CA Prisons Opening Legal Mail to Repress Strikers

I received a letter from an attorney which the High Desert State Prisons intercepted and allegedly “returned to sender” on October 14. I received an official “rejection” notice for that legal letter which stated “disallowed letter that encourages inmates to form a hunger strike and plan to disrupt the order of this facility.”

Now, here’s what I don’t understand, if this was indeed a legal letter, from a legitimate attorney, how did they know what was inside the envelope unless they illegally opened it outside my presence? I am in the process of trying to obtain copies of the “rejection notice,” at which time I will appeal the issue.

MIM(Prisons) adds: This sort of illegal censorship is rampant in Amerikan prisons and especially problematic in California where we have faced repeated bans on MIM(Prisons) mail because of our revolutionary politics and advocacy for prisoners. In the case of the recent Hunger Strike in California, it appears that most mail mentioning the strike was censored while prisoners were engaged in this important struggle. And in some cases the Institutional Gang Investigator (IGI) used these letters as supposed evidence of gang activity on the part of the prisoners to whom they were addressed.