BEAR BUTTE, S.D.  – A Native American-led nonprofit has announced that it purchased nearly 40 acres (16.2 hectares) of land in the Black Hills of South Dakota amid a growing movement that seeks to return land to Indigenous people.

The Cheyenne River Youth Project announced in an April 11 statement that it purchased the tract of land adjacent to Bear Butte State Park in western South Dakota.

“One of the most sacred places for the Lakota Nation is Mato Paha, now part of Bear Butte State Park,” the statement said. “Access to Bear Butte was severed in the late 19th century, when the U.S. government seized the Black Hills and broke up the Great Sioux Reservation into several smaller reservations.”

Julie Garreau, executive director of the project, said in the statement that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that the U.S. had illegally taken the Black Hills. The court awarded the Lakota people $105 million, but they have refused to accept the money because the Black Hills were never for sale, the statement said.

Garreau said “opportunities to re-establish access to sacred places are being lost rapidly as metro areas grow and land values skyrocket,” which contributed to the organization’s decision to buy the land.

“Our people have deep roots in this region, yet we have to drive five hours round trip to be here, and summertime lodging prices are astronomical,” she said. “The distance and the cost prevent access.”

The statement did not say how much the organization paid to purchase the land.

In recent years, some tribes in the U.S., Canada and Australia have gotten their rights to ancestral lands restored with the growth of the Land Back movement.

 

VALLEY SPRINGS, S.D. – Ranchers urged Republican U.S. Senators John Thune of South Dakota and John Boozman of Arkansas to consider grasslands and cattle – not just crop support – as they finalize federal legislation that will govern many agricultural and food programs for years to come.

The feedback came as the senators fielded questions from various agriculture and conservation groups during a Friday listening session at a Valley Springs-area farm.

The federal farm bill is officially known as the Agriculture Improvement Act. The bill covers everything from farm credit and crop insurance to nutritional programs and conservation.

The most recent version was enacted in 2018, and various subsidies and programs have been outpaced by inflation. The bill was set to expire but has been extended through Sep. 30 as Congress works through disagreements over the legislation.

The forum attracted commodity groups in the corn, soybean, wheat, dairy, pork, poultry and sunflower sectors, all of whom want stronger crop insurance.

“It’s time to get it passed, this year,” said Scott VanderWal, president of South Dakota Farm Bureau. “We didn’t really want to be in a presidential election year when we had to do this, but that’s where we’re at. We have to deal with it.”

Sen. Boozman, the top Republican on the Senate Ag Committee, acknowledged the importance of conservation but said crop insurance should be the focus. He said every acre taken out of production and conserved is less income for small towns.

There needs to be “more farm in the farm bill,” Boozman said, a sentiment echoed by Thune.

The session’s rhetoric shifted when South Dakota Cattlemen’s Association President Warren Symens stood up.

“I agree that putting ‘farm’ back in the farm bill is crucial,” he said. “But our members are looking to see a little more ‘ranch’ in the farm bill, as well.”

Symens spoke of ranchers’ role in grassland conservation and stressed the importance of plentiful grazing acres.

“Leaving them idle and not allowing grazing kills small towns” dependent on the cattle industry, he said.

Symens lobbied for the inclusion of beef in farm bill nutrition programs and for electronic cattle traceability funding to manage disease outbreaks better.

With disease outbreaks, he said, “it’s not a matter of if, it’s when.”

Currently, ranching receives less federal support compared to the support provided to crops.

From 1995 to 2020, South Dakota farmers received $6.7 billion in federal payments for corn, $3.1 billion for soybeans, $2.4 billion for wheat (much of it as a result of bad trade practices and laws under the Trump administration) and $1.9 billion for conservation, among other items, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

By contrast, payments to livestock producers totaled $732 million.

The disparity has left some ranchers feeling sidelined in agricultural policy.

Austin Havlik is an ag lender, rancher and member of the cattlemen’s association. He said ranchers coming to his office are asking for bigger loans for more cattle to pay the bills.

“How are you going to protect yourself” is the question Havlik said lenders like him are left asking, making the Livestock Risk Protection insurance program important to continue in the next farm bill. The federally subsidized program was created to insure against declines in livestock market prices.

Tensions between ranchers and farmers sometimes arise when policies that favor crop subsidies encourage the conversion of grassland to cropland or reduce grazing areas for livestock.

Thune told South Dakota Searchlight that balancing those interests can be achieved within the framework of the farm bill.

“Yes, there are competing interests,” he said. “Sometimes perhaps at odds with each other, but we’re all in this together.”

 

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – South Dakotans face high prices at the grocery store and some are working to ease the burden.

A new report from the Federal Trade Commission finds some grocery retailers used the supply-chain disruptions of the pandemic to raise prices and collect bigger profits, even after supply chains regulated.

One South Dakota group is trying to reduce sticker shock by targeting the state sales tax on groceries. Dakotans for Health is sponsoring a citizens ballot initiative to repeal the 4.2 % tax.

Rick Weiland, co-founder of the group, said lower food bills would make a meaningful difference for some.

“People of modest means, or low income hardworking families, disproportionately spend upwards of 30% on food,” Weiland pointed out. “This is going to be helpful.”

South Dakota is one of only two states in the country to apply its full state sales tax rate to groceries with no exemptions, Mississippi being the other. More than 9% of South Dakotans are considered food insecure, meaning they do not always have access to enough healthy food.

The grocery tax has been a popular topic among state legislators in recent years. Republican Gov. Kristi Noem even campaigned on the promise to repeal it. Critics have said proposing a tax cut without a way to finance it is irresponsible.

Weiland pointed out Gov. Noem had a formula spelled out when she brought forward her bill in 2023, which was voted down.

“She had no problem defending her position in front of the Legislature, in terms of how much revenue the state was going to lose and where they could make it up,” Weiland recounted.

The initiative needs about 17,500 signatures by next month to appear on the November ballot.

 

DES MOINES, IA – In South Dakota there is a definitive end date for the legislative session.  For example this year it was 38 days…but in Iowa it isn’t quite as cut and dried.  Most weeks, lawmakers arrive at the Iowa Statehouse on Monday and work there until Thursday. They then return to their home districts.

But today is the 100th day of the legislative session. That is the unofficial deadline for lawmakers to finish their work for the year. Note the word unofficial…lawmakers tend to get a little nervous after that deadline.

The Iowa legislature is a part-time profession. Many members have other employment and family obligations outside their public service job. And the 100th day isn’t a true deadline. Lawmakers can stay as long as they need to finish. Although, the new budget year starts July 1st. So they would want to have a new spending plan in place before then.

House Republicans proposed a budget that spent $82 million more than Senate Republicans. The two chambers need to agree on the same spending plan, so they can send it to Governor Kim Reynolds for her signature.

The 100th day marks a financial reminder for legislators, though. That is the last day that they receive per diem, a daily allowance that they can use for lodging and meals.

Polk County legislators (the Iowa Statehouse is in Des Moines, which is in Polk County) receive $131 per day. Lawmakers from outside the county receive $175 per day while the legislature is in session.

Lawmakers also receive travel and other expense stipends, along with their $25,000 annual salaries.

Some of the issues still on the table this year include: change statute of limitations to make Boy Scout sexual abuse victims eligible for higher compensation, options for land owners who don’t want to give access for carbon sequestration pipelines, tax cuts, hands-free use of phones while driving, mental health system reform, boards and commissions reorganization, and hemp regulation…plus, of course, the budget.

 

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (South Dakota Searchlight) – The company that gave electronic tablets to South Dakota prison inmates under a contract with the state hid a 2020 data breach for nine months and then told only a fraction of affected users about it, according to a settlement filed in late February with the Federal Trade Commission.

The FTC’s decision and order in the data breach and fraud case against Global Tel Link (GTL) was issued on Feb. 27, two weeks before the South Dakota Department of Corrections suspended tablet-based phone calls and text messages for about 3,600 inmates.

That suspension is thought to have contributed to multiple nights of unrest last month at the penitentiary in Sioux Falls, including an assault that injured an employee. Attorney General Marty Jackley has said inmates involved will be prosecuted “to the fullest extent of the law.”

South Dakota Department of Corrections spokesman Michael Winder said via email that GTL did not inform the agency of any data breach. South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation spokesman Tony Mangan said the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division has yet to hear from the company about the number of South Dakotans affected by the breach, if any.

It’s one of several legal issues faced by GTL (rebranded as ViaPath Technologies in 2022), which works with nearly 2,000 facilities across the U.S.

For years, critics have called the Virginia-based company’s business practices exploitative and called on the federal government to step in and regulate rates – something the FTC has worked on for phone calls, most recently with an interim rate cap last reviewed in September.

The tablet communication shutdown in South Dakota wasn’t announced publicly until March 20, when the DOC said it was the result of an investigation. Gov. Kristi Noem said inmates were using the GTL-provided devices for “nefarious” activities. The DOC has not responded to questions about whether tablet security was part of the problem.

One week after the DOC posted a memo on tablet restrictions to its website, media gathered outside the penitentiary on the first night of disturbances could hear inmates inside shouting “we want phones.” The following night, inmates could be heard yelling “we have rights” and “water.”

Family members had been unable to visit inmates on “the Hill,” the area of the prison where the incidents took place, until this week.

A Monday memo from the DOC, posted to its visitation page, says that in-person visits will commence for those inmates on Saturdays, Sundays and the third Friday of each month.

Since last week, inmates have been allowed to make up to five phone calls a day with 20-minute time limits, using either tablets or wall phones. Electronic messaging remains suspended.

Inmates and their families have bristled at the restrictions on tablet-based communications, and some have complained about frozen inmate accounts with unusable balances.

Advocates who argue for rate caps and regulation of communications providers say the issues in South Dakota and across the nation come as prisons have become more isolated places. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, many prisons and jails stopped allowing in-person visits in favor of video visitation.

“At the end of the day, the fact that people are being exploited and still would rather have the technologies than not have them just goes to show how bad prison life is,” said Wanda Bertram of the Prison Policy Initiative, a prison reform nonprofit based in Massachusetts.

South Dakota is far from alone in its use of private-company tablets for inmate communications, which typically double as correctional revenue engines. The state’s contract with GTL specifies commission rates for messaging and prepaid phone calls.

The South Dakota DOC charges less than the FTC’s interim 14-cent-per-minute cap for phone calls, but messaging services aren’t capped federally, and the state has collected revenue from both messaging and phone calls. Between 2021 and February, South Dakota collected at least $1.25 million in commission payments, according to data released to South Dakota Searchlight last month.

GTL has frequently been on the receiving end of political and legal scrutiny. In 2022, the company agreed to pay back $67 million to settle a class action lawsuit launched in U.S. District Court in Georgia over its practice of pocketing money from dormant inmate accounts.

Just last month, families in Michigan sued GTL and other communications providers, alleging they conspired with jailers to end in-person visits in favor of paid-for video visits.

The recent FTC action against the company involved a data breach in August 2020. The company and its subsidiaries had placed personally identifying and financial information into the Amazon Web Services cloud to test software. The FTC alleged in November that it did so without encrypting or otherwise protecting customer information, leaving information like the Social Security numbers, dates of birth and credit card information of inmate families and friends vulnerable to hacking.

That’s exactly what happened, according to the FTC’s complaint.

“As early as November 2020, (GTL) received multiple complaints from consumers stating that the consumers’ personally identifiable information obtained from Respondents had been located on the dark web,” the complaint reads.

By then, a data security blog called Comparitech had asked GTL subsidiary Telmate about the incident. Telmate told the blog the issue was resolved, and that no passwords or financial information had been exposed.

Those statements were false, the FTC said.

It took nine months for the company to inform individual users, and it only reached out to 45,000 of the approximately 650,000 people affected.

The FTC’s February order requires GTL to implement a host of security and consumer protection measures. Periodic third-party security assessments and reports back to the FTC on the results will be required for the next two decades.

The company will also need to inform all the impacted users – potentially including South Dakotans – that their personal information had been stored in an unsecure cloud computing environment later accessed by hackers, and to provide them with credit monitoring and identity protection services.

A spokesperson for the FTC said the agency does not have any information on whether the data of South Dakotans was part of the security breach or dark web data sales, referring South Dakota Searchlight to GTL for those answers.

GTL did not respond to an email on those questions.

Inmates and their families are uniquely vulnerable to being squeezed by communication providers, according to Bertram of the Prison Policy Initiative.

Calls and messages to and from correctional institutions are tightly controlled, as they are subject to security screening by corrections officials and paid for under the terms of prison or jail contracts with providers that offer no choice on costs.

Tablets have become lifelines for people in prison and their families, Bertram said, particularly in the face of restrictions on other forms of communication. South Dakota shut down face-to-face visits for more than a year during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In a lot of places, sending mail and visiting a loved one have become more difficult as prisons have imposed additional restrictions,” Bertram said. “And that has only increased the value and the importance to incarcerated people’s welfare that these tablets have.”

Talk of tablets, phone calls and pricing schemes are important for the general public, she said.

Research suggests that maintaining family connections translates into a lower likelihood of continued criminal behavior after release. One study in Minnesota found that inmates who had regular visits were 13% less likely to return to prison on new felony charges. Another study of female inmates across multiple states found that “familial telephone contact was most consistently associated with reduction in recidivism.”

High prices or strict limits can put financial stress on families who aim to stay connected, she said, which can have ripple effects across communities.

“You don’t have to find space in your heart to be compassionate for people who have committed crimes,” Bertram said. “But you do have to think about the implications for broader society when there’s companies that are allowed to run rampant and do what they will with incarcerated people’s money by turning them into a captive market.”

The Prison Policy Initiative recommends free calling and messaging for inmates. Absent that, the organization argues that prisons and jails should not collect commission. Removing the financial incentive for correctional institutions tends to lower prices.

Dallas, Texas, ceased to collect commissions and was able to negotiate lower prices, now charging a cent a minute for phone calls through its provider, Securus, a GTL competitor commonly known as JPay.

In Connecticut, the Legislature made calls free, and barred both commission collections for its prison system and forced video visitation. California followed suit with free audio calls from tablets and wall phones.

Dropping commission payments also prevents the misuse of funds, she said. In Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, an investigation by the news outlet PennLive revealed that the county spent nearly $300,000 in phone and messaging payouts between 2019 and 2021 to purchase gun range memberships for prison staff, the sheriff’s department, the district attorney’s criminal investigation division, and probation and parole.

Fulton County, Georgia, saw commission funds used to purchase thousands of honey-baked hams.

“You shouldn’t be charging incarcerated people and their families for these basic needs and then turning around collecting money off of that,” Bertram said.

Bill Pope isn’t so sure that dropping commission payments is always the right call. Pope is the CEO of NCIC, a Texas-based GTL competitor offering tablets that give hour-for-hour entertainment credits to inmates who use them for coursework.

Pope pointed to California to explain why. That state offers free calls, and the state’s Public Utilities Commission opted to cap commission payments and set rates for prepaid calls in local jails at 7 cents a minute.

Pope said those moves “obliterated the inmate welfare fund” that had been propped up by payouts. That fund is meant to be “used for the benefit, education, and welfare of inmates of prisons and institutions.”

Many institutions simply want to offer the lowest possible price in a communications contract, Pope said, but others view the commission payments as reasonable ways to cover the expenses of monitoring calls and messages. The bigger problem is hidden fees, he said, like connection fees that some providers charge. Pope would like to see those regulated.

“Eliminating commissions can probably hurt the incarcerated users more than help them,” Pope said. “Unless, of course, the providers are overcharging.”

Pope says his company is the largest privately held communications provider in the U.S.

He sees his company’s approach to tablets as more beneficial for inmates, families and institutions. NCIC has contracts in South Dakota with jails in Yankton and Sioux Falls, among others. Its contract with the Minnehaha County Jail includes commission payments for the Sioux Falls facility, but inmates needn’t necessarily pay – at least for entertainment. Inmates can earn credits through coursework.

The NCIC contract charges 16 cents a minute for calls – more than double the rate listed for calls on the South Dakota DOC’s website – but Pope said the calls subsidize the entertainment that keeps inmates busy and would otherwise be paid for by their families.

“Do your homework, and then you can watch TV or play games,” Pope said.