<story><title>The FCC has voted to end exorbitant phone fees for prison inmates</title><url>http://qz.com/530909/the-us-just-lifted-a-crushing-burden-on-prison-inmates-and-their-families/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Someone1234</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t understand why the Republicans voted against.&lt;p&gt;Look, I get it, you support private industry. But let&amp;#x27;s remember context, you support capitalism where COMPETITION exists, in this situation it is an artificially created monopoly of one company.&lt;p&gt;Now if they had an alternative proposal that required prisons to have two or more vendors, I&amp;#x27;d be totally onboard with not setting an artificial price restriction. Since hopefully competition will provide the market price.&lt;p&gt;Essentially they have lost the forest for the trees. Yes government weighing into capitalism is &amp;quot;bad&amp;quot; but government already allowed that by removing competition, so this is a correction of that existing issue.&lt;p&gt;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).&lt;p&gt;The whole private prison thing makes me want to vomit.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>linksbro</author><text>They voted against it because they believe it &amp;quot;exceed(s) the commission’s legal authority.&amp;quot;[1] But they both said the idea had &amp;quot;well intentions.&amp;quot; [2]&lt;p&gt;Makes you wonder what horrors a conservative majority FCC will cause.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theguardian.com&amp;#x2F;us-news&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;oct&amp;#x2F;22&amp;#x2F;regulators-slash-price-prison-calls-fcc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theguardian.com&amp;#x2F;us-news&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;oct&amp;#x2F;22&amp;#x2F;regulators-sl...&lt;/a&gt;
[2] Full commission meeting (item was first on agenda) &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.fcc.gov&amp;#x2F;events&amp;#x2F;open-commission-meeting-october-2015&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.fcc.gov&amp;#x2F;events&amp;#x2F;open-commission-meeting-october-2...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>The FCC has voted to end exorbitant phone fees for prison inmates</title><url>http://qz.com/530909/the-us-just-lifted-a-crushing-burden-on-prison-inmates-and-their-families/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Someone1234</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t understand why the Republicans voted against.&lt;p&gt;Look, I get it, you support private industry. But let&amp;#x27;s remember context, you support capitalism where COMPETITION exists, in this situation it is an artificially created monopoly of one company.&lt;p&gt;Now if they had an alternative proposal that required prisons to have two or more vendors, I&amp;#x27;d be totally onboard with not setting an artificial price restriction. Since hopefully competition will provide the market price.&lt;p&gt;Essentially they have lost the forest for the trees. Yes government weighing into capitalism is &amp;quot;bad&amp;quot; but government already allowed that by removing competition, so this is a correction of that existing issue.&lt;p&gt;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).&lt;p&gt;The whole private prison thing makes me want to vomit.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>toomuchtodo</author><text>&amp;gt; The whole private prison thing makes me want to vomit.&lt;p&gt;Muckrock (shoutout to @morisey) is doing an investigative piece on private prisons. If possible, please think about contributing $10-20 on it.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.muckrock.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;archives&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;sep&amp;#x2F;18&amp;#x2F;justice-sells-whos-buying&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.muckrock.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;archives&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;sep&amp;#x2F;18&amp;#x2F;justice-s...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>