Fight to overturn Florida prison officials’ ‘Militant’ impoundment
https://themilitant.com/2020/08/22/fight-to-overturn-florida-prison-officials-militant-impoundment/
BY SETH GALINSKY
Vol. 84/No. 34
August 31, 2020
The Florida Department of Corrections Literature Review Committee “voted
to uphold the impoundment of ‘The Militant, Vol. 84, No. 30,’” LRC chair
Dean Peterson wrote David Goldstein, the Militant ’s attorney, Aug. 17,
“which means the issue is rejected and will not be allowed into FDC
institutions.”
Goldstein is now preparing to file an appeal of this decision,
protesting the prison system’s violation of the constitutional rights of
both its inmate-subscribers and the paper itself. The Militant has over
50 subscribers behind bars in Florida.
The article in that issue that aroused the ire of censors at Florida
State Prison in Raiford is entitled, “Prisoners Demand Release from
Overcrowded Jails.” It is a news report on efforts in California to
press for the release of inmates in the overcrowded state prison system,
where over 5,800 inmates statewide have contracted COVID-19.
Prison authorities — and now the Review Committee — claim, “The
publication is dangerously inflammatory in that it advocates or
encourages riot, insurrection, rebellion, organized prison protest,
disruption of the institution, or the violation of federal law, state
law, or Department rules.”
Supporters of political rights have begun calling on the Literature
Review Committee, which will hear the appeal against its own ruling, to
overturn the ban.
The “impoundment notice does not explain why the article would cause a
riot and common-sense suggests this is far-fetched,” Benjamin Stevenson
wrote on behalf of the Florida American Civil Liberties Union. “It’s
nothing new to Florida prisoners that prison conditions have
deteriorated during the COVID-19 pandemic and that other prisoners are
naturally upset about this. Instead, the censorship appears to be a
pretext to ban the Militant.”
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a well-known
nationwide organization of media representatives, wrote that the group
“strongly urges the Literature Review Committee to overturn the
impoundment.”
“Prisons should not invoke facially legitimate but overly broad
justifications — such as concerns about riot and insurrection — to
censor content, particularly when doing so deprives inmates of valuable
information about how a deadly disease may affect them,” the committee
wrote.
Advocating “organized prison protest” is a new criteria for banning
publications, added by Florida prison officials just this June. Previous
impoundments of the Militant for reporting on prison protests have not
been upheld.
The Militant has gone through a number of fights over efforts by
Florida prison authorities to deprive inmate-subscribers their paper,
especially in the last few years. The paper has succeeded in overturning
a large majority of these bans, including when the issue involved was
reporting on protests by prisoners. Among these articles were Militant
coverage of the hunger strike over conditions in the California prison
system in 2013 that involved tens of thousands of inmates, as well as a
2016 work stoppage by prisoners in Alabama.
The impoundment notice for Militant no. 30 cites the article about a
rally in Sacramento, California’s capital, demanding the state
government take action to relieve overcrowding. It includes reporting on
a hunger strike by inmates at San Quentin who tested positive for
COVID-19 and are seeking better conditions and health care.
“The conditions confronting prisoners in California — and elsewhere —
are of serious interest to working people, both in and out of jail,”
Militant editor John Studer said Aug. 18. “Moves by prison authorities
anywhere to bar news about these conditions, and efforts to alleviate
them, should be stopped.
“Workers behind bars are legally entitled to receive and read
newspapers, whatever their political view, to form their own opinions
about political questions and to exercise their constitutional right to
‘petition the government for a redress of grievances,’” Studer said.
“Constitutionally guaranteed freedom of the press also means we have the
right to send the paper to our subscribers.
“Stories about prison conditions, the disaster created for all working
people by the capitalist for-profit medical system in the U.S. today,
and efforts to change them are covered by hundreds of media almost
daily,” he said. “Florida prison authorities’ move to bar the Militant
’s coverage — its viewpoint — is a threat to political rights and should
be overturned.”
Studer urged all those concerned about the rights of workers behind bars
and freedom of the press to write to the Literature Review Committee
asking that it overturn the impoundment.
Send letters to Dean Peterson, Literature Review Committee, Florida
Department of Corrections, 501 South Calhoun Street, Tallahassee, FL
32399, or via email at Allen.Peterson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, with copies to
the Militant.
“Join us in this fight,” Studer said. “Tell your co-workers, your church
members, your union and those you do politics with, ask them to join in
sending a letter.”
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Carl Sagan
“Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of wonder
and awe. Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to
nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will
prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront
the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the
Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will
penetrate its deepest mysteries.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
