CMU: Communication Management Units, More Like Political Roundups

Hello All,
   I just finished watching a TED talk on secret US prisons, I'll include the link at the bottom. Disclaimer for any government official stalking my blog: I am not advocating anarchy, I am merely stating my view of the cases that CMU's are used to quell political dissidence. Also, stop stalking me, you have better things to do with your one and only very short life. My first example comes from truthout.org, if you find evidence that this source is unreliable, you should feel obligated to state so in the comments, even if it weakens my case and/ or you agree with me. "In August 2008, one year into his sentence, McGowan was transferred to a new isolation unit in Marion, Illinois. It is a prison with a long history of isolating political prisoners through long-term solitary confinement. In the 1970s, the prison was home to a permanent-lockdown unit that even the warden admitted was created to 'control revolutionary attitudes in the prison system and in the society at large.'" This in itself is clear proof that CMU's are used to control political dissidence, though unlike as I stated, only in prison populations. My second quotation will include a number of examples, including members of women's rights movements (time unknown), "That control unit confined numerous political prisoners and inspired other isolation prisons, including a short-lived control unit for women political prisoners in Lexington, Kentucky, and the Administrative Maximum prison in Florence, Colorado, which has also housed dozens of political prisoners.

Marion’s new experiment in isolation is called a “Communication Management Unit.” (Another CMU opened in 2006 at the prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.) The prisoners there are kept under more intensive surveillance and less able to communicate with the outside world. The CMUs place extreme limitations on access to phone calls, mail or visits. People are not placed in CMUs for any disciplinary infraction and are given little explanation as to whether or how they might get back to the general population.

The majority of the men are there for their politics: 60 percent of those held in CMUs are Muslim, many of them are the victims of suspect Homeland Security dragnets. A group of CMU prisoners, including McGowan, has sued the BOP to close the unit. As a result of the lawsuit, Aref v. Holder, McGowan discovered that he was placed in the CMU because he wrote a series of political essays for The Huffington Post and activist newspapers, as well as the political tone of his letters." 

This quotation shows that the CMU's are used to control information from getting in, it also shows that activists like David McGowan are held in the CMU due to his political activism. Though McGowan was originally imprisoned for arson, the censorship of his opinions is unacceptable, though arson is a felony under most legal statutes and shouldn't be condoned either. (This means no burning down a Chik-fil-a LGBT activists, although their donations to anti-LGBT groups are somehow not illegal {Guess the legal system had a brain fail there}https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chick-fil-a-gay-marriage/.) The BOP themselves have said, " CMUs are designed to provide an inmate housing unit environment that enables staff monitoring of all communications between inmates in a Communications Management Unit (CMU) and persons in the community. The ability to monitor such communication is necessary to ensure the safety, security, and orderly operation of correctional facilities, and protection of the public." So one can infer their definition is easily stretchable to include political dissidents.  Journalists aren't even allowed in, anything they write can be used against the prisoner to punish them, they can't conduct interviews either, they can only come in as friends. My final quotation is from www.witnessesagainsttourture.com, "The BOP plays a cat and mouse game to avoid having to disclose information about or close the CMUs.  After being challenged on the basis of religious discrimination, the prison administration began admitting non-Muslim “balancers” to the prison: environmental activists, organizers for prisoner rights, others who might want to “recruit and radicalize others.” Thus the CMUs were expanded into prisons for political activists and dissidents." Oh even better, they were discriminating on the basis of religion and just balance it out with non-Muslims like McGowan. One could even say that the strict communications control violates the first amendments freedom of speech and of the press (Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.) 

Yours in Politics and Reality,

   D

   Agnostic Atheist

   Moderate Liberal

   Running Enthusiast

   LGBT+ ally

 That blogger guy that might eventually piss off Trump or the Government.  

Ted Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuAAPsiD768&index=6&list=WL

P.S: The FBI is following the work of the journalist who gave the talk.

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