FLORIDA DOC PENPAL LISTINGS - NO REMOVALS AND WHY

[CCADP]

October 2, 2002 From: Working Assets Online
www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=13872
Death row unplugged
Bill Berkowitz - WorkingForChange

10.02.02 - "They are sentenced to death, not to silence," Tracy Lamourie,
one of the founders of the Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty,
recently told the Advocate News of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Official in the
state of Arizona have a different point of view. In mid July, the state
began enforcing a two-year-old law banning prisoners from contributing
information about their cases to web sites run by outside organizations.

Toronto NOW, the city's local independent weekly newspaper, reported
that the Arizona bill would "control and censor Web pages for death row
inmates" provided by the Toronto-based Canadian Coalition Against the
Death Penalty (CCADP) - (www.ccadp.org). "The Coalition has teamed up
with the American Civil Liberties Union to challenge the state regulation
[HB 2376] in court," the paper added. "But we don't know what's sadder.
Arizona's need to further dehumanize prisoners about to be murdered by
the state or the fact that the coalition maintains over [450] web pages for
death-row prisoners across the U.S."

Tracy Lamourie and Dave Parkinson run the Canadian Coalition Against the
Death Penalty. Via several email exchanges they told me that of the 450
web pages of death row prisoners that they maintain, 370 are living on
death row, 4 have been released and 8 had been re-sentenced. Parkinson
wrote that "10 percent of American death row prisoners have a page on
our site. We also have pen pal requests for hundreds more. "

The idea, for the web pages Lamourie has said, is to give a voice to a
segment of society that is often written off by the public and to remember
those who were executed. "It isn't glorifying anyone to allow them a voice
before they are executed -- to allow them to send us reports of abuses
going on in the prison, legal issues in their cases, even writings and poetry
detailing life in a cage waiting to be killed."

Lamourie told me that she and Parkinson founded CCADP after they heard
about the case of Jimmy Dennis. "This," said Lamourie is "a Pennsylvania
case of actual innocence that was garnering little or no attention or
support. After reviewing the legal materials realizing the credibility of his
claims of innocence, we set up the first CCADP web page - devoted to the
Jimmy Dennis case - and included information about the behavior of the
police as well as witness statements, photos and contact information.
Dennis has since gained the support from people around the world, and
web pages for him have sprung up in the UK, Germany, Singapore, and
elsewhere. Dennis is now being represented by a large law firm in
Washington who were specifically seeking a case of actual innocence. We
hope and expect to hear that Jimmy Dennis will be exonerated in the not
too distant future."

For many of the isolated, depressed and desperate prisoners, CCADP's web
pages often serve as their only lifeline. One inmate on Texas' death row
wrote: "I want to thank you. I do not dramatize or exaggerate when I tell
you I believe you have served as a conduit that saved my life. In the
despair that can overwhelm us here, I was very seriously considering
suicide or waiving my appeals. Because of you I have found reason for
fighting, reason for living, and happiness beyond measure."

Another wrote: "Your site has changed my life, it taught me to love to
write, except when it gets over 100 degrees in my tiny cell. But it helped
me hang on to life; most times while on death row I wanted to give up and
die, not only cause someone was gone because of me or cause I lost
everything. But I felt like I was worthless. [Because of you]… I was
blessed with another chance."

Not everyone believes prison inmates should have access to the Internet,
let alone have their cases publicized through special web pages. "I think
they [CCADP] are just misguided individuals," East Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Assistant District Attorney John Sinquefield told the Advocate News.
Sinquefield, who has prosecuted death penalty cases, said the people
running the Web site aren't related to the victims of "the people
slaughtered by some of the worst, most heinous criminals around."
Sinquefield added that he thought CCADP is "intervening in something
that's not really their business. I think they should stay in Canada. I'm
sure there's plenty of criminals up there to keep them busy."

Several members of victim's rights groups have also found the web pages
for prisoners unsettling. "These people are bad dudes," Frank Parish, a
board member of the National Organization of Parents of Murdered
Children, whose stepdaughter was abducted from the parking lot of a
Houston grocery store and murdered, told Wired News. "It doesn't bother
me at all that they don't have their Bill of Rights. They forfeited those
when they made the deliberate choice to violate the law."

Arizona silences inmates

On July 18, 2002, according to the Canadian Coalition's website (CCADP),
the organization filed suit in the Arizona courts "to have the law that
attempts to cut off communication between advocacy groups and
prisoners declared unconstitutional." The ACLU is representing the CCADP,
Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and Stop Prisoner
Rape in this action.

Because of HB 2376 and the "actions now being taken against prisoners by
ADOC" [Arizona Department of Corrections], CCADP has decided to place
all Arizona death row prisoners online, to "ensure they are not effectively
silenced by this law."

In actuality, prisoners do not have direct access to the Internet. The
ACLU explained in a letter to Terry Stewart, Director Arizona Dept of
Corrections that inmates "have no access to computers… linked to the
outside world." What the law is trying to prevent, the ACLU claimed, is
"correspond[ence] or attempt to correspond with a communications
service provider or remote computing service."

What the prisoners have had access to is the ability to communicate with
outside organizations that have set up web pages on their behalf. These
days, with so many legitimate questions raised about falsely convicted and
incarcerated prisoners on death row, it's common sense to allow prisoners
an outlet to talk about their lives and cases. Especially so, given the
recent number of cases involving prisoners - now numbering more than
100, including six from Arizona - removed from death row after information
that they had not committed the crimes they were convicted and
sentenced for was discovered.

According to CCADP, the statute that went into effect July 2000 reads:

"EXCEPT AS AUTHORIZED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, AN
INMATE SHALL NOT HAVE ACCESS TO THE INTERNET THROUGH THE USE
OF A COMPUTER, COMPUTER SYSTEM, NETWORK, COMMUNICATION
SERVICE PROVIDER OR REMOTE COMPUTING SYSTEM.

Inmates are prohibited from sending or receiving mail from an Internet
service provider or "remote" computing company. Any inmate found in
violation of this statute "is guilty "of a Class 1 misdemeanor," and could be
denied "earned release credits." In addition, the statute applies if "any
person accesses the provider's or service internet web site at the inmate's
request."

In a letter from the Arizona Department of Corrections, prisoners have
been advised that to "avoid possible criminal charges and/or disciplinary
sanctions," they need to have their names "removed" from the CCADP web
sites "within three (3) weeks." Officials will be monitoring the web site and
if "your name/information etc. has not been removed… or is located on any
other web site on the internet system, disciplinary actions WILL BE
administered and possible criminal charges may result."

CCADP Stands firm

In response to the ADOC, CCADP's Directors Dave Parkinson and Tracy
Lamourie advised Arizona authorities that although they've received the
inmate's request for removal, they will not comply. "We believe that ANY
and ALL requests received by the CCADP from the State of Arizona,
regarding removal of information from the internet," Parkinson and Lamourie
wrote," have been made under duress and as a direct result of Prison
Administration trying to coerce and intimidate prisoners through threats of
retaliation, punishment and/or criminal charges."

The CCADP insists that it holds the rights to all the materials received from
inmates before the statute went into effect and it will continue to post
these materials "with or without the permission of the prisoner in question.
Prisoners are not aware when they contact us that we may or may not
comply with the prisoners request for removal at a later date."

The Coalition also announced its intention of creating web pages for all
Arizona death row prisoners, "with or without their knowledge or consent"
and promised to "diligently scour the internet to locate any and all current
postings by prisoners that may not yet be deleted and copy them as well
to include on our new Arizona Prisoners section."

[CCADP]

From: TomPaine.com September 16, 2002 By Bill Berkowitz
Death Row Off The Web - Arizona Censors Communications By Death Row Inmates
Bill Berkowitz is a long time political observer and columnist.

"They are sentenced to death, not to silence," Tracy Lamourie, one of the founders of the Canadian
Coalition Against the Death Penalty, recently told the Advocate News of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Officials in the state of Arizona have a different point of view: In mid-July, the state began enforcing a two-year-old law banning prisoners from contributing information about their cases to Web sites run by outside organizations.

Toronto NOW, the city's local independent weekly newspaper, reported that the Arizona bill would
"control and censor Web pages for death row inmates" provided by the Toronto-based Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty (CCADP). "The Coalition has teamed up with the American Civil Liberties Union to challenge the state regulation [HB 2376] in court," the paper added. "But we don't know what's sadder. Arizona's need to further dehumanize prisoners about to be murdered by the state or the fact that the coalition maintains over [450] Web pages for death-row prisoners across the U.S."

Tracy Lamourie and Dave Parkinson run the Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty. Via several e-mail exchanges they told me that of the 450 Web pages of death row prisoners that they maintain, 370 are for prisoners living on death row, 4 are for prisoners who have been released and 8 are for prisoners who had been re-sentenced. Parkinson wrote that "10 percent of American death row prisoners have a page on our site. We also have pen pal requests for hundreds more. "

"The idea" for the Web pages, Lamourie says, "is to give a voice to a segment of society that is often written off by the public and to remember those who were executed.

"It isn't glorifying anyone to allow them a voice before they are executed -- to allow them to send us reports of abuses going on in the prison, legal issues in their cases, even writings and poetry detailing life in a cage waiting to be killed."

Lamourie told me that she and Parkinson founded CCADP after they heard about the case of Jimmy
Dennis. "This," said Lamourie, is "a Pennsylvania case of actual innocence that was garnering little or no attention or support. After reviewing the legal materials and realizing the credibility of his claims of innocence, we set up the first CCADP Web page -- devoted to the Jimmy Dennis case -- and included information about the behavior of the police as well as witness statements, photos and contact information. Dennis has since gained the support from people around the world, and Web pages for him have sprung up in the U.K., Germany, Singapore, and elsewhere. Dennis is now being represented by a large law firm in Washington who were specifically seeking a case of actual innocence. We hope and expect to hear that Jimmy Dennis will be exonerated in the not-too-distant future."

For many of the isolated, depressed and desperate prisoners on the nation's death rows, the CCADP's
Web pages serve as their only lifeline. One inmate on Texas' death row wrote: "I want to thank you. I do not dramatize or exaggerate when I tell you I believe you have served as a conduit that saved my life. In the despair that can overwhelm us here, I was very seriously considering suicide or waiving my appeals.
Because of you I have found reason for fighting, reason for living, and happiness beyond measure."

Another wrote: "Your site has changed my life, it taught me to love to write, except when it gets over 100 degrees in my tiny cell. But it helped me hang on to life; most times while on death row I wanted to give up and die, not only cause someone was gone because of me or cause I lost everything. But I felt like I was worthless. [Because of you]... I was blessed with another chance."

Not everyone believes prison inmates should have access to the Internet, let alone have their cases
publicized through special Web pages. "I think [the CCADP] are just misguided individuals," Assistant
District Attorney John Sinquefield told the Advocate News. Sinquefield, who has prosecuted death penalty cases, said the people running the Web site aren't related to the victims of "the people slaughtered by some of the worst, most heinous criminals around." Sinquefield added that he thought CCADP is "intervening in something that's not really their business. I think they should stay in Canada. I'm sure there's plenty of criminals up there to keep them busy."

Several members of victim's rights groups have also found the Web pages for prisoners unsettling. "These people are bad dudes," Frank Parish, a board member of the National Organization of Parents of Murdered Children, whose stepdaughter was abducted from the parking lot of a Houston grocery store and murdered, told Wired News. "It doesn't bother me at all that they don't have their Bill of Rights. They forfeited those when they made the deliberate choice to violate the law."

Arizona silences inmates

On July 18, 2002, according to the Canadian Coalition's Web site, the organization filed suit in the
Arizona courts "to have the law that attempts to cut off communication between advocacy groups and
prisoners declared unconstitutional." The ACLU is representing the CCADP, Citizens United for
Alternatives to the Death Penalty and Stop Prisoner Rape in this action.

Because of HB 2376 and the "actions now being taken against prisoners by ADOC" [Arizona Department of Corrections], CCADP has decided to place all Arizona death row prisoners online, to "ensure they are not effectively silenced by this law."

In actuality, prisoners do not have direct access to the Internet. The ACLU explained in a letter to Terry
Stewart, Director Arizona Dept of Corrections that inmates "have no access to computers... linked to the outside world." What the law is trying to prevent, the ACLU claimed, is "correspond[ence] or attempt to correspond with a communications service provider or remote computing service."

What the prisoners have had access to is the ability to communicate with outside organizations that have set up Web pages on their behalf in the form of written letters, poetry and art. These days, with so many legitimate questions raised about falsely convicted and incarcerated prisoners on death row, it's common sense to allow prisoners an outlet to talk about their lives and cases. Especially so, given the recent number of cases involving prisoners -- now numbering more than 100, including six from Arizona -- removed from death row after information that they had not committed the crimes they were convicted and sentenced for was discovered.

According to CCADP, the statute that went into effect July 18 reads:

"Except as authorized by the department of corrections, an inmate... shall not have access to the Internet through the use of a computer, computer system, network, communication service provider or remote computing system."

Inmates are prohibited from sending or receiving mail from an Internet service provider or "remote" computing company. Any inmate found in violation of this statute "is guilty "of a Class 1 misdemeanor," and could be denied "earned release credits." In addition, the statute applies if "any person accesses the provider's or service Internet Web site at the inmate's request."

In a letter from the Arizona Department of Corrections, prisoners have been advised that to "avoid possible criminal charges and/or disciplinary sanctions," they need to have their names "removed" from the CCADP Web sites "within three (3) weeks." Officials will be monitoring the Web site and if "your name/information etc. has not been removed... or is located on any other Web site on the Internet system, disciplinary actions WILL BE administered and possible criminal charges may result."

CCADP Stands Firm

In response to the ADOC, CCADP's Directors Dave Parkinson and Tracy Lamourie advised Arizona
authorities that although they've received the inmate's request for removal, they will not comply. "We believe that ANY and ALL requests received by the CCADP from the State of Arizona, regarding removal of information from the Internet," Parkinson and Lamourie wrote, "have been made under duress and as a direct result of Prison Administration trying to coerce and intimidate prisoners through threats of retaliation, punishment and/or criminal charges."

The CCADP insists that it holds the rights to all the materials received from inmates before the statute went into effect and it will continue to post these materials "with or without the permission of the prisoner in question. Prisoners are not aware when they contact us that we may or may not comply with the prisoners request for removal at a later date."

The Coalition also announced its intention of creating Web pages for all Arizona death row prisoners, "with or without their knowledge or consent" and promised to "diligently scour the Internet to locate any and all current postings by prisoners that may not yet be deleted and copy them as well to include on our new Arizona Prisoners section."

Lamourie points out the bind in which prisoners have been placed by this legislation. "If Arizona prisoners are punished for even contacting groups like ours, how are they able to comply with requests to be removed if it means they have to write us in order to do so? The question is indicative of how crazy this law is, and is a point raised in our brief. Also, prisoners have no way to confirm that the group or individual maintaining a site for them has received their request for removal, and have absolutely no control over what someone on the other side of the planet may have on their Web site."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Aug 22-28 issue of Toronto's weekly newspaper NOW magazine in UPFRONT section :
death row on the web

In a punitive act thats being called an attack against constitutional rights, the state of Arizona is trying to control and censor Web pages for death row inmates provided by the Toronto based Canadian Coalition
Against the Death Penalty (www.ccadp.org). The Coalition has teamed up with the American Civil Liberties Union to challenge the state regulation in court. But we don't know whats sadder, Arizona's need to further dehumanize prisoners about to be murdered by the state or the fact that the Coalition maintains over 350 Web pages for death row inmates across the US."

[CCADP]

Index On Censorship Online: www.indexonline.org/news/20020801_unitedstates.shtml
United States: Prisoners' rights - Arizona tries to jail the internet
Aug 2, 2002
Arizona state law bans prisoners in its jails from internet contact with their friends and
families - and now from campaign groups trying to defend their rights. Three such
groups have now recruited the American Civil Liberties Union to challenge the bans
on freedom of speech grounds.

Three prisoners' rights organisations are suing jail managers in the western US state of Arizona over a new law that criminalises communications with prisoners and punishes them if information about their cases appear on websites run by their supporters.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is representing Stop Prisoner Rape (SPR), the Canadian
Coalition Against the Death Penalty (CCADP) and Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
(CUADP) in their case against Terry L Stewart, Director of the Arizona Department of Corrections.

They argue that his department's enforcement of Arizona's House Bill 2376 violates both their and their
prisoner contacts' first amendment rights to free speech and severely hampers their advocacy work on behalf of prisoners.

SPR, the Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty (CCADP) and Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (CUADP) seek to invalidate a state law that seeks to ban all information from Arizona prisoners from being posted on the internet.

"For many prisoners, we are the only source of information about surviving sexual assault, and we rely
on the internet," says Lara Stemple, executive director of SPR.

SPR, a non-profit human rights organization dedicated to ending sexual violence against men, women, and youth in all forms of detention, posts survivor stories, comments, and excerpts from prisoners' letters on its website.

"Men and women who have been raped in prison are often too ashamed to speak out," explains Stemple.
"SPR's website gives survivors a chance to connect with one another, and when you are isolated, ashamed, and afraid, that connection can be a matter of life and death."

All three organisations maintain websites containing information about prisoner rights, as well as information about specific inmates.

The SPR posts contributions from inmates written about their own personal experiences of sexual abuse while incarcerated while the CUADP and CCADP websites posting of personal case information from prisoners and appeals for legal and political assistance.

The CCADP website held information from 45 prisoners in Arizona jails at the time the suit was launched. SPR regularly sends fact sheets, survivor stories, and referrals printed from its website to survivors who are still incarcerated.

"Arizona's attempts to restrict and censor the content of advocacy organizations' own websites certainly violates the Constitution and establishes a troubling precedent," says Ann Beeson, Litigation Director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Program.

"Prisoners and the groups that choose to assist them retain the same vital freedom of speech that all
Americans do."

The bill reinforces restrictions on unmonitored inmate access to the internet and aims to restrict
correspondence between prisoners and 'communication service provider' or 'remote computing service', though not communications with newspapers and magazines.

The law also imposes disciplinary action against inmates whose names or personal information appear on the websites. Inmates may also be disciplined if any person outside prison walls accesses a provider or service website at a prisoner's request.

The July 18 order reads in part: "Except as authorized by the department of corrections, an inmate shall not have access to the internet through the use of a computer, computer system, network, communication service provider or remote computing system. An inmate who violates this section is guilty of a class 1 misdemeanour."

The penalties include removal of good behaviour points towards parole. Prisoners whose names are spotted on the sites are issued with an order demanding that they contact the site and have their names withdrawn.

In May and June of this year CUADP was contacted by two prisoners requesting that information about them be removed from the website. CCADP has similarly been contacted by at least four inmates.

"This ill-conceived law places prisoners in a Catch-22," said Eleanor Eisenberg, Executive Director of the ACLU of Arizona. "The only way for prisoners to stop information from being posted on the Internet is to
contact the very organizations the prisoners are now banned from contacting."

SPR, CCADP and CUADP are challenging the bill's 'chilling effect' on their right to free speech and its
effective censorship of their public concerns about prisoner safety.

They also note that pro-death penalty organisations such as Crazy Pros and organisations which seek harsher penalties for prisoners such as the National Organisation of Parents of Murdered Children also post information about inmates, their crimes and their sentences.

To date Stewart and his department have not asked prisoners named by these pro-death penalty websites try to contact them to have their names removed. It seems that inmates are only vulnerable to punishment when their cause is taken up by organisations that try to argue their innocence on their behalf.

In its letter to Stewart, the ACLU said it believed that the legislation would be swiftly invalidated by the courts.

"There can be no doubt that the purpose and effect of this legislation is to suppress the flow of information from prisoners to the outside world, and to chill the advocacy of CCADP and other anti-death penalty and prisoner rights organizations," the ACLU letter added.

"The Internet is a vital source of news and information for millions of people in the United States and around the world," said David C. Fathi, staff counsel with the ACLU's National Prison Project.

"The government may not ban information about prisoners from the Internet any more than it could ban
such information from newspapers or television."

This item is awaiting a comment from the Arizona Department of Corrections.
Additional reporting by Avery Davis-Roberts.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[CCADP]

State Pen Mightier Than Speech?
By Julia Scheeres 2:00 a.m. July 18, 2002 PDT
www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,53832,00.html

The day Stardust Johnson ran across her husband's killer on the Internet, holding a kitty cat and searching for female pen pals to alleviate his death row boredom, was the day she went from a mild-mannered widow to outspoken victims' rights advocate.
"I curled up into a fetal position on the floor, screaming," said Johnson, whose husband Roy was on his way home from giving an organ recital at a Tucson, Arizona, church when he was kidnapped and bludgeoned to death with rocks by a meth addict. "He didn't mention that he'd brutally murdered my husband and thrown his body into a wash."
Johnson's outrage led to the creation of a 2-year-old Arizona law that makes it a criminal offense for inmates to publish personals, pen pal ads, financial aid requests or even their artwork and musings on the Internet.
Critics charge that the ban violates inmates' free speech, but prison officials say they're doing their duty: protecting victims and their families from additional emotional distress, and the public from professional scam artists.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Thursday in the federal district court of Phoenix challenging the law's constitutionality on First Amendment grounds.
"This isn't about security, it's about suppressing unpopular speech," said David C. Fathi, the staff attorney for the ACLU National Prison Project. "Basically some people in Arizona didn't like the fact that prisoners were able to express themselves on the Internet, so they're trying to shut them up."
The subject of prisoners' rights is complicated, Fathi said, with security indeed being a valid concern for the government.
"The short answer is that prisoners forfeit rights that are, by their very nature, incompatible with incarceration -- freedom of movement, freedom to gather together with persons of one's choosing, freedom to engage in one's preferred occupation, etc.," Fathi said.
"They do not forfeit rights that are not incompatible with incarceration -- freedom of speech, freedom to practice their religion, etc. These latter rights may be limited only to the extent necessary to maintain prison security."
It's not the first time the ACLU has fought to defend prisoners' First Amendment rights. In Nevada, the ACLU successfully sued state officials on behalf of an advocacy newsletter called Prison Legal News when it was banned from cells. And in California, the ACLU is currently challenging a Pelican Bay State Prison policy that prohibits inmates from receiving any document printed from the Internet.
Victims' rights groups argue that free speech protections don't apply to prisoners.
"These people are bad dudes," said Frank Parish, a board member of the National Organization of Parents of Murdered Children, whose stepdaughter was abducted from the parking lot of a Houston grocery store and murdered. "It doesn't bother me at all that they don't have their Bill of Rights. They forfeited those when they made the deliberate choice to violate the law."
Meanwhile, prisoner websites -- especially death row inmate sites -- are flourishing. Although most inmates don't have Net access themselves, they snail-mail material to friends and activists who post it online for them, enabling them to reach millions of potential sympathizers with their pleas of innocence, requests for financial or legal aid, denunciations of guard abuse and lonely-hearts ads.
And that worries Gary Phelps.
The chief of staff for the Arizona Department of Corrections said his department conducted an investigation of the state's death row subculture and found a warren of lying, conniving baddies.
"They were using the tremendous worldwide reach of the Internet to fleece people and run scams from prison over which we had no control," Phelps said.
Phelps said several death row Don Juans were using the Web to drain the bank accounts of lovesick women, pledging affection to multiple female fans at once in an elaborate con game to see which inmate could bilk sympathizers out of the most money.
Then there was the stranger-than-Hollywood case of death row inmate Floyd Thornton. In 1997, Thornton's wife Rebecca, whom he met through an Internet personals ad, arrived at Arizona's maximum-security facility in Florence brandishing an AK-47 and tried to bust her hubby loose as he was weeding the prison vegetable garden. She was killed in the shootout with guards, but not before fatally plugging her husband by accident as he sprinted toward the fence.
For all these reasons, cutting off prisoners' Internet access to the world seemed like a logical step to Phelps, who insisted that protecting "vulnerable" women from manipulative inmates was not patronizing.
"It's a public safety measure to protect people from their own stupidity, like the laws against drinking and driving. It's the government's duty to protect people from the con artists of the world," he said.
Arizona inmates are given three weeks to remove their material from the Internet or face misdemeanor charges, although most are punished by having their "good time" credits or visitation rights revoked, he said. So far this year, 53 inmates have been cited for their online content. (Arizona has 29,000 prisoners, and roughly 130 are on death row.)
But the Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty, the largest purveyor of Web space to condemned prisoners, has not only refused to take down Arizona inmate sites, but has indeed pledged to create a page for every death row dweller in the state, with or without their consent.
"They're sentenced to death, they're not sentenced to silence," said CCADP co-founder Tracie Lamourie. "As far as we are concerned, the letters they send requesting to take down their material were written under duress and (we) won't honor them."
For every letter the group gets from a prisoner asking to be taken off the site, the CCADP shoots off a response stating that the materials are the property of the CCADP and won't be removed. Lamourie said the group has been thanked by inmates for the bold action.
She downplayed criticism that inmates misrepresent themselves, noting that the public can easily search news or state prison sites for the particulars of their crimes. Her goal is to give death row prisoners an outlet to speak freely, she said, not to fact-check every account for accuracy.
"We're giving prisoners a voice. Americans should know who they're killing."

[CCADP]

BANNED FROM CYBERSPACE State Law Banning Prisoners from Writing Letters
to Web Sites Prompts Lawsuit - By Robert Anthony Phillips July 18, 2002
PHOENIX, Az. - Two anti-death penalty groups have filed a lawsuit
against the Arizona prison system for enforcing a law that bans
prisoners, including death row inmates, from sending letters to their
Web sites.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the lawsuit for the
groups, charges that the broadly worded Arizona state law, which went
into affect in July 2000, is a violation of free speech rights and seeks
to punish inmates who write letters to the Web sites.

The ACLU said that inmates have been threatened with disciplinary action
or criminal prosecution and the law has a "chilling" effect on advocacy
groups.

Gary Phelps, the chief of staff for the Arizona Department of
Corrections, said the law was put in place to prevent victims from
coming across the faces and reading letters from the
men and women who committed crimes against them.

Phelps said the law was proposed after relatives of a Tucson man who was
murdered came across a Web site portraying the killer, who is on death
row, as a caring person and holding a cat.

Corrections officials said that so far, 53 prisoners have been given
disciplinary tickets for violating the Web rule and 24 have lost prison
privileges as a result.

Disciplinary tickets are given to inmates who violate prison rules. A
ticket can result in loss of privileges inside the prison for specific
periods of time.

The prisoners, especially death row inmates who are held in isolation
most of the day, frequently write to the sites requesting pen-pals,
soliciting donations for defense funds or
proclaiming their innocence. Some letters even tell of the inner
workings of prison systems and alleged abuses. Many of the inmates also
have their pictures posted on the Web sites.

The ACLU says one of the targets of the law is the Canadian Coalition to
Abolish the Death Penalty, which has an extensive Web site that
publishes letters from death row inmates around the United States,
including Arizona.

The CCADP said on its site that a "new Iron Curtain is emerging around
America’s Death Camps." It views the Arizona law as an attempt to
legislate what advocacy groups can put on their Web site.

The CCADP is a rabble-rousing Web site that not only publishes letters
from death row prisoners, but includes a memorial page for convicted
murders who have been executed; Web pages for individual death row
prisoners; information on upcoming executions; and requests from death
row inmates for pen pals.

The site also accuses President George Bush of 154 "homicides," the
number of executions he allowed during his time as governor in Texas.
The site also calls Bush a "serial killer." The site refers to Oklahoma
Gov. Frank Keating as "Killer Keating" for allowing executions in his
state.

President Bush and Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating:
Targets of Canadian anti-death penalty group.

The Arizona law bars inmates from having access to the Internet through
the use of a computer, computer systems, network, a communications
service provider or remote computing system. Inmates are also forbidden
from sending or receiving mail from a communication service provider or
remote computer site.

The ACLU had sent a letter to the Arizona Department of Corrections in
June demanding that the law be suspended, calling the measure an attempt
at censorship and a violation of freedom of speech.

The ADOC countered that it had no authority to suspend a law passed by
the legislature and signed by the governor.

The ACLU said it brought the lawsuit on behalf of three groups: the
Florida- based Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
(CUADP), the Canadian Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, and Stop
Prison Rape. The lawsuit was filed in Arizona federal court Thursday.

Abe Bonowitz, director of the CUADP, said the Arizona law is aimed at
suppressing information.

"I am concerned that a prisoner can be punished for making public his or
her claims of innocence," Bonowitz said in a prepared statement. "The
purpose and effect of this legislation is to suppress the flow of
information from prisoners to the outside world, and to chill the
advocacy of CUADP and other anti-death penalty and prisoner rights
organizations. As the lawsuit contends, pro-death penalty organizations
have not been targeted
by the Arizona Department of Corrections."

Bonowitz said his group’s Web site lists three Arizona death row
prisoners in its "Wrongful Convictions" section. One of the prisoners,
Robert Murray, wrote to the site saying he was innocent. Bonowitiz said
that Murray later wrote to the Web site saying he could be disciplined.

David C. Fathi, legal counsel for the National Prison Project (part of
the ACLU), said the Arizona law not only violates the rights of
prisoners, but also the rights of advocacy groups, such as CCADP, that
publish inmate letters on the Internet.

"The purpose of (the law) is to prevent information about what is
happening from getting out," Fathi said. "They are threatening prisoners
with criminal prosecution for having information about themselves on the
Web site.

"If you look at the statute, there is not a word about prison security
or the dangers of someone trying to break someone out," Fathi said.
"Some people just didn’t like the fact that prisoners were able to
express themselves on the Internet and, therefore, tried successfully,
to pass legislation. The law is very clear that speech that annoys or
upsets someone is not sufficient reason to allow government to ban it."

Phelps said that by banning inmates from expressing their views and
telling about themselves on the Internet, the state is helping prevent
crime victims from "coming across" the postings on the Web.

"We supported this law," Phelps said.

The Canadian anti-death penalty group says it provides free Web space to
all prisoners under a sentence of death as part of its educational and
outreach efforts. The CCADP says there are 350 Web pages devoted to
death row prisoners on its site.

"Prisoner pages can include anything from detailed legal transcripts
highlighting claims of innocence to prisoner's writings, artworks and
requests for correspondence," the group said in a prepared statement.

The CCADP said it will not remove any prisoner information from its
site, viewing the law as an attempt to "silence the voices of human
rights advocates..."

From "The Death House -Online Source For Unique & Objective Death Penalty News"

[abiraballari]

admin said:

inmates are not prohibited from corresponding with pen pals, but shall not place ads soliciting pen pals.

If this "RULE" can pardon my french.....If prisoners are not "FORBIDDEN" from having pen pals, how the f*** are prisoners supposed to GAIN pen pals if they don't ADVERTISE for them??

[Britta]

the second post today

Tracy,

I got a letter from James Hitchcock. He asked you to remove his penpal ad now.

A copy of this goes to the Warden and also to his lawyer.

Thanks

Britta

[CCADP]

Britta - like Sissel said earlier today; and what this whole thread is about. All can be punished if they were in control of our site. They are not so they can't. We are not removing anything for the sake of all the FL prisoners. Like in AZ it is for the greater good of all of them; and this is an important fight with serious ramifications for prisoners across the US. Like in AZ, and at the advice of the ACLU; we are not backing down. We are located in Canada; we are free persons; and the DOC cannot control our site and our work by intimidating those our work is intended to help.
No Florida ads are being removed until this has been fought in a legal manner. The warden is aware that the prisoners do not control CCADPs site. Last I heard no one had rec'd dis reports regarding CCADPs site - but rather for PAID penpal ads posted elsewhere since this rule went into effect.
No Florida removals at this time; without exception.

[Britta]

his is now the second post at the CCADP baord, my frist one was deleted.

Once again, I understand that Tracy tries to fight her fight, BUT, she has to show respect to inmates who do not want this fight !

A copy of all goes now to the Warden and the lawyer.
Britta
disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?disc=207906;article=12988;title=Against%20Death%20Rows

[Britta]

Tracy,

if one inmate asks for a remove you should understand that. And by the way, if you would take your ad updated you would see that you have still the old cell number and address there (I asked you last year three times to change the address).

Once again, James doesn´t want his ad on your page anymore !
Britta

[CCADP]

Britta; its not my fight - its for the sake of all prisoners across the US. FOR SOME THIS IS THEIR ONLY CHANCE OF EVER GETTING PENPALS; ASSISTANCE and CONTACT WITH THE OUTSIDE WORLD.
This is the SAME as AZ -= - we rec'd many letters from prisoners asking for removal upon being punished. THOSE SAME PRISONERS later wrote us THANKING US FOR FIGHTING AND WINNING and NOT backing down the way other groups did RESULTING in their rights being RESTORED not further TAKEN AWAY.

THIS IS OUR SUCCESSFUL POLICY - WE WON in AZ and we will fight it the same way again for the sake of the affected prisoners. Four FL prisoners aware of our AZ fight already wrote us begging us not to back down and to help them fight this to ensure they do not lose their contact with the outside world. Such contacts helped Juan Melendez avoid suicide when he was isolated and innocent with no one to hear him. HE also thanks us for taking this important fight on.

There is no point in debating it - this is our stand. If Any prisoner gets any D Report mentioning CCADP mail it to us immediately and we will forward to ACLU our lawyers

[CCADP]

LAST message on this, Britta - prisoners ads are ALWAYS removed added or changed at the prisoners request EXCEPT in the case of Arizona and Florida when they began mass intimidations of prisoners forcing them to ask for removal when many of them did not want to actually be removed.

When they are being forced to act under duress; we feel these requests are being forced. In these cases our policy is not to make removals until the intimidation to be removed by DOC ends.

All other unaffected states of course prisoners are removed whenever they want; and now that we won in AZ; the prisoner there of course are added and removed on request again. PS I am not making changes now that would make it a new add and falling under DOC rules.

End of conversation

[Maggie]

What the hell is wrong with the Florida DOC?

How can they punish someone for wanting a pen-pal?

[CCADP]

Any good prison administrator will extol the virtues of prisoners having contact with the outside world - it actually has a very positive affect on their behaviour within the prison!

[siselnor]

Britta

First I think you should avoid posting prisoners names on a pro board
Next I think you should avoid attacking members and friends on a public board
Then I think you should respect that CCADP has a right to have their own policy on their own domain. A prisoner does not have any control over other persons internet sites and in Florida it is illegal for prisoners to do so.
What a prisoner wants is not for us to just follow. We should follow our own perspective on legal and political matters. It is my view that you are helping to suppress the prisoiner you say you want to protect and worse you are about to help FDOC in suppressing the death row population. Please stop this now in time and let the lawyers work on this issue by legal methods.
All of your views can be directed oifflist, there is no need for you to worsen the situation by split and rule.

Sissel