By David Carter ( August 2, 2018, 11:48 AM EDT) -- More than 35 years after Congress adopted the Telephone Consumer Protection Act — the nation's first comprehensive law targeting the millions of abusive robocalls intruding into Americans' daily lives — people are more frustrated than ever about unwanted telemarketing. According to a report recently released by the Federal Trade Commission, the number of complaints about automated telemarketing calls jumped steeply (again) last year, and since 2009 these types of complaints have quintupled in number. At the same time, an astounding increase in TCPA-related litigation over the past few years has made the TCPA the second most filed type of case in our federal court system. Unfortunately, rather than serving as a deterrent to bad actors, the deluge of litigation filling our federal courts is targeting American businesses communicating with their own customers. This influx of litigation is occurring despite the fact that Congress did not have this in mind when the law was implemented. "Congress did not intend for the TCPA to be a 'barrier to the normal, expected or desired communications between businesses and their customers,'" a group of U.S. senators recently reminded Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai....