by David M. Reutter

A company that offers a lower-cost alternative to the monopolistic practices of the nation’s largest prison and jail telephone service providers filed a federal lawsuit alleging violation of the Federal Communications Act.

The suit was filed by Millicorp, a Florida-based company that offers alternative phone services to prisoners’ family members and loved ones through its subsidiary, Cons Call Home (CCH). Millicorp, a provider of interconnected voice over Internet protocol (VOIP), is registered with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to transmit voice communications over a broadband Internet connection rather than traditional land lines.

Millicorp sued Securus, T-Netix, Evercom and Global Tel*Link (GTL). The first three companies are under Securus’ corporate umbrella, and in combination with GTL the firms control 70 to 80% of the nation’s prison and jail phone services.

On average, Securus and GTL charge $3.95 per call for local set-up and service plus an average of $.90 per minute for long-distance calls. Through CCH, Millicorp provides a legitimate, secure and very popular technological alternative to the higher prices charged by Securus and GTL.

To offer lower-cost phone services, CCH provides its customers with a telephone number in the prison’s local calling area, which prevents Securus ...

Just days after being accused of violating state law by secretly recording telephone conversations with reporters, Scott Gerber resigned from his position as communications director for California Attorney General Jerry Brown.

In a move fit for airing on an episode of “America’s Dumbest Public Officials,” Gerber – who, one would think, should have known better – sent a transcript of one of his secretly recorded conversations with a reporter to an editor at the reporter’s newspaper. He did so, apparently, because he didn’t agree with some of the statements in an article posted on the paper’s website that included quotes from the conversation.

Then, in a refreshing display of candor, or perhaps just naiveté, Gerber acknowledged that he had recorded conversations with other reporters without obtaining their permission. “Sure, I’ve done it before,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle, which broke the story of the secretly recorded conversations on October 30, 2009.

California is one of only a dozen states that prohibit the taping of phone calls without the consent of all parties involved (Cal. Penal Code § 632). When asked why he had recorded the conversation with the Chronicle reporter, Gerber said, “To me, it’s useful to have a ...

by John E. Dannenberg

Jail prisoners in California, Florida, Michigan and Texas have unknowingly had their phone calls to defense attorneys secretly recorded and handed over to prosecutors. The recordings surfaced before trial, when prosecutors were required to divulge all the evidence they possessed to the prisoners’ lawyers.

Highly indignant San Diego defense attorney Jim McMahon, whose calls with a client were recorded, complained, “We aren’t talking about cursory stuff [like] what kind of clothes to wear. We were talking trial strategy.”

“There’s no question that these calls are privileged, and we rely on that because the criminal justice system would come to a screeching halt if we had to drive to the jail every time we had to talk to our clients,” he added.

After McMahon’s complaint, San Diego jail staff temporarily suspended the phone recording system to allow the addition of “safeguards,” which consisted of software to automatically stop taping calls made to pre-approved attorney phone numbers.

The system was already using a database of 5,000 phone numbers for local lawyers, but it had serious deficiencies. “We thought we had a better database,” said Sanford Toyen, a legal advisor to the county. The jail’s phone system was originally ...

The military’s treatment of Army prisoners is “part of a broader pattern the military has of just throwing people in jail and not letting them talk to their attorneys, not let visitors come, and this is outrageous. In the civilian world even murderers get visits from their friends,” according to civil defense attorney James Branum.

Afghanistan war resister Travis Bishop has been held largely “incommunicado” in the Northwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility at Fort Lewis, Washington.

Bishop, who is being held by the military as a “prisoner of conscience,” according to Amnesty International, was transported to Fort Lewis on September 9, 2009 to serve a 12-month sentence in the Regional Correctional Facility. He had refused orders to deploy to Afghanistan based on his religious beliefs, and had filed for Conscientious Objector (CO) status.

Bishop, who served a 13-month deployment to Iraq and was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, was court martialed by the Army for his refusal to deploy to Afghanistan. Given that he had already filed for CO status, many local observers called his sentencing a “politically driven prosecution.

By holding Bishop incommunicado, the military violated Bishop’s legal right to counsel, a violation of the Sixth Amendment to the ...

by David M. Reutter

When it comes to prison and jail telephone services, it’s all about how much money can be made without regard to the people who are bilked by for-profit phone companies. That is the sad conclusion that must be drawn from a recent decision by Florida’s Public Service Commission (PSC).

After the PSC received a complaint in March 2004 claiming that calls from the collect-only phone system at the Miami-Dade Pretrial Detention Center (MDPDC) were being improperly disconnected, the agency opened an investigation.

That investigation, conducted between 2004 and 2007, determined that three-way calling detection software was causing prisoners’ phone calls to prematurely disconnect. As a result, prisoners would have to call back to complete their conversation. That caused customers to incur additional surcharges of $2.25 per local call and $1.75 per intrastate toll call.

The MDPDC’s phone service provider, TCG Public Communications, Inc., was previously a wholly-owned subsidiary of AT&T; it was acquired by Global Tel*Link Corporation in June 2005. TCG replaced the errant three-way calling detection software in March 2008, and responded to the PSC complaint by offering to establish a settlement fund of $175,000 to provide refunds for affected customers.

PSC staff recommended in ...

Chief U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell has dismissed a lawsuit brought by a former employee of the Utah Department of Corrections who had alleged that her privacy rights were violated.

The lawsuit, filed by Lauren Barker, alleged that Kirk Dahl, a fellow prison employee, unlawfully disclosed information to prison officials regarding Barker’s contact with a recently released parolee.

Dahl’s wife, Laura Dahl, worked at the telephone company servicing Barker’s telephone line. Dahl noticed that Barker had run up a $1,500 bill calling Tonga. Dahl conveyed this information to her husband who approached Barker about it, believing Barker was calling a prisoner who had recently been released to Tonga.

Barker denied Dahl’s allegations, but Dahl notified prison investigators about the matter and Barker eventually admitted that she was having improper contact with parolees. Barker was terminated.

Barker sued Dahl, his wife, and the telephone company over the disclosure of her phone records to prison investigators. The court dismissed Barker’s claims against Dahl finding “the undisputed material facts demonstrated Ms. Barker’s invasion of privacy claims fail as a matter of law.” See: Barker v. Manti Telephone Company, USDC, D. Utah, No. 2:06-CV-00812-TC-SA (2009).

U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert E. Larsen has recommended the denial of a motion to suppress audio recordings obtained by the United States from CCA that contained attorney-client communications.

While awaiting trial on federal charges, Gary Eye allegedly conspired to have several government witnesses murdered. Eye allegedly discussed the plot over the telephone at a CCA facility. The government obtained copies of Eye’s phone calls from CCA, but the recordings CCA turned over contained calls Eye made to his attorney, and these calls were not segregated on the disc.

Eye moved to suppress the recordings CCA produced, arguing that they violated his Sixth Amendment rights. Judge Larsen disagreed, finding that Eye “failed to satisfy his burden of proving a violation and resulting prejudice.”

Eye had consented to the calls’ monitoring, Larsen concluded, because the phones clearly indicated all calls were monitored. Furthermore, because the government never listened to any attorney-client communications, Eye could not show prejudice. See: United States v. Eye, USDC, W.D. Mo., No. 05-00344-01-CR-W-ODS (2008).

Division One of the Washington State Court of Appeals has held that recording a prisoner’s jail telephone conversations does not violate privacy interests under the Washington Constitution, article 1, section 7.

Before the Court was the appeal of Michael E. Archie, who challenged the use of recordings of his jail telephone conversations at his trial on burglary in the first degree and assault in the second degree. He argued that using these recordings as evidence intruded on his protected “private affairs” under the state constitution, which provides significantly greater protection than the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The Court of Appeals disagreed. While “Washington has a long history of extending strong protections to telephonic communications,” those protections do not apply to detention settings. This distinction is exhibited in the Privacy Act, Chapter 9.73 RCW, which prohibits the interception or recording of private communications transmitted by telephone unless all parties to the communication consent. In contrast, there is no similar provision for telephone calls from prisoners in local jails.

Moreover, there are security needs to monitor prisoner communications. The telephones at the King County Jail inform prisoners of this likelihood, and when the recipient accepted the call in the face ...

Monday 12 October 2009

by: Matt Renner, t r u t h o u t | Report

President Obama promised to usher in a new era of government transparency when he was sworn into office nine months ago.

On January 21, Obama signed an executive order instructing all federal agencies and departments to "adopt a presumption in favor" of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and promised to make the federal government more transparent.

"The government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed or because of speculative or abstract fears," Obama's order said. "In responding to requests under the FOIA, executive branch agencies should act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation, recognizing that such agencies are servants of the public."

But since that time, the Obama administration has sought to conceal information in several high-profile court cases, in an effort that civil libertarians say amounts to covering up crimes committed by the Bush administration.

Last week, in a federal courthouse in New York, Obama's Justice Department attorneys again argued in favor of secrecy. The case involved 23 lawyers representing detainees at Guantánamo Bay who alleged ...

On April 15, 2009, the Mississippi Legislature passed legislation authorizing up to 25 percent, or $25,000 annually, of the money collected from prisoner telephone calls to fund a Jail and Prison Ministry.

Since the late 1990s, the Good News Jail and Prison Ministry has provided church services at the Lauderdale County Jail, funded entirely by donations. In 2007, however, the Lauderdale County Board of Supervisors requested the introduction of legislation to divert prison phone revenues, through December 31, 2011, to the chaplaincy to pay for a full-time Chaplain, and non-denominational worship services.

Sheriff Billy Sollie believes the jail ministry is important because it gives “hope of changing the heart and mind of those individuals who have chosen to prey on society, and provides them with hope for the future.” Sollie touted Ronny Shack, one of the first prisoners to join the jail ministry, as a chaplaincy success story. Sollie is convinced that Shack is now reformed, owning a local business, the Rib Shack, which provides catering for jail ministry fundraisers. “He acknowledges the message he received has led him to where he’s at today,” said Sollie.

Source: Senate Bill No. 3184 (2009), www.meridianstar.com