FCC Reverses Prison Phone Price Cap: $500M Savings Blocked, Top Trump Donors Benefit | July 4, 2025 Podcast & Article Analysis

The Alchemy of Separation: On the FCC and the Price of a Voice

It happens quietly, this sort of thing. A decision rendered in the hermetic chambers of the Federal Communications Commission, couched in the bloodless prose of bureaucracy: "Order on Reconsideration," "Temporary Suspension," "Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking." The words slide past the attention, designed not to snag on the consciousness of the ordinary citizen. Yet beneath this veneer of administrative procedure lies a transaction of a different order, an alchemy practiced for decades that transmutes human longing and institutional power into pure profit. The FCC, under the stewardship of Chair Brendan Carr, has chosen to suspend, until at least April 2027, rate caps that would have rendered prison phone calls merely expensive, rather than extortionate. The caps, a fragile victory born of a grandmother’s decades-long anguish, would have limited the cost of a fifteen-minute call to ninety cents. Without them, it can ag…