Fifty million Americans say "Enough"

Fifty million Americans can't be wrong.

They signed up voluntarily for a national list to be free of telemarketing calls, and they are looking forward to the registry taking effect on Wednesday.

When a federal judge in Oklahoma City ruled the registry isn't valid, because the Federal Trade Commission hasn't been given authority to enforce it by Congress, he made a ruling that makes about as much sense as the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals' initial decision on the California recall.

Even if the judge's ruling stands, which it won't for long, Congress will act to make sure the FTC has sufficient authority.

That means two things: People who have signed up for the registry should get fewer telemarking calls, and companies who make such calls better start checking the list before dialing or face $11,000-a-call fines.

The Direct Marketing Association, which filed suit in Oklahoma to block the registry, has attempted to make it a free-speech issue, but it's not. Advertising clearly can be regulated. And the people who are saying telemarketers can't make their calls are those who have taken the step of putting themselves on the list. That's a pretty clear concept.

The telemarketing industry has made itself the No. 1 annoyance in America (with e-mail spammers catching up fast) by calling people when it's least convenient, by using deceptive or evasive sales pitches reminding us of snake-oil salesman from another century, and by the sheer volume of calls created by automatic dialers.

We'd like to be sympathetic to the companies who run customer-sensitive telemarketing operations, but bad apples have spoiled the whole barrel.

If the national registry kills cold-call telemarketing in this country, it won't be the government's doing. It'll be the millions of Americans who said, "Enough is enough."