
The FCC has voted to end exorbitant phone fees for prison inmates - eplanit
http://qz.com/530909/the-us-just-lifted-a-crushing-burden-on-prison-inmates-and-their-families/
======
Someone1234
I don't understand why the Republicans voted against.

Look, I get it, you support private industry. But let's remember context, you
support capitalism where COMPETITION exists, in this situation it is an
artificially created monopoly of one company.

Now if they had an alternative proposal that required prisons to have two or
more vendors, I'd be totally onboard with not setting an artificial price
restriction. Since hopefully competition will provide the market price.

Essentially they have lost the forest for the trees. Yes government weighing
into capitalism is "bad" but government already allowed that by removing
competition, so this is a correction of that existing issue.

The article touched on the whole video conferencing thing... It is absolutely
criminal that jails restrict actual visitation for the purposes of then
charging prisoners to use their video conferencing system (sometimes which
requires the family to physically visit the prison, thus making it even more
farcical).

The whole private prison thing makes me want to vomit.

~~~
linksbro
They voted against it because they believe it "exceed(s) the commission’s
legal authority."[1] But they both said the idea had "well intentions." [2]

Makes you wonder what horrors a conservative majority FCC will cause.

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/22/regulators-
sl...](http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/22/regulators-slash-price-
prison-calls-fcc) [2] Full commission meeting (item was first on agenda)
[https://www.fcc.gov/events/open-commission-meeting-
october-2...](https://www.fcc.gov/events/open-commission-meeting-october-2015)

~~~
nickff
I agree with the conservative FCC comissioners; this is a matter which should
be dealt with in contracts between the government (state or federal) and the
prison operator.

The FCC has recently been venturing into fields where it does not have
expertise or (clear) authority. When the FCC issues regulations which should
have been addressed by another regulator or actor, accountability is lost. Who
is now to blame when something goes wrong with the prison phones? What happens
when prisons fail to service the phones, or make it more difficult for inmates
to use them? When it is not clear who is responsible for something, no one is
responsible for it.

What horrors are you worried that a conservative-majority FCC will cause? That
they will be accountable for the consequences of their actions, and not
attempt to increase the scope of their authority?

~~~
linksbro
I'm not sure how I understand how an independent commission created by
congress to "make available so far as possible, to all the people of the
United States, without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion,
national origin, or sex, rapid, efficient, Nationwide, and world-wide wire and
radio communication services with adequate facilities at reasonable
charges"[1] is increasing the scope of their authority by very clearly making
it possible for the incarcerated to access wire communications at a reasonable
charge.

Can you elaborate on how you're seeing this as an overreach?

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Act_of_1934](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Act_of_1934)
and
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996)

~~~
nickff
If you read the commission's charter broadly enough, and without regard to
either the original understanding or the original intent, you come to all
kinds of absurd conclusions. From the text you provided, one could, for
instance conclude that the FCC has the authority to issue regulations which
require parents to provide all children above the age of two with a cellphone
capable of high-speed internet access with no data cap (just as easily as you
could find that the FCC can regulate prison phone prices).

The FCC does not have authority to regulate phones or networks in any business
or home, and cannot dictate whether your company can block certain websites or
phone numbers, and the company can have a carrier set up these restrictions
for them. Likewise, the FCC does have authority to regulate how phone services
are provided to the prisons (though it is not clear that the FCC could
discrimate prisons from other businesses), but not what happens within the
prison itself or under the prison's request.

~~~
scottshepard
Except that prisoners are a captive audience, being held by the Government,
and the phone companies get a monopoly on an essential good. So a federal
regulatory body absolutely makes sense.

~~~
hugh4
But is the FCC the correct body?

~~~
simoncion
As mentioned by linksbro upthread:

> [The FCC is] an independent commission created by [C]ongress to "make
> available so far as possible, to all the people of the United States,
> without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national
> origin, or sex, rapid, efficient, Nationwide, and world-wide wire and radio
> communication services with adequate facilities at reasonable charges"

Given that (almost?) all prisoners in US prisons are "people of the United
States", this seems like _exactly_ the correct body.

~~~
tedks
As mentioned by nickff upthread:

> If you read the commission's charter broadly enough, and without regard to
> either the original understanding or the original intent, you come to all
> kinds of absurd conclusions. From the text you provided, one could, for
> instance conclude that the FCC has the authority to issue regulations which
> require parents to provide all children above the age of two with a
> cellphone capable of high-speed internet access with no data cap (just as
> easily as you could find that the FCC can regulate prison phone prices).

>The FCC does not have authority to regulate phones or networks in any
business or home, and cannot dictate whether your company can block certain
websites or phone numbers, and the company can have a carrier set up these
restrictions for them. Likewise, the FCC does have authority to regulate how
phone services are provided to the prisons (though it is not clear that the
FCC could discrimate prisons from other businesses), but not what happens
within the prison itself or under the prison's request.

Given that not even the 13th amendment applies to prisoners, I also very much
doubt that the largess of a congressional mandate for the FCC applies.

~~~
simoncion
> As mentioned by nickff upthread...

linksbro has a reply to that comment that you seem to have missed. It's pretty
direct:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10439553](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10439553)

Additionally:

The FCC is obligated to determine if a telecommunications service is required
to file tariffs:

"Tariffs contain the rates, terms and conditions of certain services provided
by telecommunications carriers. The most common tariff filed at the FCC is for
interstate local access service. These tariffs are filed by local exchange
carriers, or LECs.

Long-distance companies and others pay the rates set out in these tariffs to
LECs for access to local networks at the originating and/or terminating ends
of a long-distance call. Access services include:

* End User access, which mainly recovers the Subscriber Line Charge, the Access Recovery Charge, and the Universal Service Fund Charge. ...

Except in very limited circumstances, long-distance companies are not
permitted to file tariffs for long-distance service _because the FCC has
determined that the long-distance market is competitive._ Like long-distance
service, many broadband services have been detariffed. ...

Tariffs _must be just and reasonable and may not be unreasonably
discriminatory_ under Sections 201(a) and 202(b) of the Communications Act of
1934, as amended." [0]

(Emphasis mine.)

If the long-distance market for prisoners is _not_ competitive, the FCC is
well within its remit to demand that rates for those services be just,
reasonable, and not unreasonably discriminatory.

> Given that not even the 13th amendment applies to prisoners...

Rights and privileges are severable. This means that loss of _one_ does not
imply loss of _others_.

[0]
[https://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/tariffs](https://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/tariffs)

------
nickalewis
We need to eliminate or limit kickbacks next.

This is a monumental decision for inmates & their families, but long-term
progress can be made by getting rid of commissions, particularly at the state
& local level. The FCC chose not to make a decision on commissions (citing the
lack of legal authority) however it's eliminating or limiting these kickbacks
thats needed to really re-align the market. Currently commissions are
negotiated on a percentage basis, so facilities have an incentive to favor
high customer costs since they get a chunk. This could be improved by
legislation limiting commissions to a per-minute basis, so facilities have
incentive to favor lower cost & higher-volume. That way rates continue to move
downward.

Think about it like this... With the FCC's decision today rates are limited to
a max of 0.14 cent a minute. Since commissions are percentage based a facility
could demand 13.99999 cent commissions. Theres no incentive for them not to!
If states were to set a maximum per-minute commissions at say, .05 cent a
minute, it would encourage facilities to push the rates down in order to
increase usage. Rates would never fall below .05 cent, but facilities would
have incentive to push the rates down as close to the maximum as they could.
It would also help cut down on the extra fees vendor's charge. Since extra
fees eat into the money that families can spend on actual calls, facilities
would have financial incentive to favor lower fees that would increase the
number of minutes used.

We've seen nationwide[1] that lowering the total price to families increases
call volume. Also increasing phone calls fights recidivism and heals family
units. It's something I've been reading and personally care alot about with my
work with Penmate[2]. Today's victory was landmark, but there's certainly more
progress ahead.

[1] 2014 FCC Report on ICS (search 'call volumes')
[http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=60000975214](http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=60000975214)
[2] [http://penmateapp.com](http://penmateapp.com)

------
TimMeade
Not to be the naysayer on this but it is a very serious incursion on states
rights. The legal consensus i'm hearing is that it will be overturned by the
judicial system.

Does the FCC have the right to tell a state or town what to do with local
calls? That is the root of this. It's a given that they can regulate
interstate, but historically intrastate has been the rights of the states.

~~~
smt88
It's probably time to give up on the ridiculous sanctity of states' rights.

It made sense in a time when people lived in same state their whole lives,
rarely traveled outside the state, and rarely communicated outside the state.
Their whole lives unfolded within a few hundred square miles.

That's not the case anymore. You can't subdivide the interests of American
citizens by state anymore. What does it mean to be from Ohio vs. Indiana?
Almost nothing.

~~~
harryh
What does it mean to be from Hawaii vs. Mississippi? Kind of a lot?

~~~
smt88
I'm not saying states shouldn't be able to determine certain things. But the
federal government should be able to overrule asinine state policies after
public debate (still subject to testing in court).

When that testing happens, as it does now, the determining factor shouldn't be
"states vs federal rights". It should be, "Does this state have a good reason
to differ from the rest of the country?"

In this case, where inmates' families are being harmed, there is no reason for
Hawaii to differ from Mississippi.

~~~
harryh
Maybe in a poorer state like Mississippi the revenue state raised by more
expensive phone calls is needed to properly pay for the prisons in question?

I'm not saying I believe that argument, but I don't live in Mississippi, I
don't pay taxes in Mississippi, and I'm extremely unlikely to ever end up in a
Mississippi prison. Maybe it should be the job of Mississippians to weigh the
pros and cons of these things?

~~~
smt88
I understand that you're proposing something hypothetical. So let's assume
that it's true: Mississippi needs the revenue to run the prisons.

The federal government should be able to say, "No, sorry Mississippi, you
aren't going to run your prisons on the backs of the families of inmates."

Why should someone have to pay extortionist prices to speak to a loved one?
They likely had nothing to do with the crime (or the criminality of the
inmate), and it's not fair to punish them just for being unlucky enough to
love someone who becomes a convict.

~~~
harryh
I'm pretty sure that the loved ones of prisoners are being punished (by, you
know, being physically separated from the prisoners) regardless of the cost of
phone calls. Again, I'm not saying you're wrong. Were I a Mississippian, I'd
prolly be in favor of cheaper phone calls for prisoners. But aren't we drawing
a line in kind of a weird place?

    
    
      - OK to lock someone up in a cage.
      - OK to charge them $0.11/minute to talk to someone outside of that cage.
      - NOT OK to charge $1/minute to talk to someone outside of that cage.
    

And given how weird that line is, should it really be drawn by outsiders who
feel no effects of where the line is drawn?

~~~
toomuchtodo
> And given how weird that line is, should it really be drawn by outsiders who
> feel no effects of where the line is drawn?

Yes. That how treating humans humanely works.

~~~
harryh
Why are outsiders better equipped to decide what is and is not humane than
members of the actual community in question?

~~~
toomuchtodo
Because human rights are, as they say, "inalienable"; the local community
doesn't get to vote on them.

~~~
harryh
Inexpensive phone calls are a human right?

Keep in mind this wasn't a ruling by SCOTUS citing the constitution. It was a
ruling by the FCC meaning that ultimately it WAS a community voting on them.
The only debate here is the size of the community that should get a vote.

~~~
toomuchtodo
You are free to your opinion. Preventing someone from keeping in touch with
their family while they're in prison through extortion-level pricing of
communications services is violating their rights, and the FCC appears to
agree. If it has to go to SCOTUS, so be it.

------
revscat
> The reform passed 3:2 along partisan lines, with the appointed Democrat
> commissioners voting in favor, and Republicans against.

While there has been far too much cross-party desire to be "tough on crime",
this is yet another example where the GOP seems to be stuck in the past,
unwilling to recognize the failure and brutality of that stance. And while
this is absolutely a positive step, meaningful reforms will not transpire to
any significant degree so long as state governments are dominated by
conservatives. They may occasionally voice social justice concerns, but want
to comes time to vote on those issues the result is what you see here, almost
without exception.

~~~
ars
It's not that. They felt they did not have the legal authority to do this, and
that it would be struck down by the courts.

~~~
smt88
What would be the harm in doing it and then seeing if the courts struck it
down?

That's done in politics all the time. Their explanation was just a
smokescreen. It's politically dangerous as a Republican to look like you have
compassion for convicted criminals.

~~~
ars
> What would be the harm in doing it and then seeing if the courts struck it
> down?

That's a pretty terrible way to run a government. When you elect someone you
expect them to follow the law and do their job.

Not just do anything they want and say "it's fine, if we are wrong the court
will fix it".

~~~
smt88
> That's a pretty terrible way to run a government. When you elect someone you
> expect them to follow the law and do their job.

Whether or not it's terrible, it's the system of checks and balances that was
envisioned by the founders of the United States. It's exactly how our
government has (and does) run for its entire history. The courts exist for
this purpose.

"Follow the law" is not cut-and-dried. Statutes can be interpreted any number
of ways, and very little common law is set in stone. Even common law created
by the Supreme Court (e.g. Roe v Wade) it incredibly controversial and could
be challenged again.

~~~
ars
And? You advocate for every government official to power grab as much as they
can and let the courts sort it out?

The courts are there in case of mistakes, they are not intended as the primary
way for government to function.

Do you realize just what you are advocating for? Every little police chief
will claim any road he can, until a court tells him to stop. Every property
inspector will levy fines for parking tickets until told he can't. Nothing
stops me from setting up a toll booth at the end of the road, until the court
tells me to stop.

No, this is not the way. People should, on their OWN, know what they should
and should not do.

The Republicans felt this was a power grab by the FCC, you would have been
happy if in fact they had grabbed that power, but that's because you like the
issue at hand. Next time it will be for something you don't like.

~~~
enraged_camel
Courts sorting it out is not without consequence. It greatly harms the
credibility of both the organization whose decision is struck down, and the
people who voted for that decision. So when an organization says, "we will
make the decision and let the courts sort it out", they aren't doing it as a
power grab, but rather because they are genuinely unsure if it is a legal
decision.

So in this case, the Democratic FCC members were willing to take a risk
because they thought the potential benefit (giving prisoners affordable access
to telephones) is worth it. The Republicans did not, because they are, in this
scenario, comfortable with the status quo.

------
toomuchtodo
Kudos to the Prison Policy Initiative and Demand Progress for kicking ass on
this. This is what progress looks like.

------
icodestuff
Has the FCC had price-setting power since the Bell days? Particularly when it
comes to surcharges, and as applied to state prisons, I imagine this is going
to be overturned judicially.

------
ctdonath
For a while I worked on a 3rd-party/collect-call billing system for a major
telecom company. For several days after starting, technical discussions
mentioned "inmate" every few minutes. Still getting my bearings, I finally
piped up in a meeting with "surely it doesn't mean what I think it means, what
is this 'inmate' you keep referring to?" Indeed it meant "prison resident".
The problem was that inmates _very_ often abused the phones, rattling thru
call menus until they could get a live operator - then proceed to
berate/insult/degrade/abuse/etc the person. Result was that our call
processing had to ensure that, at every juncture, prison inmates were NEVER
able to reach a live operator - and a bunch of money got sunk into this system
JUST to mitigate the rampant abuse by prison inmates.

~~~
plonh
Was this because the phone system had the only people the prisoner could talk
to about their problems?

~~~
ctdonath
Only if an unrelenting stream of verbal abuse & degrading profanity
constitutes "talking about their problems".

------
devit
Why not $0?

The marginal cost of the bandwidth required to make the phone calls is
negligible, so there is no reason it should cost anything to the inmates.

A simple solution to achieve such a result is to buy a cell phone plan with
unlimited minutes and route calls through it.

~~~
comrh
> Prisons like the Maryland facility featured in the hit podcast “Serial” sign
> exclusive contracts with companies like Global Tel-Link, and receive a cut
> of the proceeds from each call, creating an incentive to raise rates as much
> as possible.

Cause the prison makes $$$.

~~~
nedwin
Also because, they say, there are costs to the prison in having phones
including monitoring to make sure prisoners aren't breaking any laws.

I think these costs should be a cost of doing business as a prison, whereas
they consider it should be "user pays".

------
jMyles
I know this is controversial, but the humane thing to do is to allow inmates
unfettered access to the internet. Contrary to the orthodoxy on the matter, I
assert that this will reduce the strength and relevance of 'prison gangs.'

~~~
Someone1234
Extremely controversial.

Stopping prisoners from harassing their victims/witnesses against them/enemies
or organising others to do their dirty work externally is already a massive
problem. Prisons have the ability to listen to calls and read mail to try and
curtail it.

Giving them access to the internet makes all of this far easier, and
monitoring it far more expensive. Not to mention that now they can use the
internet to commit new crimes, and they have nothing better to do for the
years or tens of years that they're sitting in a cell.

I think giving them access to email is do-able, since that is no different in
practice to physical letters. But giving them unrestricted access is a
monitoring nightmare.

~~~
mtrpcic
It's a lot easier to curtail things like this on the internet. It would be
dirt easy to set it up to only allow certain content (let's call it
"constructive" content, like Wikipedia, various news sources, etc.), while
blocking content with specific keywords. Prisons have a finite amount of
traffic, it's not like we're setting up the GFC. It's dirt simple and dirt
cheap to set iptables up to handle this with the limited traffic coming out of
a single prison. I could probably do it for less than $400 on some budget
hardware, and have it be pretty solid/reliable. We should be allowing these
people access to the information and knowledge so they can better themselves
and broaden their horizons. We can do that while simultaneously blocking their
ability to "contribute" to the global discussion if we need/want to.

~~~
bzbarsky
So I assume you mean allow Wikipedia but not makign edits to it (since those
can be used to communicate to people on the outside, and preventing that is
part of the stated goal)?

And news sites but not the comments sections on those news sites?

It sucks that this is even an issue, I agree. The proposal in
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10434720](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10434720)
would be interesting, if workable.

------
rw2
Doesn't kill the YC startup that works to lower prison call rates if it goes
through? [http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/24/pigeon-
ly/](http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/24/pigeon-ly/)

------
giancarlostoro
Wow what a racket! For Less than $3 a month you could call the US / Canada
with Skype, I don't imagine Skype does anything special that makes it more
affordable to do the same things the prison system more or less end up doing,
but that's horrible $1 a minute...

------
rgovind
Great move. But What does this mean for Pigeon.ly?

~~~
smt88
They do a lot more than just voice calls.

~~~
SnowCrash2829
I thought they just do voice calls and mail pictures right now.

~~~
smt88
Basically, yeah: voice, photos by mail, text by mail, and then some kind of
support group/social network for wives and girlfriends of prisoners[1]. What
an unfortunate name for that service, though...

1\. [https://pigeon.ly/prisonwives](https://pigeon.ly/prisonwives)

------
emmab
How can anything this horrible exist ;_;

------
revscat
That may have been their stated objection, but the broader pattern belies
this. The broader pattern is "make life as difficult for the poor, middle
class, and the minorities as possible."

~~~
nickff
Why must you accuse your intellectual opponents of being mean and evil? Why
would they be so cruel and irrational? Do you have any real reason to believe
you are any better than them?

~~~
wfo
Because it takes a whole lot of energy to constantly invent imaginary earnest
justification after imaginary earnest justification for a group of people who
consistently come out against making life better for the less fortunate at
every turn. No matter the cost or savings or lack of either, no matter the
circumstance -- it's always vote against the interests of the disadvantaged.

And it doesn't help when it's literally the focus of their stated ideology. Or
when the leaders of their party say things to the effect of "Our goal is to
destroy this president at all costs no matter what it does to the country or
the american people"

I get that it's easy to say it's always a mistake or oversimplification to
call a group of people evil, but what if they actually are?

~~~
nickff
>"I get that it's easy to say it's always a mistake or oversimplification to
call a group of people evil, but what if they actually are?"

How do I know you are not evil? You say that the conservatives are trying to
persecute the disadvantaged, but you could be accused of pursuing
authoritarianist populism.

Emotional screeds like this convince no one; perhaps this is a self-satisfying
venture, or it may be an attempt to signal your loyalty to a cause, but either
way, it is entirely useless to anyone except you.

If you want to argue against someone, please pick a logical framework, and go
with it. From what you've written, it seems you have utilitarian leanings;
there are points for and against this vote in that paradigm, and it would be
interesting to read an exposition of them.

~~~
wfo
I could be accused of many things. I didn't say they are trying to persecute
anyone (though I think there's an argument to be made there), I said they
obstruct efforts to help those who need it. And they undeniably do. Their
justifications are the only facts of the matter which are up for debate. And
I'm not intending to win over high ranking members of the republican party;
rather establishment sycophants and independents and some left-wing people who
feel some ridiculous need to always be considered "fair" or "balanced" \--
there is an inclination among those who ask to be considered intelligent to
always assume the correct answer lies in the middle of the two positions they
are presented with. This is a fallacy and a dangerous one: sometimes one
position is simply wrong, or put forth by dishonest or disingenuous or
careless or misinformed people. And the "level-headed, thoughtful even handed"
position of supposing the correct answer to always be in the middle forces
each position to a further extreme in order to push the middle over further
and further to their side.

My post was not particularly emotional; it's not really necessary to attack it
by claiming so: claiming you are the logical reasonable one and I am being
hysterical is a cheap schoolyard tactic and I'm not particularly moved by it.
You asked a question and I answered it.

I intended with my post to defend the notion of unconditional rejection of a
position or of an ideology or of a political group; we are allowed to just say
that they are wrong. We aren't obligated to constantly justify their positions
and look for ways in which they are right -- in fact if we do this we will be
taken advantage of and it will cause even more extremism and polarization.

I despise utilitarianism and I'm not quite sure how you inferred I was one
from my post.

------
zem
> The reform passed 3:2 along partisan lines, with the appointed Democrat
> commissioners voting in favor, and Republicans against.

it's kind of terrifying to think that a single republican in the wrong place
could have blocked a measure affecting millions of people.

~~~
jMyles
It's just odd on its face that so many of these decisions, which absolutely
have an otherwise legislative character, are being made by the executive
branch.

~~~
smt88
As someone else said, the FCC isn't created or controlled by the executive
branch.

Many decisions with a "legislative character" are, however, made by the
executive branch through executive agencies (Dept of Agriculture, Dept of
Homeland Security, etc.) These agencies only exist with the blessing of
Congress, though, so they technically derive their power from the legislative
branch.

If that sounds weird, it is. The legality and limits of executive agencies is
still somewhat of an open question, even though they've been around for 150+
years.

~~~
unethical_ban
It's frustrating how much Congress has ceded to these agencies. it's a
loophole in democracy.

~~~
smt88
To me, it's a mixed bag.

For example, the EPA is working (though not enough) to prevent the end of
human life on earth. That's something I wouldn't trust Congress to do, since
they seem to be gridlocked forever on all common sense issues.

But then there are agencies like the USDA, which fed "pink slime" to children
for years in order to help out the cattle industry[1].

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_slime](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_slime)

~~~
jessaustin
There's nothing wrong with pink slime. If you want to eat cheap nutritious
beef, it's a good thing. If you're a meat-packer trying to be less wasteful,
it's a good thing. If you think the best pretext on which to wage class war is
the content of various school lunches, apparently it's golden.

Pink slime is only a marginally-bad thing for cattle ranchers like me. I would
benefit if people decided to only eat ribeye, because ribeye is a small
portion of the total carcass and that would drive up the price of cattle.
Conversely, every beef patty sold that includes 10% pink slime lowers the
price of cattle just a little bit.

~~~
danieltillett
While I think you have made a plausible argument, I am none too keen on eating
pink slime if I have a choice.

