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When I was doing my time in the Fed (1995-2000), my friends & mom had set up a web page for me.[1] Sometime around '96 or '97, the prison Captain (responsible

When I was doing my time in the Fed (1995-2000), my friends & mom had set up a web page for me.[1] Sometime around '96 or '97, the prison Captain (responsible for security) found out and had me fired from my "good" job. (Good job meant I was working at the Unicor factory, where I could have eventually made $200/month). I was transferred to be an "orderly" (which means janitor), earning $5/month at the Captain's office, so he could keep an eye on me. Eventually I found out the reason he had me fired was because the prison officials didn't like the attention that my web page brought, and they also though I was somehow accessing the Internet from the Unicor factory (they had terminals there, which I wasn't allowed to be near). My case started getting attention, media interviews, etc. At one point, I was told directly by the prison staff attorney to stop all the attention. I scaled it back enough to where they stopped harassing me. It's definitely a tradeoff - the more attention you get, the more they will fuck with you in there. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/19990222022940/http://www.paranoia.com/~mthreat/ https://web.archive.org/web/19990222022940/http://www.parano...

wantab 12y ago
iow, you were treated like a prisoner. Imagine that.
bane 12y ago
Can you imagine a "no internet access" sentence today? It's virtually a human right w/r to basic free speech. I've heard prices at the commissary are pretty ridiculous, so $200 vs. $5/mo seems like a pretty big deal. edit for people who aren't up on the whole rights thing http://www.wired.com/2011/06/internet-a-human-right/ http://www.wired.com/2011/06/internet-a-human-right/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/02/unrestricted-internet-access-human-rights-technology-constitution/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/02/unrestricted-internet-ac... http://rt.com/news/213611-internet-access-human-right/ http://rt.com/news/213611-internet-access-human-right/ http://broadband.about.com/od/International/a/United-Nations-Broadband-Access-Is-A-Basic-Human-Right.htm http://broadband.about.com/od/International/a/United-Nations... http://bigthink.com/think-tank/nicholas-negroponte-internet-access-is-a-human-right http://bigthink.com/think-tank/nicholas-negroponte-internet-... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/11252526/Three-quarters-of-Britons-consider-internet-access-a-human-right.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/11252526/Thre... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Internet_access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Internet_access This almost trivially makes sense since so many of our other rights are expressed these days through the internet.
- javert 12y ago
  Sorry to nit pick but human rights protect you from having force used against you. You can't have a human right to something that someone else must provide. That would be a violation of their rights.
  - clamprecht 12y ago
    I agree with you - people want to label everything as a "human right". I think Internet access should be a right, but I don't think it's a human right. I guess it all depends how one defines "human right".
    - SwellJoe 12y ago
      What kind of "right" is it if not a human right? It can't be an animal right, as animals other than humans don't use the Internet, in general.
      - clamprecht 12y ago
        It could be a Constitutional right, or a statutory right. For example, you have a right to a keep and bear arms (in the US), but that is a Constitutional right, not a human right.
        SwellJoe 12y ago
        The Constitution defines what the founding fathers of the US considered human rights. I suppose statutory rights could fall under the category of "not human rights". And, I guess some folks consider some statutory rights to be directly contradictory to human rights (water shutoffs in Detroit or foreclosures of homes during the banking crisis, for example). What kind of right do you believe internet use would fall under?
        clamprecht 12y ago
        In Reno vs. ACLU (1997), the US Supreme Court ruled that the Internet deserved free speech protection under the First Amendment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reno_v._American_Civil_Liberties_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reno_v._American_Civil_Libertie... Some have argued that prohibiting Internet access to an otherwise free person (not a prisoner) is cruel and unusual punishment. In 1992 that was laughable. In 2015, it's much less laughable.
joshmn 12y ago
I didn't know you lingered around here. Nice to "meet" you Chris. Hope to some day have some whiskey with you. We share a lot of the same footsteps, though I never did any hard time.
byuu 12y ago
It's amazing the way prisoners work for $5 a month; and the best possible outcome is $200/mo. Even though slavery was supposedly abolished, it seems like prisons never got that memo. And since most people won't ever step foot inside one, we just pretend it's a non-issue because a) they must be bad people for being in there; and b) it's not our problem. You know, until it is. But don't worry, if and when that happens, I'm sure we'll get the same sympathy for our plight as we have spared to those before us.
- wantab 12y ago
  Apparently you don't understand what a prison is for or how those people got there. Your point a) implies you think prisoners are not bad people which stands out to me. You are in prison to be punished for what you did AND pay back your debt to society.
  - Retric 12y ago
    There are a 10's of thousands of innocent people in prison making the punishment argument morally questionable .
  - byuu 12y ago
    If we only locked up truly guilty people up for truly bad things, that would be fine. But even ignoring the large number of innocent people in prison; we have a lot of laws that are blatantly unjust. The biggest would be that about half of the prison population is there for minor drug offenses. A guy smoking a plant that makes him giddy and hungry is not worth locking up at substantial cost to taxpayers. Or you have the guy that spent six months in prison because he ordered a hentai comic book from Japan, and the postal inspector thought that the girl that looked 16 drawn in pencil was a real child being harmed. Or you have the elderly black woman who got put into what is essentially debtors prison because she couldn't pay her traffic tickets. Or the guy that got locked up for refusing to pay child support on a kid that turned out to not be his, but the judge didn't care about little things like facts. And on and on and on. In fact, we have so many ridiculous laws that it's been said that the average American commits three felonies a day: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704471504574438900830760842 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527487044715045744389... http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.aspx http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.asp...
mcherm 12y ago
Thank you for making a useful and relevant point. I would, however, like to point out that the same reasoning probably does not apply to Chelsea Manning. She has already attracted more media attention than any website or twitter feed could possibly achieve. The media will intensely follow any "newsworthy" occurrence with her for the remainder of her life, and her jailers know that. Furthermore, the fact that there have been credible accusations of intentional violations of her human rights during the first several months of her captivity (and that the news media are aware of this) must be something that her current jailers are aware of.

wantab 12y ago

iow, you were treated like a prisoner. Imagine that.

bane 12y ago

Can you imagine a "no internet access" sentence today? It's virtually a human right w/r to basic free speech. I've heard prices at the commissary are pretty ridiculous, so $200 vs. $5/mo seems like a pretty big deal. edit for people who aren't up on the whole rights thing http://www.wired.com/2011/06/internet-a-human-right/ http://www.wired.com/2011/06/internet-a-human-right/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/02/unrestricted-internet-access-human-rights-technology-constitution/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/02/unrestricted-internet-ac... http://rt.com/news/213611-internet-access-human-right/ http://rt.com/news/213611-internet-access-human-right/ http://broadband.about.com/od/International/a/United-Nations-Broadband-Access-Is-A-Basic-Human-Right.htm http://broadband.about.com/od/International/a/United-Nations... http://bigthink.com/think-tank/nicholas-negroponte-internet-access-is-a-human-right http://bigthink.com/think-tank/nicholas-negroponte-internet-... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/11252526/Three-quarters-of-Britons-consider-internet-access-a-human-right.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/11252526/Thre... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Internet_access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Internet_access This almost trivially makes sense since so many of our other rights are expressed these days through the internet.

javert 12y ago
Sorry to nit pick but human rights protect you from having force used against you. You can't have a human right to something that someone else must provide. That would be a violation of their rights.
- clamprecht 12y ago
  I agree with you - people want to label everything as a "human right". I think Internet access should be a right, but I don't think it's a human right. I guess it all depends how one defines "human right".
  - SwellJoe 12y ago
    What kind of "right" is it if not a human right? It can't be an animal right, as animals other than humans don't use the Internet, in general.
    - clamprecht 12y ago
      It could be a Constitutional right, or a statutory right. For example, you have a right to a keep and bear arms (in the US), but that is a Constitutional right, not a human right.
      - SwellJoe 12y ago
        The Constitution defines what the founding fathers of the US considered human rights. I suppose statutory rights could fall under the category of "not human rights". And, I guess some folks consider some statutory rights to be directly contradictory to human rights (water shutoffs in Detroit or foreclosures of homes during the banking crisis, for example). What kind of right do you believe internet use would fall under?
        clamprecht 12y ago
        In Reno vs. ACLU (1997), the US Supreme Court ruled that the Internet deserved free speech protection under the First Amendment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reno_v._American_Civil_Liberties_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reno_v._American_Civil_Libertie... Some have argued that prohibiting Internet access to an otherwise free person (not a prisoner) is cruel and unusual punishment. In 1992 that was laughable. In 2015, it's much less laughable.

joshmn 12y ago

I didn't know you lingered around here. Nice to "meet" you Chris. Hope to some day have some whiskey with you. We share a lot of the same footsteps, though I never did any hard time.

byuu 12y ago

It's amazing the way prisoners work for $5 a month; and the best possible outcome is $200/mo. Even though slavery was supposedly abolished, it seems like prisons never got that memo. And since most people won't ever step foot inside one, we just pretend it's a non-issue because a) they must be bad people for being in there; and b) it's not our problem. You know, until it is. But don't worry, if and when that happens, I'm sure we'll get the same sympathy for our plight as we have spared to those before us.

wantab 12y ago
Apparently you don't understand what a prison is for or how those people got there. Your point a) implies you think prisoners are not bad people which stands out to me. You are in prison to be punished for what you did AND pay back your debt to society.
- Retric 12y ago
  There are a 10's of thousands of innocent people in prison making the punishment argument morally questionable .
- byuu 12y ago
  If we only locked up truly guilty people up for truly bad things, that would be fine. But even ignoring the large number of innocent people in prison; we have a lot of laws that are blatantly unjust. The biggest would be that about half of the prison population is there for minor drug offenses. A guy smoking a plant that makes him giddy and hungry is not worth locking up at substantial cost to taxpayers. Or you have the guy that spent six months in prison because he ordered a hentai comic book from Japan, and the postal inspector thought that the girl that looked 16 drawn in pencil was a real child being harmed. Or you have the elderly black woman who got put into what is essentially debtors prison because she couldn't pay her traffic tickets. Or the guy that got locked up for refusing to pay child support on a kid that turned out to not be his, but the judge didn't care about little things like facts. And on and on and on. In fact, we have so many ridiculous laws that it's been said that the average American commits three felonies a day: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704471504574438900830760842 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527487044715045744389... http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.aspx http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.asp...

mcherm 12y ago

Thank you for making a useful and relevant point. I would, however, like to point out that the same reasoning probably does not apply to Chelsea Manning. She has already attracted more media attention than any website or twitter feed could possibly achieve. The media will intensely follow any "newsworthy" occurrence with her for the remainder of her life, and her jailers know that. Furthermore, the fact that there have been credible accusations of intentional violations of her human rights during the first several months of her captivity (and that the news media are aware of this) must be something that her current jailers are aware of.