot be reprinted without the express written permission of Student Publications Inc., Kansas State University.