Idaho attorney general announces formal partnership with FCC to investigate robocalls

BOISE (Idaho Capital Sun) — Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden announced in a press release Tuesday that the state will join the Federal Communications Commission to investigate robocalls, saying the partnership will help the agencies share information and more effectively investigate the businesses running robocall operations.

“Robocalls are a global problem and individually we as states are not equipped to tackle such an enormous issue,” Wasden said in the release. “But there’s force in numbers and when we team up with other states and federal agencies like the FCC, we’re much more effective. Robocalls are a plague and combatting them takes an all-hands-on-deck approach.”

The federal partnership now includes 22 states, with Wyoming, Kentucky, Connecticut and the District of Columbia participating as of this week.

The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau and state investigators seek records, talk to witnesses, interview targets, examine consumer complaints and take other steps to build a record against robocallers, the release said. The partnership with the FCC provides Idaho with the expertise of the agency’s enforcement staff and other important resources to support state investigations, such as facilitating relationships with other federal agencies and robocall blocking companies, and investigative tools such as subpoenas and confidential response letters from suspected robocallers.