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House Commerce Committee Chmn. Tauzin (R-La.) and U.S. Attorney G...

House Commerce Committee Chmn. Tauzin (R-La.) and U.S. Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft separately are pressing FCC to act swiftly but cautiously in adopting rules for federal inmate payphone services. Sec. 276 of Telecom Act includes “mandatory, not discretionary” provision directing Commission to ensure adequate supply of payphones and competition in payphone services in correctional institutions, Tauzin wrote FCC Chmn. Powell Feb. 4. Congress also had directed FCC to establish “per-call compensation plan” within 9 months of Act’s enactment to provide fair compensation to carriers for all calls from such settings, he said: “However, it is now 6 years since the enactment of Section 276, and the Commission has yet to fully implement” its requirements. Tauzin emphasized that before FCC adopted rules in that area, it “must do whatever is necessary to maintain and improve, not degrade, the mechanisms currently in place to monitor and control inmate calling and to detect and weed out illicit activity.” Ashcroft told Powell in letter Feb. 1 that Dept. of Justice “strongly opposes any initiative that would allow an inmate or an inmate’s called party to select their own” carrier. He said “if inmate telephone service is opened up to virtually all telecommunications providers,” ability of law enforcement to prevent inmates from harassing victims and witnesses of crime and to “monitor and trace calls for criminal activity” would be hampered: “Federal correctional facilities must maintain their current ability to control the telephone carriers who route inmate calls.”