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The FCC has voted to end exorbitant phone fees for prison inmates

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Re: The FCC has voted to end exorbitant phone fees for prison inmates

#31

Post by ars »

revscat wrote: post #13

> 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 t…

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.

Re: The FCC has voted to end exorbitant phone fees for prison inmates

#32

Post by ck2 »

Someone1234 wrote: post #6

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…

well the first problem is you call it "private prison"

it's "for profit prison"

otherwise the average idiot doesn't get the problem

corporations are making bank from holding people against their will in miserable conditions

same way corporation profit directly from war and people being killed, often completely innocent people

Re: The FCC has voted to end exorbitant phone fees for prison inmates

#33

Post by vonmoltke »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #11
TimMeade wrote: post #10

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.

Why do you think that will work? If it was that easy, Securus would already have competitors.

Re: The FCC has voted to end exorbitant phone fees for prison inmates

#36

Post by toomuchtodo »

vonmoltke wrote: post #33
toomuchtodo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why do you think that will work? If it was that easy, Securus would already have competitors.

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.

Re: The FCC has voted to end exorbitant phone fees for prison inmates

#37

Post by smt88 »

spoiledtechie wrote: post #19
cwyers wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Sounds more liberal to me. To have a monopoly within a government entity.

"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].

1. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/08/25/in-search-of...

2. http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/there-are-few-libertarian...

Re: The FCC has voted to end exorbitant phone fees for prison inmates

#38

Post by smt88 »

ars wrote: post #31
revscat wrote: post #13

> 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 t…

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.

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.

Re: The FCC has voted to end exorbitant phone fees for prison inmates

#39

Post by [deleted] »

spoiledtechie wrote: post #19
cwyers wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Sounds more liberal to me. To have a monopoly within a government entity.

[deleted]

Re: The FCC has voted to end exorbitant phone fees for prison inmates

#40

Post by smt88 »

jimrandomh wrote: post #30
Someone1234 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 intern…

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.

"Read-only" access to the internet is impossible.

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.

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