FCC Opposes Moving Prison-Calling Challenge to 5th Circuit
The FCC opposed a push by incarcerated persons communications services (IPCS) provider Securus to move the appeal of the FCC’s prison-calling order from the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to the 5th Circuit (see 2501280053). The FCC questioned the rationale for the move in a brief posted Wednesday (docket 24-8028).
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“Securus does not challenge the validity of the lottery that selected this Court to review the Order,” the FCC said: “Securus also does not deny that multiple parties are aggrieved by the rulemaking portion of the Order and have sought to have the Order reviewed in their home circuits.”
Securus’ argument is based on a quirk of timing, the FCC said. The agency prepared separate Federal Register summaries of the main portion of the order, in which it adopted revised rules, and a separate, shorter notice in which it resolved petitions that Securus had filed for clarification and waiver of the old rules, the FCC said. “The Office of the Federal Register processed those summaries separately, and the shorter summary -- just paragraphs long -- was approved and published several weeks before the other,” the brief said: “Securus now claims to have been the only ‘party aggrieved’ by the first-published portion of the Order.”
Contrary to Securus' claims, “it was not substantially aggrieved by the FCC’s dismissal of its clarification and waiver petitions,” and “the interest of justice thus does not require transfer to Securus’ preferred forum,” the FCC said.