Tracking Prison Censorship in the United States

Assistant Section Chief
Support Services
4260 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4260

31 May 2015

RE: censorship of Under Lock & Key No. 43

Dear Ms. Bostic,

This letter is in response to a letter dated 5/19/15, postmarked 5/28/2015, from the Publication Review Committee Chair Fay Lassiter regarding the disapproval of issue 43 (March/April 2015) of the newsletter Under Lock & Key. I am writing to obtain an independent review of this decision.

The letter to publisher cites page 9 of the newsletter as the source of the problem, with the reason for censorship being “encourages violence and insurrection.” Ironically, the article on page 9 is about prisoners in Georgia who were peacefully refusing food in protest of violations of their First, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Such peaceful actions are organized in a conscious effort to avoid any kind of violence or insurrection. It is troublesome that someone in your department felt that it was justified to violate the First Amendment rights of MIM Distributors in order to suppress information about people organizing peacefully against the violation of Constitutional rights. As a government official, the person making this decision has sworn to uphold the very Constitution that these people in Georgia are working to have upheld themselves.

In light of this obvious misuse of the words “violence” and “insurrection” I hope that you will overturn this decision to censor Under Lock & Key No. 43 in North Carolina prisons. I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Department of Corrections
ATTN: Library Service Administrator
501 S Calhoun St
Tallahassee, FL 32399-2500

April 27, 2015

RE: Impounding of Under Lock & Key No. 42 and ULK43 at Graceville C.F.,

Dear Ms. Morrison,

This letter is in response to notifications received by Mr. XXX and Mr. YYY at Graceville CF regarding the impounding of Under Lock & Key No. 42 and 43 (Mr. YYY was only notified of the ULK43 censorship. The purpose of this letter is to appeal this decisions and have the newsletters delivered to these men.

The Supreme Court decision governing the First Amendment in prisons in the United States (Thornburgh, 490 U.S. at 416 n.14) is clear that regulations barring writings that "express 'inflammatory political, racial, religious or other views'" were not sufficiently "neutral" or "unrelated to the suppression of expression" to be legally allowable.

The ULK42 notice claims the publication "is dangerously inflammatory" and "otherwise presents a threat to the security…" and cites page 2 with "definitions of why they are and what they stand for". This is a clear violation of the Thornburgh ruling as statements of political views alone can not be used to deny literature to prisoners. It also cites page 4 with an article about an incident in Oregon where a prisoner was killed by a CO. Again, news about what's going on in prisons is not sufficient reason to censor this publication. The employee who reviewed this publication (whose signature is illegible) may not agree with the content of the newsletter, but that does not justify censorship.

The ULK 43 notice claims the publication violates the same Section (3) rules as ULK42 but cites only page 2 as a reason "who Maoist Internationalist Ministry of Prisons are, what they stand for and how to join the organization." As explained above, disagreeing with the goals and theory of an organization is not sufficient reason to censor a publication according to Supreme Court precedent.

Further, on the denial forms that the prisoners received both claim that the sender was notified. For ULK it claims "date mailed to sender: 3-6-15" and for ULK43 it claims "date mailed to sender: 4-8-14" but we were never sent notification of censorship of either of these publications. The forms were only delivered to Mr XXX & Mr. YYY. As you know from previous correspondence, we have an ongoing problem with Florida prisons failing to notify us of denial of our publications. I am once again requesting that the FDOC follow its own policies and respect the publisher's rights to Due Process under the Fourteenth Amendment (see Montcalm Publ'g Corp. v. Beck, 80 F.3d 105, 106 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 928 (1996)).

I am requesting that you allow the prisoners at Graceville CI to receive issues 42 and 43 of Under Lock & Key.


Sincerely,