It has happened to all of us.

Just as we're about to sit down to dinner, the phone rings. We pick up the phone and hear a cheery voice stumble over our names and ask if we are interested in buying/contributing/ supporting something.

If Pennsylvania lawmakers have their way, state residents will never have to deal with unwanted calls from telemarketers again.

This would, of course, be a wonderful thing. When it comes to the scourge that is telemarketing, we are all victims.

Each house of the Legislature unanimously passed a measure Tuesday that would create a statewide "do-not-call" list. Names would stay on the list for five years.

The measure would require telemarketers to purchase the list from a nonprofit agency before calling Pennsylvania residents.

Unsolicited calls to anyone on the "do-not-call" list would lead to civil penalties.

Telemarketing agencies that place unsolicited calls would be subject to penalties of $1,000 per violation and $3,000 per violation involving a person 60 years of age or older.

The bill will go into effect if Gov. Schweiker signs it into law. The Daily Collegian encourages Schweiker to sign the measure immediately and protect state residents from the numerous harms caused by telemarketers.

They interrupt the dinners of unsuspecting people and often call early, awakening people before they are ready to get out of bed.

No one deserves such terrible abuse.

Telemarketers argue that people can ask to be taken off of their calling lists, but rarely do the telemarketers obey such requests.

Instead, telemarketers disregard people and repeatedly make unsolicited calls, victimizing individuals again and again.

It is The Daily Collegian's hope that this measure goes into effect and protects state residents from repeated unwanted abuse.

The people of Pennsylvania deserve to have their time go uninterrupted by unsolicited calls, and the state's elderly should not have to fear being taken advantage of by sleazy, preying telemarketers.

If Schweiker makes this potential law a reality, many of us can finally call telemarketing what we've always believed it to be -- a crime.