As a component of DOJ, BOP’s mission, in part, is to protect society by confining federal offenders in the controlled environments of prisons and community-based institutions that are safe, humane, cost-effective, and appropriately secure. In fiscal year 2010, BOP oversaw more than 209,000 inmates, housing more than 170,000 of these inmates in its 116 institutions and relying on privately managed secure institutions; residential reentry centers, also known as halfway houses; bed space secured through agreements with state and local entities; and home confinement to secure the rest. In fiscal year 2011, approximately $6.4 billion was appropriated for BOP to carry out its mission. While there is no specific statutory provision requiring BOP to provide inmates with telephone services or privileges, BOP extends telephone privileges to inmates and asserts that telephone privileges help inmates maintain family and community ties and facilitate the reintegration of inmates into society upon release from prison. However, limitations and conditions may be imposed upon an inmate’s telephone privileges to ensure that these are consistent with other aspects of BOP’s correctional management responsibilities. For example, the length of telephone calls is generally limited to 15 minutes, and the warden may restrict or suspend temporarily an inmate’s regular telephone privilege when there is reasonable suspicion that the inmate has acted in a way that threatens the safety, security, or good order of the institution, or the protection of the public. For many years, BOP provided inmates with collect-call service only—whereby the receiving party, and not the inmate, bore the cost of the call. In 1988, BOP began to shift to its current Inmate Telephone System (ITS), which provides both a collect call and a direct- dial option, emphasizing inmates’ financial responsibility and reducing the burden on others of inmates’ calls. BOP personnel within the individual prisons maintain the ITS. Specifically, BOP staff are responsible for installing, maintaining, and repairing the telephone system. Vendors provide the hardware and software that enable ITS, also known as TRUFONE, to perform the following:  use voice recognition to identify inmates placing calls;  provide each inmate with a “personal access code,” which allows inmates’ TRUFONE accounts to be debited for the cost of their calls; check the inmate’s TRUFONE account to make sure the inmate has sufficient funds for a one-minute phone call;     deny particular inmates access to telephones as warranted; and  terminate all prison telephone service if security needs dictate. record all calls automatically; restrict inmates’ calls to numbers on the inmates’ contact lists; require placement of calls only from specific telephones; In addition to direct-dial telephone service, BOP has recently made e-mail available to inmates in all of its institutions through an electronic- messaging system. Through this electronic-messaging system, inmates can communicate with a list of contacts, but they cannot access the Internet. Both inmates and persons in the community with whom they correspond must consent to having all incoming and outgoing electronic messages monitored and retained by staff. BOP established commissaries to allow inmates to purchase items not issued by prisons. Inmates purchase commissary items with funds available in individual inmate accounts managed by BOP. Funds are placed into these accounts by friends and family members (through BOP), or may be earned as wages through work performed in Federal Prison Industries or other on-site work at an institution (e.g., food service, laundry). In 1998, the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act of 1999 provided BOP with the authority to accept revenues and make expenditures from the Commissary Fund of the Federal Prison System in order to pay for ITS as well as other prisoner amenities. This authorized trust fund is a self-sustaining revolving fund account in which BOP deposits revenues generated by inmate telephone charges through ITS and pays the expenses of ITS operations—rather than through appropriations. BOP uses the profits (the amount of revenue that exceeds expenses) from operating the inmate telephone service, as well as those from the commissary and other services, to provide inmate amenities, such as employment opportunities and educational and recreational activities, that are not currently supported through appropriations. By providing amenities like these through telephone system profits, BOP is similar to other federal correctional institutions like those within the Department of Defense. In particular, the Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps all charge inmates rates above cost for telephone service. The Navy uses the profits to provide items or activities, such as movies and sports contests, for the benefit of the inmates exclusively, while the Army and the Marine Corps use the funds to provide amenities to all persons on the base. In August 2010, the Cell Phone Contraband Act of 2010 was passed and amended 18 U.S.C. § 1791 to prohibit an inmate of a prison from possessing, obtaining, or attempting to obtain a cell phone. The Cell Phone Contraband Act also provided for punishing such possession with a fine or imprisonment for not more than 1 year, or both. BOP stated that cell phones are considered hazardous tools, as defined by BOP policy as tools most likely to be used in an escape attempt or to serve as weapons capable of doing serious bodily harm to others; or those hazardous to institutional security or personal safety. According to officials in BOP’s Correctional Programs Division, when an inmate is caught with a cell phone, an incident report is filed and the inmate is subject to BOP’s disciplinary process, which involves an administrative hearing. The inmate ultimately could face a range of sanctions from transfer to a higher-security institution to loss of “good time” or other privileges. BOP may refer the case to a law enforcement agency with criminal investigative authority for investigation, and/or to the local U.S. Attorney’s Office, which maintains discretion for prosecution. In addition to BOP, various federal agencies serve as key stakeholders in exploring and addressing the illicit use of cell phones in federal and state prisons. For example, DOJ’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ) coordinates subject matter experts into three technical working groups to address, among other topics, illicit cell phone use. Further, at its 2010 National Conference, NIJ convened a plenary panel to discuss the detection and defeat of cell phone use in prisons. NIJ also funds the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center (NLECTC) system, which assists state, local, tribal, and federal correctional agencies, as well as law enforcement and criminal justice agencies, in addressing technology needs and challenges, such as contraband cell phones. NIJ also hopes to soon establish an interagency working group with representatives from BOP, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), to continue working on solutions to overcome illicit cell phone use in prisons, subject to the availability of funds. In particular, the FCC maintains an important role in combating illicit cell phone use in prisons because the FCC, in general, executes and enforces the provisions of the Communications Act of 1934, which prohibits nonfederal entities—such as state correctional institutions—from intentionally interfering with or blocking radio communications signals, which include cell phone transmissions. In addition, NTIA is a critical partner for the research capacity it possesses. Specifically, in December 2009, Congress directed NTIA, in coordination with BOP, FCC, and NIJ, to develop a plan to investigate and evaluate how wireless jamming, detection, and other technologies might be used for corrections applications in federal and state prison institutions. In response to this congressional direction, in May 2010, NTIA issued a Notice of Inquiry seeking public comment on “technologies that would significantly reduce or eliminate contraband cell phone use without negatively affecting commercial wireless and public safety services … in areas surrounding prisons.” These technologies include the following:  Jammers: Devices that transmit on the same radio frequencies as cell phones, disrupting the communication link between the phone and the cell phone tower, essentially rendering the cell phone unusable until the jamming stops.  Managed access systems: Those that intercept, or re-route, certain cell phone calls (i.e., unauthorized calls that inmates attempt) away from carrier networks, preventing them from reaching towers and completing the call.  Detection systems/devices: Those that locate, track, or identify unauthorized cell phones by, for example, scanning frequencies within correctional institutions to detect the location of a caller. After analyzing the comments it received, NTIA issued observations on advantages and disadvantages of each of these strategies, as detailed in appendix I. NTIA also reported that prison officials should be able to use technology for combating prison cell phone use while not disrupting public safety and federal government entities’ use of spectrum or citizens’ use of airwaves for cell phone communications. A number of states have expressed concerns over threats posed by contraband cell phones in their correctional institutions and sought out both independent solutions and federal assistance. In particular, during 2009, officials from 31 state and 2 regional (i.e., city-based) prison systems requested that the FCC initiate rulemaking to permit jamming of commercial mobile radio services (which would include cell phone signals) within correctional institutions. Also, officials from Texas and Maryland correctional departments have testified before Congress about the dangers posed by cell phones in prisons and to support passage of a bill known as the Safe Prisons Communications Act of 2009. States have implemented different means to define the legality of cell phone possession in prisons. Some states have specific statutory provisions making it illegal for inmates to possess cell phones while incarcerated in a state prison institution, while other states have statutorily defined cell phones to be contraband that is prohibited within a state prison institution.