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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
> [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.
> 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.
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.
Yeah, there's a -reasonable- interpretation of the charter, and your hypothetical broad interpretation. "in so far as possible" is an important phrase - there is no justification in the charges being set for prison communications other than "because we can", as shown by the utterly huge profits shown by these companies.
So how would you respond to 47 U.S.C. 276 (c)(d)? [1]
(c) STATE PREEMPTION
To the extent that any State requirements are
inconsistent with the Commission's regulations, the Commission's regulations on
such matters shall preempt such State requirements.
(d) DEFINITION
As used in this section, the term ''payphone service''
means the provision of public or semi-public pay telephones, the provision of
inmate telephone service in correctional institutions, and any ancillary services.
This explicitly states that since inception, the FCC has been directed by congress to have jurisdiction over __inmate telephone service__, and __any ancillary services__.
How can you have anything __more__ direct than this language?
I am not a fan of trying to use original intent at all, but it is most often done by a relatively large number of judges by reading legislative history.[1]
It will result in local and regional monopolies and unbreakable contracts as it has with ISPs. Time and time again local entities are bribed or bought - at least when its done on the federal level there's one location that needs to be fixed, and maybe they'll actually have the resources to do a researched decision instead of signing up the first person to walk through the door with a solution.
I remain convinced that this should be dealt with in the prison's contract with the government, as other issues such as sanitation, clothing, etc. are dealt with, as it would allow for clear and detailed standards (as well as accountability and continuous monitoring) and not just price setting; however, if the problem here is one of monopoly, the regulator with the clearest authority is the FTC.[1]
The idea of prisons being governed by a trade commission would be almost comically ironic if it weren't so serious - we seem to be taking it literally the idea of prisoners being modern slaves. Contracts are always written to favor the one with more power.
Edit: In this case even there WAS a contract - the prisons signed an exclusive contract with Global Tel-Link, which would provide a percentage of the proceeds back to the prison. The deal incentivized both parties to raise prices as much as possible while the zero rights inmates had no recourse. Those are the sorts of contracts that happen all the time when there are no regulations. What would a trade commission do in this situation?
I don't know if you understand the scope and intent of their authority if you're implying this is not clearly inside of it. They exist to make sure that people retain reasonable access to communications. That includes stepping in when government agencies would seek to limit them in a way which harms the people. This is a clear instance of just that. There is absolutely no way you can conclude the rates are reasonable/justified. At $2+/minute, they could maintain an arsenal of prepaid cellphones with unlimited time.
They've used this authority for a very long time, and the most basic instances of this are municipalities trying to enact regulations that prohibit people from putting up antennas required for otherwise lawful radio communications.
It is still the responsibility of the prison to maintain and provide access to the phones as long as inmates are guaranteed that right. There's no question of who's accountable there. The prison and department of justice/corrections/etc depending on what type of facility.
I'm going to keep reiterating this: private prisons are not the problem. They are a problem, and a relatively small one at that compared to other systemic abuses.
> Far more influential are political benefits that elected officials of both political parties harvested over the decades by being tough on crime as well as the billions of dollars earned by government-run prisons’ employees and private contractors and vendors.
Earlier this week a few hundred police chiefs around the country came out against overly harsh criminal penalties for nonviolent drug crimes. That leaves the private prison lobby as one of the few organizations campaigning against sensible reform of sentencing laws.
Old-style tough-on-crime rhetoric from voters and politicians isn't working as much anymore, because people realize that it doesn't work and are less worried about crime than they were 20 years ago.
If you eliminate private prisons entirely and leave everything else alone, a pitifully small proportion of the people wronged by the criminal justice system would even notice, let alone receiving fair recompense. It's not so much that they "should not" be fought against, it's that it barely matters. It is simply poor allocation of attention.
I take thatswrong0's point to be that you would likely find as much if not more corruption in the federal, state, and county prisons and jails as you do in private prisons. And I'm quite sure that's the case. Inmates are just too easy to take advantage of. They can't really complain to anyone and nobody (for the most part) cares.
> 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.
I mean, that's the definition of a classical liberal, I'm not sure it's described the Republican Party for a long time though.
"Liberal" means different things in different contexts.
In the US, in popular usage, it means someone who supports extensive public programs (education, welfare, research, etc.), even if it means that taxes are higher. It also means someone who is against the government infringing on social freedoms, like equality for people with different sexualities, genders, or races.
The classical usage of "liberal" means someone who supports individual freedom in every sense: lower taxes, fewer government programs, less government spending, and social freedom.
To make it even more confusing, the hard-right of the Republican Party claims to be "liberal" in the classical sense (sometimes also called "libertarian"), but many of them aren't actually libertarian.
And, to make it even more confusing, there are actual libertarians in the US who don't know to describe themselves that way[1][2].
Even in Europe there are quite a few varieties. Some European liberals are more along the lines of American libertarians, but most are considerably more open to some degree of social safety net, and would be positioned to the left of more of a Reagan/Thatcher approach. Especially some kind of welfare system, universal public education, and universal provision of healthcare are common viewpoints. Some of this is the influence of left-Hayekians and German "social market economy" theorists within the European liberal movement, but some of those positions also have quite old roots in liberalism (e.g. Thomas Jefferson was a well-known American classical liberal favoring universal public education).
The UK Liberal Democrats and the Danish Social Liberal Party are two examples of liberal parties fairly solidly taking that viewpoint. The German FDP also used to in earlier years, but since the '80s is more Thatcher-influenced. The UK Economist newsmagazine also has views that could be put in this category.
These kinds of HN threads have completely ruined me on ever using the term "liberal" in any context. It doesn't reliably scale to broadcast a consistent concept to a sizable group of people.
In continental Europe it's somewhat clarified by dividing them into "liberal-conservatives", who politically side with conservative parties and may also be open to some elements of traditional conservatism (patriotism/nationalism, anti-immigration, etc.), and "social liberals", who tend to position themselves as politically centrist or center-left, support at least some kinds of social programs, and are typically hostile to traditional conservatism. Individuals may or may not fit cleanly into one of those categories, but the parties usually do.
Though that runs into another naming collision, because "social liberal" in the U.S. means a liberal who is focused mostly on social issues (gay marriage, abortion, free speech), rather than a liberal who is supportive of social programs.
That goes for most labels used in some context. Left-wing, right wing, liberal, conservative, democracy, freedom, prosperity and so on. All those mean different things to different people.
Laissez-faire liberals might denounce Friedman as not being liberal enough. He supported social welfare and a basic income because he recognized that the market failed in those arenas. He supported a progressive tax system as well.
Suggesting any of those to today's classical liberal would cause them to froth at the mouth and denounce him as a socialist.
>The whole private prison thing makes me want to vomit.
Makes me vomit too. We've created a systematic punishment machine rather than a reformation and education system. And systematic profiteering machine that's corrupting the objective of the Justice system.
And if you exclude victimless crimes, it also punishes the victims. A bit of a stretch, but you could say so if no active and meaningful attempt is made to rehabilitate incarcerated individuals.
The objective of the justice system is not reformation and education (well, maybe on paper that is the objective if you limit scope to the juvenile system). It's "paying your debt to society" for what you did wrong, i.e. punishment.
It is not just the prison. In some places, ankle bracelets are outsourced to private companies [1] and they charge the user rent for it and if they can't pay, guess where they go back?
>>I don't understand why the Republicans voted against.
>>Look, I get it, you support private industry.
So in the 60's the Republicans launched a thing called The Southern Strategy that was literally the Republican Party courting white racists. They never stopped.
Now that openly calling for segregation is frowned upon making the criminal justice system as punitive as possible is one of the ways they keep that strategy going. See also: Welfare 'reform'
What the other commenter said. Southern Democrats switched parties as part of the Southern Strategy ('realignment'). This wasn't backroom stuff, it's well-documented in lots of history books using contemporaneous resources.
There's a great quote by Lee Atwater about The Southern Strategy and how they knowingly use dog-whistle politics when their policy and rhetoric starts getting dated/transparent.
> 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.
I hate to say this, but: most Republicans are not pro-competition. They're very happy helping the government put in place monopolies, and milking that monopoly status. Case in point: the Republicans refuse to the Medicaid negotiate lower drug prices. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/washington/18cnd-medicare....
> I think the Republican stance comes from the perspective that you can never really "negotiate" with a body that writes and enforces all the laws.
OK, Medicare, fair enough. But that's quite an excuse. Why, then the government should be forbidden from negotiating any type of price reductions! Let the government pay $10,000 for a pen, and $100,000 for a flashlight, eh?
It absolutely is a fundamental problem. Just because government-run prisons have some overlap in their human rights abuses with private-run doesn't excuse the business model of the latter.
When you are paid by the bed, it is in your best interest to lobby for stronger sentencing guidelines[1] to gain and keep as many inmates as you can, and bleed as much cash out of them as possible in the process. In some cases you even have detention centers bribing judges[2] to lock away children in exchange for cash.
This is a fair point, and I don't disagree, but the lobbying is by no means limited to private corporations. For the best example, look at California and the State prison guard unions, who have consistently argued for more mandatory sentencing guidelines and for more prisons, which enriching themselves in the process.
I want to reiterate that I'm with you on private prisons, but the basic point remains that any group (public or private) will act in what it perceives as its best interests, whether those jibe with the platonic ideal or not.
I don't think anyone is arguing that. But the private prison issue is certainly overblown - their existence is not the reason why things in the U.S. criminal justice system are so bad. They were created in _response_ to prison overcrowding in the late 80s to reduce costs. And the number of prisoners in private prisons is tiny compared to the general prison population. They are a problem, but not the problem.
Sure. But the idea here is that there are many things wrong and that there is no reason to just tackle one of those things or do them serially. Some parties chose to challenge some elements of the criminal system directly, others choose to focus on other aspects of the problem. There is room for all of these. For the 7% or so that is in private prisons (commercial prisons would probably be a better term anyway) the situation is bad in ways that it isn't for the others and it is worth addressing those problems (to them for sure).
To say this doesn't warrant any attention is similar to saying that we don't need to do space travel or fundamental research before we've cured world hunger, cancer and aids because those address bigger and immediate problems.
> But let's remember context, you support capitalism where COMPETITION exists, in this situation it is an artificially created monopoly of one company.
That's not what Republicans, or almost any politicians, support. Politicians are mostly addicted to power and support keeping power, even if that means screwing the ideals they supposedly espouse. And keeping power in a democratic republic involves keeping funding for the next election cycle. Regardless of their stated ideals, politicians are de facto slaves of the corporations whose interests they serve, unless laws exist to limit this effect. In short, laissez faire capitalism and democracy are incompatible.
>I don't understand why the Republicans voted against.
It's very simple, they support businesses making a ton of money. They don't care about competition, they don't care about regulation, they don't care about fair.
They care about businesses making a boat load of money. End of story.
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.
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.
In the event this is overturned judicially, I intend to incorporate a 501c3 non-profit (or B Corp, depending on the legalities) to provide these services at-cost to deep six Securus Technologies' profiting off of this.
I intend to use lobbying efforts in concert with a technical solution, even if I have to go state by state. Everyone here hustles for something different; I hustle for a better (imho) world. I cannot sit back and watch shitty people be shitty.
Each personal project I work on is technical primarily, but each requires me to involve myself more in the political process by design. Technology alone will not change things, so I must get better at the people part of the process to enact the change I wish to see.
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.
Still means a lot. Cherry-picking a pair that differs little ignores the vast differences between other pairs. I moved from NY to GA; there's a deep cultural difference, and much that's desirable norm in one is nigh unto intolerable in the other (both ways). Wyoming is a very different lifestyle from California from Florida from Virginia from Maine etc. Drives many of us crazy that concentrated urbanites in one region want to boss around country folk living very different lifestyles/values/history, and do so due to sheer concentrated numbers.
Whatever happened to "celebrate [and protect] diversity"?
I disagree. Grew up in NC, spent a year and change in NYC, in SF for the last two years.
The biggest difference was the cost of a pack of cigarettes, when I still smoked. Now the biggest difference is the weather, which I gather varies quite a lot just within CA.
My coworkers are variously local and transplants like myself, and I wouldn't be able to tell except for being told.
One of the effects of the last half-century of mass media is the wholesale homogenization of American culture. I'm fine with this, and I wish our political structures would adapt accordingly; I happen to think American norms of 2015 are considerably better than North Carolina's norms circa 1965.
> Drives many of us crazy that concentrated urbanites in one region want to boss around country folk living very different lifestyles/values/history, and do so due to sheer concentrated numbers
Strange that you pick that example since that happens within a single state too. In fact it seems like there is a much larger difference between urban and rural regions within any given state then there is between urban regions (or rural regions) across different states.
Several states already do that with legalized marijuana. The federal government has chosen not to get involved, so it's become a de facto state's right.
I was stating a fact. I didn't express my opinion of it one way or the other.
My point was that we already have examples where there are exceptions to federal law on a state-by-state basis. What I've been saying all along is that we should codify that system.
You're right, in an ideal world it would mean nothing, as country distinctions are mostly arbitrary. However, there doesn't exist, and most likely won't exist in the near future, a world government that can realitistically replace all of the country governments, which is why it's not worth calling for the imminent removal of 'country rights'.
However, in the case of states, there is a organizing body that can, and is increasingly governing in their stead -- the federal government. And as many people believe the federal government has on average done a better job, that is why there are calls for the retirement of the 'states rights' concept.
The cultural (and physical!) distance between Seattle and Vancouver is minimal. Seattle is closer in basically every sense to Vancouver than it is to Salt Lake City. It can't make any sense to call for a unified Seattle-Salt Lake City government before a unified Seattle-Vancouver government. Applying the same policies to Seattle and to Salt Lake City is going to make one of those groups very unhappy.
"States rights" only gets brought up when the Repulicans don't like a Federal decision. If they'd quit the special pleading, people might believe them.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
You seem to misunderstand the entire notion of limited federal government as defined in the constitution.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Don't you think that ship has sailed? That's simply not true anymore, and it might be time to recognize that. Just look at the way federal funds set speed limits nationwide. Turns out if you set the right incentive structure, it just doesn't matter as rights are set aside in exchange for compensation.
I think ultimately the federal government gets what it wants because it holds the biggest purse-strings and that's all that matters at the end of the day.
States rights once again got it wrong. I am not upset at all that the federal government stepped in and fixed it. I am upset that the states themselves allowed this to happen.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
The courts exist for this purpose, but they aren't supposed to have to make a ruling for EVERY law. It would be very wasteful if lawmakers did not think at ALL about whether their laws would pass court scrutiny. Some laws are so obviously unconstitutional that they should not even be attempted; that will just waste taxpayer dollars. Of course, lots of things are in a grey area... that is where it makes sense to try to pass a law and see if the courts agree.
But for most of the time, lawmakers should try to only pass laws that are clearly legal.
Oh, come on. Anytime a politician of any party uses that line it's a load of crap. If they supported the policy they'd find the legal authority perfectly acceptable.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.'
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.
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.
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?
Read-only access, then: allow limited access without the ability to send messages, such as with software that disables the keyboard (but not the mouse) everywhere except the address bar, combined with monitoring.
Theoretically, a GET request is only supposed to retrieve data, but it can be (and sometimes is) also used to write data. There's no way for a screening algorithm to know the difference.
Most prisoners are allowed phone calls. If it's reasonable to let them do that, then it's unreasonable to worry about refresh-button-morse-code messages.
They're allowed phone calls, but not unmonitored ones. As in, there is someone listening to what they say on the phone.
That's part of the argument for why those phone calls are so expensive...
Monitoring what someone does on the web would be possible too, of course. At least if you only let them do it for a few minutes at a time like a phone call. Monitoring someone for an hour or more of web browsing is likely to be deathly boring for the one doing the monitoring.
You misunderstand. I don't mean an HTTP proxy, I mean a computer with no keyboard (technically, a keyboard usable only in a small whitelist of places). There are a small number of loopholes left (assembling messages with copy-paste from the right-click menu, and finding a website somewhere with an on-screen keyboard) but they're pretty easy to either close or to enforce with a small amount of human monitoring.
Is there necessarily a problem with that? Their internet usage would be presumably heavily monitored and if they actually do those things then prosecute them for it and take their access away for some period of time.
Restricting internet access like you're proposing is presuming their guilt and ruining it for the rest of the inmates.
Better to just not put so many people in prison who don't belong there in the first place and keep the dangerous ones offline. Cheaper and better all around.
They could employ internet filtering software used by China, Syria and Iran. Shouldn't be too difficult to get their hands on, considering it's made by an American company, Blue Coat Systems [0]
That software (whatever is used by China and Iran) is designed to tell the difference between parts of the web that are political and parts that aren't.
It isn't designed to tell whether Inmate X is flooding Victim Y's Instagram with veiled threats. You'd have to create an incredibly complex system of rules for each individual inmate in order to do anything close to being effective, and even then, you'd require a level of AI sophistication that doesn't exist yet.
I'm not sure I follow why the system has to be so complex. Why not just block access to Instagram entirely? China does, and they seem to be satisfied with the results. I don't forsee prison inmates getting access to VPNs. As other users have proposed, a locked-down version (not 'unfettered') of the web seems like a reasonable compromise.
Because "you have unfettered access to the internet, except for the parts of the internet with other people" doesn't really work. It's so stupid that pretty much anyone who hears it will immediately realize it doesn't work.
We're trying to prevent prisoners from communicating. The internet is a tool the sole purpose of which is communication. To be remotely plausible, you'd have to use a very restrictive whitelist approach, something like "you are allowed to send email (through the prison's forwarding server) to the following addresses".
> To be remotely plausible, you'd have to use a very restrictive whitelist approach, something like "you are allowed to send email (through the prison's forwarding server) to the following addresses".
TRULINCS appears to work like this. [0]
I think a lot of the hesitation surrounding a system for giving inmates additional access to the Internet focuses on the premise that all inmates would get access at once, or all the time. But that's not necessary. It could used as a reward for good behavior. Basic monitoring technology already exists, and humans could be employed if absolutely necessary. Additionally, it's easy to know who committed what crime and disqualify them if they're likely get up to no good.
You can't prevent access to any social network that has an API, which Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter have. The connection the social network happens on the server side, where the filter can't get it.
Further, you can't prevent access to email for the same reason.
>You can't prevent access to any social network that has an API
Could you elaborate on this? China blocks Facebook/Instagram/Twitter [0] so well that there's an entire industry of VPN providers making bank on getting them access to it illicitly.
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...
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...
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."
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?
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?
>"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.
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.
Yes, I am aware of the psychological reasons why people hold themselves in high esteem while accusing their opponents of moral corruption; my rhetorical questions were meant to highlight the absurdity of the accusations.
Haidt's research actually suggests this behavior is more common amongst progressives because they subscribe to a narrower moral framework based on fairness and harm-reduction while conservatives incorporate other elements such as loyalty, respect for authority, and purity. Thus, when the two disagree, conservatives, being concerned with fairness and harm reduction but not exclusively so, are able to understand the progressive position and understand why progressives disagree with them, but progressives are unable to likewise understand the conservative position and why conservatives disagree with them, so they assume wickedness instead.
Because they are mean and evil. Their irrationality comes from the zealous belief that anything conservative must be defended to the death, and without compromise.
At the end of the day, though, the "why" of their cruelty is not all that important. The fact is that they are evil, and relish in it.
Or, they actually have a clearer grasp than you do of their legal authority and concluded, probably correctly, that the measure exceeded it and would likely be struck down by the courts as a result, just like what happened with their net neutrality regulation.
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.
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.
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].
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.
> It's frustrating how much Congress has ceded to these agencies.
It hasn't ceded any; Congress retains all legislative power. Regulatory power is a delegation (and the degree to which power can be delegated is limited), not a cession.
> it's a loophole in democracy.
It may not be something you like, but I don't think its really anything other than the system working as designed; executive agencies making decisions within parameters set by Congress through legislation, including decision that involve notice of predictable ways that executive power will be applied, within the limits set by legislation, in future cases (i.e., regulation) was not an idea that the founders would have been surprised by.
The FCC is an independent executive agency, and is part of the executive branch outside of the scope of the executive departments. It is, to be sure, created by Congress, but that's true of most of the executive branch, including the executive departments.
No. That is simply wrong. The President cannot nominate Commissioners except to fill a vacancy, nor can he order them to take any action. They do not work for him. Congress created the FCC and Congress has oversight of the FCC.
"An independent U.S. government agency overseen by Congress, the commission is the United States' primary authority for communications law, regulation and technological innovation."
What are you trying to say? Pretty much every measure affects millions of people. Are you terrified to think that some things --no matter what!-- might get blocked?
no, my point was more along the lines of there being no reason other than pure obstructionism to block this particular ruling, and that a single person could have effectively killed it.
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.