glans

For a long time I hated markdown.

Now I love it.

What do you think?

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

Wed, Apr 10th 2024 05:29am - Karl Bode

However terrible telecom monopolies are in the free world, they’re arguably worse in prisons. For decades, journalists and researchers have outlined how a select number of prison telecom giants like Securus have enjoyed a cozy, government-kickback based monopoly over prison phone and teleconferencing services, resulting sky high rates (upwards of $14 per minute at some prisons) for inmate families.

Most of these pampered monopolies have shifted over to monopolizing prison phone videoconferencing as well. And the relationship between government and monopoly is so cozy, several of these companies, like Securus, have been caught helping to spy on privileged attorney client communications.

There’s not much in the way of oversight, so the problem just keeps evolving. Case in point: Ars Technica notes that a civil rights group has filed a two new lawsuits against two Michigan counties, two county sheriffs, and two prison monopolies, Securus and Viapath (formerly known as Global Tel*Link Corporation, or GTL.

The lawsuits allege that Michigan banned in-person visits in order to maximize revenue from voice and video calls as part of a “quid pro quo kickback scheme” with prison phone companies. It’s something the group states has become increasingly common over the last decade as telecom monopolies lobby governments and private prison contractors to ban in-person visits to make more money:

“Why has this happened? The answer highlights a profound flaw in how decisions too often get made in our legal system: for-profit jail telecom companies realized that they could earn more profit from phone and video calls if jails eliminated free in-person visits for families. So the companies offered sheriffs and county jails across the country a deal: if you eliminate family visits, we’ll give you a cut of the increased profits from the larger number of calls. This led to a wave across the country, as local jails sought to supplement their budgets with hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from some of the poorest families in our society.”

Much like telecoms out in the broader free world, government has such a cozy relationship with telecom monopolies, the incentive to hold them accountable for much of anything is largely muted. In instances like domestic surveillance, it’s often impossible to determine where government ends and private monopolies like AT&T begin.

One lawsuit documents how Securus lobbied to have in-person visits eliminated and video kiosks installed where in-person visitation centers used to be. A contract was signed that doled out kickbacks to government so they got a big chunk of the revenue, incentivizing prisons to keep inmate populations high:

“Securus pays the County 50% of the $12.99 price tag for every 20-minute video call and 78% of the $0.21 per minute cost of every phone call. The contract promises the County an entirely new revenue stream, as well as a minimum guaranteed annual payment of $190,000 paid up front. And the contract gives Securus the right to terminate its video call service or pay the County less money if the jail population decreases by more than 5% or if
the jail fails to ensure a minimum number of monthly paid video calls.”

Much with the broader prison industrial complex, it’s not hard to see how perverse financial incentives point in all the wrong directions. It’s also not hard to see how this sort of relationship can easily be sold to cash-hungry counties and municipalities as more profitable, safer, and more secure. A win all around, unless you’re a poor inmate family member with limited resources and no personal lobbyists.

Efforts to do something about prison telecom monopolies were scuttled by FCC boss Ajit Pai, whose former clients included Securus. Pai not only routinely opposed efforts by ex-FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn to drive change in the prison telco sector, one of his very first acts as FCC boss was to pull the rugs out from underneath his own lawyers as they tried to support those reforms in court (they, as intended, lost).

An undercover unit of the Metropolitan Police, together with MI5, for decades monitored and infiltrated the Socialist Workers Party while, by contrast, a “high level policy decision” was taken not to infiltrate the neo-Nazi National Front.

1985

source: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1193270/a-z-of-a-miners-poster-handprint/

Source: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1275069/poster-handprint-community-worskshop/

1987 (made)

Artist/Maker: Handprint Community Worskshop (print-makers)

Place of origin: Kirklees (made)

Brief description: Poster depicting the outline of Africa and an automatic weapon, 'Death Aid Presents White South Africa', made by Handprint Community Workshop, designed and printed by Art Raiders, 1987

Physical description: Laminated, portrait oriented, poster consisting of a white background with black writing, an outline of Africa filled in with fluorescent red and a black stenciled image of an automatic weapon.

[printed by anarchists]

I had this RS-1 Plus handheld gaming console. I liked it because:

• comes with lots of games
• cheap I think about $15
• fairly comfortable and has actual buttons not like trying to play a game on a phone
• fun to play for a little while but not toooo fun that it can't be put down

main problem was it wouldn't save any progress even when the game seemed to allow it. I guess it just doesn't have any writable storage or however they got the games didn't include that function.

is there something similarly low end and simple that allows saving? I don't want to DIY.

See this weirdly sarcastic blog post about the RS devices for some info hal of which I don't understand.

here is some free and unsolicited advice. agree/disagree?

situations you will want a cordless drill:

• you are working where there is not guaranteed convenient electricity available
• you need to be extremely mobile and a cord would be hazardous or very inconvenient
• wet environments? idk

examples: rough construction, outdoors, drywall racing

benefits of a corded drill:

• no batteries to charge
• no batteries that can be stolen
• no batteries you can lose or break
• no need to plan around charging batteries
• no batteries which allow the manufacturer to twist your arm into buying a new device when the old one works just fine; less susceptible to planned obsolescence
• no batteries to weigh the tool down: lighter and more comfortable to use the tool and better balance
• tool is smaller and easier to use in cramped situations
• don't need a case, charger, extra batteries or other junk
• one less thing to go wrong; more repairable if it does
• more powerful

you are in a comm called "DIY" = you are probably always working near a power outlet and not going very far. consider a corded drill instead of mindlessly going cordless.

Make sure you get a decent extension cord. I used heatshink tubing to add an extra 6ft to my cord, that makes it long enough for many applications. Sometimes I tie on an extra one.

i don't know anything about trucks much less truck-human mating please forgive my ignorance comrades.

New documents have been showing up at the ICJ page for Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel):

• 12 February 2024 : Request for additional measures under Article 75(1) of the Rules of Court submitted by South Africa

• 15 February 2024 : Observations of the State of Israel on the request for additional measures under Article 75 (1) of the Rules of Court

• 16 February 2024: Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel) - Decision of the Court on South Africa’s request for additional provisional measures

• 6 March 2024: Request for the indication of provisional measures and modification of the Court's prior provisional measures decisions

I do not know what to make of them. Is there coverage of this?

a little while ago i was on the public transit in the morning. since i have a regularish work schedule these days i see the same people here and there.

me (and everyone else) was overhearing a conversation by 2 teens. one of them was saying they only drink bottled water at school because they suspect lead contamination in the pipes. (the kids at this school look like rich kids, i don't think there is probably lead but it's not totally impossible i guess.)

after listening to this for a little while i turned around and gave that person friendly but firm lecture that if they think there is lead they should get a testing kit (which is free). [edit: and i told them how to do that.] why let other people drink water with lead? lead is very bad. if there is lead, you could be a hero for finding out. if not actually interested enough to do that, stop being a snob and drink the tap water because municipal water is a gift and you should appreciate it. then it was time for everyone to disembark.

now i see this person sometimes and we mutually actively ignore each other.

what do you think?

Descriptions from vimeo:

May 2003 - A report by Sandra Jordan for Channel 4's Dispatches and Unreported World

Palestinian civilians live under the threat of Israeli Defence Force attacks that do not discriminate between militants and children. Israeli settlers live in fear of suicide attacks. But it is not only Palestinians and Israelis who are dying. Since the Gulf war, three Westerners have come under Israeli army attack.

An American peace activist was crushed to death by an IDF bulldozer; a British peace protester was shot in the head by an IDF sniper and remains in a coma; and a British cameraman was shot dead by the IDF.

Within hours of arriving Sandra and Rodrigo are shot at and tear-gassed by Israeli troops breaking up a memorial service for Rachel Corrie, an American peace activist crushed by an Israeli Army bulldozer two days before.

That sets the tone for a five-week stay in which they document the shooting by Israeli troops of the British peace campaigner Tom Hurndall, the death of James Miller, the award-winning cameraman who worked extensively for Channel 4, killed as he filmed Israeli troops bulldozing Palestinian homes, and the deaths and mutilation of many innocent Palestinians and Israelis.