A journalist with ArteTv’s Global Mag, a television program that airs in France and Germany, visited the U.S. to report on the labeling of environmentalists as “eco-terrorists.” She came to the book release event in Washington, DC, and I was also able to put her in touch with Andy Stepanian of the SHAC 7, Daniel McGowan‘s wife, Jenny, and Alexis Agathocleous of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Much of the program is about secretive prisons for domestic terrorists called Communications Management Units. You can view the video below (sorry, I don’t have subtitles!). It’s a shame that U.S. journalists haven’t been covering this issue as well as international outlets.

I spoke at the Baltimore Book Festival the other day, on a panel examining tactics the government has used against social movements throughout U.S. history. For my portion of the panel, I argued that we, as a culture, often regard periods of government repression as having an inception and a conclusion. They are finite eras, “mistakes of the past” or “dark chapters of our history.” A more accurate assessment is that the backlash against social movements is constant; it exists on a continuum, sometimes with peaks or valleys, but a constant presence nonetheless.

For instance, it’s striking just how little the tactics of repression have varied from one era to the next. Dominique Stevenson (co-author of Marshall Law: The life and times of a Baltimore Black Panther) echoed this in her portion of the event. Unfortunately Susan Rosenberg wasn’t able to attend because of a family emergency, but her experiences offer another salient parallel.

Rosenberg worked with many radical movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and had been sought as an accomplice in the prison break of Assata Shakur. In 1984, she was charged with possession of explosives and weapons and sentenced to 58 years in prison. It was the longest sentence ever for such a charge, and the disproportionate treatment was clearly due to her political beliefs. She served 16 years in prison, and her sentence was commuted in 2001 by President Clinton.

For part of her sentence she was imprisoned in the Lexington High Security Unit. In Green Is the New Red I discuss the HSU in the context of modern-day Communications Management Units. Here’s an excerpt:

The government has reason to be secretive about this program [Communications Management Units], because similar experiments have not been well received by civil rights and human rights organizations. The Bureau of Prisons has a history of operating pilot programs outside the confines of the Constitution.

For example, the High Security Unit in the federal women’s prison in Lexington, Kentucky, was created in the 1980s to house political prisoners belonging to an organization that, according to the Bureau of Prisons, “attempts to disrupt or overthrow the government of the U.S.” The Lexington HSU existed belowground, in total isolation from the outside world and with radically restricted prisoner communications and visitations. The women were subjected to constant fluorescent lighting, almost daily strip searches, and sensory deprivation. The purpose of these conditions, according to a report by Dr. Richard Korn for the ACLU, was to “reduce prisoners to a state of submission essential for ideological conversion.” The Lexington HSU was closed in 1988 after an outcry by Amnesty International, the ACLU and religious groups.

CMUs are not the same as the Lexington HSU. In some ways they are less severe, in some ways they are more pernicious. The danger they both pose is that they are extensions of a parallel legal system that are established for political prisoners outside the confines of the Constitution.

• You can learn more about Susan Rosenberg in her excellent book, An American Radical: A political prisoner in my own country.
• You can learn more about Communications Management Units here. Daniel McGowan is currently imprisoned in a CMU. Please consider writing and supporting him.

Jacob Ferguson was the lead arsonist in the Earth Liberation Front cases dubbed “Operation Backfire,” but the heroin addict avoided any prison time by wearing a wire and recording conversations with his former friends that could be used against them in court. By being an informant, Ferguson got a free pass on all of his crimes, and avoided decades in prison.

Ferguson was unable to stay away from heroin, though, and in April he was arrested on drug charges. Now he has been sentenced to five years in prison. He pleaded guilty to manufacturing and selling heroin (he was caught with two grams at his home), possessing cocaine, and neglecting and endangering his 4-year-old daughter.

That 5-year sentence is just for the drug charges, though. Another consequence of his guilty plea is that it means he has violated the conditions of his probation in the ELF cases. In other words, a federal prison sentence will likely be on the horizon. Ferguson– one of the most notorious government informants in recent FBI history– is going to have a difficult time in prison as a well-known “snitch.”

More broadly, Ferguson’s heroin charges should also raise some questions about the type of people the FBI is willing to rely upon in their desperation to convict “eco-terrorists.”

It should also raise some questions about sentencing disparities in the criminal justice system. Ferguson, a drug addict who neglected and endangered his child, was sentenced to 5 years  in prison. Daniel McGowan — one of the people Ferguson informed on, who destroyed property in the name of defending the environment — was sentenced to 7.

Previously: Lead ELF Informant Jake Ferguson Arrested on Drug Charges

I had the pleasure of returning to Democracy Now this morning to talk about my new book, and how environmental activists have been branded as “domestic terrorists.”

We discussed the case of Daniel McGowan, a former Earth Liberation Front member, who is currently in a secretive prison called a Communications Management Unit. Also on the program were Andy Stepanian, who is the first prisoner to be released from a CMU, and Marshall Curry, director of If a Tree Falls.

Because so much of the discussion was focused on Daniel McGowan, arson, and the Earth Liberation Front, it raises a lot of questions about tactics. These are important discussions that need to take place within the environmental movement, and I agree with Marshall Curry’s concluding thought that activists must “think carefully” about what tactics they choose.

However, if we are to move forward, we need to focus even more attention on the truly radical tactics of corporations and the politicians who represent them. They have manufactured this “eco-terrorism” threat, and they are widening their net, eroding checks and balances on government power, in order to demonize and silence their opposition.

Corporations have made quite clear that it is not solely the tactics that matter– it is whether those tactics are effective. That’s why environmentalist Tim DeChristopher is facing 10 years in prison not for arson, but for non-violent civil disobedience. That’s why legislation has been introduced in multiple states not targeting death threats and violent posturing, but targeting undercover videos.

The case of Daniel McGowan and others should prompt a critical examination of the tactics employed by animal rights and environmental activists, but that introspection is absolutely worthless unless it is accompanied by a parallel critique of the tactics used by corporations to push their extremist agenda.

Earth Liberation Front prisoner Daniel McGowan has recently been moved to another secretive prison, called a Communications Management Unit, or CMU.

He was previously housed in the CMU in Marion, Illinois, and designated as a “domestic terrorist.” Several weeks ago he was transferred out of that experimental facility, and into general population. Now, he has just been transferred back to a Communications Management Unit, this time to the one in Terre Haute, Indiana.

There are few details I can report at this point about McGowan’s transfer. The most salient point, however, is that neither he nor any of the other CMU prisoners are able to challenge this terrorist designation before they are transferred. And once they arrive at these secretive prisons, which radically restrict their communications with the outside world, they have little recourse.

For an overview of Communications Management Units, and the constitutional concerns they raise, please read:

• “Government Acknowledges Secretive Prisons for “Domestic Terrorists,” Proposes Making Them Permanent“
• 5 Things You Should Know About America’s “Little Guantanamo”

To write McGowan a letter, visit his support website, SupportDaniel.org.

“If a Tree Falls” is a new documentary about the Earth Liberation Front and so-called “eco-terrorism” by an award-winning film team. I still haven’t had the chance to see the film, but there’s quite a buzz from its screening at Sundance Film Festival.

The film focuses on Daniel McGowan, who was sent to prison as a terrorist for his role in two ELF arsons, but it also takes a bigger look at the state of the environmental movement and the targeting of these activists as terrorists.

Filmmaker Marshall Curry told AFP:

“Obviously 9/11 completely changed the way that the public saw what they were doing…

“Suddenly massive amounts of money and resources are devoted to fight terrorism. You know, there’s a saying that if you give a 2-year-old a hammer, he’ll be able to find out how many things he can hammer with. If you give millions of dollars to fight terrorism, you might be surprised by how many things are qualified terrorism.”

I spent time with Curry and Sam Cullman out in Oregon, as they were filming (and I was there reporting). I can’t wait to see the final product. Until you get the chance, here’s an interview with Curry and Cullman about the film.

Also, if you want to find out what happened to McGowan after the film:

“Government Acknowledges Secretive Prisons for “Domestic Terrorists,” Proposes Making Them Permanent“

The Counter-Terrorism Unit, a division of the Bureau of Prisons, is listing prisoners who are environmentalists and animal rights activists alongside the Army of God and Aryan Nations.

The animal rights and environmental movements in the United States have never harmed a single human being, according to the FBI and DHS, but new internal documents show that prison officials classify these activists as “domestic terrorists” along with much more dangerous prisoners.

Earlier this week I reported on the internal intelligence documents that are distributed by the Counter-Terrorism Unit to prison officials and law enforcement. The unit monitors the letters, visits and phone calls of “terrorist prisoners” to identify any potential threats.

For example, some of the “domestic terrorists” monitored include:

• Clayton Lee Waagner, a member of the Army of God who plotted to murder abortion clinic employees. He was found guilty of more than fifty federal charges including threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction.
• Buford Furrow, a member of the Aryan Nations convicted for the shooting at the Los Angeles Jewish Community Center that injured three children and killed one person.

The Counter-Terrorism Unit also lists a section for “Domestic Terrorism – Environmental Extremism.” The activists listed are much different from the Waagners and Furrows of the world:

• Daniel McGowan, convicted for his role in two arsons targeting genetic engineering and the logging of old-growth forests.
• The SHAC 7, a group of animal right activists convicted of “conspiracy to commit animal enterprise terrorism” for running a website that listed personal information about corporate executives, and supported property destruction.

The documents also include a section titled “Upcoming Domestic Terrorist Releases,” which list prisoners, their release dates, and “association.” For animal rights and environmental activists, the “associations” are often incorrect. For example: members of the SHAC 7  are sometimes listed as “ALF/ELF” (for Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front) even though they have never been accused of a crime by those groups. The terrorist label is applied recklessly based loosely on perceived political beliefs.

These internal documents make clear that the labeling of activists as “eco-terrorists” is much more than public relations ploy by corporations and the politicians who represent them. The “number one domestic terrorism threat” rhetoric has worked its way into the top levels of government, and has saturated the entire criminal justice system.

Activists are being labeled “eco-terrorists” before they even set foot in a court room and, if convicted, that label follows them into the prison system where it legally redefines them. They can end up in secretive political prisons called Communications Management Units. And even if they don’t, law enforcement and prison officials are receiving bulletins like these, which serve to only further instill fear.

The Counter-Terrorism Unit briefs prison officials and law enforcement about the communications of “terrorist” prisoners. It’s an important function, since prisoners have actually communicated with terrorist cells from within U.S. prisons; in 2005, it was revealed that three men convicted of bombing the World Trade Center in 1993 wrote 90 letters to extremists abroad. And they did it from within the Supermax.

This unit was created to prevent such potentially fatal errors from happening again. However, new documents raise some troubling questions about the Counter-Terrorism Unit’s priorities:

The unit is monitoring the PR campaigns of environmental activists, and its briefings have included my lectures and this website.

Communications of “Terrorist” Prisoners

I received the documents from the staff of Public Intelligence, a Wikileaks-style organization. They are titled “Intelligence Summary: Intelligence analysis and language translation for international and domestic terrorist inmates” (and can now be viewed online here and here). They “may be distributed to state or local government law enforcement officials with a need-to-know,” the documents note, but “precautions should be taken to ensure this information is stored and/or destroyed in a manner which precludes unauthorized access.”

So what information is deemed relevant to counter-terrorism officials and local law enforcement?

It varies wildly. Stephen Jordi, who planned to bomb abortion clinics, received a letter from a man campaigning to become governor of Georgia, who vowed “fighting to the death if the Federal government tries to enforce their murderous, ungodly law allowing abortion and homosexual activities in this State.”

In stark contrast, the unit notes that Essam El Shami wrote his son to “keep on praying and take care of the school and work,” and “take care of mama.”

It’s not surprising that seemingly innocuous communications are reported alongside potential threats. Even the most mundane bits of prisoner letters, phone calls, emails and visits may be worthy of law enforcement attention. They may, for instance, actually be coded threats.

However, that’s not what’s going on with the reports on environmentalists labeled “eco-terrorists.” In these documents, government officials make clear they are much more concerned about bad PR.

Monitoring Bad PR

The Counter-Terrorism Unit notes an August 7, 2009 email received by Daniel McGowan, an Earth Liberation Front prisoner, regarding a possible vigil to raise awareness about secretive political prisons called Communications Management Units (CMUs). McGowan is part of a lawsuit against the experimental prison units. The author, who is identified as part of a public relations group, proposes a caravan between the two prison units to gain media attention.

Another email to McGowan was from Matthew Strugar, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights (the group which brought one of the CMU lawsuits). On July 28, 2009, Strugar wrote McGowan and discussed efforts to raise awareness about the CMUs and challenge them.

According to the report:

Strugar described attending the animal rights conference in Los Angeles two weeks prior, in which an individual identified as Will spoke about inmate McGowan and his co-defendants’ cases, as well as the Communications Management Units (CMU). Will is believed to be Will Potter, an independent journalist based in Washington, DC… [emphasis added]

In his email, Strugar wrote to McGowan: “Will was on four panels, I think, and talked a bit about you and your co-defendants’ cases and the situation with the CMUs. He’s a good advocate on that issue. There is still a lot of organizing and discussion about the Green Scare generally, which is good, and I talked a bit about green scare speech repression and the like. It was interesting.”

Wasting Government Counter-Terrorism Resources

It’s unsettling to see my name in documents produced by the Counter-Terrorism Unit. What’s even more disturbing, though, is the thought of scarce government resources being wasted on such reports.

The Counter-Terrorism Unit was created because of flaws in how the government monitors “terrorist” prisoners. It’s crucial to note, though, that an audit by the inspector general’s office revealed that the problem arose not from the inadequacy of the tools available to monitor terrorist communications, but from inconsistent implementation by untrained staff.

Those problems persist. Lectures, public websites and First Amendment activity by journalists and attorneys should not be the purview of the Counter-Terrorism Unit. And even if you think that it should be, and even if you think I am some kind of potential terrorist, this “intelligence briefing” is absolutely useless. Any intern could have created the same report using Google.

Think of it this way: Counter-terrorism officials had read the email, researched who named ‘Will’ spoke at the animal rights conference, figured out it was me, Googled my website, wrote about it in this report, did the same for Rachel Meeropol and other advocates, and then distributed this document to other prison officials who similarly wasted their time reading about the lawful actions of a journalist, an attorney, and others. Allocating government resources in this way places everyone at risk.

I have attempted to contact Joyce Lane-Lewis, who is listed as the author of the reports on Daniel McGowan, so I can talk to her about this. In the interest of saving taxpayer money, I hope the Counter-Terrorism Unit contacts me the next time they need this type of information: I would be happy to get that for them.

The federal Bureau of Prisons has quietly submitted a proposal to make the secretive, political prisons called Communications Management Units permanent.

As part of that process, there is a required public comment period, where individuals and organizations can register their opposition. This is a process required by the Administrative Procedures Act, and it should have been followed three years ago when the first secretive facility opened; knowing that the plans would be met with fierce opposition, as previous proposals had been, the CMUs were opened secretly and illegally.

With multiple lawsuits filed in opposition to the CMUs, and with public exposure increasing, the government is attempting to follow the law in hindsight.

That’s why it’s so important to speak up, on record, against these unconstitutional facilities.

A few points to remember, from some of the previous coverage here at GreenIsTheNewRed:

• The CMUs violate basic due process rights. Inmates are transferred to these experimental facilities without notification, and without opportunity for appeal. Most of the prisoners there do not have histories of communications violations or disciplinary problems of any kind. All prisoners have the right to know why they are being singled out for harsher punishment, and the right to challenge that designation in court. Communications Management Units place too much unchecked power in the hands of government officials.
• CMUs are cruel and inhumane and violate basic human rights. The restrictions there meet or exceed those at the most extreme prisons in the country. “I haven’t been able to hug my husband, or even hold his hand, for two years,” said Jenny Synan, the spouse of environmental activist, Daniel McGowan, who is a CMU prisoner. “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.”
• Political prisons have no place in a democracy. The Bureau of Prisons proposal makes clear that the CMUs are intended 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. As we have seen throughout history, singling out prisoners because of their political beliefs sets a dangerous precedent and is antithetical to democratic values.

It’s easy to submit your comments online through Regulations.gov.

Submit your comments by June 2nd! And if you also paste them here, I’ll select one author at random to win a signed copy of Operation Bite Back!

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

Daniel McGowan is housed at a Communications Management Unit

“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.