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Secretive political prisons for “domestic terrorists” called Communications Management Units have been operating for more than three years on U.S. soil. Last week the federal Bureau of Prisons quietly submitted a proposal to make the experimental units permanent: a process that, by law, should have occurred before they were ever opened.

As a quick introduction, there are two Communications Management Units, or CMUs, in the country. They radically restrict prisoner communications with the outside world to levels that rival, or exceed, the most restrictive facilities in the country, including the “Supermax,” ADX-Florence. [For more information on CMUs and who is housed there:"Secretive U.S. Prison Units Used to House Muslim, Animal Rights and Environmental Activists."]

On April 6, the Bureau of Prisons submitted a proposed rule (Docket No. 1148-P), listed in the federal register. Under the Administrative Procedures Act, there is now a required public comment period for responses to this proposal.

The public notice comes after the Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union each filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the secretive facilities, where political prisoners have been transferred without notification, without explanation, and without opportunity for appeal. [See "5 Things You Should Know About America’s 'Little Guantanamo.'"]

FOLLOWING THE LAW IN HINDSIGHT

The submitted proposal is clearly a response to these lawsuits, and an acknowledgment that the Communications Management Units were opened secretly and illegally. Now government officials are trying to cover their tracks and follow the legal process in hindsight.

It is a positive development that the government is recognizing, and being forced to defend, prison facilities kept hidden from the public. There is the possibility of placing true checks and balances on the government’s power to create experimental units that are unparalleled in the federal prison system.

However, this step in the right direction is negated by the Bureau of Prisons’ proposal to actually make these secretive prisons even more inhumane.

INCREASING RESTRICTIONS

The lawsuit by the Center for Constitutional Rights argues that the facilities are unconstitutional for a variety of reasons, including the fact that they are cruel and inhumane. The extreme restrictions on inmate communications, including not allowing them to hug family members at the few visits they are allowed, go against a body of research and official government policy on prisoner treatment. Generally, the government encourages contact visits by family because they improve prisoner behavior, increase morale, and further rehabilitation.

“I haven’t been able to hug my husband, or even hold his hand, for two years,” said Jenny Synan, the spouse of a CMU prisoner and a plaintiff in the lawsuit. “This proposed rule does not explain how prohibiting a husband from holding his wife’s hand or keeping a father from hugging his daughter, is necessary for prison security.”

The new proposal includes even more restrictions, including:

• “Written correspondence may be limited to three pieces of paper, double-sided, once per week to and from a single recipient;
• Telephone communication may be limited to a single completed call per calendar month for up to 15 minutes;
• and Visiting may be limited to one hour each calendar month.

MORE POWER, LESS OVERSIGHT

It should be noted that all federal prisoners have their communications monitored. And there are already policies in place for dangerous inmates who need additional monitoring.

The most prevalent of those policies are called Special Administrative Measures, or SAMs. SAMs are authorized by the attorney general based on information from the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s office.

This new proposal lowers the threshold for such special restrictions. According to the proposal, it allows for prison officials to act on “evidence which does not rise to the same degree of potential risk [emphasis added] to national security or risk of acts of violence or terrorism which would warrant the Attorney General’s intervention by issuance of a SAM.”

The government is arguing two competing claims simultaneously: (1) That Communications Management Units are needed because the inmates are heightened security risks, and (2) That traditional oversight is too cumbersome because these inmates are not dangerous enough.

The aim is, admittedly, to place more unchecked power in the hands of lower-ranking government officials.

POLITICAL PRISONS

If, according the Bureau of Prisons, these inmates “do not rise to the same degree of potential risk to national security,” who is housed here?

As I have discussed here before, inmates and guards at the CMUs call them “Little Guantanamo.” They have also been described as prisons for “second-tier” terrorists.

The proposal confirms this, saying: “One important category of inmates which might be designated to a CMU is inmates whose current offense(s) of conviction, or offense conduct, included association, communication, or involvement, related to international or domestic terrorism.”

It references past behavior as grounds for inmates being transferred there, but as I have reported, and as the recent lawsuits make clear, many of these inmates have no disciplinary history and no communications violations. Furthermore, these individuals were not the 9/11 hijackers or what most people think of as terrorists. They are prisoners like Daniel McGowan, who destroyed property as part of the Earth Liberation Front in the name of defending the environment.

The Bureau’s proposal makes clear that the CMUs are intended to keep these cases isolated, and to keep political prisoners with “inspirational significance” from communicating with the communities and social movements of which they are part.

These secretive prisons are for political cases the government would rather have out of the public spotlight.

Source: Green Is The New Red

Next month, 13 law enforcement agencies in the region will begin using a new handheld device that lets an officer scan a person’s fingerprints and seek a match in an electronic database – all without going anywhere.

Police say taking fingerprints in the field will allow them to work more efficiently and safely. But the ACLU North Carolina in Raleigh worries that the device may allow officers to violate privacy rights.

The ACLU is concerned about what will become of fingerprint scans that are sent to other databases, such as the National Crime Information Center.

“Part of the danger is the idea of the government creating a database on its citizens,” said Sarah Preston, policy director for ACLU North Carolina. “Citizens should be allowed some degree of privacy.”

But those concerns are unwarranted, said Sam Pennica, director of the City-County Bureau of Identification, the agency that processes fingerprints in Wake County and is providing the devices to local agencies. The software for the device, known as Rapid Identification COPS Technology, would not store fingerprints of any individuals, even those charged with a crime, Pennica said.

“It will not retain the fingerprints of any individuals under any circumstances,” he said, adding that fingerprints would only be compared to those in the Wake County database. “They will not be submitted to any state or federal agency.”

ACLU North Carolina has asked CCBI for copies of its policies governing use of the device. The organization made a similar request to the Charlotte Police Department last month, after it announced a pilot program to determine the effectiveness of Rapid ID.

“Mainly, we are looking for protocols on how it’s going to be used on the streets,” Preston said.

Pennica said he would send ACLU North Carolina a packet this week, outlining how, and under what circumstances, the device will be used by law officers. He noted that state law does not allow officers to coerce or threaten a person with arrest for refusing to submit to a fingerprint scan.

CCBI plans to distribute 120 of the devices to 13 law agencies throughout the region, including Raleigh police and the Wake County Sheriff’s Office, at the beginning of the year.

“The agencies have to sign an agreement saying under what circumstances they can use the device, and they will,” Pennica said.

Preston said even with the legal protections in place, the ACLU is concerned that a person may produce identification and still be asked for fingerprints, or that an officer may try to obtain fingerprints from anyone under suspicion.

“It could be used to profile Latinos because a law enforcement officer may not believe they have a valid driver’s license,” Preston said.

ACLU North Carolina expressed similar concerns earlier this year when state law officials, including Attorney General Roy Cooper, supported a bill that would allow the police to obtain DNA samples from anyone charged with a violent felony. Cooper estimated that the collection of DNA at the time of arrest would enable law enforcement agencies across the state to solve at least 100 previously unsolved cases in the first year.

Preston described the measure as “an end-run around constitutional protections.”

The state legislature passed that bill last summer, and Gov. Bev Perdue signed it into law.

Source: NewsObserver

Source: Raw Story

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit after federal agencies neglected to answer a Freedom of Information Act request seeking documents pertaining to the legal basis for the military’s Predator drone program.

The request specifically seeks information as to how the program is governed, who can be targeted, along with when and where, and the data on civilian casualties caused by the remote-controlled weapons.

It was originally filed on Jan. 13 with the departments of defense and justice, along with the Central Intelligence Agency, none of which replied, according to the non-profit.

“The public has a right to know whether the targeted killings being carried out in its name are consistent with international law and with the country’s interests and values,” said Jonathan Manes, a legal fellow with the ACLU National Security Project, in a media advisory. “The Obama administration should disclose basic information about the program, including its legal basis and limits, and the civilian casualty toll thus far.”

Meanwhile, the globalist thinktank Council on Foreign Relations is circulating an article by Harvard National Security Journal contributor Brett H. McGurk, offering a counter-point on the use of unmanned weapons of war, opening with a rather cold-cocked headline: “Lawyers: A Predator Drone’s Achilles Heel?”

Interestingly, in the article’s opening paragraphs, McGurk flatly states that law and ethics “take a back seat” to the “new tactics” arising from the use of drones.

“As a former official overseeing national strategy in two warzones, I appreciate how law and ethics can take a back seat to new tactics that turn the tide against committed enemies,” he wrote. “So long as the tactics are legally available, whatever the theory, then the tactics will be used. In Iraq, there have probably been more Predator drone strikes than anywhere else on earth – and with tremendous effect, degrading extremist networks and decapitating leadership cells. Drone attacks alone are not strategically sound, but when combined with a campaign to secure the population against common enemies, the strategic advantages are proven and empirical. The same strategy is now being employed in Afghanistan.”

The ACLU added: “The CIA and the military have used unmanned drones to target and kill individuals not only in Afghanistan and Iraq but also in Pakistan and, in at least one case in 2002, Yemen. The technology allows U.S. personnel to observe targeted individuals in real time and launch missiles intended to kill them from control centers located thousands of miles away. Recent reports, including public statements from the director of national intelligence, indicate that U.S. citizens have been placed on the list of targets who can be hunted and killed with drones.”

“While the Obama administration may legitimately withhold intelligence information as well as sensitive information about military strategy, it should disclose basic information about the scope of the drone program, the legal basis for the program and the civilian casualties that have resulted from the program,” argued ACLU attorney Jameel Jaffer, who heads the non-profit’s National Security Project.

Credible online reports on the number of civilians killed by Predator drones are rare to come by, leaving much of the reporting to outlets like Iranian media, Long War Journal, Pakistan Observer and others, which occasionally rely on information outside the chain of U.S. command, which typically gives lower casualty counts.

Drone aircraft are known to be currently deployed in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. The United States and Colombia also recently secured a deal to house U.S. troops at Colombian military bases so they could pilot drones over the region to search for terrorists and drug traffickers. The move has angered neighboring countries in South America, causing some governments to bristle and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in particular to warn that the “winds of war” are blowing.

In the wake of increased violence along the Texas-Mexico border, Texas Governor Rick Perry has asked President Obama to dispatch Predator drones to the troubled regions to be the eyes of the currently enhanced patrols. Drones were previously dispatched to Arizona.

The unmanned technology has been called a “lynchpin” of President Obama’s strategy for the continuing terror war, with present U.S. authorities ramping up their use significantly compared to the Bush administration.

The ACLU’s full complaint is available online.

How the Predator Drone works