3 ms·

I'm very surprised he didn't die earlier. Take his mental state at sentencing, then consider he was in ADX Florence Supermax from 1998 to December of 2021...23

by tyingq 3y ago

I'm very surprised he didn't die earlier. Take his mental state at sentencing, then consider he was in ADX Florence Supermax from 1998 to December of 2021...23 years. The regimen there is 23 hours a day by yourself in your cell. There's one hour a day outside in a sunken concrete area, each prisoner is placed in an individual 12x18 foot wire-mesh cage, and can speak to other nearby caged prisoners under the watch of guards. There's a thin slit window in the cell that shows only the sky, no landscape visible. All meals eaten in the cell, passed through a hole. They did transfer him to a medical prison in December of 2021.

arp242 3y ago
His cell was apparently 12×7-foot, or 3.6×2.1 metres (I was curious). Seems awfully tiny, and personally I consider it inhumane no matter what he has done, but apparently he wasn't too unhappy with it: "I consider myself to be in a (relatively) fortunate situation here. As correctional institutions go, this place is well-administered. It’s clean, the food is good, and it’s quiet, so that I can sleep, think and write (usually) without being distracted by a lot of banging and shouting."[1] Come to think of it, I might prefer a smaller cell over a larger one if it's clean and doesn't have "a lot of banging and shouting", but that probably says more about the general state of the US prison system than anything else. [1]: https://news.yahoo.com/the-unabomber-s-not-so-lonely-prison-life-210559693.html https://news.yahoo.com/the-unabomber-s-not-so-lonely-prison-...
- boppo1 3y ago
  did they allow much of his writing out of the prison? Who holds the rights to something written in prison in the US?
  - tyingq 3y ago
    There's not a universal country-wide law in the US. Some states have "Son of Sam" laws that keep prisoners from profiting from publicity about their crimes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Sam_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Sam_law Though with Ted, he probably had things other than his crimes he could have published and made money from. Of course, any earnings could end up going to a civil suit or existing orders of victim restitution. None of that seems directly related to intellectual property rights though. The prisoner retains those just like anyone else. I suppose there might be some cases of asset forfeiture for remediation or fines?
    - tyingq 3y ago
      Just noticed that the forward for one of his books (mentioned in a peer comment) has an example of what I described above in Kaczynski's words... "I simply have not had the time to organize, rewrite, and complete the contents of this book. The principal reason why I have not had time is that agencies of the United States government have created unnecessary legal difficulties for me. To mention only the most important of these difficulties, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of California has formally proposed to round up and confiscate the original and every copy of everything I have ever written and turn over all such papers to my alleged "victims" through a fictitious sale that will allow the "victims" to acquire all of the papers without having to pay anything for them. Under this plan, the government would even confiscate papers that I have given to libraries, including papers that have been on library shelves for several years..." [1] [1] https://ia800300.us.archive.org/21/items/tk-Technological-Slavery/tk-Technological-Slavery.pdf https://ia800300.us.archive.org/21/items/tk-Technological-Sl... I don't know how that turned out, though. He does mention his lawyers were fighting the plan. Also interesting that he keeps putting the word victims in quotes, in a book published in 2008.
  - arp242 3y ago
    As far as I know he was able to correspond fairly freely, but all of mail was being read (which is standard practice for high-security prisoners I believe). In my other comment I linked to an author who corresponded with Kaczynski and wrote down his experiences: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36273216 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36273216 He also published some books (Techno1ogica1 Slavery, Anti-tech Revolution), which is his manifesto with some additional essays and letters. > Who holds the rights to something written in prison in the US? The author; nothing changes about that.

by tyingq 3y ago

arp242 3y ago

His cell was apparently 12×7-foot, or 3.6×2.1 metres (I was curious). Seems awfully tiny, and personally I consider it inhumane no matter what he has done, but apparently he wasn't too unhappy with it: "I consider myself to be in a (relatively) fortunate situation here. As correctional institutions go, this place is well-administered. It’s clean, the food is good, and it’s quiet, so that I can sleep, think and write (usually) without being distracted by a lot of banging and shouting."[1] Come to think of it, I might prefer a smaller cell over a larger one if it's clean and doesn't have "a lot of banging and shouting", but that probably says more about the general state of the US prison system than anything else. [1]: https://news.yahoo.com/the-unabomber-s-not-so-lonely-prison-life-210559693.html https://news.yahoo.com/the-unabomber-s-not-so-lonely-prison-...

boppo1 3y ago
did they allow much of his writing out of the prison? Who holds the rights to something written in prison in the US?
- tyingq 3y ago
  There's not a universal country-wide law in the US. Some states have "Son of Sam" laws that keep prisoners from profiting from publicity about their crimes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Sam_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Sam_law Though with Ted, he probably had things other than his crimes he could have published and made money from. Of course, any earnings could end up going to a civil suit or existing orders of victim restitution. None of that seems directly related to intellectual property rights though. The prisoner retains those just like anyone else. I suppose there might be some cases of asset forfeiture for remediation or fines?
  - tyingq 3y ago
    Just noticed that the forward for one of his books (mentioned in a peer comment) has an example of what I described above in Kaczynski's words... "I simply have not had the time to organize, rewrite, and complete the contents of this book. The principal reason why I have not had time is that agencies of the United States government have created unnecessary legal difficulties for me. To mention only the most important of these difficulties, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of California has formally proposed to round up and confiscate the original and every copy of everything I have ever written and turn over all such papers to my alleged "victims" through a fictitious sale that will allow the "victims" to acquire all of the papers without having to pay anything for them. Under this plan, the government would even confiscate papers that I have given to libraries, including papers that have been on library shelves for several years..." [1] [1] https://ia800300.us.archive.org/21/items/tk-Technological-Slavery/tk-Technological-Slavery.pdf https://ia800300.us.archive.org/21/items/tk-Technological-Sl... I don't know how that turned out, though. He does mention his lawyers were fighting the plan. Also interesting that he keeps putting the word victims in quotes, in a book published in 2008.
- arp242 3y ago
  As far as I know he was able to correspond fairly freely, but all of mail was being read (which is standard practice for high-security prisoners I believe). In my other comment I linked to an author who corresponded with Kaczynski and wrote down his experiences: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36273216 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36273216 He also published some books (Techno1ogica1 Slavery, Anti-tech Revolution), which is his manifesto with some additional essays and letters. > Who holds the rights to something written in prison in the US? The author; nothing changes about that.