Communication Management Unit
Communication Management Unit is a recent designation for a self-contained group within a facility in the United States Federal Bureau of Prisons that severely restricts, manages and monitors all outside communication (telephone, mail, visitation) of inmates in the unit.
Contents
Origins
As part of the Bush Administration's War on Terrorism, the April 3, 2006 Federal Register included proposed rules by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP) that "Limited Communication for Terrorist Inmates".[1] The changes were in response to criticism that the FBOP had not been adequately monitoring the communications of prisoners, permitting several terrorists convicted for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing to send letters to other terrorists overseas. "By concentrating resources in this fashion, it will greatly enhance the agency's capabilities for language translation, content analysis and intelligence sharing", according to a government statement released with the rules.[2]
The public was given until June 2, 2006 to comment, as required by law. Civil liberty and human rights groups immediately questioned the constitutionality and stated that the provisions were so broad that they could be applied to non-terrorists, witnesses and detainees. The bureau appeared to abandon the program, but on December 11, 2006, a Communication Management Unit (CMU) was quietly implemented at Indiana's Federal Correctional Complex, Terre Haute. It is unclear who authorized the program; it was either the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel, FBOP Director Harley Lappin or Alberto Gonzales, United States Attorney General. However, it appears to be in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.[3]
Communication restrictions
Compared to other inmates, those placed in the CMU have little contact with the outside world.
Visitation
The standard for inmates is unlimited contact on their visitation day, once each week or biweekly. The CMU permits two hours, twice per month, and are non-contact, meaning the visitor and inmate are in separate rooms with viewing through a glass window and talking via telephone. All conversations must be in English unless special permission is granted 10 days in advance.[3]
Prisoners can usually send and receive unlimited mail, where incoming mail is checked for contraband, then delivered to the inmate. With the exception of correspondence with lawyers & the courts, letters sent to and from the CMU are read, copied and evaluated before being released, which results in delays of a week or more.[3]
Telephone
Convicts in the general population are permitted 300 phone minutes per month; rules in the CMU allow one call per week, limited to 15 minutes, and it must be in English unless special permission is granted 10 days in advance. The duration of the single call can be reduced to 3 minutes at the discretion of the warden.[3]
CMU 1
On February 25, 2007, the Washington Post reported the creation of a medium security Communication Management Unit housing 213 inmates in Terre Haute. The staff monitors all telephone calls and mail, and requires that all inmate conversations occur in English unless special permission is arranged for conversations in other languages. It was physically situated in the former death row section, and all but two of the inmates are Arab Muslims, leading the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to raise a concern about racial profiling. The ACLU also charged that the communication restrictions are unduly harsh for prisoners who are not sufficiently serious security threats to warrant placement in ADX Florence, the Supermax facility in Colorado.[2]
Current inmates include the Lackawanna Six, Randall "Ismail" Royer, Enaam Arnaout, Rafil A. Dhafir and "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh.[citation needed]
CMU 2
Although the Supermax facility is gone, the United States Penitentiary, Marion in 2008 became home to the other known "Communication Management Unit" in the federal prison system.[4] The inmates are predominately Arab Muslims, but it also houses Daniel McGowan, serving seven years for involvement in two arsons at logging operations in Oregon. His sentence was given "terrorism enhancements" as authorized by the USA PATRIOT Act.[5]
Communication Management Unit also houses a former leading member of a white nationalist revolutionary group the Order Richard Scutari. Scutari was sentenced to a 60 year prison term in 1985. He was removed to USP Marion CMU in July of 2008.
An ACLU law suit charges that CMUs of the federal prisons violates inmates' rights.[6] In a Democracy Now interview on June 25 2009, animal rights activist Andrew Stepanian, a member of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), talked about being jailed at the CMU. Stepanian is believed to be the first prisoner released from a CMU.[7]
Traits of CMU and its prisoners
Andrew Stepanian commented, "They (US government) don’t want people that are either considered to be fundamentalist in Islam or more devout than your average American in Islam to be circulating amidst the regular prison populace. One can surmise it’s because they don’t want the spread of Islam in the prisons or that they’re trying to silence communications from these individuals, because perhaps their cases are in question themselves, and they don’t want to allow them access to the media.”[8]
Because the units were opened with no fanfare, little is known about them. “The primary problem with the opening of (the CMU) is that no one knows the criteria used to send the person imprisoned to that unit.” according to the president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Carmen Hernandez.[8]
Traits common among those transferred to a CMU include a strong commitment to their cause, studious, disciplined and usually religious. Most of the prisoners are labelled as terrorists, but they include animal rights and environmental activists. “These Communication Management Units are an expansion of a continued war on dissent in this country...of using that word “terrorism” to push a political agenda and to really dominate and...attempt to control these social movements,” commented Attorney Paul Hetznecker.[8]
The Terre Haute CMU restricts Muslim group prayer to once per week, except once per day during Ramadan, according to a lawsuit filed by inmates Enaam Arnaout and John Walker Lindh. The suit alleges that the prison violates religious rights to pray five times per day, in a ritually clean place, "preferably in a group."[9]
References
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