Doesn't look like it. "For decades, the cost of an ever-expanding suite of invasive surveillance services has been passed on to incarcerated people and their loved ones. With today’s new rules, prison telecoms will be barred from recovering the cost of the majority of such services from ratepayers."
It's far more likely that the FCC knows the requisite surveillance is already integrated into the general telecom infrastructure in the country. There is no longer any need for special surveillance, because we already track everyone. Each prison just gets a ittle web page telling them which prisoner should be watched and why.
But don't worry. Even though we've now successfully integrated surveillance and tracking into our nation's telecom system, I'm confident they won't use any web app like the ones prisons will get to track people who are not in prison. /s
Anyway, it's zero cost to the telecoms, precisely because the requisite tech is already there and running 24/7. And guess who put it there? Who will opt out? No one, because the government wants that data. And the telecoms and government are collaborating to get it from every segment of society. I know this next part might be going a step too far, but it wouldn't surprise me if the real issue behind this is that the rank amateur idiot prison telecom companies don't collect good enough data. The powers that be may have decided to get the bumbling dimwits out of the way so they can see more clearly what's going on.
