27 ms·

Suing to protect right of incarcerated people to receive physical mail

397 points by glitcher 4y ago

dkural 4y ago
Land of the free.
tpmx 4y ago
> This lawsuit also marks EFF’s commitment to stopping the current trend that seeks to privatize aspects of the carceral system for profit as well as strip privacy away from incarcerated individuals. Scope creep? [Clarification: Not the lawsuit itself, but the first part of this sentence.] This is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, 'The leading nonprofit defending digital privacy, free speech, and innovation'.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jerry1979 4y ago
  What is the boundary between the analog and the digital if not the "electronic frontier". The EFF started by defending a physical book publisher that was accused of receiving a document about digital systems.
- hooverd 4y ago
  Well, prisons are a good testing ground for these things. edit: I should clarify that I don't support what prisons are doing, I think it's good that the EFF is opposing this, because prisons are exactly where you'd roll out this kind of technology firsts.
- mindslight 4y ago
  Here they're defending people from the electronic frontier, and this case would seem to be solidly within the scope of free speech. Specifically the freedom to express yourself without having to force your message through the sewer pipe of corporate authoritarianism.
- hlieberman 4y ago
  Virtue-signaling messaging aside, do you feel that this _isn't_ a case that should be within the spirit of the EFF for defending "digital privacy"? In my mind, there's a direct line from the government requiring someone to use a particular computer program for a particular purpose to the government requiring us _all_ to use a particular computer program. It would certainly be more cost efficient for the US Postal Service to stop delivering mail across the country and replace it by opening letters, scanning them, and making them available to me by email... but I would hope that the EFF would fight tooth and nail to prevent that. Just as in so many things, these sort of technologies are tested first on those who can't easily say no—prisoners, students, the poor—before they are rolled out to us all.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - bombcar 4y ago
    The USPS will already scan envelopes en-route to you; I'm almost certain they could open them and do the same quite easily, maybe for a fee. https://www.usps.com/manage/informed-delivery.htm https://www.usps.com/manage/informed-delivery.htm
- drivingmenuts 4y ago
  Seeing as how no one else is stepping up to prevent abuse of prisoners, seems like scope creep can be justified in this instance.
  - yodon 4y ago
    The ACLU is clearly no longer the institution it once was. Glad to see the EFF is stepping up.
    - Spivak 4y ago
      You’re joking right? https://www.aclu.org/court-cases?issue=prisoners-rights https://www.aclu.org/court-cases?issue=prisoners-rights There’s 11 pages of just cases from 1999 to today.
      - pessimizer 4y ago
        If someone hints at a recent decline, 24 year old cases are not going to convince them otherwise.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - pmarreck 4y ago
      can you please provide evidence for your statement here
      - yodon 4y ago
        See for example [0]. The core concern is that the ACLU is going through an identity crisis as its membership evolves, and it is shifting strategy from defending the right of free speech for all (including the defending the right of free speech for speakers and statements its members strongly disagree with) to defending the right of free speech for those aligned with its values. That is a shift many long time supporters of the ACLU view as a dangerous failing of the organization because the key free speech cases frequently involve abhorrent speech, but that is where the case law for the rest of speakers is determined. After working, as it historically has, to defend speech its membership considers wrong or unpleasant in connection with a 2017 Charlottesville VA case, "Revulsion swelled within the A.C.L.U., and many assailed its executive director, Anthony Romero, and legal director, Mr. Cole, as privileged and clueless. The A.C.L.U. unfurled new guidelines that suggested lawyers should balance taking a free speech case representing right-wing groups whose “values are contrary to our values” against the potential such a case might give “offense to marginalized groups.”[0] Defending speech you don't like or agree with takes a strong stomach, but if you want to be a defender of free speech, those are the battles you must fight. If you let speech you disagree with be silenced, you give the government the tools it needs to silence speech, including speech you like and agree with. [0]https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html?...
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  The groups that are almost always going to be test cases for more involved surveillance or severe constraints on specific freedoms: prisoners, sex workers, government assistance recipients, disabled people. If they're doing it to one of these groups they want to be doing it to you too, and probably will be in a decade or so.
- nofinator 4y ago
  The rest of the sentence is relevant though (emphasis mine): "This lawsuit also marks EFF’s commitment to stopping the current trend that seeks to privatize aspects of the carceral system for profit *as well as strip privacy away from incarcerated individuals*." Since this is (by my count) at least the third time they've sued to block some kind of new surveillance by a for-profit prison, I think it's fair that they are calling out a pattern.
  - tpmx 4y ago
    Perhaps I misunderstood it? Or it's poorly written? I parsed this as two mostly separate commitments. Expanded the quote in the comment above.
- anfilt 4y ago
  To me this is still somewhat involved with “digital” freedoms. That freedom being the right to opt out or to not use “digital” systems. The same thing applies to in other instances for example the move to a more cashless society I think the right to use cash is still important for a litany of reasons. That right to opt out is important especially if it is even more invasive than the analog/real world equivalent.
kepler1 4y ago
I agree that forcing people to read their mail on only certain devices at certain times under supervision is not a human-being-respectful rule. But there is also the consideration that probably it's there for the reason of preventing drugs from being laced into the mail, even into the very paper. How about they do the simple step of scanning the mail, and reprinting it for the inmates to receive a physical copy? Of course, then you get into the problem of how much a markup is the shitty jail company going to apply to that.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  Drugs are pretty freely available in prison; you buy them from the guards. If that were the problem they were trying to resolve there are other paths to take. It isn't though.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  How about no.
- jstarfish 4y ago
  > But there is also the consideration that probably it's there for the reason of preventing drugs from being laced into the mail, even into the very paper. Nah, my money's on this being the latest in a campaign of depriving prisoners of vices. First they came for the cigarettes. This is more likely about porn. Some of the most inventive smut I've ever seen was written by/to prisoners. You have to be a real poet laureate to get erotica past dedicated censors without too many redactions. Moving this correspondence to digital, limited-access kiosks means you don't have any romantic hope to cling to (or jerk off to) back in your cell.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  Much more likely it's so they can charge $2 a minute for the privilege
- x86_64Ubuntu 4y ago
  Drugs come in through the guards, not the mail.
jmclnx 4y ago
To me, that seems to break a law about people opening First Class Mail addressed to someone else. I thought doing that was a Federal Offense.
- giantg2 4y ago
  There's probably some obscure exception for government purposes. Or the government just won't prosecute if it interferes with their interests. Pretty common in all aspects really, even really simple stuff like off-duty cops not getting speeding tickets.
- thecyborganizer 4y ago
  Your state certainly has a law permitting letters sent to prisoners to be opened and inspected. Mine does: Incoming mail may be opened, inspected for contraband and read by authorized institutional staff within the guidelines set forth in this policy. - RI Department of Corrections policy 24.01-7, 1.4.1.B.2 (authorized by RI General Laws 42-56-1)
  - sakras 4y ago
    I could be wrong, but doesn’t that violate the supremacy clause, since opening letters is a federal offense?
    - thecyborganizer 4y ago
      18 USC 1702 only applies if you are opening someone else's mail because you want to "obstruct the correspondence, or to pry into the business or secrets of another". Presumably the courts have determined that this does not apply to prison officials opening mail addressed to prisoners.
  - jcadam 4y ago
    Parcels I can understand, but a letter? No.
- ccooffee 4y ago
  Under 18 U.S. Code § 1702[0], it would appear to be illegal on-its-face for USPS mail to be inspected by prison authorities. > Whoever takes any letter...before it has been delivered...with design...to pry...or opens...the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. However, there's certainly more to be said about this, as the ACLU's prisoner rights page[1] has this to say about mail in prison: > The First Amendment of the Constitution entitles prisoners to send and receive mail, but the prison or jail may inspect and sometimes censor it to protect security, using appropriate procedures. I've been unable to find any resources identifying under what statutory authority a prison may inspect mail, but I'm unfamiliar with legal stuff, so I think this is a "me-failure". I did find a 2021 article from The Intercept[3] which was informative on giving a similar-perspective, different-author from the submitted ACLU page. [0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1702 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1702 [1] https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/prisoners-rights#i-want-to-send-and-receive-mail-in-prison https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/prisoners-rights#i-wan... [2] https://theintercept.com/2021/09/26/surveillance-privacy-prisons-mail-scan/ https://theintercept.com/2021/09/26/surveillance-privacy-pri...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ed25519FUUU 4y ago
As a prior ACLU supporter, I eventually switched over all of that monetary support to the EFF, whose litigation matches much closer to what I believe are broadly important civil liberties. ACLU meanwhile seems obsessed with limiting my 1A right to free speech, which is baffling. Not even to mention 2A rights.
- jerry1979 4y ago
  Out of curiosity, what did the ACLU do to limit 1A protections?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Spivak 4y ago
    Absolutely nothing. The most damming thing you can really say they’ve been exercising their choice of what battles to fight to prefer sympathetic defendants when possible. But they still go to bat for people you probably don’t like https://www.acluva.org/en/news/why-we-represented-alt-right-charlottesville https://www.acluva.org/en/news/why-we-represented-alt-right-...
  - lacker 4y ago
    Here's a good article about the debate: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html Basically, the ACLU used to be very focused on supporting the first amendment, and recently has shifted more to supporting progressive causes, even when they conflict with the first amendment.
    - mrguyorama 4y ago
      Maybe they see that allowing literal nazi (by their own accord) organizations hasn't actually reduced their presence like some free speech absolutists seem to believe. If your ideology shows itself to not work, maybe you can change your ideology?
kashkhan 4y ago
Mail sent to you is your property. Intercepting it in transit is highway robbery.
- calvinmorrison 4y ago
  Prisoners are slaves who do not have the same rights as other Americans
  - AaronM 4y ago
    Not all incarcerated people are prisoners though. Plenty of folks in jail are simply too poor to afford bonding out before their trial date.
    - calvinmorrison 4y ago
      Well we can mince words, but functionally you are deprived of your freedom while being presumed innocent if the government decides it so.
    - mcherm 4y ago
      Perhaps you have a different term besides "prisoner" to describe someone who is imprisoned before their trial rather than after. But the parent comment is correct: whatever you call them, these people are not afforded all of the rights that the rest of us have.
    - c0m 4y ago
      Are you confusing the term 'prisoner' with 'criminal'? Prisoner is used to refer to people waiting for trial frequently, and dictionaries seem to support this definition.
  - voakbasda 4y ago
    This is the truth. The legal exception is literally carved out in the 13th amendment; the government reserved the right to make slaves of its prisoners.
Syonyk 4y ago
Good. I'll have to send them a check and mention it's to support this lawsuit. //EDIT: Printed, signed, and mailed. I wonder what junkmail I'll get as a result of this donation... I've had the recent displeasure of seeing the jail system far more up close than I'd prefer (from the outside, someone lied and someone I know well ended up in jail for a few months, left with all charges dropped). It's an absolutely vile system, and letters were one of the very few ways one could actually have long form conversations without paying through the nose. Every aspect of the system is designed to extract money from those outside. You want to send messages? Great, install this app, add money (of course, a bunch of what you put in goes to mandatory fees for the privilege of putting money in), and then it ends up with pay-per-message with character limits (remember $0.25/text?), via an app that is... very permissions-grabby. Should you want to send money through the fee system for them to buy things at the internal store, you pay your fees, and then can either pay online via a "We need to know everything about you" app, or at an in person kiosk, which tries to collect all the same information, including a photo of you, your driver's license, and whatever else they can grab. Should you want to set up a video chat, you have to agree to a EULA that, among other things, includes "We will voiceprint anyone on the call and share that with law enforcement, and we will try to biometrically identify your facial features and do the same." And it's $7+ for 30 minutes. Of course, it's all logged and analyzed. I understand the need to keep communications somewhat monitored, but it feels far more like a blatant cash grab than anything else, which, given for-profit prisons, it almost certainly is. So, of course, the one thing that bypassed this (letters were opened, read, anything useful like tape on them was removed, etc) has to go away. Because how dare someone be able to actually interact with people outside. If they do that, why, they might not come right back in on release! And that would be Bad for Profits. Cram 80 people in a room built for 20? That's fine. Let them actually read letters? Can't have that! My opinion of the prison system was fairly low to start with, and it rather exceeded my expectations for just how utterly evil the whole thing is, through and through.
- at_a_remove 4y ago
  I'm curious about the lying: were charges filed against the liar? What was the lie? Did the liar have to pay the costs incurred?
themagician 4y ago
The amount of Type I errors that get made (that we know about) in our (USA) justice system is really wild when you truly consider the consequences. The Innocent Project estimates that 1% of all prisoners are innocent. Hard to say if that number is accurate, but go ahead and cut it in half if you like. 0.5%. Doesn't seem like a lot in percentage terms. But of the 850 people in the jail system that the EFF is talking about here, that means at least 4 people are innocent and can't even receive a letter. Imagine if that was you. Man, it's hard to imagine. It's hard to even imagine. "Nationwide, over 500,000 people are incarcerated in county jails like the one in Redwood City, 427,000 of whom have not been found guilty and are still awaiting trial." Apply that same 0.5% here, and that's 2,135 people. There are literally thousands of innocent people in the prison system. Thousands. A bus seats like 50 people. Imagine 40 buses full of innocent people going to jail, and that's the reality we live in.
- Swizec 4y ago
  > have not been found guilty and are still awaiting trial PIMA had an interview with a sheriff recently. The figure that stood out to me was when he said it takes an average of 1.8 years for people in his jail to finally get to trial. 1.8 years in jail before they even decide if you're guilty. Hard to even imagine. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/chicagos-renegade-sheriff-wants-to-fix-law-enforcement/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/chicagos-renegade-sheriff-w...
  - jamiek88 4y ago
    Justice delayed is justice denied. That’s a fundamental principle of common law. This is an outrage.
    - biomcgary 4y ago
      Not just common law. In the US, it is spelled out in the Bill of Rights. Unfortunately, the legal system has so distorted the plain meaning of "speedy trial" that we end up with insane, but "Constitutional" situations.
newaccount2023 4y ago
Aryan Nation members once started a race war in the PA penal system by sending orders written in pee on otherwise innocuous mail when exposed to heat, the letter in question revealed an order to go to war with a black prison gang I agree with the EFF case, but this prohibition isn't just a random infringement
- connicpu 4y ago
  That seems rather straightforward to prevent without infringing on the right to receive mail itself. Letters are already inspected, if the prison is worried about hidden messages in the paper substrate, they can give the prisoner a monochrome photocopy with any extra noise scrubbed out.
- moate 4y ago
  I mean you can always find justifications for abuses of power/removal of rights. Just look at points to the entirety of human history across all civilizations ever. What's your point? That truly bad people can find fig leaves to provide people who agree with their bad beliefs but want to continue the appearance of civil society so they can go to the rest of the community and advocate for the bad thing?
- simonw 4y ago
  Is that definitely true? It sounds suspicious to me.
  - briandear 4y ago
    https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jun-27-me-code27-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jun-27-me-code2...
- rtkwe 4y ago
  Any communication channel could carry that same message encoded any number of ways that don't require sending piss soaked letters. Trying to stop every possible bit of crime even in prisons is impossible without unacceptable draconian conditions.
lacker 4y ago
As an EFF supporter I'm a little worried about this phenomenon where nonprofits sprawl out into many unrelated areas. The ACLU, for example, started off very focused on civil liberties but in the Trump era it seemed to generalize into opposing everything Trump did. Which, I mean, I don't support the average thing that Trump did, but it started to feel like donating money to the ACLU was just the same as donating it to the Democratic Party. And isn't someone else going to be better at spending that money effectively, if your area of expertise is "everything"? Similarly, here in the Oakland area I was looking for food banks to donate to, but there seems to be no organization that simply provides food to needy people. Everything I could find was like, well the name of our organization is the Oakland Blah Blah Food Bank, but in practice we regrant donor money to many other causes, we do many other things, we don't really just provide food to people.
- techsupporter 4y ago
  The EFF has always been deeply interested in the intersection of privacy and the digital world. That has oftentimes manifested as privacy in the digital world, but not always. This is one of those examples. The EFF is saying "privacy and this digital service cannot coexist; the digital service must therefore lose, and we know what we're talking about because we are well-versed in this policy area." Also, a lot of not-for-profit entities intentionally branch out because such is the nature of helping the group of people they want to help. The term for it is intersectionality. That not-for-profits are heavily siloed is less a matter of intent and more a matter of history. If you are a food bank, you recognize that your intended client base needs food. But, second-order to that, why do they need to come to you? Is it because they need a job? Well, they're already here, so why not engage in skills enhancement and training? And since you'll be at the city council anyway doing advocacy for access to food, why not also advocate for more housing? If those continue to be siloed, you wind up with three separate groups, working at separate-but-related aims, each with their own overhead and inefficiencies. It's vertical integration, in the not-for-profit advocacy space.
- moate 4y ago
  Point of order: Is it not possible that Trump in particular just stood in opposition to the ACLU's worldview/mission statement? For that matter, they're not really keen on some of Biden's immigration policies either. A large chunk of the visible mainstream Republican platform is not very civil liberty friendly at this point, and the Dems have not been let entirely off the hook.
chaps 4y ago
Heh, yeah, good. Similarly, Chicago Police Department has denied FOIA requests of people in jail because they claim they'd have to provide the records as a CD.. arguing that the CD could be used as a weapon.
- newaccount2023 4y ago
  that is actually entirely reasonable a CD could be snapped and the shards used as a weapon keep in mind we are talking about things fashioned into weapons to kill other prisoners...the prison warden has an obligation to keep inmates from getting murdered
  - duskwuff 4y ago
    It is eminently unreasonable for a prison to give its own prisoner a copy of some records on a computer disc which the prisoner has no way of reading.
  - adwi 4y ago
    Perhaps they could use a printer?
    - NoZebra120vClip 4y ago
      Say you've got a 700-page document to send to someone. Printing costs around $0.10 a side if it's monochrome and not too dense. CD-ROM costs about $1.00 total for at least 650MiB. What do you think is more cost-effective? Your tax dollars at work, remember!
      - chaps 4y ago
        We're talking about someone who's trying to get more info about the reason why they've been put into jail. Possibly because it would help their case. The agency basically decided on an ultimatum. And no, lawyers won't always do necessary due diligence to make sure their client's case has all documents. But complete dismissal of leaving them no options aside... if you really think that 70 dollars is a lot of money, just wait until you see the bills towards the tax payer in a FOIA lawsuit for an unnecessary denial.
elzbardico 4y ago
I think that it is on the interest of society the inmates are allowed to access things that keep their mental health. Being imprisoned is already punishment enough, isolating them completely from society, relatives and friends is akin to torture, and will surely backfire.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  Indeed. Some of this ties into the debate over the purpose of prison (is it to punish or rehabilitate?), but no matter where you fall in that argument, there is one absolute truth: The vast majority of these people will eventually be released. Even ignoring important issues like ethics, I think it's clearly in society's best interest that they are as healthy as possible when they get out.
  - kwhitefoot 4y ago
    It is to punish. But the punishment is supposed to be the removal of liberty, nothing else.
    - Xylakant 4y ago
      If you accept that sooner or later, most people in prison will be released, then a major part of the prisons mission must be rehabilitation, aside from restoration of justice through punishment. Because if it’s not, then people that are sent to prison will not improve and society will loose - both by removing a potentially productive member of society and by paying for the imprisonment.
atlasunshrugged 4y ago
If this riles you up and you want to do something, there's a new program at Georgetown opening up for technologists called the Judicial Innovation Fellowship which places tech folks with different jurisdictions to help them improve the system. https://www.law.georgetown.edu/tech-institute/initiatives/georgetown-justice-lab/judicial-innovation/ https://www.law.georgetown.edu/tech-institute/initiatives/ge...
- aqme28 4y ago
  It's kind of interesting in this context because it's mostly the tech solutions here that are famously extractive. The old ways of phone calls and letters work well. We don't need technologists, we need politicians.
  - atlasunshrugged 4y ago
    I agree that a lot of tech solutions are extractive, but a huge amounts of comments on this thread are about the people who are stuck waiting for court dates and who end up stuck in the system because of how slow it is and I think there are ways technology solutions can be used to help speed up the judicial system. No question it also needs politicians (although, I am not sure most voters care about this and might even be more likely to say who cares, lock them up and throw away the key) who are willing to work on real solutions.
anonymouse008 4y ago
Yeah this “digital solution” is just the prisons’ responding to current behaviors. There’s a story that people were high as kites while incarcerated and no one knew why for the longest. Then an officer saw someone lite up a page of the holy bible that was shipped in, and it all clicked. Shipped in bibles were soaked in narcotics - no one thought to check. So, it’s really not a nefarious conspiracy - it’s just trying to combat the ingenuity of the population. I wish that brain power was better tended to earlier in life since they’ve proven to be that brilliant.
Overtonwindow 4y ago
We have such a vengeance and retribution obsession in the US. Priaon should be about rehabilitation. Nothing else seems to be bringing down the recidivism rate, maybe it's worth a try.
pallas_athena 4y ago
Sorry if this doesn't add to the discussion, but: I read incinerated instead of incarcerated. I wondered for a couple of seconds what the hell it was about. Cremation?
Slava_Propanei 4y ago
[dead]

397 points by glitcher 4y ago

Land of the free.

tpmx 4y ago

> This lawsuit also marks EFF’s commitment to stopping the current trend that seeks to privatize aspects of the carceral system for profit as well as strip privacy away from incarcerated individuals. Scope creep? [Clarification: Not the lawsuit itself, but the first part of this sentence.] This is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, 'The leading nonprofit defending digital privacy, free speech, and innovation'.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jerry1979 4y ago
What is the boundary between the analog and the digital if not the "electronic frontier". The EFF started by defending a physical book publisher that was accused of receiving a document about digital systems.
hooverd 4y ago
Well, prisons are a good testing ground for these things. edit: I should clarify that I don't support what prisons are doing, I think it's good that the EFF is opposing this, because prisons are exactly where you'd roll out this kind of technology firsts.
mindslight 4y ago
Here they're defending people from the electronic frontier, and this case would seem to be solidly within the scope of free speech. Specifically the freedom to express yourself without having to force your message through the sewer pipe of corporate authoritarianism.
hlieberman 4y ago
Virtue-signaling messaging aside, do you feel that this _isn't_ a case that should be within the spirit of the EFF for defending "digital privacy"? In my mind, there's a direct line from the government requiring someone to use a particular computer program for a particular purpose to the government requiring us _all_ to use a particular computer program. It would certainly be more cost efficient for the US Postal Service to stop delivering mail across the country and replace it by opening letters, scanning them, and making them available to me by email... but I would hope that the EFF would fight tooth and nail to prevent that. Just as in so many things, these sort of technologies are tested first on those who can't easily say no—prisoners, students, the poor—before they are rolled out to us all.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- bombcar 4y ago
  The USPS will already scan envelopes en-route to you; I'm almost certain they could open them and do the same quite easily, maybe for a fee. https://www.usps.com/manage/informed-delivery.htm https://www.usps.com/manage/informed-delivery.htm
drivingmenuts 4y ago
Seeing as how no one else is stepping up to prevent abuse of prisoners, seems like scope creep can be justified in this instance.
- yodon 4y ago
  The ACLU is clearly no longer the institution it once was. Glad to see the EFF is stepping up.
  - Spivak 4y ago
    You’re joking right? https://www.aclu.org/court-cases?issue=prisoners-rights https://www.aclu.org/court-cases?issue=prisoners-rights There’s 11 pages of just cases from 1999 to today.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      If someone hints at a recent decline, 24 year old cases are not going to convince them otherwise.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - pmarreck 4y ago
    can you please provide evidence for your statement here
    - yodon 4y ago
      See for example [0]. The core concern is that the ACLU is going through an identity crisis as its membership evolves, and it is shifting strategy from defending the right of free speech for all (including the defending the right of free speech for speakers and statements its members strongly disagree with) to defending the right of free speech for those aligned with its values. That is a shift many long time supporters of the ACLU view as a dangerous failing of the organization because the key free speech cases frequently involve abhorrent speech, but that is where the case law for the rest of speakers is determined. After working, as it historically has, to defend speech its membership considers wrong or unpleasant in connection with a 2017 Charlottesville VA case, "Revulsion swelled within the A.C.L.U., and many assailed its executive director, Anthony Romero, and legal director, Mr. Cole, as privileged and clueless. The A.C.L.U. unfurled new guidelines that suggested lawyers should balance taking a free speech case representing right-wing groups whose “values are contrary to our values” against the potential such a case might give “offense to marginalized groups.”[0] Defending speech you don't like or agree with takes a strong stomach, but if you want to be a defender of free speech, those are the battles you must fight. If you let speech you disagree with be silenced, you give the government the tools it needs to silence speech, including speech you like and agree with. [0]https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html?...
giraffe_lady 4y ago
The groups that are almost always going to be test cases for more involved surveillance or severe constraints on specific freedoms: prisoners, sex workers, government assistance recipients, disabled people. If they're doing it to one of these groups they want to be doing it to you too, and probably will be in a decade or so.
nofinator 4y ago
The rest of the sentence is relevant though (emphasis mine): "This lawsuit also marks EFF’s commitment to stopping the current trend that seeks to privatize aspects of the carceral system for profit *as well as strip privacy away from incarcerated individuals*." Since this is (by my count) at least the third time they've sued to block some kind of new surveillance by a for-profit prison, I think it's fair that they are calling out a pattern.
- tpmx 4y ago
  Perhaps I misunderstood it? Or it's poorly written? I parsed this as two mostly separate commitments. Expanded the quote in the comment above.
anfilt 4y ago
To me this is still somewhat involved with “digital” freedoms. That freedom being the right to opt out or to not use “digital” systems. The same thing applies to in other instances for example the move to a more cashless society I think the right to use cash is still important for a litany of reasons. That right to opt out is important especially if it is even more invasive than the analog/real world equivalent.

kepler1 4y ago

I agree that forcing people to read their mail on only certain devices at certain times under supervision is not a human-being-respectful rule. But there is also the consideration that probably it's there for the reason of preventing drugs from being laced into the mail, even into the very paper. How about they do the simple step of scanning the mail, and reprinting it for the inmates to receive a physical copy? Of course, then you get into the problem of how much a markup is the shitty jail company going to apply to that.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
Drugs are pretty freely available in prison; you buy them from the guards. If that were the problem they were trying to resolve there are other paths to take. It isn't though.
anigbrowl 4y ago
How about no.
jstarfish 4y ago
> But there is also the consideration that probably it's there for the reason of preventing drugs from being laced into the mail, even into the very paper. Nah, my money's on this being the latest in a campaign of depriving prisoners of vices. First they came for the cigarettes. This is more likely about porn. Some of the most inventive smut I've ever seen was written by/to prisoners. You have to be a real poet laureate to get erotica past dedicated censors without too many redactions. Moving this correspondence to digital, limited-access kiosks means you don't have any romantic hope to cling to (or jerk off to) back in your cell.
mrguyorama 4y ago
Much more likely it's so they can charge $2 a minute for the privilege
x86_64Ubuntu 4y ago
Drugs come in through the guards, not the mail.

jmclnx 4y ago

To me, that seems to break a law about people opening First Class Mail addressed to someone else. I thought doing that was a Federal Offense.

giantg2 4y ago
There's probably some obscure exception for government purposes. Or the government just won't prosecute if it interferes with their interests. Pretty common in all aspects really, even really simple stuff like off-duty cops not getting speeding tickets.
thecyborganizer 4y ago
Your state certainly has a law permitting letters sent to prisoners to be opened and inspected. Mine does: Incoming mail may be opened, inspected for contraband and read by authorized institutional staff within the guidelines set forth in this policy. - RI Department of Corrections policy 24.01-7, 1.4.1.B.2 (authorized by RI General Laws 42-56-1)
- sakras 4y ago
  I could be wrong, but doesn’t that violate the supremacy clause, since opening letters is a federal offense?
  - thecyborganizer 4y ago
    18 USC 1702 only applies if you are opening someone else's mail because you want to "obstruct the correspondence, or to pry into the business or secrets of another". Presumably the courts have determined that this does not apply to prison officials opening mail addressed to prisoners.
- jcadam 4y ago
  Parcels I can understand, but a letter? No.
ccooffee 4y ago
Under 18 U.S. Code § 1702[0], it would appear to be illegal on-its-face for USPS mail to be inspected by prison authorities. > Whoever takes any letter...before it has been delivered...with design...to pry...or opens...the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. However, there's certainly more to be said about this, as the ACLU's prisoner rights page[1] has this to say about mail in prison: > The First Amendment of the Constitution entitles prisoners to send and receive mail, but the prison or jail may inspect and sometimes censor it to protect security, using appropriate procedures. I've been unable to find any resources identifying under what statutory authority a prison may inspect mail, but I'm unfamiliar with legal stuff, so I think this is a "me-failure". I did find a 2021 article from The Intercept[3] which was informative on giving a similar-perspective, different-author from the submitted ACLU page. [0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1702 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1702 [1] https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/prisoners-rights#i-want-to-send-and-receive-mail-in-prison https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/prisoners-rights#i-wan... [2] https://theintercept.com/2021/09/26/surveillance-privacy-prisons-mail-scan/ https://theintercept.com/2021/09/26/surveillance-privacy-pri...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

ed25519FUUU 4y ago

As a prior ACLU supporter, I eventually switched over all of that monetary support to the EFF, whose litigation matches much closer to what I believe are broadly important civil liberties. ACLU meanwhile seems obsessed with limiting my 1A right to free speech, which is baffling. Not even to mention 2A rights.

jerry1979 4y ago
Out of curiosity, what did the ACLU do to limit 1A protections?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Spivak 4y ago
  Absolutely nothing. The most damming thing you can really say they’ve been exercising their choice of what battles to fight to prefer sympathetic defendants when possible. But they still go to bat for people you probably don’t like https://www.acluva.org/en/news/why-we-represented-alt-right-charlottesville https://www.acluva.org/en/news/why-we-represented-alt-right-...
- lacker 4y ago
  Here's a good article about the debate: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html Basically, the ACLU used to be very focused on supporting the first amendment, and recently has shifted more to supporting progressive causes, even when they conflict with the first amendment.
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    Maybe they see that allowing literal nazi (by their own accord) organizations hasn't actually reduced their presence like some free speech absolutists seem to believe. If your ideology shows itself to not work, maybe you can change your ideology?

kashkhan 4y ago

Mail sent to you is your property. Intercepting it in transit is highway robbery.

calvinmorrison 4y ago
Prisoners are slaves who do not have the same rights as other Americans
- AaronM 4y ago
  Not all incarcerated people are prisoners though. Plenty of folks in jail are simply too poor to afford bonding out before their trial date.
  - calvinmorrison 4y ago
    Well we can mince words, but functionally you are deprived of your freedom while being presumed innocent if the government decides it so.
  - mcherm 4y ago
    Perhaps you have a different term besides "prisoner" to describe someone who is imprisoned before their trial rather than after. But the parent comment is correct: whatever you call them, these people are not afforded all of the rights that the rest of us have.
  - c0m 4y ago
    Are you confusing the term 'prisoner' with 'criminal'? Prisoner is used to refer to people waiting for trial frequently, and dictionaries seem to support this definition.
- voakbasda 4y ago
  This is the truth. The legal exception is literally carved out in the 13th amendment; the government reserved the right to make slaves of its prisoners.

Syonyk 4y ago

Good. I'll have to send them a check and mention it's to support this lawsuit. //EDIT: Printed, signed, and mailed. I wonder what junkmail I'll get as a result of this donation... I've had the recent displeasure of seeing the jail system far more up close than I'd prefer (from the outside, someone lied and someone I know well ended up in jail for a few months, left with all charges dropped). It's an absolutely vile system, and letters were one of the very few ways one could actually have long form conversations without paying through the nose. Every aspect of the system is designed to extract money from those outside. You want to send messages? Great, install this app, add money (of course, a bunch of what you put in goes to mandatory fees for the privilege of putting money in), and then it ends up with pay-per-message with character limits (remember $0.25/text?), via an app that is... very permissions-grabby. Should you want to send money through the fee system for them to buy things at the internal store, you pay your fees, and then can either pay online via a "We need to know everything about you" app, or at an in person kiosk, which tries to collect all the same information, including a photo of you, your driver's license, and whatever else they can grab. Should you want to set up a video chat, you have to agree to a EULA that, among other things, includes "We will voiceprint anyone on the call and share that with law enforcement, and we will try to biometrically identify your facial features and do the same." And it's $7+ for 30 minutes. Of course, it's all logged and analyzed. I understand the need to keep communications somewhat monitored, but it feels far more like a blatant cash grab than anything else, which, given for-profit prisons, it almost certainly is. So, of course, the one thing that bypassed this (letters were opened, read, anything useful like tape on them was removed, etc) has to go away. Because how dare someone be able to actually interact with people outside. If they do that, why, they might not come right back in on release! And that would be Bad for Profits. Cram 80 people in a room built for 20? That's fine. Let them actually read letters? Can't have that! My opinion of the prison system was fairly low to start with, and it rather exceeded my expectations for just how utterly evil the whole thing is, through and through.

at_a_remove 4y ago
I'm curious about the lying: were charges filed against the liar? What was the lie? Did the liar have to pay the costs incurred?

themagician 4y ago

The amount of Type I errors that get made (that we know about) in our (USA) justice system is really wild when you truly consider the consequences. The Innocent Project estimates that 1% of all prisoners are innocent. Hard to say if that number is accurate, but go ahead and cut it in half if you like. 0.5%. Doesn't seem like a lot in percentage terms. But of the 850 people in the jail system that the EFF is talking about here, that means at least 4 people are innocent and can't even receive a letter. Imagine if that was you. Man, it's hard to imagine. It's hard to even imagine. "Nationwide, over 500,000 people are incarcerated in county jails like the one in Redwood City, 427,000 of whom have not been found guilty and are still awaiting trial." Apply that same 0.5% here, and that's 2,135 people. There are literally thousands of innocent people in the prison system. Thousands. A bus seats like 50 people. Imagine 40 buses full of innocent people going to jail, and that's the reality we live in.

Swizec 4y ago
> have not been found guilty and are still awaiting trial PIMA had an interview with a sheriff recently. The figure that stood out to me was when he said it takes an average of 1.8 years for people in his jail to finally get to trial. 1.8 years in jail before they even decide if you're guilty. Hard to even imagine. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/chicagos-renegade-sheriff-wants-to-fix-law-enforcement/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/chicagos-renegade-sheriff-w...
- jamiek88 4y ago
  Justice delayed is justice denied. That’s a fundamental principle of common law. This is an outrage.
  - biomcgary 4y ago
    Not just common law. In the US, it is spelled out in the Bill of Rights. Unfortunately, the legal system has so distorted the plain meaning of "speedy trial" that we end up with insane, but "Constitutional" situations.

newaccount2023 4y ago

Aryan Nation members once started a race war in the PA penal system by sending orders written in pee on otherwise innocuous mail when exposed to heat, the letter in question revealed an order to go to war with a black prison gang I agree with the EFF case, but this prohibition isn't just a random infringement

connicpu 4y ago
That seems rather straightforward to prevent without infringing on the right to receive mail itself. Letters are already inspected, if the prison is worried about hidden messages in the paper substrate, they can give the prisoner a monochrome photocopy with any extra noise scrubbed out.
moate 4y ago
I mean you can always find justifications for abuses of power/removal of rights. Just look at points to the entirety of human history across all civilizations ever. What's your point? That truly bad people can find fig leaves to provide people who agree with their bad beliefs but want to continue the appearance of civil society so they can go to the rest of the community and advocate for the bad thing?
simonw 4y ago
Is that definitely true? It sounds suspicious to me.
- briandear 4y ago
  https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jun-27-me-code27-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jun-27-me-code2...
rtkwe 4y ago
Any communication channel could carry that same message encoded any number of ways that don't require sending piss soaked letters. Trying to stop every possible bit of crime even in prisons is impossible without unacceptable draconian conditions.

lacker 4y ago

As an EFF supporter I'm a little worried about this phenomenon where nonprofits sprawl out into many unrelated areas. The ACLU, for example, started off very focused on civil liberties but in the Trump era it seemed to generalize into opposing everything Trump did. Which, I mean, I don't support the average thing that Trump did, but it started to feel like donating money to the ACLU was just the same as donating it to the Democratic Party. And isn't someone else going to be better at spending that money effectively, if your area of expertise is "everything"? Similarly, here in the Oakland area I was looking for food banks to donate to, but there seems to be no organization that simply provides food to needy people. Everything I could find was like, well the name of our organization is the Oakland Blah Blah Food Bank, but in practice we regrant donor money to many other causes, we do many other things, we don't really just provide food to people.

techsupporter 4y ago
The EFF has always been deeply interested in the intersection of privacy and the digital world. That has oftentimes manifested as privacy in the digital world, but not always. This is one of those examples. The EFF is saying "privacy and this digital service cannot coexist; the digital service must therefore lose, and we know what we're talking about because we are well-versed in this policy area." Also, a lot of not-for-profit entities intentionally branch out because such is the nature of helping the group of people they want to help. The term for it is intersectionality. That not-for-profits are heavily siloed is less a matter of intent and more a matter of history. If you are a food bank, you recognize that your intended client base needs food. But, second-order to that, why do they need to come to you? Is it because they need a job? Well, they're already here, so why not engage in skills enhancement and training? And since you'll be at the city council anyway doing advocacy for access to food, why not also advocate for more housing? If those continue to be siloed, you wind up with three separate groups, working at separate-but-related aims, each with their own overhead and inefficiencies. It's vertical integration, in the not-for-profit advocacy space.
moate 4y ago
Point of order: Is it not possible that Trump in particular just stood in opposition to the ACLU's worldview/mission statement? For that matter, they're not really keen on some of Biden's immigration policies either. A large chunk of the visible mainstream Republican platform is not very civil liberty friendly at this point, and the Dems have not been let entirely off the hook.

chaps 4y ago

Heh, yeah, good. Similarly, Chicago Police Department has denied FOIA requests of people in jail because they claim they'd have to provide the records as a CD.. arguing that the CD could be used as a weapon.

newaccount2023 4y ago
that is actually entirely reasonable a CD could be snapped and the shards used as a weapon keep in mind we are talking about things fashioned into weapons to kill other prisoners...the prison warden has an obligation to keep inmates from getting murdered
- duskwuff 4y ago
  It is eminently unreasonable for a prison to give its own prisoner a copy of some records on a computer disc which the prisoner has no way of reading.
- adwi 4y ago
  Perhaps they could use a printer?
  - NoZebra120vClip 4y ago
    Say you've got a 700-page document to send to someone. Printing costs around $0.10 a side if it's monochrome and not too dense. CD-ROM costs about $1.00 total for at least 650MiB. What do you think is more cost-effective? Your tax dollars at work, remember!
    - chaps 4y ago
      We're talking about someone who's trying to get more info about the reason why they've been put into jail. Possibly because it would help their case. The agency basically decided on an ultimatum. And no, lawyers won't always do necessary due diligence to make sure their client's case has all documents. But complete dismissal of leaving them no options aside... if you really think that 70 dollars is a lot of money, just wait until you see the bills towards the tax payer in a FOIA lawsuit for an unnecessary denial.

elzbardico 4y ago

I think that it is on the interest of society the inmates are allowed to access things that keep their mental health. Being imprisoned is already punishment enough, isolating them completely from society, relatives and friends is akin to torture, and will surely backfire.

JohnFen 4y ago
Indeed. Some of this ties into the debate over the purpose of prison (is it to punish or rehabilitate?), but no matter where you fall in that argument, there is one absolute truth: The vast majority of these people will eventually be released. Even ignoring important issues like ethics, I think it's clearly in society's best interest that they are as healthy as possible when they get out.
- kwhitefoot 4y ago
  It is to punish. But the punishment is supposed to be the removal of liberty, nothing else.
  - Xylakant 4y ago
    If you accept that sooner or later, most people in prison will be released, then a major part of the prisons mission must be rehabilitation, aside from restoration of justice through punishment. Because if it’s not, then people that are sent to prison will not improve and society will loose - both by removing a potentially productive member of society and by paying for the imprisonment.

atlasunshrugged 4y ago

If this riles you up and you want to do something, there's a new program at Georgetown opening up for technologists called the Judicial Innovation Fellowship which places tech folks with different jurisdictions to help them improve the system. https://www.law.georgetown.edu/tech-institute/initiatives/georgetown-justice-lab/judicial-innovation/ https://www.law.georgetown.edu/tech-institute/initiatives/ge...

aqme28 4y ago
It's kind of interesting in this context because it's mostly the tech solutions here that are famously extractive. The old ways of phone calls and letters work well. We don't need technologists, we need politicians.
- atlasunshrugged 4y ago
  I agree that a lot of tech solutions are extractive, but a huge amounts of comments on this thread are about the people who are stuck waiting for court dates and who end up stuck in the system because of how slow it is and I think there are ways technology solutions can be used to help speed up the judicial system. No question it also needs politicians (although, I am not sure most voters care about this and might even be more likely to say who cares, lock them up and throw away the key) who are willing to work on real solutions.

anonymouse008 4y ago

Yeah this “digital solution” is just the prisons’ responding to current behaviors. There’s a story that people were high as kites while incarcerated and no one knew why for the longest. Then an officer saw someone lite up a page of the holy bible that was shipped in, and it all clicked. Shipped in bibles were soaked in narcotics - no one thought to check. So, it’s really not a nefarious conspiracy - it’s just trying to combat the ingenuity of the population. I wish that brain power was better tended to earlier in life since they’ve proven to be that brilliant.

Overtonwindow 4y ago

We have such a vengeance and retribution obsession in the US. Priaon should be about rehabilitation. Nothing else seems to be bringing down the recidivism rate, maybe it's worth a try.

pallas_athena 4y ago

Sorry if this doesn't add to the discussion, but: I read incinerated instead of incarcerated. I wondered for a couple of seconds what the hell it was about. Cremation?

Slava_Propanei 4y ago

[dead]