Ajit Pai Urges States To Cap Prison Phone Rates After He Helped Kill FCC Caps (arstechnica.com) 106
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is urging state governments to impose price caps on prison phone calls, three years after Pai helped kill Obama-era FCC rules that limited the price of such calls. Pai yesterday sent a letter to the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), saying it is up to state governments to cap intrastate calling prices because the FCC lacks authority to do so. (NARUC represents state utility regulators.) Pai wrote: "Given the alarming evidence of egregiously high intrastate inmate calling rates and the FCC's lack of jurisdiction here, I am calling on states to exercise their authority and, at long last, address this pressing problem. Specifically, I implore NARUC and state regulatory commissions to take action on intrastate inmate calling services rates to enable more affordable communications for the incarcerated and their families."
Pai's letter did not mention that his own actions helped cement the status quo in which the FCC does not regulate intrastate prices. It's well-established that the FCC can regulate interstate rates, those affecting calls that cross state lines. Pai is even proposing to lower the FCC-imposed rate caps on interstate calls from 25 to 16 per minute in an order the FCC will vote on next month. But Pai's plan doesn't limit prices on intrastate calls, those in which the prisoner and the person on the other end of the line are in the same state. Under then-Chairman Tom Wheeler, the Obama-era FCC did try to limit intrastate prices, but those efforts were repeatedly shot down by court rulings. Shortly after President Trump appointed Pai to replace Wheeler in early 2017, Pai instructed FCC lawyers to drop the commission's court defense of a cap on intrastate calling rates. That helped lead to a June 2017 court victory for prison phone company Global Tel*Link in its lawsuit against the intrastate cap.
Pai's letter did not mention that his own actions helped cement the status quo in which the FCC does not regulate intrastate prices. It's well-established that the FCC can regulate interstate rates, those affecting calls that cross state lines. Pai is even proposing to lower the FCC-imposed rate caps on interstate calls from 25 to 16 per minute in an order the FCC will vote on next month. But Pai's plan doesn't limit prices on intrastate calls, those in which the prisoner and the person on the other end of the line are in the same state. Under then-Chairman Tom Wheeler, the Obama-era FCC did try to limit intrastate prices, but those efforts were repeatedly shot down by court rulings. Shortly after President Trump appointed Pai to replace Wheeler in early 2017, Pai instructed FCC lawyers to drop the commission's court defense of a cap on intrastate calling rates. That helped lead to a June 2017 court victory for prison phone company Global Tel*Link in its lawsuit against the intrastate cap.
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Executive orders are designed to vaporize at the drop of a hat. The legislature is supposed to take care of this stuff.
The FCC is supposed to simply allocate RF spectrum for radiotelephone operations, theoretically in the best interests of the public, not the highest bidder
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For the purpose of regulating interstate and foreign commerce in communication by wire and radio so as 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, a rapid, efficient, Nation-wide, and world-wide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges, for the purpose of the national defense, for the purpose of promoting safety of life and property through the use of wire and radio communication, and for the purpose of securing a more effective execution of this policy by centralizing authority heretofore granted by law to several agencies and by granting additional authority with respect to interstate and foreign commerce in wire and radio communication, there is hereby created a commission to be known as the ''Federal Communications Commission,'' which shall be constituted as hereinafter provided, and which shall execute and enforce the provisions of this Act
That's literally section one of the Communications Act of 1934. It literally say, "by wire".
The legislature is supposed to take care of this stuff
Again, it literally says, that Congress is creating this group to handle it so they don't have to...
for the purpose of securing a more effective execution of this policy by centralizing authority heretofore granted by law to several agencies and by granting additional authority with respect to interstate and foreign commerce in wire and radio communication
I get what you're saying. The President can totally reappoint everyone in the FCC if they so choose but Congress has clearly passed the ball out of their court on the matter and given the power solely to the Federal Communications Commission to deal with it, with several asterisks attached to that (just in case they
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You need to read what you just posted...
It specifically states "INTERState" meaning between the states not "INTRAState" meaning within the same state. Nowhere in what you quoted is intrastate mentioned. Intrastate communications is supposed to be regulated by the State. That is what the public service commissions exist for.
Re:Good - the right thing to do. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good - the right thing to do. (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. Because prison phones are so expensive, it's predominantly the families of the incarcerated who bear the cost--because they still want contact with their family.
Re:Good - the right thing to do. (Score:4, Insightful)
It is the contact with family that helps those in prison work towards bettering themselves, and re-integrate into society. They lose some rights when convicted, not all rights.
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It is the contact with family that helps those in prison work towards bettering themselves, and re-integrate into society.
That lowers profits for prisons and correctional officer unions.
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Yep. And sometimes even counties and municipalities.
Then why haven't I been able to find any of them and why does Wikipedia then claim that "the FCC's mandated jurisdiction covers the 50 states"? And how does it work when counties and municipalities are regulating the frequency spectrum on their own?
The US is much more like Switzerland than Germany or Japan
Don't know about Japan, but Germany doesn't have local communication authorities with the power of the federal one.
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Federal authority to regulate commerce extends only to interstate commerce. This is stated in the "Commerce Clause" of the US Constitution.
While the FCC's jurisdiction is the 50 states, its power extends only to matters that have impact across state lines. Thin
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In particular I was referring to this comment:
Which is certainly different than the US, where the state level governments do have powers that would be held by a national government in other countries.
I didn't say anything about American Federalism bein
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I'm going to summarize California, as it's the State I live in - but they are all pretty similar. Start with the activities of the State [lexology.com] in regulating intrastate communications. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is all-powerful inside the State of California when it comes to any utility or service inside the State of California. Power, telecom, water, sewer - all those things are 100% the domain of the State Government, not the Federal Government. Rates, how consumers use them, etc. Sta
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I would suggest you take a quick review of the way the US functions before drawing conclusions about how it functions
Except I wasn't talking about any random matter of government, but rather about the matters that FCC analogues in other countries handle. *Lots* of countries have regional and municipal governments for dealing with local things. They don't tend to have their own government bodies that deal with the kind of technical matters that the FCC analogues regularly deal with.
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If states are being dicks about this the answer is again obvious, the citizens of that state can gather signatures to put it on the ballot for them to decide and any official being a prick can be voted out, its much better and frankly smarter than trying to get the fed to control everything.
"Signatures"? Yeah, that'll work. LOL.
Most people probably think prison isn't tough enough - there's still crime out there!
Rehabilitation and reintegration can be much easier if people have contact with their families, ie. less crime.
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Exactly and I don't see why anybody would try to make this political as the constitution makes it pretty damn clear what is controlled by the fed and what is controlled by the states and STATE prisons are obviously the jurisdiction of the states.
Apparently people are stupid enough such that they will downmod such a post stating just that to 0....
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Nobody really knows what Biden is saying. His thick basement walls protect his campaign from his gaffes.
Re:Good - the right thing to do. (Score:5, Insightful)
It is better to be quiet in your basement and be thought a fool, than to tweet at 2am and remove all doubt.
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Nobody really knows what Biden is saying. His thick basement walls protect his campaign from his gaffes.
Almost anything Biden says will hurt him. If he confirms the dumb stuff he said during the primary, he will lose swing voters. If he shifts toward the center, he will lose progressives.
His best strategy is to just keep his mouth shut as long as possible and hope he doesn't do a Dewey.
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Apparently, those thick walls have a hole big enough to push a network cable through. I saw him talking with Colbert last night.
Weasel Ajit Pai sees the writing on the wall: (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Weasel Ajit Pai sees the writing on the wall: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Weasel Ajit Pai sees the writing on the wall: (Score:2)
I think you misunderstand the market value of a pro-business ex-federal regulator.
Pai will put his auction experience to good use auctioning himself to the highest-biding telco.
Re: Weasel Ajit Pai sees the writing on the wall: (Score:5, Interesting)
It only sort of work that way for FCC commissioners. The FCC is neither part of a federal executive department nor part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States. In other words, the POTUS has very little control over the FCC beyond nominating new commissioners when they resign or die, much like the Supreme Court.
Unlike the courts, it is not unusual for the chair to offer to resign at the start of a new president's term. That said, if the chair does not do so, the president cannot force the chair to resign, nor does the president have any authority to fire the chair. (Presumably Congress could, but good luck with that.) So unless Pai voluntarily resigns outright, we're stuck with Pai as a member of the commission until at least the end of his 5-year term in January of 2022.
That said, in theory, the new president can designate a different chair for the commission, which would then demote the current chair to being a normal commissioner. As far as I'm aware, there is no precedent for doing so, but there's also nothing in the governing law that says that the president cannot designate a new chair without the old chair resigning, so presumably this is possible.
Re: Weasel Ajit Pai sees the writing on the wall: (Score:1)
I'd assume he'd just offer to resign like almost everyone else does. There's no reason to think he wouldn't offer the same respect offered to the incoming President as has traditionally been offered in the past.
Just because someone has policies we don't like doesn't make them a bad person.
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Re: Weasel Ajit Pai sees the writing on the wall: (Score:1)
No, I just chuckle and move on. I am not here to troll people like him. I am here to demonstrate to them their world view is flawed. Demonstrate. It isn't that hard considering how idiotic some here are and completely lacking any knowledge of history or even base simple logic I find here. What amuses me most of all is that you knuckleheads are so afraid of me you always post AC. *THAT* makes me cum bucketloads of jizz. Lolololol
Re: Weasel Ajit Pai sees the writing on the wall: (Score:1)
Your vast intelligence and deeply considered opinion has left me no choice but to value your views above my own. I am entirely convinced by your logic, evidence, and facts. You are clearly way smarter than me.
Lmao
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I'd assume he'd just offer to resign like almost everyone else does.
FCC commissioners serve 5 year terms. They DO NOT resign just because there is a new president.
There's no reason to think he wouldn't offer the same respect offered to the incoming President as has traditionally been offered in the past.
There is no such tradition at the FCC.
as per the usual (Score:3, Insightful)
It's much MUCH easier to destroy something than to build the same thing. This administration has taken a wrecking ball to basically anything that it could. This wasn't a bug - it's a feature of putting the "government is bad" party in power with an extremely sub-par leader installed at the top. The chances of this group replacing Obamas policies with something that works better? Vanishingly small. And the odds are even lower that they'll manage to improve anything. That would take competence far beyond what's on offer at the moment.
Historians are going to look at the 2010s as a case study of "this decade is a great way to contrast the differences between a competent president and an incompetent one".
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you obviously dont know fucking shit about telecom, as expressed by the diarrhea coming out of your mouth. If it crosses state lines, its federal, if its within the state, its up to the state. What is so fucking hard for you to understand about the word INTRASTATE. Pull your fucking head out of your TDS ass and get a fucking clue. The feds have NO AUTHORITY to fuck with what happens within a state. That requires an AMENDMENT. Do all you millenials lack the basic fucking clue about civics? No wonder you fuck
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It means a whole generation of people who received a mediocre education because of fads in education that became predominant in the post-Watergate era.
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So you're saying the DEA has no authority to do anything about it if I plant 100 acres of pot so long as I only sell to locals?
Interesting.
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Definitely an overreach of their authority. If a state asks for federal help, they could help. But their overreach has never been legally sanctioned. If a state were to challenge it, they would have to leave. Look at the local vs federal government issue stirring in Portland. They're trying to throw out federal law enforcement for trying to arrest rioters. There's allegations of rights being violated by the ACLU. Now crimes on federal property are still regulated at the federal level, but the debate is that
It was illegal... (Score:1, Informative)
Sigh, Ok... It is right there in the write-up, you don't even need to open up TFA to read it... Here, with emphasis added:
See? What Obama's FCC did was illegal — according to to repeated court-findings. Pai was right to stop fighting it...
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My main point is that this administration is pulling down every single Obama-era item, and they're using any excuse that they can. Sometimes it
P'se have mercy, the man is *cough* *cough* sick! (Score:2)
... I implore NARUC and state regulatory commissions to take action on intrastate inmate calling services rates to enable more affordable communications for the incarcerated and their families."
Pai's letter did not mention that his own actions helped cement the status quo in which the FCC does not regulate intrastate prices. It's well-established that the FCC can regulate interstate rates, those affecting calls that cross state lines...
There's something seriously wrong with the fella, so please have mercy! Just look around this administration and tell me what is being done right.
My take: We're seeing early signs of schizophrenia. We should help the man. What else can we do?
Oh wait...the election is a few months away...but he may win!!! Sleepy J** may not make it I am afraid!
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> Just look around this administration and tell me what is being done right.
How about this. After multiple courts repeatedly ruled that the FCC does not have the power to do, Pai had the FCC stop pretending to exercise power it does not have under the law. That sounds like doing the right thing to me.
Perhaps you prefer politicians and bureaucrats who think they are all-powerful dictators, who totally ignore the law and the Constitution?
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Just look around this administration and tell me what is being done right.
You barely have to look at all. Just listen to the bureacrats shrieking and clinging to their office furniture. Look closer and you'll find effective reforms taking away their powers, causing turmoil similar to that from when Bilbo took Gollum's ring.
Another reason... (Score:1, Insightful)
to look forward to Trump being replaced by a Dem. That would almost certainly be the end of Pai's tenure at the FCC, and I would so love to see the door hitting that fucker's backside on his way out.
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>They declared war on the american people the MINUTE obummer let them buy those fucking tanks in the first place.
Meanwhile GWB was the one who was actually responsible for this current wave of spending to militarize the police, at the urging of frightened sheep to "do something" in the wake of 9/11.
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Some of us don't mind Obama being bunched together with Dubya when we're talking about whats been going wrong in government. By all means, lets acknowledge they are both culpable.
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Don't try to use logic to argue with LOLbertarians and other RWNJ. They simply do not have the ability to evaluate new information and modify their talking point based world view.
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That would almost certainly be the end of Pai's tenure at the FCC
If you don't like the law, tell them to change it. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a completely separate question of whether the rates are abusive and should change. They are abusive and they should change.
But the FCC does not determine the law. The FCC sets regulations within the bounds of the law.
Sometimes the FCC doesn't have authority it should, and sometimes it has authority it shouldn't. But whether it's good or bad in any case doesn't determine what the law says the FCC can and can't do. The FCC is not a telecommunications dictator.
If the law says that this particular slice of telecommunications (which is not a general case of FCC's telecommunications charter) is the state's domain and the courts have upheld that, then the state law should be what regulates it.
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Oh! I know the plot to this one!
1) Get judicial precedent for your interpretation of the law by installing a sycophant as the head of the regulating body who then stops defending the topic in an active court battle (Source: TFA)
2) Raise prices because "the markets will correct it if it becomes a problem" (Source: Libertarian wet dreams) and there's no competition
3) Sell it to the public as a statement of how criminals shouldn't get a break, blatantly ignoring the fact that police are arresting people on BS
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I hope your handlers don't notice what a mess your comments have become. You'll be back botting for goldsellers in WoW again if they notice how bad you are at this.
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Poor thing, must have UID envy. Tell me, how does 7 digits feel?
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Sorry, what was that?
What is the long-game? (Score:2)
Is the point that SRCs won't take action, thus guaranteeing all prisons become for-profit enterprises?
Or is he handicapping lobbyists by removing an easily-corrupted congress and forcing them onto 50 contentious legislatures?
Time will tell.
Follow the law - he's not a dictator (Score:2)
Pai has been consistent on following the law in regards to what Congress gave the FCC authority to do what what it did not. As mentioned in the summary, Pai thinks these shoes should be regulated. He's also aware that, as the courts have repeatedly ruled, the FCC has no power to do this.
Where the authority is vested in Congress, Pai says "here is my recommendation to Congress", where it's the states who have the authority, for intrastate matters, Pai releases a statement with a recommendation for states.
So? (Score:4, Informative)
>"Ajit Pai Urges States To Cap Prison Phone Rates After He Helped Kill FCC Caps"
And? So? It is so hard to understand that the Federal Government shouldn't be involved in such matters, anyway? It isn't a Federal power in the first place, especially not through some unelected agency. If a State wants to do it, that is their domain. That is the way it is supposed to work. It doesn't matter if it is a good idea or bad idea, government closer to the people is almost always better. State/local power allows for flexibility, for more involvement, for more accountability, for better meeting the regional needs of the those citizens, for faster response, and for more experimentation and innovation.
The founders knew this. We seem to have forgotten.
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The Federal government needs to back off. We don't want a centralized government. If we did, we'd change the Constitution to reflect a change from federalism.
On the other hand, State governments are a hot mess. I don't know if it's the decades of coddling them with federal funding, or just general incompetence in politics, but it's going to be sink-or-swim for these guys once we hand authority back over to States.
P.S. while States should have some rights. They don't have the authority legalize slavery or an
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They don't have the authority legalize slavery or anything stupid like that.
No need to, that's the 13th Amendment:
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
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No need to, that's the 13th Amendment:
Correct. One purpose of Constitutional Amendments is to control the limits of State power.
We probably won't resolve the issue of abortion one way or the other until there is a new Amendment.
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for millennials it is. These dumb fucks still think they elect a KING every goddamn 4 years. They dont have the first fucking clue how the separation of powers work. To them its a hindrance to their totalitarian objective, not knowing they too are fed to the wolves in the end.
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I see, making it unaffordable for prisoners to communicate with their family back home doesn't violate the 8th Amendment.
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I see, before the telephone was invented, they charged inordinate fees for telephone calls.
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The usual result is less accountability because the minority in power is able to distract their neighbours (the voters) and hide the truth. In addition, federal assistance frequently demands that states and municipalities self-regulate, meaning no-one watches the watch (while it has federal powers).
Self-regulation means laws such as income tax are levied upon the people three times, with the federal tier tip-toeing around the lower tiers while being more violent. Evil government by design, and a reason
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>" I'll say it again, democracy doesn't work."
Which is why we are a representative constitutional republic, instead.
>"People bullet-pointing the power of democracy are ignoring the problem. In a country where people don't have the right to vote and a political system intent on suppressing that vote (Hint: USA), democracy has nothing to do with the will of the people."
You must live in some different country than I.
Cognitive dissonance (Score:3, Insightful)
So, to say that Pai "caused" the present situation by returning to the Constitutional status quo ante is palpable nonsense. Further, the article states that Pai is "begging" States to take care of the problem, and presents no evidence to support the claim.
The only reason this article was greenlit on slashdot was an arbitrary shot against a Trump administration official that people don't like because of his stance on net neutrality. Remember that whole thing, the blackouts? If, we were told, NN wasn't imposed, an apocalypse was going to instantly destroy the internet as we know it? Curiously, as always, it turns out, that's not where the threats to freedom of expression came from.
There's another twist to this: why, exactly, are the regulations on the utilities, instead of on the prisons? Prisons are highly regulated already, are already under lots of constraints for what they can and cannot do, and States and the Fed executives are perfectly capable of replacing their service providers, and private prisons are already subject to contracts with the State - all problems can be fixed in a year with a flick of a pen of some mid-level executive. A perfectly coherent way of handling this would be to put the service contracts to a public competitive process like most things that are procured by the State, and be done with it.
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(dumb I can't edit a just-posted comment)
Area Codes do not define LOCATION (Score:1)
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How does the 'phone company' know what price to charge before completing the call to an unknown location?
What relevance does this have to the excess charges for phone calls _from_ prison?
With cell phones and VOIP and call-forwarding the non-jailed person could be anywhere!
This does not result in 30c/minute call charges for people that aren't in prison.
Who in the USA still pays 'per minute' charges for calls?
Prisoners.
It is insane and highway robbery or rather prisoner extortion to be charging even that much for phone calls.
Agreed. I'm surprised it doesn't fall foul of profiteering laws.
Business Plan (Score:2)
Since the actual cost of phone calls is essentially free these days, just set up an out-of-state relay that the prisoner calls, which then forwards back to his local family.
Charge one or two cents per minute for the service, and the prisoner otherwise gets the low federally capped rate. Profit!
Dear Lord, another rabid anti-Ajit Pai Story (Score:2)
From the summary:
Pai's letter did not mention that his own actions helped cement the status quo in which the FCC does not regulate intrastate prices.
Oh really? So Ajit Pai took positive action to end FCC regulation of intrastate (telephone call) prices? Let's see if that's true...
It's well-established that the FCC can regulate interstate rates, those affecting calls that cross state lines. Pai is even proposing to lower the FCC-imposed rate caps on interstate calls from 25 to 16 per minute in an order the FCC will vote on next month.
Well, OK, but that has nothing to do with intrastate rates, does it?
But Pai's plan doesn't limit prices on intrastate calls, those in which the prisoner and the person on the other end of the line are in the same state.
Of course not, it simply regulates interstate rates
Under then-Chairman Tom Wheeler, the Obama-era FCC did try to limit intrastate prices, but those efforts were repeatedly shot down by court rulings.
Repeatedly shot down by court rulings under the Obama administration, before Ajit ever took over the FCC. Interesting.
Shortly after President Trump appointed Pai to replace Wheeler in early 2017, Pai instructed FCC lawyers to drop the commission's court defense of a cap on intrastate calling rates.
Wow! You nailed him, he decided to stop wasting FCC legal resources fighting a clearly illegal intrastate calling rate cap
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Mod parent up. Regardless how you feel about the issue, presenting it fairly should be a base expectation.
Sadly shocking when an official is both... (Score:1)
consistent, and dedicated to the Constitution.
The man opposed the Obama rules for a simple reason: they were not backed-up by any written law or the United States Constitution. Then, the guy effectively says "ah, but you states have some power here in the form of your own regulations on your own prisons, so you should use it" and he gets accused of hypocrisy. Very sad.
Just as with "net neutrality", a lot of the stuff Ajit Pai is accused of doing wrong is actually a case of him following the law of the lan
Re: Sadly shocking when an official is both... (Score:2)
The man opposed the Obama rules for a simple reason: they were not backed-up by any written law or the United States Constitution. Then, the guy effectively says "ah, but you states have some power here in the form of your own regulations on your own prisons, so you should use it" and he gets accused of hypocrisy. Very sad.
It's even easier to explain - the Former FCC Chairman, Wheeler, who served under Obama, repeatedly tried to implement intrastate rate caps, but the courts repeatedly overruled his attempts to do so. It's not even a question of Ajit Pai being a strict Constitutionalist, he may or may not be, but what is obvious is if the federal courts keep slapping down your attempts to do something, anything, eventually even the slowest of political appointees will realize the effort is futile.
I realize few will read that
Like blaming the cop for not enforcing a (Score:2)
Like blaming the cop for not enforcing a law that doesn't exist, just because you think it should be the law.
"you-did-this dept"? Really?
He stopped wasting our time and money defending lawsuits they were going to lose anyway. If the law doesn't allow them to regulate it, the law doesn't allow them to regulate it, and no amount of screeching is going to change that.
If you think the FCC should have the authority to regulate intrastate calls, then lobby Congress to make that happen.