America’s Secret Prisons

By Niamh Marnell

Communications Management Units (CMUs), nicknamed “Little Gitmo” by the inmates for the resemblance to the Guantanamo Bay prison, are coming under criticism for their controversial policies, constitutionality, and secrecy. Prisoners assigned to these units cover a broad interpretation of the “War on Terror,” from Muslim men thought to have extreme leanings to radical environmental and animal rights activists. 

Opened under the Bush administration, CMUs are designed to severely restrict prisoner communication for inmates. Under the proposed  new rules, which are even more restrictive than those currently in place, prisoners would be limited in communication to: one three-page, double sided letter per week to one recipient; one 15-minute phone call per month to immediate family only; and a single one-hour visit per month with immediate family only which must be non-contact in nature.

Secret Prisons Seek Approval

The American Civil Liberties Union  (ACLU) and the ACLU of Indiana filed a legal complaint June 18, 2009, challenging the secret creation of the housing units within federal prisons in which prisoners are severely isolated from the outside world. The ACLU says that the housing units are intended for prisoners the government labels as terrorists and that their creation violated federal law which requires a period of public comment. A staff attorney with the ACLU National Prison Project, David Shapiro, said, “The government created CMUs without any opportunity for public comment or oversight in an effort to skirt obligations of accountability and transparency.”

The two CMUs, one at Terre Haute, Indiana, and the other at Marion, Illinois, opened in 2006 and 2007 without any public notice. After a series of legal complaints were filed against the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) for creating the prisons outside of the required channels and for violating the constitutional rights of inmates, the BOP opened a period of public comment earlier this year, which just recently closed.

On June 2, 2010, the ACLU submitted their comments to the BOP.  Others also submitted comments, including the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), other civil rights and liberties groups, CMU prisoners, family members and friends, legal organizations, former correctional officials, environmental organizations, psychologists, and more.

No Due Process

One of the major complaints voiced in the public comments was the lack of due process at the CMUs. Prisoners are routinely kept ignorant of why they were moved to the CMU or what evidence, if any, was used in the decision to move them. There is also no prison structure in place through which they can challenge their placement at the CMU nor is there any review process through which they could earn their way out.

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