> The price-cap order was fully supported by the FCC's three Democrats and Republican Nathan Simington. Republican Brendan Carr approved in part and concurred in part, saying he had concerns about the rate structure.
Seems bipartisan? All five approved of part, four of all.
Being charitable, the question I would have is whether the FCC has the same regulatory power over private prisons as they do over state and federally run prisons.
Isn't the issue that the goal on one side of the aisle seems to be to revoke all authority agencies like the FCC currently have? It doesn't matter if the agency itself agreed in a bipartisan matter when the courts and the executive both decide that the agency is illegitimate.
Congress passed a bill specifically to require the FCC to do this.
It passed the Senate by unanimous consent. The next morning at 9:48 am it was received in the House.
At noon there was a motion in the House to suspend the rules and pass the bills. That's done for non-controversial bills with broad bipartisan support. The motion passed within a minute.
After such a motion passes there is up to 40 minutes of debate on the bill. For this bill that lasted 10 minutes and then at 12:10 pm it passed by voice vote.
From conversations with folks who work in DC as senate & house aides - a phenomenon of the modern Republican party is that many GOP members of the house & senate have reasonable opinions on things and can agree on a reasonable policy right up until Fox News has an opinion about it, and then their opinion is Fox's opinion.
If Trump gets elected and decides the FCC's regulatory powers are bad, I promise you it will not matter how many republican senators or house reps voted for this before. I cannot think of a single incident in the last 8 years where a member of that party showed the slightest bit of ideological consistency, save McCain, who's dead, and maybe Romney, who's no longer a senator.
I doubt it. This is not something that has happened on a whim. It's been a painstaking process of data collection and analysis, gathering public comments, etc. There is also lots of bipartisan support.
My organization (Ameelio) works with anyone we can to provide free-of-charge communication services to incarcerated people and their loved ones (and increasingly legal and medical services), and we have almost a perfect split between "red" and "blue" states/areas. Regardless of your priorities, there's somethign important in this. Whether you believe that it's a fundamental right that people are being denied, or whether you care only about tax dollars (keeping people in touch with the loved ones dramatically reduces recidivism, which saves a lot of tax dollars), there's something to love about this. There will no doubt be some pains as the industry readjusts, but this isn't going to be reversed just because a new president of the opposing party takes office.
Good news, although this part at the end stood out to me:
> The FCC's draft order said that even with the new caps, potential "revenues for eight out of 12 IPCS [Incarcerated People's Communications Services] providers exceed their total reported costs when excluding site commissions and safety and security categories that generally are not used and useful in the provision of IPCS.
The FCC should be commended for closing these loopholes, but it's notable that these prison phone companies are still profitable even at these significantly lower rates. That indicates that the relationship here was (and is) purely extractive and should be operated purely at cost, if not banned outright.
> should be operated purely at cost, if not banned outright
This sounds like a quick route to prisons with no working phones.
Better: ban prison-phone monopolies and unbundle the prison-specific security component from the calling component. The latter is a commodity. The former can probably be done remotely (or by AI listening for naughty words).
> This sounds like a quick route to prisons with no working phones.
I agree; if you want the less terse version of my view, it's that the right to communicate (not necessarily privately!) with your loved ones from prison should be enshrined in law. There shouldn't be any profit in it; it should be one of the costs of operating prisons (and, by the numbers in TFA, a very small one).
> shouldn't be any profit in it; it should be one of the costs of operating prisons
Sure. My point is turning it into a pure cost centre almost guarantees it will be ignored.
That said, I’d support a certain number of minutes being required to be provided to every inmate every month for free, provided they aren’t in a high-security prison or otherwise high risk (where their calls need to be manually monitored). That simplifies the problem from maintaining infrastructure to ensuring it's being properly provisioned.
>> should be operated purely at cost, if not banned outright
> This sounds like a quick route to prisons with no working phones.
I don't think so, and it certainly wouldn't be with sufficient oversight.
> the prison-specific security component ... can probably be done remotely (or by AI listening for naughty words).
Come on, it's not like they monitor prison phone calls to keep the inmates from swearing. It's to prevent inmates from coordinating criminal activity from inside prison, and no "AI" is going to be able to detect and prevent that.
> FCC wasn't able to cap intrastate prices until Congress granted new authority.
that's literally all we're asking for!
the only political difference I have with many of you is where absence of Congress or inability of Congress to pass anything means that the agency should do something. I agree that a denial of service by the courts is bad and sad, but I don't agree that something should happen just because Congress won't pass a law.
I think partisan stuff is never going to pass so stop trying, and surface representatives that can bridge consensus so that Congress does grant authority to agencies for modern relevant things.
Thank you! Yes we are extremely excited about this decision from the FCC. The next 6 to 12 months (depending on average daily population (ADP) of the facility) are going to see some big changes, in my opinion for the better. With this decision in place, there are still lots of implementation details to figure out so it's still early to say how it will all land, but this is good news for justice-impacted people (especially incarcerated people & their loved ones).
Some 12 years ago a buddy of mine got himself locked up for a stint, and I was appalled at both the process and the cost involved for contact.
Phone contact required sign up at a web page, which was some web service that to sign up looked like it had been written in 1995 for aol by a 12 year old, and even attempting to sign up didn't work on any browser I tried (I'm pretty sure Internet Explorer 6 might have worked though). The site was almost laughably bad to the point I couldn't imagine any actual security involved in them taking any payment information.
I sent him some books, and told him I'd tried, but I wasn't dealing with some insecure amateur web service that was certainly created by the nephew of whoever runs his prison.
I know that prison is meant to be punishment, but the industry that has sprung up around it is so exploitative and pitifully gross toward both the prisoners and any family/friends they might have it only left me even more disenfranchised with the state of the US.
I feel for anyone that has or had to deal with someone in prison. I'm glad for someone with decency in the FCC to finally agree to fix the prison phone cost exploitation.
That’s one purpose, but for the many people not in for life, rehabilitation (or the less controversial: prepare for re-entry into society) has to be at least some component of their purpose, and on this metric the things they do seem to be massively counterproductive.
I read an interview with a prison warden. When asked what he wished the public knew better he said he wished people understood that almost all of his prisoners were going to be released at some point.
Ex-gf of mine was a clinical psychologist who deal with marginal people including prisoners. She said a lot of people in jail and prison have mental health problems. And jail and prison makes those worse.
A running problem for our society is that our individual temporal planning horizons are too friggin short. On average, any one of us will live at least 75 years, and most of us will live at least a decade longer. The older we get, the more we’re reliant on institutions and other people to take care of us. Given that, things like school lunches, after-school programs, and anti-pollution measures are shockingly cheap - you’ll live your twilight years in better health and in the care of better adjusted, smarter people who don’t have a cultural memory of your generation fucking their generation. Same with prisons, mental health resources, and programs for the homeless: we live in the societies that the people affected by these programs (or their lack thereof) will return to and we suffer the effects of defunding these programs in our daily lives. That’s not the debate we have about these, though - our discourse on almost any major policy considers an effect 20 years in the future to effectively be happening to someone else, and when we inevitably arrive at the can we kicked down the road, we treat it like god left it there by mistake and we just have to deal with it now.
There are things that convince me that whatever species eventually leaves earth to colonize the stars won’t be Homo sapiens in a meaningful sense, and this tendency is one of them.
25 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 59.8 ms ] threadSeems bipartisan? All five approved of part, four of all.
It passed the Senate by unanimous consent. The next morning at 9:48 am it was received in the House.
At noon there was a motion in the House to suspend the rules and pass the bills. That's done for non-controversial bills with broad bipartisan support. The motion passed within a minute.
After such a motion passes there is up to 40 minutes of debate on the bill. For this bill that lasted 10 minutes and then at 12:10 pm it passed by voice vote.
If Trump gets elected and decides the FCC's regulatory powers are bad, I promise you it will not matter how many republican senators or house reps voted for this before. I cannot think of a single incident in the last 8 years where a member of that party showed the slightest bit of ideological consistency, save McCain, who's dead, and maybe Romney, who's no longer a senator.
My organization (Ameelio) works with anyone we can to provide free-of-charge communication services to incarcerated people and their loved ones (and increasingly legal and medical services), and we have almost a perfect split between "red" and "blue" states/areas. Regardless of your priorities, there's somethign important in this. Whether you believe that it's a fundamental right that people are being denied, or whether you care only about tax dollars (keeping people in touch with the loved ones dramatically reduces recidivism, which saves a lot of tax dollars), there's something to love about this. There will no doubt be some pains as the industry readjusts, but this isn't going to be reversed just because a new president of the opposing party takes office.
> The FCC's draft order said that even with the new caps, potential "revenues for eight out of 12 IPCS [Incarcerated People's Communications Services] providers exceed their total reported costs when excluding site commissions and safety and security categories that generally are not used and useful in the provision of IPCS.
The FCC should be commended for closing these loopholes, but it's notable that these prison phone companies are still profitable even at these significantly lower rates. That indicates that the relationship here was (and is) purely extractive and should be operated purely at cost, if not banned outright.
This sounds like a quick route to prisons with no working phones.
Better: ban prison-phone monopolies and unbundle the prison-specific security component from the calling component. The latter is a commodity. The former can probably be done remotely (or by AI listening for naughty words).
I agree; if you want the less terse version of my view, it's that the right to communicate (not necessarily privately!) with your loved ones from prison should be enshrined in law. There shouldn't be any profit in it; it should be one of the costs of operating prisons (and, by the numbers in TFA, a very small one).
Sure. My point is turning it into a pure cost centre almost guarantees it will be ignored.
That said, I’d support a certain number of minutes being required to be provided to every inmate every month for free, provided they aren’t in a high-security prison or otherwise high risk (where their calls need to be manually monitored). That simplifies the problem from maintaining infrastructure to ensuring it's being properly provisioned.
> This sounds like a quick route to prisons with no working phones.
I don't think so, and it certainly wouldn't be with sufficient oversight.
> the prison-specific security component ... can probably be done remotely (or by AI listening for naughty words).
Come on, it's not like they monitor prison phone calls to keep the inmates from swearing. It's to prevent inmates from coordinating criminal activity from inside prison, and no "AI" is going to be able to detect and prevent that.
that's literally all we're asking for!
the only political difference I have with many of you is where absence of Congress or inability of Congress to pass anything means that the agency should do something. I agree that a denial of service by the courts is bad and sad, but I don't agree that something should happen just because Congress won't pass a law.
I think partisan stuff is never going to pass so stop trying, and surface representatives that can bridge consensus so that Congress does grant authority to agencies for modern relevant things.
Show HN: Ameelio.org – Free Prison Communication Platform -https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23042558 - May 2020 (90 comments)
Show HN: Ameelio – Free and Open Source Prison Communication Platform (Part II) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23701356 - July 2020 (2 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39376264 (CTO comment on policy 5 months ago)
Thank you! Yes we are extremely excited about this decision from the FCC. The next 6 to 12 months (depending on average daily population (ADP) of the facility) are going to see some big changes, in my opinion for the better. With this decision in place, there are still lots of implementation details to figure out so it's still early to say how it will all land, but this is good news for justice-impacted people (especially incarcerated people & their loved ones).
Phone contact required sign up at a web page, which was some web service that to sign up looked like it had been written in 1995 for aol by a 12 year old, and even attempting to sign up didn't work on any browser I tried (I'm pretty sure Internet Explorer 6 might have worked though). The site was almost laughably bad to the point I couldn't imagine any actual security involved in them taking any payment information.
I sent him some books, and told him I'd tried, but I wasn't dealing with some insecure amateur web service that was certainly created by the nephew of whoever runs his prison.
I know that prison is meant to be punishment, but the industry that has sprung up around it is so exploitative and pitifully gross toward both the prisoners and any family/friends they might have it only left me even more disenfranchised with the state of the US.
I feel for anyone that has or had to deal with someone in prison. I'm glad for someone with decency in the FCC to finally agree to fix the prison phone cost exploitation.
That’s one purpose, but for the many people not in for life, rehabilitation (or the less controversial: prepare for re-entry into society) has to be at least some component of their purpose, and on this metric the things they do seem to be massively counterproductive.
Ex-gf of mine was a clinical psychologist who deal with marginal people including prisoners. She said a lot of people in jail and prison have mental health problems. And jail and prison makes those worse.
There are things that convince me that whatever species eventually leaves earth to colonize the stars won’t be Homo sapiens in a meaningful sense, and this tendency is one of them.