Web rights break into prisons
By Lisa M. Bowman
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
December 16, 2002, 3:31 PM PT
Prisoner rights groups are cheering a federal court ruling that quashes
attempts to halt Web postings that mention prisoners.
U.S. District Judge Earl Carroll on Monday put a temporary halt to an
Arizona state law that banned prisoners from posting information about
their cases on the Web or corresponding using a remote computer service or
communication service provider. Under the law, prisoners who kept their
information on the Web were subject to penalties including criminal
prosecution.
The law was designed to maintain prison security in the digital age, but
prisoner advocacy groups said some corrections officers were using it to
threaten inmates out of posting their side of the story on the Web.
Although prisoners do not have direct access to the Web, prisoner advocacy
groups would post information on an inmate's behalf.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other civil rights groups
challenged the law on behalf of anti-death penalty and other prisoner
rights groups, saying it threatened free speech.
"Arizona's attempt to censor Internet content was a frightening step toward
government repression of free speech," Eleanor Eisenberg, executive
director of the ACLU of Arizona, said in a statement.
The judge agreed, issuing a preliminary injunction saying that protecting
the First Amendment rights of prisoner advocacy groups and their clients
"is a compelling public interest."
Furthermore, he said corrections officials already had methods in place to
protect public safety, including a ban on prisoner access to the Web and
searches of ingoing and outgoing inmate communications.
The Arizona Department of Corrections did not immediately respond to
requests for comment.
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