[Ppnews] PP Daniel McGowan - Tales from Inside the U.S. Gitmo

[Political Prisoner News]

<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-mcgowan/tales-from-inside-the-us_b_212632.html>Tales 
from Inside the U.S. Gitmo

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-mcgowan/tales-from-inside-the-us_b_212632.html

Daniel McGowan is an environmental and social justice activist from 
NYC charged in federal court on counts of arson and conspiracy and 
given the "terrorism enhancement" for his involvement in two 
environmentally motivated actions in Oregon in 2001. He is currently 
serving a 7 year sentence in the Communication Management Unit at USP 
Marion in Illinois with very limited access to seeing and talking to 
friends and family. The Department of Justice and FBI have labeled 
Daniel and his co-defendants among the "number 1 domestic terrorism threat."

As of May 2009, I have been at USP Marion's "Communication Management 
Unit," or CMU, for roughly nine months and now is a good time to 
address the misconceptions (and the silence) regarding this unit. I 
want to offer a snapshot of my day-to-day life here as well as some 
analysis of what the existence of CMUs in the federal prison system 
implies. It is my hope that this article will partially fill the void 
of information that exists concerning the CMU, will help dispel 
rumors, and will inspire you to support those of us on the inside 
fighting the existence of these isolation units -- in the courts and 
in the realm of public opinion.

It is best to start from the beginning -- or at least where my story 
and the CMU meet. My transfer here is no different from that of many 
of the men here who were living at Federal Correctional Institutions 
(normal prisons) prior to the genesis of the CMUs. On May 12, 2008, 
on my way back from a decent lunch, I was told to report to "R&D" 
(receiving and discharge). I was given two boxes and half an hour to 
pack up my meager possessions. After complying I was placed in the 
SHU (secure housing unit or "hole") and put on a bus the next day. 
There was no hearing and no information given to me or my attorneys 
-- only after a day was I told I was on my way to Marion, Illinois' CMU.

Hearing the term "CMU" made my knees buckle as it drummed up some 
memory I had of the infamous "control units" at Marion (closed in 
1995 and replaced by Florence ADX: the lone Federal "Supermax" 
prison). Then it hit me. The lawyers, in challenging the application 
of the terrorist enhancement in my case, made the prescient argument 
that if I receive the enhancement, the Bureau of Prisons (BoP) would 
use that to place me in the CMU at FCI Terre Haute, Indiana (at the 
time just 5 months old). In fact, on the way to FCI Sandstone in 
August 2007, I not only saw the CMU but met one of its residents 
while in transit. Let me back up and offer a brief history of the 
Communication Management Units.

The CMU I reside in, at USP Marion, received its first prisoner in 
May 2008 and when I arrived, held about 17 men, the majority of whom 
were Muslim. Currently, the unit has 25, with a capacity of 52 cells. 
In April 2009, we received seven new people, all of whom were from 
the CMU at FCI Terre Haute. The unit is overwhelmingly Muslim with 18 
men identifying as such. Most, but not all of the prison, have 
so-called terrorism cases. According to a BoP spokesperson, the unit 
"will not be limited to inmates convicted of terrorism-related cases 
through all of the prisoners fit that description." Others have 
prison disciplinary violation or allegations related to communication 
and the misuse of telephones etc. Here, almost everyone has a 
terrorism related case -- whether it is like my case (destruction of 
property characterized as "domestic terrorism") or conspiracy and 
"providing material aid" cases.

Before the Marion CMU opened, there was the original CMU, opened in 
December 2006 at the former death row at FCI Terre Haute. According 
to early articles, the unit was intended for "second tier terrorism 
inmates, most of them Arab Muslims and a less restrictive version of 
the Supermax in Florence, Colorado."

Additionally, BoP Director Harley Lappin, in a July 2008 hearing on 
the 2009 BoP budget request, said of the CMUs, "A lot of the more 
serious offenders, terrorists, were housed at ADX Florence. So, we 
are ramping up two communications management units that are less 
restrictive but will ensure that all mail and phone calls of the 
offenders are monitored on a daily basis."

Terre Haute's CMU has 36 men (27 of whom are Muslim) and is roughly 
comparable to Marion's CMU. The rest of this place focuses on the 
latter, in which I have resided and of which I have seen firsthand.

You may be curious about just what a CMU actually is. From my 
correspondence, I can tell that many correspondents do not know much 
about what goes on here. I hope this can clear up any misperceptions. 
According to the BoP,
The CMU is [sic] established to house inmates who, due to their 
current offense of conviction, offense conduct or other verified 
information, require increased monitoring of communication between 
inmates and persons in the community in order to protect the safety, 
security, and orderly operations of Bureau facilities and protect the 
public...The CMU is a self-contained general population housing unit.

There are, of course, alternate views to the above definition 
including the belief that the CMUs are Muslim units, a political 
prisoner unit (similar to the HSU operated by the BoP in the 80's, 
and a punishment unit.

The CMUs have an extremely high Muslim population; here at Marion, it 
is 65-75%. An overrepresentation of any one demographic in a prison 
raises constitutional issues of equal protection as well as safety 
issues. Nowhere in the BoP will you find any group represented in 
such extreme disproportion. To counter these claims, the BoP brought 
in a small number of non-Muslims to be used as proof that the units 
are not strictly Muslim (an interesting note is that some of the 
Muslim men here have cases unrelated to terrorism). Does the 
inclusion of six people that are non-Muslim really negate the claim 
of segregation though? What are the criteria for determining who 
comes to the CMU? The BoP claims there are 211 international 
terrorists (and 1000 domestic terrorists) in their system. Yet, the 
CMUs have no more than 60 men at the present time. Where are the rest 
of these people? How does the BOP determine who of those 1200 are 
sent to a CMU and who to normal prisons? These are questions that 
need to be asked -- in court and in the media.

Many of the men here (both Muslim and non) are considered political 
prisoners in their respective movements and have been engaged in 
social justice, religious organizations, charities and humanitarian 
efforts. Another conception of the CMU is that it is a location 
designed to isolate us from our movements and to act as a deterrent 
for others from those movements (as in "step outside the line and you 
too will end up there"). The intended effect of long-term housing of 
this kind is a profound sense of dislocation and alienation. With 
your mail, email, phones, and visits monitored and no human touch 
allowed at the visits, it is difficult to feel a connection to "the 
streets." There is historical evidence of the BoP utilizing political 
prisons -- despite the fact that the Department of Justice refuses to 
acknowledge the concept of political prisoners in US prisons, 
choosing to call us "criminal" instead.

The Lexington High Security Unit (HSU) was one such example. Having 
opened its 16-bed facilities in 1988 and housing a number of female 
political prisoners, the HSU functioned as an isolation unit -- 
underground, bathed in fluorescence, and limited interaction with 
staff. In the opinion of Dr. Richard Korn, speaking on behalf of the 
American Civil Liberties Union, the unit's goal was "...to reduce 
prisoners to a state of submission essential for their ideological 
conversion. That failing, the next objective is to reduce them as 
efficient, self-directing antagonists. That failing, the only 
alternative is to destroy them by making them destroy themselves."

After an arduous campaign by human rights advocates and supporters, 
the BoP capitulated, stating it would close its facility (when it did 
not, it was sued). The judge ruled that the plaintiffs were illegally 
designated based on their past political affiliations, statements and 
political beliefs. The unit was closed and the women were transferred 
to other prisons.

The correlations between the HSU and CMU are many and seem to have 
some of the same goals as well as methods used to designate us here. 
Knowing they are dealing with people committed to ideals and the 
movements they are a part of, we were placed here in order to weaken 
those connections and harm our relationships. An example is the 
horrendous strain that the CMU puts on our familial relations -- 
especially our marriages. It was certainly considered by the 
architects of the CMU that preventing visits that allow human touch 
for long-term prisoners would have a disastrous impact on our 
relationships and would lead to weaker inmates.

Finally, the CMU can be viewed as "the stick" -- a punitive unit for 
those who don't play ball or who continue to express political 
beliefs anathema to the BoP or the US government. Although I am not 
aware of the BoP's criteria for sending people here (due to their 
refusal to release specific CMU information), it is curious who is 
and who is not here. Out of roughly 18 codefendants in my criminal 
case, I am the only one at a CMU (the remainder of them are at low 
and medium security prisons). The same goes for a member of the SHAC7 
campaign, Andrew Stepanian, one of 6 defendants in his case who was 
sent here for the last 6 months of his sentence. Other men here have 
codefendants at the Terre Haute CMU while others have codefendants at 
normal federal prisons. Despite numerous Freedom of Information 
Requests, the BoP refuses to grant the documents that specify the 
rules governing transfer to the CMU. Remember, hardly any of the men 
here have received any disciplinary violations and some have been in 
general population over 15 years! How can someone be okay in general 
population for that long and then one day be seen as a communication threat?

So, I have hypothesized about the goals of the CMU. Let me discuss 
the many problems and injustices associated with the existence of the CMUs.

Due process

More appropriately, a lack thereof. A term I never thought much about 
before my imprisonment, due process is:
...the conduct of legal proceedings according to established rules 
and principles for the protection and enforcement of private rights, 
including notice and the right to hearing before a tribunal [my 
emphasis] with the power to decide the case.

I was moved from FCI Sandstone, against my will and at a moment's 
notice, with no hearing and thus no chance to contest the reason for 
my transfer. A FOIA request recently received states I was 
redesignated May 6th, my transfer was signed the next day and I was 
moved on May 13th with the reason given as "program participation". 
Since I got here, I have not had a hearing to contest the claims made 
in the "Notice to Inmate of Transfer to CMU, " some of which were 
woefully inaccurate. Instead, I was told I can utilize the 
administrative remedy process (which I have done to no avail) and 
request a transfer after 18 months of "clear conduct".

The irony is that all prisoners who violate prison rules are subject 
to a series of disciplinary hearings in which they could offer their 
defense. For legal units such as Florence ADX (Supermax) or the 
control unit program, there exists a codified set of rules and 
hearings for transfer to these locations. The BoP has deliberately 
ignored this process and has instead transferred us to this special, 
brand-new CMU without due process. My notice of transfer was given to 
me 12 days after I arrived!

Similar to the callous disregard for due process (and the US 
Constitution), there is no "step down" process for the CMU. Unlike 
the ones that exist at Florence ADX, control units or even the gang 
units, the CMU has no stages, no requisite amount of time we are to 
spend here before being sent back to a normal prison.

Because these preceding programs are specifically for prison 
misbehavior, there is a logical and orderly way to finish the program 
and eventually transfer. For us, the BoP has set up a paradox -- if 
we are here for our offense conduct, which we cannot ever change, how 
can we reasonably leave the unit? In its "Admissions and Orientation" 
guide for Marion's CMU, here is what they say:
Every new commitment to the CMU will be evaluated by his unit team 
regarding his suitability for incarceration in this institution. If, 
for some reason, the inmate is deemed not acceptable for confinement 
in this unit, he will be processed as expeditiously as possible...

[I am still roughly 10 months from my 18-month period in which I must 
wait before requesting a transfer. Considering the fact that all my 
remedies have been denied, I am not hopeful about this.]

CMU as Secret

In addition to the due process and transfer issues, there is the 
secretive and illegal manner that the CMU was created (Note: for 
historical perspectives, it needs to be stated that the CMU was 
established roughly halfway through the second term of George W. Bush 
and his Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.)

In April 2006, the BoP proposed a "Limited Communication for 
Terrorist Inmates" policy, which suggested new restrictions for 
"terrorists" and "terrorism related inmates" such as:

1) One 6-page letter per week.

2) One 15-minute phone call a month.

3) One 1-hour visit a month.

A coalition of civil rights organizations signed a letter of protest 
criticizing the proposed rules and raising numerous constitutional, 
practical and ethical objectives. The outcry appears to have caused 
the BoP to reconsider it and just 6 months later, open the CMU at FCI 
Terre Haute quietly. Since the BoP never sought public comment on the 
new CMU, it certainly appears to be a violation of the Administrative 
Procedural Act (APA), an argument a federal judge in Miami raised in 
response to a prisoner's legal challenge to transfer to the CMU.

The unit is functionally an open secret. While the BoP circumvented 
the standard public comment (and feedback process), it has sought to 
get around this by describing the CMU as a "self-contained general 
population unit," implying that the unit is legally and penally no 
different than a normal unit at an FCI. There is no mention of the 
CMU on the BoP's website (ww.bop.gov) or USP Marion's subpage on the 
same site. You will not find extensive Congressional hearings on the 
subject -- other than a July 2008 subcommittee hearing in which it 
appears that the BoP director was not fully forthcoming on the CMU36. 
Letters here are stamped "USP Marion," not CMU, and the unit is 
called "I Unit" by staff. (An interesting anecdote: while on transit 
in Winter 2009, I met men from the FCI here and asked them what they 
knew about I Unit. Without hesitation, they said, "That's where the 
terrorists are." They informed me this is what BoP Staff routinely told them.)

Media queries are met with silence or vague information. Requests by 
the media to interview me by coming to Marion have been denied -- due 
to it "being detrimental to the safety, security and good order of 
the institution." There still is no Program Statement on the CMU -- a 
legal requirement, outlining the specific rules of the CMU and its 
designation criteria.

Because of this, and the general refusal of the BoP to hand over 
relevant documents through FOIA, it is impossible to determine the 
specific reasons why one is sent here -- and thus, how to contest 
this process. In effect, the CMU was created on the fly, with no eye 
toward legality; they are free to operate it in whatever manner they choose.

Communication Management (The Promotion of Isolation and Alienation)

The most painful aspect of this unit, to me, is how the CMU restricts 
my contact with the world beyond these walls. It is difficult for 
those who have not known prison to understand what a lifeline contact 
with our family and friends is to us. It is our link to the world -- 
and our future (for those of us who are fortunate enough to have 
release dates). Prison authorities and architects are well aware that 
those with strong family ties and in good communication with their 
loved ones are well behaved and have significantly lower rates of 
recidivism. The BoP, in theory, recognizes this by claiming they try 
to situate us within 500 miles of our homes. Mostly, this is a cruel 
farce for many prisoners -- I have not been within 1000 miles of my 
family in 2 years.

The most Orwellian aspects of the CMU are in how they manage our 
communications:

A) Telephones- at my previous prison, I was able to use the phones 
for 300 minutes a month -- days, nights, weekends and holidays -- 
basically at any point I was not in my housing unit (6am-10pm). Here, 
we receive one 15-minute phone call a week. The call can only take 
place between 8am and 2:30pm, never on weekends or holidays and must 
be scheduled one and a half weeks in advance (we can choose a back-up 
number to call but if neither picks up, we don't get a call). The 
call is live-monitored and recorded. Not only do we receive one fifth 
of the minutes granted to other federal prisoners but the call is 
also very trying for our families -- all of whom have day jobs and 
many of whom have children in school. The CMU requires calls be made 
in English only -- a difficult demand considering over half of the 
men here speak English as a second language (this restriction is not 
present at other federal prisons).

B) Visits- At FCI Sandstone, I received up to eight visiting days a 
month (56 hours) -- contact visits in which I could embrace my wife, 
play cards with my nieces and share vending machine food with my 
visitors. These visits were my lifeline. I got about twelve of them 
in eight months and it aided in my adjustment to prison.

The CMU restricts our visits to one four-hour non-contract visit a 
month. One short visit through two inches of plate glass with cameras 
hanging overhead and my visitors stuffed in a four-and-a-half by 
three-and-a-half-foot stuffy booth -- a tight squeeze for two. The 
visits can only take place on weekdays from 8am-2pm -- no more 
Christmas or Thanksgiving visits -- and worse, no physical contact 
(Consider what it would be like to have no contact with your loved 
ones. What if you couldn't hug or kiss your lover, partner, wife, 
husband? What would that do to you?) I find myself riddled with guilt 
when I ask friends to spend $500 to fly across the country, drive 
three hours (and repeat) for a four-hour non-contact visit. I'm lucky 
though, having people who will do this. Many of the men here can't 
afford it or don't want to subject their children to this reality.

C) Mail- We can only send out mail once a day and we cannot visit the 
mail room to send out packages. We are one-hundred-percent reliant on 
the one staff person who deals with our mail to do so and sending a 
box home is a laborious procedure. We must leave our envelopes 
unsealed so that staff can read, copy, scan and send to whatever 
other agency studies our correspondence. A letter to NYC takes 
roughly seven to nine days (which should take five). Letters sent 
abroad, especially those not written in English, could take a month 
or more -- a common complaint of some of my fellow prisoners.

Staff here has an interesting reading of the rules governing legal 
mail leading to the charge that they open our legal mail (this is the 
subject of an administrative remedy I filed with the BoP Central 
Office in Washington DC). The rule states that the lawyer's name must 
be clearly identified and that the envelope must say "Special Mail- 
Open only in the presence of inmates" and yet staff has opened my 
legal mail that said "Law Offices of Jane Doe" stating that it should 
have said, "Jane Doe, Attorney at Law"! The staff looks for any 
reason to disqualify our legal mail as protected and gather 
intelligence this way. In doing so, they violate the sanctity of the 
attorney-client confidentiality principle.

Most of my violations have been petty -- a package has more than 
twenty pieces of paper or a friend kindly enclosed stamps. A few 
instances though amount to censorship and a limiting of political 
expression and dialogue. See Appendix B for a detailed discussion of 
these instances.

D) Media Contact- Although requests have been made to interview 
people in the CMU, none have been granted to date. This is a 
violation of the spirit of the BoP's own media policy. There is an 
imperative on the Bureau's part to control and ultimately suppress 
information on the CMU from making it to a mass audience.

Daily Life at the CMU

Neither one of the two CMUs were built for long-term habitation. The 
Marion CMU was the site of the Secure Housing Unit (SHU), the USP 
that closed here in 2005. Terre Haute's CMU is in "D-wing" -- the 
site of the former federal death row.

The CMU was seemingly converted to its current use with the addition 
of televisions, steel tables, and new wiring and yet it is not 
suitable for long-term use due to its "open cell" design (i.e. with 
bars). With 25 prisoners, our movements are restricted to two housing 
ranges (hallways about 100 by 12 feet); a recreation range where we 
also eat (consisting of seven cells with a computer, typewriter, 
barber shop, religious library, social library, art room and 
recreational equipment); and a small rec yard (all concrete, a lap 
equals one-eighteenth of a mile, four cages with two basketball 
hoops, one handball court, a weather awning with tables and some 
sit-up benches). We are lucky to be visited daily by a resident bird 
population of doves and blackbirds, and overhead, the occasional hawk 
or falcon (ironically, as I write this, I overhear warnings from 
staff that if we continue to feed the birds, we will receive 
violations). The appearance of the yard with its cages, concrete, and 
excessive barbed wire has earned it nickname "Little Guantanamo" (of 
course a punitive unit with seventy-five percent Muslims also 
contributes to the name as well).

The conditions here are not dire -- in fact, the horror stories I 
have heard over the last two years have convinced me it is far worse 
at many prisons and yet, I believe it is important to be descriptive 
and accurate -- to dispel fears (about violence, for instance) but 
also to demonstrate just how different life is for us at the CMU.

There are many things we lack here that other prisons in the federal 
system have to offer:

1- A residential drug/alcohol program- despite at least one person 
here having completion of it ordered by the court.

2- Enough jobs for the prisoners here- There is not nearly enough 
jobs for all the men here and most are extremely low paying.

3- UNICOR- This is Federal Prison Industries which has shops at many 
federal prisons (including this one outside the CMU). These jobs pay 
much more, allow men to pay their court fees, restitution and child 
support and, as the BoP brags, teaches people job skills.

4- Adequate educational opportunities- Until recently, we did not 
have GED or vocational programs. Due to inmate pressure and 
persistence, we now have both of those as well as a few 
prisoner-taught classes but no college courses at all.

5- Access to staff on a daily basis- At other federal prisons, you 
are able to approach staff members at lunch every day, including the 
Warden. Here, we get (at most) two quick walk-throughs a week, 
usually taking place early in the morning. You are often left waiting 
days to resolve a simple question.

6- Law library access- We have a very small law library here with 
only twenty-five percent of the books required by law. We can only 
request books twice weekly and those are only delivered if the other 
nine hundred prisoners at the adjacent Medium are not using them. We 
lack Federal Court and Supreme Court reports as well as books on 
Immigration Law (fifty percent or more of the men here face 
deportation). This lack of access makes for an arduous and 
ineffective research path.

7- Computers- We have four computers for our email system (two for 
reading, one for printing and one that we were told would be for 
legal but it still isn't working). Unlike my previous prison, where 
we had forty computers with a robust computer-class program, or like 
other prisons that teach a vocational computer course, we have no such thing.

8- Access to general population- Being in an isolation unit makes for 
a situation in which we cannot have organized sports leagues and 
tournaments due to not having enough people at all. This may not seem 
crucial but sports are a very useful diversion from the stress of 
prison life and separation.

After reading the preceding sections, perhaps like me you are 
wondering what really is the purpose of the CMU. In short, the SMU is 
Florence ADX-LITE for those men whose security points are low and 
present no real problems to staff. From my interactions with the men 
here, I can say with certainty, that people here are remarkably 
well-behaved and calm -- many without any disciplinary violations. If 
these men, like myself, don't get in trouble, and have been in the 
system for some time, why are we here? Consider my case.

My short time in prison prior to coming to the CMU consisted of two 
months at MDC Brooklyn and eight months at FCI Sandstone. I had never 
gotten in trouble and spent my days as a clerk in psychology, working 
toward a Master's degree, reading, writing and exercising. My goal 
was to get closer to home and my loved ones. In April 2008, I filed a 
"hardship transfer" request due to my mother's illness and her 
inability to travel to Minnesota to visit me. I had my team meeting, 
and my security points were lowered. Weeks later, I was moved to the CMU.

The irony is that I was moved to the CMU to have my communication 
managed, but what changed in that one year to justify this move? If I 
was a danger, then why did the BoP house me in a low-security prison? 
The same applies to many of the men here-- some have been in general 
population for twenty years and then suddenly a need to manage their 
communication is conjured up. During my pre-CMU time, I had used 3500 
phone minutes and sent hundreds of letters. If there was a problem 
with my communication, shouldn't the BoP have raised this with me? My 
notice stating their rationale for placing me here attributed it to 
me "being a member and leader in the ELF and ALF" and "communicating 
in code." But if this is true, then shouldn't I have been sent to the 
CMU as soon as I self-reported to prison in July 2007?

The CMUs were crafted and opened under the Bush administration as 
some misguided attempt to be tough on the "war on terror." This unit 
contains many prisoners from cases prosecuted during the 
hyper-paranoid and over-the-top period after 9/11 and the passage of 
the USA Patriot Act.44 The number of prosecutions categorized as 
terrorism-related more than doubled to reach 1,200 in 2002. It seemed 
that every other week, there was some plot uncovered by overzealous 
FBI agents -- in Lackawanna, NY, Miami, FL, Portland, OR, and 
Virginia and elsewhere (never mind the illegal wiretaps and 
unscrupulous people used in these cases). These cases may not be 
headlines anymore but these men did not go away -- they were sent to 
prison and, when it was politically advantageous for Bush, 
transferred to the CMUs. The non-Muslim populations of these units 
(although definitely picked judiciously) were sent there to dispel 
charges that the CMUs were exclusively Muslim units.

The codified rationale for all prisoners being transferred here are 
"contact with persons in community require heightened control and 
reviews" and "your transfer to this facility for greater 
communication management is necessary to the safe, secure, and 
orderly function of Bureau institutions..." Should an increase in 
monitoring of communication mean a decrease in privileges? If the 
goal is to manage our contact with the outside world, shouldn't the 
BoP hire enough staff so that we can maintain the same rights and 
privileges as other prisoners (since the party line is that we are 
not here for punishment)? The reality is the conditions, segregation, 
lack of due process and such are punishment regardless of whether the 
BoP admits it or not.

Forward!

Where to from here, then? Does the new President and his Attorney 
General take issue with segregation? Will Obama view the CMU, as he 
did with Guantanamo Bay, as a horrible legacy of his predecessor and 
close it? Many people are hopeful for an outcome like that. On April 
7th, 2009, Mr. Obama, while in Turkey, said, "The United States will 
not make war on Islam," and that he wanted to "extend the hand of 
friendship to the Muslim world." While that sounds wonderful, what 
does that look like in concrete terms? Will he actualize that opinion 
by closing the CMU? Or will he marry the policy of Bush and condone a 
secret illegal set of political units for Muslims and activists? What 
of the men here? Will he transfer us back to normal prisons and 
review the outrageous prosecutions of many of the CMU detainees? If 
it can be done with (former) Senator Ted Steven's case, it can be done here.

While lawsuits have been filed in both Illinois and Indiana federal 
courts, what is needed urgently is for these units to be dragged out 
into the open. I am asking for your help and advocacy in dealing with 
this injustice and the mindset that allows a CMU to exist. Please 
pursue the resource section at the end of this article and consider 
doing something. I apologize for the length of this piece -- it was 
suggested to me (by people way smarter than myself) that it would be 
best to start from the beginning and offer as many details as 
possible. I hope I gave you a clearer idea of what's going on here. 
Thank you for all your support and love -- your letters are a bright 
candle in a sea of darkness.




Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
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