TRULINCS: Electronic Messaging

PS 5265.13 (2/19/2009) · Official PDF on bop.gov →

The rules for email on the inside: who can be a contact, how approval works, what gets monitored (everything), and what gets a message rejected. Read this before you use the ask-from-inside address. It explains why approval takes as long as it takes. Housekeeping note: this was later folded into the Trust Fund manual's TRULINCS chapter, and people cite it both ways. Same rules either way.

A local supplement almost certainly applies Wardens issue institution supplements to fill in whatever national policy leaves up to the facility, and this is one of the policies they supplement most often. What's below is the national floor. The supplement is the version staff actually work from day to day: the hours, the limits, the forms, the local exceptions. It can't contradict the policy below, but it can be far more specific than anything on this page, and it's usually where the rule you can't find here lives. No supplements are posted on this site yet. They're written facility by facility and the BOP doesn't publish them in one place, so they go up as I get current copies. Until then, the person inside can ask their unit team for the institution supplement to PS 5265.13, usually numbered with the facility's code in front of it and kept in the law library. The facility's Facebook group is the other place people find out what the local version says.

Cheat sheet

Everything is read and kept. Every message, both directions, plus who sent it, when, and to whom. Accepting the contact request means you consented too.
Lawyers get no privilege here. Attorney email is monitored like everything else. Anything that matters goes through legal mail under PS 5265.14.
Contacts are added from the inside. You can't put yourself on anyone's list. Your loved one adds your address; one typo and the notice silently goes nowhere.
Attachments never arrive. Photos, PDFs, scans all get stripped before delivery. Documents go through postal mail.
Rejections are one-sided. The sender gets a notice; the recipient hears nothing. A week of silence is usually a bounced message, not an emergency.
No subpoena required. Law enforcement gets message content and metadata with a written request. The phone line has more process protection than the email.

SECTION 2: AUTHORITY (EXCERPT)

Use of the TRULINCS is a privilege; therefore, the Warden or an authorized representative may limit or deny the privilege of a particular inmate (see Section 3 for restrictions).

By participating in the TRULINCS program, inmates, and the persons in the community with whom they correspond, voluntarily consent to having all incoming and outgoing electronic messages, including transactional data, message contents, and other activities, monitored and retained by Bureau staff. This authority includes rejecting individual messages sent to or from inmates using TRULINCS that jeopardize the above-mentioned interests.

SECTION 4: CONTACT LIST (EXCERPT)

a. Inmate to Persons in the Community Communication. Inmates may only exchange electronic messages with persons in the community who have accepted the inmate's request to communicate. The Warden may deny electronic messaging if it is determined that there is a threat to institution security or good order, or a threat to the public and staff. Inmates may not exchange electronic messages with unauthorized contacts including, but not limited to, victims, witnesses, other persons connected with the inmate's criminal history, and law enforcement officers, contractors, or volunteers.

NOTE: Inmates may place attorneys, "special mail" recipients, or other legal representatives on their electronic message contact list, with the acknowledgment that electronic messages exchanged with such individuals will not be treated as privileged communications and will be subject to monitoring.

SECTION 5: PROCEDURES FOR EXCHANGING ELECTRONIC MESSAGES (EXCERPT)

a. Contact List. It is an inmate's responsibility to maintain his/her own contact list. An inmate requests to exchange electronic messages with a person in the community by placing that person on the inmate's contact list.

b. Notice. Upon receiving the system generated message, the person in the community is notified that: the Federal inmate identified seeks to add the person in the community to his/her authorized electronic message contact list; the person in the community may approve the inmate for electronic message exchanges, refuse the request for electronic message exchanges, or refuse the current and all future Federal inmates' requests for electronic message exchanges; by approving, the person in the community consents to have Bureau staff monitor the content of all electronic messages and agrees to comply with program rules and procedures; if the person in the community sends an attachment with an electronic message to a Federal inmate, the attachment will be stripped from the message and will not be delivered to the inmate.

c. Consent. If the person in the community consents to receive electronic messages, that person is added to the inmate's electronic message contact list.

SECTION 8: REJECTION OF ELECTRONIC MESSAGES (EXCERPT)

a. Reasons for Rejection. Electronic messages that would jeopardize the safety, security, or orderly operation of the correctional facility or the protection of the public and staff may be rejected for reasons that include, but are not limited to: (1) The message is detrimental to the security, good order, or discipline of the institution, or a threat to the public and staff, or it might facilitate criminal activity, including any message that: encourages, instructs, or may facilitate criminal activity; constitutes unauthorized direction of an inmate's business (see 28 CFR Part 541, subpart B, regarding Inmate Discipline); contains threats, extortion, or obscenity; is written in, or otherwise contains, a code.

c. Notification of Rejection. When an electronic message is rejected, the sender is notified that his/her electronic message will not be delivered and the reason(s) for the rejection. The intended recipient is not informed of the rejection.

SECTION 11: LAW ENFORCEMENT REQUESTS FOR ELECTRONIC MESSAGES

The Bureau's TRULINCS System of Records, and the Privacy Act of 1974, allow disclosure of TRULINCS transactional data and message content for law enforcement purposes, as defined therein. Subpoenas for these are not required, as compared to recorded telephone conversations. Upon receipt of a properly submitted written request from a law enforcement agency, BOP staff are authorized to release both transactional data (e.g., date, time, electronic message address, electronic message recipient and sender, and length of the message) and copies of the electronic messages.

Source: PS 5265.13 (2/19/2009), bop.gov/policy/progstat/5265_013.pdf. U.S. government work, public domain. Full document is 9 pages; sections 3 (restrictions and exclusions), 4(b) (inmate-to-inmate), and 10 (fees) omitted here.

Everything is read and everything is kept: the message, who sent it, when, to whom. And "persons in the community" means you: the moment you accept the contact request out here, you've consented to the same monitoring. There is no private conversation on TRULINCS. Write every message like a third person is reading it, because one is.

The exception you'd expect doesn't exist. Even your lawyer, on the contact list, gets no attorney-client privilege over TRULINCS. Anything privileged goes through legal mail (the paper kind, under PS 5265.14), which actually has protections. Email your lawyer logistics; mail your lawyer substance.

The direction matters: contacts get added from the inside. You can't push an address in from out here. Your loved one types it into their list, the system emails you a notice, you accept. That's why the ask-from-inside setup works the way it does: I hand you an address, you spell it to your loved one letter by letter, they add it. One typo and the notice goes nowhere, silently.

No photos, no PDFs, no scans. Attachments get stripped before delivery, silently. If you need to get your loved one a document, it goes through postal mail. Family photos have their own rules per facility; check the visiting policy and the institution supplement before mailing a stack.

"A code" is as broad as it sounds. Inside jokes, shorthand, initials-only references, that thing where your family has a nickname for everyone. A monitor who doesn't get it can bounce the message. Write plainly. Boring email is email that arrives.

Rejected messages vanish silently on the receiving end: the sender gets a notice, the recipient gets nothing. So if your loved one goes quiet for a week, the boring explanation is usually the right one: a bounced message, a locked-down unit, a broken terminal. Don't assume the worst; ask on the next phone call.

The sentence almost nobody has read: law enforcement doesn't need a subpoena for TRULINCS messages. A written request gets them everything, content included. The recorded phone line has more process protection than the email does. Per the Bureau's own policy, the audience can include an investigator on request.

Need help with this? Just ask.

These pages cover the general rules. Your situation has details they don't. Email me a question. Answers are free, and "you don't need to pay anyone for this" is my most common answer.

josh@federalprisondude.com

I answer in the order received, usually within a couple of days. I have a day job. If your situation genuinely needs more than an email, I take a limited number of consults, so say so and we'll work it out.

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