Mail Rule Further Infringes Free Speech
The Political Agenda Of Censorship

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections has circulated yet another goofy and illegal regulation. This one infringes the use of the mail by prisoners and the public. It's a lengthy, bureaucratic regulation. Some of its worst provisions are:
1. The prisoner must pay the postage to announce the DOC's message on the outside of the envelope that it contains "INMATE MAIL."
2. Private persons and firms are not allowed to "speak" to prisoners or solicit their business by "bulk mail" and prisoners are not allowed to "hear" or receive such "bulk mail" publications.
3. DOC may seize prisoners' property (that is, their mail) without any form of due process of law.
4. DOC amended Federal postal laws in order to controvert the safeguards to the public and the prisoners.
5. Citizens, wives, and firms are forbidden to send nude photographs of any kind to prisoners and even adult prisoners are not permitted to receive nude photos which are not obscene.
6. Citizens are forbidden to give free gifts to prisoners and/or to extend them credit.

While there are many other ugly provisions of this ill-conceived regulation, these are some of the highlights.

Like most Department of Corrections regulations, this one was imposed in secret and in violation of Pennsylvania law. Several laws seek to protect citizens from unsound and illegal regulations. Typically, the Department of Corrections has ignored and violated all of them.

The Commonwealth Documents Law is intended to prevent secret regulations which infringe important rights. It requires that all proposed regulations and policies must be given an opportunity to express its opinions and objections to the proposed regulation.

DOC's mail regulation seriously infringes the rights of both free and imprisoned citizens, but DOC went ahead with the regulation in open defiance of the Documents Act.

Another law, the Commonwealth Attorney's Act, provides that all new regulations must be submitted to the Attorney General before enforcement. The Attorney General is required to express a legal opinion about the proposed regulation as to its constitutionality and legality. DOC violated that law, too and refused to allow the regulation to be legally reviewed. Obviously, with an extremist like Mike Fisher manipulating "justice" in Pennsylvania, Constitutional and legal safeguards don't mean much, but still the law offers a smidgen of protection.

The Independent Regulatory Review Commission Act requires that proposed regulations be submitted to an "independent" board before the regulation is enforced. The board is required to examine the proposed regulation to see if it's in the public interest and cost effective. Obviously, in the present Ridge Reich control of thought pervades state government. Independent thought and opinion are not tolerated. Independent action is quickly punished. In such an environment, an "Independent Review" of regulations is pretty much an illusion. While the board might have to check with the fuhrer to assure obedience to the Republican party line, the law still offers some small deterrent to DOC abuses.

The Pennsylvanian Department of Corrections is arrogant in its power and shows contempt for laws; both state and federal. Under Commissioner Horn the DOC enforces an extremist political agenda. The "new" mail regulation is just one example of Horn's agenda. It's an insidious and un-American agenda which includes:
1. Horn contrives to hurt prisoners, to inflict upon them every injury, cruelty and abuse he can get away with. To Horn and his political bosses, prisoners weren't sent to prison AS PUNISHMENT, but FOR PUNISHMENT. To DOC's traditionally benign duty of "care, custody and control" of prisoners, Horn has added cruelty. He wants them harmed!
2. Horn has initialed an active campaign against prisoners' families to humiliate, punish and tax them. He takes millions of dollars from them in his telephone kickback and medical care taxes. He subjects them to every indignation when they try to visit a prisoner and the "new" mail regulation strives to humiliate them further with "INMATE MAIL" printed on envelopes from their loved ones. Horn wants to harm prisoners' families as much as he wants to harm the prisoners.
3. As part of the broader thought control strategy of the Ridge Reich, Horn isolates prisoners from un-imprisoned citizens. He severely limits the exchange of ideas, news and opinions. He limits the criticism of a progressively oppressive state. Horn doesn't want the public to know what's being done to prisoners. He doesn't want prisoners to be given a fair hearing or to be given public sympathy. This is the laboratory perfecting how he and his political bosses intend to impose the same sort of controls over the whole society if they are allowed to get away with it.

Horn's Department of Corrections operates a state monopoly for selling telephone service to prisoners' families at the highest possible prices. It operates a clothing monopoly to sell shoddy garments to prisoners at the highest possible prices. Horn's scheme is to expand the state monopoly by isolating prisoners from outside free-market vendors of goods and services who might offer the best prices and quality though "bulk mail" advertising.

The provisions of the regulation are not really "new." They are just the latest incarnation of the sort of abuses which numerous court battles have struggle to correct. The control freaks of the extreme political and religious right wing are terrified by freedom and liberty, and even by sexuality. Sex and masturbation are such an obsession to them that even nude photographs and erotic communications alarm them. Since their pleasure comes from inflicting injury, they won't tolerate another's pleasure coming from sexuality.

Certainly, someone will have this unsound regulation voided in court, but it reflects the minds of the people in control at the Department of Corrections. The BAD people aren't the prisoners so much as their keepers.

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