MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Sent letter to Central Office Literature Review
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Literature Review Committee
2601 Blair Stone Road
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-2500
18 January 2010
Dear Sir or Madam,
In December, 2009 the mail room at Florida State Prison (FSP) began returning mail coming from MIM Distributors. This letter is to request a review of these decisions and to re-establish contact with prisoners at FSP.
Mailroom personnel P. Goodman has signed off on a number of ?Unauthorized Mail Return Receipts? for mail sent to Mr. XXX YYY. Two packages of reading material were returned for the reasons that an ?excess of 15 pages? was enclosed. As a known distributor, any publications sent from MIM Distributors should be processed as ?Admissible Reading Material? in accordance with Florida Administrative Code Chapter 33-501.401and not as ?Routine Mail.? ?Admissible Reading Material? does not have a page limit. Many small run publications are printed on plain white paper, but are clearly not letters due to their size and content.
In a third return receipt from P. Goodman they claim that the letter somehow promotes violence or disruption because ?it about gangs.? A portion of the letter discusses the Crips in a historical context. It does not discuss or promote acts of violence or the breaking of any laws or rules. The court?s decision in Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U.S. 401 is clear that there must be a substantiated threat, and that censorship cannot be based on political or historical discussions.
Earlier in the same month, Issue 11 of the newsletter Under Lock & Key sent to a number of prisoners was impounded for review. This was done correctly applying Rule 33-501.401, yet on the notices none of the criteria set forth in Section (3) of the rule were specified to have been violated. The notice did list page numbers and descriptions of the content including, ?About Movements And gangs?, ?About (KKK)? and ?About Gangs?. Each description is factually correct, so the question is do these items violate any of the criteria laid out? As part of a prisoners? 1st Amendment rights protected under established case law, he may read, correspond with and participate in political organizations. Saying the word ?KKK? or ?gang? is not a threat to anyone.
I am requesting that 1) Under Lock & Key be released from impound and distributed to each subscriber, 2) that packages from MIM Distributors be handled as ?Admissible Reading Material? and not ?Routine Mail? and 3) that XXX YYY be allowed to read and study without harassment or undo restrictions. Please notify MIM Distributors at the address above of your decisions.
Response to Central Office for further explanation
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Frank Ontko, Library Services
2601 Blair Stone Road
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-2500
1 March 2010
Dear Mr. Ontko,
I received your response dated February 19, 2010 to my inquiries about literature that was censored at Florida State Prison (FSP). I do have some further questions on both issues.
First, you stated that "loose pages of material" are not considered publications. The literature sent was not loose (by my understanding of the word), but rather bound with multiple staples. Is it within your departments policy to define this as "loose pages"? If so, can you clarify how your department defines "loose" so that we can avoid any problems with this rule in the future?
Regarding the decision on my appeal of the censorship of Under Lock & Key Issue 11, it seems that the original reasons for censorship were abandoned for the reason you give in your recent letter that, it "advocates and encourages disruption of the institution and violation of department and institution rules." I will take that to mean that you agreed with me that the original reasons given were not legally substantive. However, I find this new reason even more baseless in that it does not even reflect the actual content of the publication.
If you intend to uphold the censorship of Under Lock & Key 11, can you please provide me with the rules that it promotes people to violate, and quotes and page numbers of where it does so?
We are keenly aware of the concerns of prison administrators, and the content of Under Lock & Key, caters to these concerns explicitly by arguing against breaking prison rules or the law, while promoting actions to defend the rights of people who are imprisoned. For your office to claim otherwise is hard to justify with any evidence.
