Missouri’s Attorney General is filing suit in federal court against three big telephone companies to keep telemarketers from calling. But the phone companies say they’re not doing anything wrong. Attorney General Jay Nixon has charged that telephone companies MCI, AT&T, and Southwestern Bell are violating federal law by continuing to call people who don’t want to be bothered by telemarketers. He says these are people who have signed up on the companies’ no-call lists. But AT&T spokesman Kerry Hibbs says the company has not received thousands of complaints from Missouri, nor has it received a request from the Attorney General for a copy of the company’s own no-call list as Nixon claims he has done. Besides, he says AT&T does not want to call people who don’t want to be bothered. Statements from MCI and Southwestern Bell say they are complying with current laws. Nixon admits they’re not breaking the state law, and he’s filing suit now with the federal law to demonstrate how the Legislature needs to strengthen Missouri’s no-call law.
