Asterisks, Anyone?

As if he were not busy enough trying to pass this week's California bar exams, Morey W. McDaniel (Stanford Law, '64) has confronted the state public utilities commission with a 50-page complaint that may rouse debate across the U.S. "Telephone solicitors assault our homes, invade our privacy and insult our intelligence," says McDaniel, 24. "They interrupt us and waste our time. They force legions from the phone book. And their ranks multiply. For home dwellers who want peace and quiet, something must be done."

At a recent commission hearing, McDaniel and his wife Susan testified that phone hucksters ring their Palo Alto number three or four times a week with pitches for everything from insurance to home repairs. "Insults are useless," argued McDaniel. So, too, are unlisted numbers (now used by 20% of private subscribers in Los Angeles), he said, because they inconvenience friends, often cost more ($6 a year in New York) and still leave pitchmen able to get the number by renting a "reverse" (street) directory from the phone company.

Calling all this "an invasion of my privacy," McDaniel offered a solution: "An asterisk beside my number in the phone book with a footnote explaining that I do not want to be bothered by commercial solicitations." Example: Thoreau Henry D 1 Walden Pond . . .

* 765-4321.

Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Co. was appalled. If only 25% of its 4,500,000 subscribers asked for asterisks, argued its lawyers, Pacific would have to spend $4,300,000 to convert its directories. Granting McDaniel's petition, they added, would hamper charity drives and put phone solicitors (one market surveyor has 10,000 of them) out of work. Moreover, the state legislature would have to enact new laws making it a misdemeanor to ignore asterisks.

The utilities commission reserved decision, but McDaniel has grounds for hope. One is a commission promise to investigate the matter further. Another is the Supreme Court's 1951 decision (Breard v. Alexandria) upholding local laws against door-to-door peddling without the homeowner's consent. Said the court: "Opportunists for private gain cannot be permitted to arm themselves with an acceptable principle, such as that of a right to work, a privilege to engage in interstate commerce, or a free press, and proceed to use it as an iron standard to smooth their path by crushing the living rights of others to privacy and repose."

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