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<big><big><b><a
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title="Permanent Link to Communication Management Units: BOP’s Lack of Process Allows for Targeting of Muslims, Political Speech">Communication
Management Units: BOP’s Lack of Process Allows for Targeting of
Muslims, Political Speech</a><br>
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addthis:title="Communication+Management+Units%3A+BOP%27s+Lack+of+Process+Allows+for+Targeting+of+Muslims%2C+Political+Speech+">By:
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Thursday April 24, 2014 4:07 pm<br>
<small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2014/04/24/communication-management-units-bureau-of-prisons-lack-of-process-permits-targeting-of-muslims-political-speech/">http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2014/04/24/communication-management-units-bureau-of-prisons-lack-of-process-permits-targeting-of-muslims-political-speech/</a></small></small></small><br>
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<p>The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which has brought a
lawsuit on behalf of prisoners placed in restrictive prison units known
as Communications Management Units (CMUs), has revealed documentation
that shows for the first time how people are designated for placement
in CMUs, what they are told by the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) when placed
in a CMU, and how they’re ongoing imprisonment in the CMU is reviewed
by BOP.</p>
<p>CMUs can be found in prisons in Terre Haute, Indiana, and Marion,
Illinois. They opened in 2006 and 2008, respectively. The stated reason
for opening them was to control and isolate prisoners from being able
to communicate to the outside world.</p>
<p>The <a
href="http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/previously-secret-prison-docs-show-constitutional-violations-experimental-prison-units">lawsuit</a>
does not challenge that practice if it is truly necessary, but what it
does challenge is the lack of process for prisoners to contest their
placement in CMUs and how broad discretion has made it possible for BOP
to disproportionately target Muslims as well as others for their
political speech.</p>
<p>The worst part of being under CMU restrictions is that prisoners
cannot have contact with loved ones. They cannot hold hands with their
wives. They cannot hug. “The lack of physical contact with his children
for the 47 months” that Aref has been in CMUs has been, to him, “a kind
of torture.”</p>
<p>For the first three years that CMUs were in existence, there was no
process setup for reviewing CMU prisoners so they could be transferred
out. Senior CCR attorney, Alexis Agathocleous, said there is
“considerable confusion about how those reviews work and when they
should occur.”</p>
<p>Prison officials are supposed to be reviewing whether the “original
reasons for CMU designation still exist,” but, as Agathocleous
explained, “If prison officials don’t actually know fully the reasons
why a prisoner was sent to a CMU to begin with, they can’t possibly
determine whether those original reasons still exist.”</p>
<p>According to the CCR’s <a
href="http://ccrjustice.org/files/Memo%20in%20Support%20of%20Summary%20Judgment%20Motion.pdf">latest
court submission</a>, a Counter-Terrorism Unit (CTU) within the BOP
makes the initial recommendation—the “Notice for Transfer—to the CMU.
The notice does not “actually reflect the reason(s) the prisoner was in
fact approved for CMU designation.” A North Central Regional Director
“makes the ultimate decision” and that may or may not be similar to
CTU’s recommendation. This director can base the decision to transfer a
prisoner to a CMU on any information, regardless of whether the
information is in the “designation packet.” This decision-maker is not
required to document what goes into this “ultimate decision,” even if
it is different from CTU’s recommendation.</p>
<p>Agathocleous told Firedoglake that “prisoners sent to the CMU were
told that the only way they could appeal their placement was through
the Administrative Prisoner Remedy Program.” Several CMU prisoners did
and what they received in response was “a repetition of the same
inaccurate or incomplete paragraph” that they had initially been
provided to explain why they were in the CMU.</p>
<p>For example, Daniel McGowan, a plaintiff in the lawsuit and an
environmental activist who was charged with committing a series of
arsons and other property crimes against numerous targets that they
deemed to be agents of environmental destruction and animal
exploitation, was <a
href="http://ccrjustice.org/files/SJ%20-%20Exhibit%2068.pdf">informed</a>
that he was put in a CMU for “destruction of an energy facility.” He
was told the BOP thought he was a “member and leader in both the Earth
Liberation Front (ELF) and Animal Liberation Front (ALF)” and that he
“taught others how to commit arson.” McGowan maintained that those
allegations were not “supported by facts.”</p>
<p>The response he received restated allegations and did not explain
why they were true. He also was not able to go through a better process
to argue the allegations weren’t true. And, furthermore, he was not
informed by the BOP that the Counter-Terrorism Unit had relied on his
communications from the Federal Correctional Institution in Sandstone,
Minnesota, on environmental issues to justify putting him in a CMU.</p>
<p>According to Agathocleous, no CMU prisoner “has ever successfully
challenged his CMU designation” through the administrative remedy
process. Prisoners have been told that they can get out in 18 months if
they cause no conflicts. However, the CCR learned through documents and
depositions of officials that there was no policy. No time limit on how
long a person could be in a CMU existed in policy.<span id="more-20836"></span></p>
<p>Another plaintiff in the lawsuit, Yassin Aref, spent 18 months in
his first CMU. He did not do anything wrong, but after 18 months, he
was transferred to another CMU. The 18-month clock restarted. He has
spent four years in a CMU without committing any misconduct.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Criteria for placement is unclear. CCR has discovered that
different offices responsible for CMU designation use “different
criteria to make their decisions about who should be sent to CMUs.”
They do not even know which criteria should apply, which gives
officials very broad discretion.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“The system is broken at every level,” Agathocleous
declared. And it impacts Muslim prisoners the worst.</p>
<p dir="ltr">One hundred and one of 178 total CMU designations have
been Muslim prisoners, according to data CCR was allowed to disclose
for the first time. Six percent of the prison population is Muslim. As
the filing states, “This marks a vast overrepresentation which cannot
be explained away by virtue of the CMU’s focus on terrorism.”</p>
<p>“Of the first 55 prisoners designated to the CMU, 45 were sent there
because of their connection to terrorism, but the other ten were
designated due to involvement in prohibited activities related to
communication; of that ten, eight self-reported as Muslim,” it explains.</p>
<p>Prisoners with strong religious or political views are targeted as
well, but prisoners are often not informed that consideration of
religious or political beliefs factored into their CMU designation.</p>
<p>Marion CMU Unit Manager Paul Kelly apparently testified that a
“prisoner could mitigate the reasons for his initial placement by no
longer believing in the ideology that motivated the activities that led
to his CMU placement.” Also, Henry Rivas, the Intelligence Research
Specialist at the Marion CMU, “thought that an individual sent to the
CMU for environmental extremism who continued to read extremist
environmental publications qualified for continued CMU placement.”</p>
<p>The CCR’s recent filing further indicates, “North Central Regional
Staff opined that prisoner L required CMU designation due to his
offense conduct and ‘continued militant beliefs.’ The staff member
indicated that prisoner L would have to ‘change the militant portion of
those beliefs’ to be eligible for release from the CMU.”</p>
<p>It is near impossible to get out of the CMU. Kifah Jayyousi, one of
the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, was in a CMU for 58 months or 232 weeks.
McGowan was in a CMU for 22 months or 98 weeks. Avon Twitty, another
plaintiff, was in the CMU for 39 months or 156 weeks. Ninety-five
prisoners have spent over 18 months in CMUs. Twenty-five prisoners have
spent over 36 months or 144 weeks.</p>
<p>Agathocleous argued, “CMU prisoners are entitled to but have been
deprived of meaningful notice of the reason of the CMU designation,
reasonable and comprehensible designation standards, meaningful
opportunity to contest their placement in the CMU and a meaningful
periodic review process so they can figure out how to earn their way
out.”</p>
<p>“Extremely draconian restrictions” have a “very serious material
impact on people’s lives” are not accompanied with a meaningful process
that gives prisoners the right to challenge these severe conditions. It
deprives them of their right to due process and their First Amendment
right to have contact with family (only two 15-minute phone calls are
allowed per week).</p>
<p>The broad ability to make these decisions absent any accountability
is what CCR hopes to bring to an end.</p>
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