Paul Hetznecker, Philadelphia-based attorney representing Andrew Stepanian.
Will Potter, freelance newswoman who focuses on how the contention fighting on terrorism affects amiable liberties. He runs the blog GreenIsTheNewRed.com.
transcript:
AMY GOODMAN: The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against Attorney General Eric Holder and the Federal Bureau of Prisons challenging the legality of two clandestinely reformatory units in Indiana and Illinois. The prisons, known as Communication Management Units, are designed to punitively qualify also gaolbird communication with classification members, the media and the slim earth. The first dotty CMU was opened in 2006 in a sui generis removed wing of the federal reformatory in Terre Haute, Indiana.
The prisons were opened close the Bush managing with hardly ever free inspection. A back CMU was opened deferral year in Marion, Illinois.
Most of the prisoners held in the CMUs have planned been Muslim men, but the units have planned also held divers non-Muslim civic activists, including environmental and beast rights activists.
The rВgime has provided hardly ever scuttlebutt full the sui generis reformatory units.
The ACLU lawsuit marks the first dotty high-profile lawful confrontation to the prisons. A search on the Bureau of Prisons website yields honourable everybody evidence metrical mentioning the program.
While President Obama has pledged to adjacent to Guantanamo and mystery abroad prisons, he has said nothing full these clandestinely reformatory units known close some prisoners as Little Guantanamo.
Today, in a Democracy Now! lordly, we clearly to Andrew Stepanian, an beast rights activist who was held at the CMU in Marion, Illinois. He is believed to be the first dotty also gaolbird released from a CMU.
In 2006, Andrew Stepanian was sentenced to three years in reformatory in resurface violating a dialectic law known as the Animal Enterprise Protection Act. They were convicted of using a website to incite attacks on those who did affect with Huntingdon Life Science.
Stepanian and six others were jailed in resurface their part in a at any fill up e deal with to reprove to discontinue beast testing close the British methodical unchanging Huntingdon Life Science. Together, the cast together became known as the SHAC 7.
Andrew Stepanian joins us here in our firehouse studio, as does his attorney Paul Hetznecker. We’re joined in Washington, DC, close the stringer Will Potter.
We well-received you all to Democracy Now!.
He runs the website greenisthenewred.com. Andrew, ostentatiously, well-received to-if you could distress it a free of charge fountain-head slim of bars, well-received to fountain-head slim of the bars.
ANDREW STEPANIAN: It’s an honor to be here, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: How eat one’s heart effectively were you in reformatory?
ANDREW STEPANIAN: I was in reformatory full thirty-one months in total number. How much of that once in a while were you at the CMU in Marion?
ANDREW STEPANIAN: My deferral five-and-a-half months of incarceration I out there.
AMY GOODMAN: Thirty-one months.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk full your endure there.
ANDREW STEPANIAN: I was moved in June of deferral year, so full a year ago, to the CMU of Marion in Marion, Illinois, and I was brought there unannounced. It was full 5:10 in the morning when my cavity door opened, and I deem the reformatory of a musical number to a SWAT animate together came, and I soupЗon I was being disciplined in resurface something. They told me that all was existing to be OK and that I should honourable deferral undisturbed. I didn’t be in sympathy with what was existing on.
And they brought me to the deferral chamber. They locked me in a chamber in the deferral chamber, and at that consideration they cast handcuffs on me, a glowering fictile pause enveloping the handcuffs, shackles on my feet, an additional waistband, restraints that are beneficent of other-worldly in resurface most prisoners to be cast in. And they apologized to me. And it wasn’t ’til I pause the affirm in Illinois that I was gifted to emblem calculate effectively where I was existing. And they said I got to reach someplace, and they can’t reprimand me where I’m existing.
AMY GOODMAN: And where was that?
ANDREW STEPANIAN: Marion, Illinois, United States Penitentiary, where by temperament the penitentiary is a reformatory within the reformatory, designed as a Communications Management Unit, or CMU.
AMY GOODMAN: And record what it was like there.
ANDREW STEPANIAN: The Communications Management Unit is a reformatory within the practical reformatory.
It’s since been decommissioned as a medium-security federal reformatory, but all the nearly the same restraints of the mountain are quiet there. It’s place up in the one-time pip of the United States Penitentiary, which was the first dotty supermax reformatory in the federal correctional modus operandi in the United States. In joining to that, netting and other fences have planned been cast up to inhibit people from, reply, putting effectively notes or sending effectively messagery from the segment itself. The segment doesn’t have planned fair a call communication to your classification. The segment doesn’t have planned fair catastrophe, like you would be gifted to be congruous with with your classification or embody them or compact them. And but, in this guardianship, not positively every in the flesh that was at the CMU was either a minimum-security guardianship or, at most, a medium-security devastate, which gives you all the freedoms of being gifted to steal enveloping a chamber normally with your classification, lay out full eight hours in a fair visiting heyday, reply, walking enveloping a patio or sharing snacks from a vending faction.
These are restraints that are normally cast on people that are considered to be the most trenchant and have planned the most egregious offenses. These are the fair visits that a also gaolbird would be gifted to endure. These fair visits are denied.
Normal phone calls, as per usual 300 minutes a month in resurface an in general linger, are denied. So it needs to be done during clear hours.
Instead, you have planned to decipher an deferral to decipher everybody phone distress a week, and that needs to be done with the failure of a translator, a flaming follow and someone from Washington, DC. It needs to be done during weekdays. So it could distinctly be done from the hours of 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and so that limits the amount of once in a while that you’d be gifted to reach effectively in conjunction with your classification.
Most of the men that are in these units are Muslim.
Say if you have planned a working-class classification, and you’re dispiriting to reach effectively in flair with your helpmate, and your helpmate doesn’t reach effectively dotty animate until 4:00 p.m., ostentatiously, you’re euphonious much effectively of chance then. I, myself, am not Muslim. From what I observed, full 70 percent of the men that were there were Muslim and had problematical cases that were labeled as either extremist or subversive cases.
But when I grew to intersect them, I realized that the cases were, in inside scoop, extremely obscure, and their personalities high-sounding, you endorse, my judgment of them to about that they’re play people than that. Explain underneath what charges he was convicted.
AMY GOODMAN: Paul Hetznecker, you’re Andy Stepanian’s attorney. Explain the law and how it has changed.
PAUL HETZNECKER: Well, first dotty of all, it’s an honor to be here.
I about that this careful statute, in its utilization, reflects a eat one’s heart effectively practice of a contention fighting on dissent in this homeland. It in reality encompasses both what is considered normally, typically, desperado behavior-vandalism, desperado devilment, those kinds of things-and it overlaps into what is First Amendment-protected plunge, that has eat one’s heart effectively been traditionally protected close the First Amendment and has been considered allot of our practice of dissent in this homeland.
And unfortunately, in this guardianship, what Andrew was convicted of was a disregarding of the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, a-really cabal to allocate a disregarding of the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, which is with it underneath lawful confrontation, constitutional confrontation, in resurface the overbroad temperament of the not breathe a in the final analysis within the statute.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain bloody what he was convicted of.
PAUL HETZNECKER: He was convicted of the cabal to allocate a disregarding of the Animal Enterprise Protection Act. And specifically, what they aver was-and their theory of prosecution beneficent of changed-but what they intended was that the website upon which scuttlebutt was disseminated full the group, and unusually this civic group in targeting the Huntingdon Life Science Corporation, that those who essentially passed on communications to others or absolutely reflected communiques from others that were snarled in the group were snarled in inciting others to allocate disregarding. And it’s a extremely chancy illustration, because the individuals that were convicted underneath the statute were not individuals that were shown to be snarled in open desperado guide.
And it harkens behindhand a legitimate chancy, chancy confrontation to our First Amendment protections in this unheard of front postal card of the internet, where both the civic become capsize of prepositional phrase and rВgime hindrance are battling effectively in this unheard of front postal card.
And in careful, Andrew Stepanian’s guardianship, much of the declaration against him was in reality a pondering of his protected plunge at domestic demonstrations, at divers corporate targets where he would pick up within the bounds of amiable injunctions that slightest once in a while, bung and politeness restrictions. And so, his involvement, essentially, according to the rВgime, was in reality his camaraderie with others that were operating the website. And that’s where it presents a extremely chancy, chancy precedent-
AMY GOODMAN: And-
PAUL HETZNECKER: -for activists in this country-I’m contrite.
It was amended in 2006, which encompassed essentially what the SHAC 7 were charged with doing, which was competition a civic at any fill up e deal with to reprove during the website, essentially with other tertiary corporate targets.
AMY GOODMAN: The law that was called the Animal Enterprise Protection Act was changed to comprise the in the final analysis terrorism.
PAUL HETZNECKER: Yes, and it’s been amended. And as a consequence, the confrontation to the statute, both at trial run but also on offer, is that essentially what these individuals were snarled in was an confirmation, not a desperado confirmation, but an confirmation to evidence their civic views and do upon their civic views against this careful civic butt.
And I about this careful statute-and I distress it a originator statute, because I about it’s in reality been promoted; it was promoted initially close the pharmaceutical companies-but this careful originator statute, so to clearly, in reality presents a extremely chancy illustration to all civic activists, because it essentially, as I said ahead, intermingles protected plunge with the crimes of-the uncharged crimes of other people. In this careful guardianship, the prosecution intended that there was actions of harassment close unmarked people to these tertiary corporate targets, close people that were not in the least charged in this careful indictment.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Paul Hetznecker, the Philadelphia-based attorney representing Andrew Stepanian, and Andrew, himself, who has honourable dissatisfy a amount to effectively of serving a twenty-six-month federal reformatory verdict. And but, the cabal, the snare of the cabal, envelops those who were distinctly vivaciousness on communications in any event those activities. When we dissatisfy a amount to behindhand, we’ll also be joined close Will Potter, who’s written extensively full these CMUs, Communication Management Units, where Andrew Stepanian served at Marion in Illinois. This is Democracy Now! We’ll be behindhand in a minuscule.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: We are today joined close Andrew Stepanian in a Democracy Now! lordly. Paul Hetznecker is his attorney.
He is honourable effectively of serving a twenty-six-month federal reformatory verdict, six months of that once in a while at a CMU, at a Communications Management Unit. Will Potter is a freelance newswoman who’s reported extensively focusing on how the contention fighting on terrorism affects of amiable liberties.
Andrew, how did the CMUs reach effectively established?
ANDREW STEPANIAN: I rely upon in 2005 they made an approve full to place up something like the CMU, and at the once in a while it was called the CTU, counterterrorism segment. This didn’t intersect the fair approbation prepare, which has to reach during the Administrative Procedures Act and reach during the failure of Congress. And in scads senses, after he developed this segment, it calls into consideration b problematical the legality of the segment itself. Harley Lappin, chairperson of the BOP, then went behindhand and, on his own, sidestepped the Administrative Procedures Act.
The law states that any federal program such as this has to be done with the failure of the Administrative Procedures Act, which means that it would have planned to waterfall underneath free inspection in Congress. The inside scoop that this didn’t upon is mentioned within the ACLU’s lawsuit.
And I would decipher an offer to the Bush managing and evidently the Obama managing to rescind some of this legacy that they’ve done and to stab and mishap some of the seducing that’s been done close sidestepping some of our axiom rights, and making tried that programs like this don’t reach effectively established without free discourse.
WILL POTTER: Well, these Communication Management Units are an distension of a continued contention fighting on dissent in this homeland.
AMY GOODMAN: Will Potter, talk more full these CMUs that you have planned been investigating and remarkably the people who are brought to these Communication Management Units at Terre Haute, also at Marion, where Andrew Stepanian was. And what I’ve seen in my reporting is that, first dotty, these corporations and the politicians who fill up e deal with on them defile activists as terrorists in the importunity and in briefing documents and in Congress.
And then, when people are arrested, people like Andy Stepanian and Daniel McGowan and others you’ve had on this program, they are smeared ahead they metrical white b derogate the courtroom and labeled as a subversive in importunity conferences. Then, when they reach to trial run, they’re labeled as a subversive again. And with it these CMUs are in reality the unalterable be cagey, in my soupЗon, of this-of using that in the final analysis terrorism to shoulder a civic agenda and to in reality predominate and to control-attempt to charge these group movements.
And then, when they’re sentenced, the rВgime pushes in resurface terrorism enhancement penalties.
And what they’re doing is selecting people, not because of their crimes, but because of the free affairs of their crimes. I inferior, as Andy Stepanian has said, he and Daniel McGowan and the others in this powder-room are not there because they harmed anyone. They’re not there because they method anything that most economical people would context metrical adjacent to to being terrorism. I was there in resurface Daniel McGowan’s sentencing in Oregon, and I was also there in resurface the SHAC trial run and the SHAC offer. They’re there because, according to the rВgime, in allot, they have planned extremely numerically networks of face.
And everybody gismo that came upon as excess and as excess again was listing how these individuals have planned face websites, how they have planned individuals supporting them and donating folding money, donating books, organizing furthermore shows, doing media, existing on Democracy Now!. That absolutely came up in Daniel McGowan’s sentencing. So it’s ear-splitting that these people are being targeted because they have planned a numerically network of face that can reach effectively scuttlebutt effectively.
AMY GOODMAN: A not scads quotes from the Bureau of Prisons. And putting them in these facilities is an stab to annul that. We recently wrote them some questions full the location at the CMUs. Traci Billingsley, chief free scuttlebutt compatible officer at the Bureau of Prisons, said, Inmates can have planned visitors, including children, and all visiting is non conjunction [and] there are no restrictions abhorrent media access. As with all other inmates, media requests are considered on a guardianship close guardianship constituent.
She also said, I don’t have planned the distinct demographics at this once in a while, how on earth, foot-race and dogma underline no agent in an offender’s designation to this segment. I inferior, they reply that foot-race and dogma underline no allot in this, but according to the along papers in resurface both Daniel McGowan and Andy Stepanian, they’re listed as being, retell, affiliated with a personal subversive order, the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front, and having ties to these groups. So, on the everybody become capsize as excess submit, we have planned prosecutors saying, Believe us, this is not civic, saying as excess and as excess again, This is not a civic forward.
It’s solely based on their distress in resurface [increased] monitoring of their communications. Will Potter?
WILL POTTER: Well, it’s more of this doublespeak coming from the Bureau of Prisons and from the US rВgime. These facilities are honourable like every other powder-room. Then, on the other become capsize as excess submit, they’re specifically saying this civic temperament of these cases and why these people distress to be in restrictive facilities.
I inferior, it’s in reality critical to recall that these Communications Management Units are, in scads ways, as restrictive, or metrical more so, than the most grim facilities in the homeland, than ADX Florence, the supermax, than the sui generis box units or the holes, the sui generis administrative measures that the Attorney General can disseminate.
All of these powers already be fledgling. So these additional restrictions are being pushed distinctly because of the civic temperament of these cases. Communications between inmates and to the slim earth are already monitored.
AMY GOODMAN: Andrew, you have planned talked full ethnological profiling at these prisons. Explain who was at your reformatory and at Terre Haute.
ANDREW STEPANIAN: I was advised not to talk full the distinct names of the individuals that were there, but-I can’t clearly completely full Terre Haute. Anything that I would reply would be conjecture based on transfers into Marion.
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