AFTER HAVING SPENT the prior six months in a fruitless cycle of retaliation and counter-retaliation and counter-counter-retaliation with the administration of the Federal Correctional Institution at Fort Worth, where I managed to do about half of my time in the hole before finally getting kicked out altogether, I was delighted to arrive here at FCI Three Rivers, a medium security prison subject to occasional outbreaks of gang warfare that also happens to be quite a lot of fun. And though one’s first few days at a new prison are always given over largely to errands and social obligations, I did manage to get in some much-needed reading time when someone lent me a copy of Five Families, a history of the American mafia by the veteran New York Times crime reporter Selwyn Raab. I’ve never had much interest in organized crime of the non-governmental sort, but ever since 2009 when I read through the bulk of Thomas Friedman’s past columns in the course of researching a book on the subject of incompetence, I’ve been fascinated by the extent to which a fellow can be a bit of a dummy, with questionable writing abilities and a penchant for making demonstrably erroneous attacks on others, and still find regular employment with the nation’s most prestigious newspaper (though in fairness to the Times, they did eventually get rid of William Kristol).
I’m afraid I gave up on reading Five Families straight through after about the halfway mark, by which point it had become clear that Raab, contrary to all decency, was going to continue using the phrase “law-enforcement” thusly, with the unwarranted hyphen, something that would have been more tolerable did the term not necessarily appear every few pages due to the nature of the subject matter, often in the company of such other improprieties as “civil-rights,” “public-relations,” “stolen-car rings,” or “loan-shark,” and to such an extent that one could be forgiven for suspecting that Raab himself, for all his tough talk on crime, is in fact some sort of illicit hyphen smuggler.
Luckily, this is the sort of book from which one can extract the most telling instances of Gray Lady-caliber foolishness just by skimming around. At some point Raab seems to decide that the writers of The Sopranos must be punished for humanizing the mafia in the course of writing a drama about human beings who are in the mafia. And so, more in sadness than in anger, but more in confusion than either, he sets out to debunk the show’s fictional plotline by way of his own fictional journalistic expertise: “Genuine capos and wiseguys would never emulate Tony’s behavior. … No top-tier mobster would last long if he behaved like Tony Soprano, who defies basic Mafioso caution by exposing himself as a ripe target, to be easily mowed down by rivals. He drives without a bodyguard; sips espresso in daylight at a sidewalk café.” This comes just a few chapters after we’re told the following about a real-life top-tier mobster: “Shunning bodyguards and bullet-proof limousines, the sixty-six-year-old godfather met with his Mafia associates in restaurants and travelled about Manhattan in taxis like any ordinary businessman.”
To his credit, Raab did manage to refrain from rendering this last bit as “ordinary-businessman,” which is just fantastic, so we’ll give him another try: “Sex and psychiatry are prominent in The Sopranos’ story line. Confiding in a psychiatrist, however, would be a radioactive mistake for a boss or capo, who can never display symptoms of weakness or mental instability.” Naturally Raab has already forgotten having written the following about mafia boss Frank Costello: “Striving for inner peace while hovering between criminal affiliates and respected society, Costello tried psychoanalysis.”
Even had the author not been so sporting as to provide us with comically perfect counterexamples by which to disprove his various inane objections, one could have also pointed out that Tony Soprano’s decision to see a psychiatrist does in fact prove to be a “mistake” insomuch as it directly leads to a rupture in his organization culminating in a botched assassination attempt in the very first season, so this objection wouldn’t have made any sense even had it gotten past that crucial directly-contradicted-by-your-own-fucking-book hurdle that seems to be giving Raab so much trouble. Now take a moment to reflect on the fact that this is the guy the New York Times assigned to report on one of the nation’s most complex and insidious criminal conspiracies — this plodding hyphen addict who cannot seem to follow a television show or even his own manuscript. One supposes that there is some alternate universe in which this might be considered a problem and where Ross Douthat manages a furniture store and everyone knows his place.
BUT THERE’S MORE to prison life than just sitting around despising the New York Times. A week after arrival at Three Rivers, we new inmates were summoned to an “Admissions and Orientation” seminar in which the various department heads each speak for a few minutes about institutional policy. I’d attended one of these back at Fort Worth; usually the highlight is a short video clip of Bureau of Prisons Director Charles Samuels, who gives a little talk. No one knows what the talk is about, as whoever’s nephew was put in charge of producing the video has talked Samuels into pausing every couple of sentences to shift position and look into the other camera, just like the newscasters, something that the fellow can manage only with the most hilarious awkwardness, and so it proves impossible to follow what he’s actually saying — which is a shame, as it’s almost certainly something very non-formulaic and true.
Today, however, the chief attraction was to be our warden, Norbal Vazquez, a longtime BOP functionary from Puerto Rico who is proverbial for his deranged monologues as well as for being regarded with great contempt by staff and inmates alike. Here are some actual quotes from his exquisitely demented half-hour orientation talk, during which he waddled back and forth, wagging his finger in admonishment when appropriate and sometimes when not:
On his own qualifications for the job: “I am here because I earned it!”
On the assistant wardens upon whom lesser wardens depend: “I do not need them!”
On his inspiring biography: “I was a case manager before, and I was an OUTSTANDING one!” [wags finger]
On the status of we benighted inmates, sitting in darkness: “You are all my children!”
On who controls the prison: “Probably in some of your minds, is inmates! But you are wrong!”
On, er, violators: “I have no mercy for violators!”
On medical care: “You have a bullet in your leg and you want the bureau to heal you! Ha! Ha ha!”
On the insufficiency of our meals: “Don’t come complain to me about your meals. Because there are children with nothing!”
On gang warfare: “If you show force, I am going to show force!”
On homemade alcohol: “If you are drinking all that nasty thing, shame on you! When your liver fails, I don’t care!”
On inmates who are placed in the SHU and transferred to violent maximum security prisons because they’ve been caught with harmless contraband like synthetic marijuana: “They cry like babies! I have no mercy!”
The only disappointing thing about the presentation was that he didn’t end by exhibiting his medals and declaring himself President for Life; indeed, I almost cried when someone told me he was retiring a few weeks hence. And “all that nasty thing” is my new favorite hooch-related meme, edging out “PRISON MADE INTHOXICANT” from a few columns back.
All in all, it was an informative speech in spite of itself, even aside from the fellow’s suspicious insistence on his own competence and self-reliance and entirely meritocratic ascension to the top spot. There was quite a bit of talk, for instance, about how the gangs aren’t in control of the prison, something that obviously wouldn’t need so much triumphant emphasis were such a state of affairs not at least a possibility.
IN FACT, THE GANGS really don’t have control over the prison. But then neither does the administration, if by “control” we mean the ability to make uncontested decisions over what happens within a given space, in which case control is always a matter of degree. The federal and state governments of the United States, for instance, exercise some degree of overlapping control over their territory, but not to such an extent that the various law-enforcement agencies — er, law enforcement agencies — arrest any but a small minority of residents who violate the law. This is just as well, since the law requires that the tens of millions of Americans who use drugs or gamble or involve themselves in prostitution be imprisoned — and that’s not even counting federal law, which, as convincingly estimated by civil liberties attorney Harvey Silverglate in his book Three Felonies a Day, the average American unwittingly violates every day. And thus it is that the U.S. can continue to exist above the level of an unprecedented gulag state only to the extent that its laws are not actually enforced — an extraordinary and fundamental fact of American life that one might hope in vain to see rise to the level of an election issue, but which is at least worth keeping in mind when it comes to the debate over whether or not we should keep granting the state ever more powerful methods of surveillance until it becomes the All-Seeing God Against Whose Laws We All Have Sinned. (Personally I’d vote “no,” but then I’m a felon and can’t vote anyway.)
As is the case with the country at large, the rules within each federal prison are such that a large portion of everyday activity actually violates those rules — and in both cases, 99 percent of the violations go unpunished, while anyone who proves inconvenient to the powers that be can be singled out for retaliation. Technically it’s against the rules to give anything to another inmate, for instance, or to sell or trade or lend for that matter, but of course this is done all day without a second thought, often in plain view of the guards, not a single one of whom would consider objecting. There are other rules that are almost universally disregarded but can be invoked at whim; there is also a catch-all violation, “Anything Unauthorized,” on hand as a last resort. But rabble-rousers can usually be dispensed with via more specific regulations such as those barring the signing of petitions or holding of demonstrations. (I myself was thrown in the hole for months due to my supposed leadership role in one such demonstration against an abusive guard who’d just threatened an elderly man.)
Part of the justification behind those two regulations in particular is that there exists a means by which inmates can have their grievances addressed: the administrative remedy process. Naturally the BOP routinely conspires to prevent inmates from completing that process; the surreal lengths to which it’s gone to keep me from pursuing my own retaliation complaint, a process I’ve documented in this column over the course of the last nine months, are actually quite commonly deployed against inmates deemed to have a good chance of winning in court. Presumably this is why the Freedom of Information Act request that The Intercept filed with the BOP some months ago to obtain records of the administrative remedy process at FCI Fort Worth was denied with no explanation, even though the documents in question are specifically designated as being FOIA accessible. Any comprehensive examination of those records would reveal a systematic and highly effective effort by BOP officials to prevent inmates from bringing instances of major policy violations and even outright criminal activity by the bureau to the attention of the courts. The American people do not control their own prisons.
The reality is that control is shared by way of a sort of makeshift federalism that varies in particulars from prison to prison but in which real power is always divided among the various gangs, the staff, and local and regional administrators in an arrangement that’s best described as a cross between the old Swiss canton system and China during the Warring States period, which I’ll be the first to acknowledge is not especially helpful. Suffice to say that it will take me the remainder of my sentence to provide a real sense of this remarkable state-within-a-state and its inimitable politics — the politics of the literally disenfranchised, who live their lives in the very guts of government without being able to rely on its protections, and so are forced to provide their own. Really, it’s a state-within-a-state-within-a-state.
Complicating matters further is the great extent to which prisons can differ, with the most pronounced of these divisions being that between the state and federal systems. Broadly, we federals tend to look down upon our regional cousins as “not quite our sort, old boy,” although I’m probably the only one who puts it in exactly those terms. The state prisons tend to house the small-time dealers, whereas the feds are more often home to the guys who supplied them. The state is halfway filled with such actual criminals as thieves, rapists, and murderers, whereas the feds are made up largely of illegal immigrants and drug entrepreneurs — people who have neither hurt anyone nor deprived them of their property, but instead made the mistake of taking all of this “free market” talk seriously. The character of the federal prisons, then, will usually differ from those of the states. But then they’ll also differ among themselves, sometimes quite a bit, and not just along other readily obvious divisions such as those between minimum, low, medium, and maximum security designations, either. A few years ago the medium at Beaumont, Texas, to which I just narrowly avoided being sent myself, was considerably more violent than many of the maximums (also known as pens or, more technically, USPs). Back at the FCI Fort Worth, there was a marked degree of difference in how certain things were done even between the several 300-man units into which inmates were divided. And since the local administrators can disregard national policy more or less at will, as has been documented in this column repeatedly for two years, de facto policy will naturally vary from institution to institution as well. The result of all of this is that each prison is its own unique snowflake, fluttering about on gusts of cultural drift and BOP lawlessness.
THE VITAL STATISTICS of my stomping grounds here at Three Rivers, then, are as follows. The prison is home to a bit more than 1,000 inmates, of whom about 60 percent are Mexican nationals, another 20 percent are U.S. Hispanics, 10 percent are black, 5 percent are Latin American, and 5 percent are white (the ofay percentage of 15 percent I cited last time appears to have been out of date). About half of the Mexicans “run with” (institutional slang for “are affiliated with”) the Paisas, a relatively amorphous prison gang that draws its ranks almost exclusively from Mexican nationals; a smaller percentage of U.S. Hispanics run with Tango Blast, a more organized gang with a much cooler name; while blacks and whites for purposes of prison riots and dining arrangements both act mostly as race-based units.
As usual, there are all manner of qualifiers and exceptions plus a smattering of smaller groupings: The Muslims will usually constitute their own little umma, there are a couple of whites who run with Tango, and so on. The most amusing of these aberrations involved the fellow with whom I shared a cell before he transferred to a low a few weeks back. Aaron LeBaron was born into an ultra-fundamentalist Mormon cult led by his father, who had moved the wives and kids to Mexico after some members of his congregation started to question whether or not all of the voices he was hearing were actually from God. Aaron eventually inherited the family theocracy as well as the family hit list and the family international stolen car ring. In the end he was captured and sentenced to 45 years. Today Aaron is an agnostic and longtime Skeptic Magazine subscriber who was very excited to learn that I’d written for that magazine as well as for Skeptical Inquirer. (Come to think of it, he was the only person I’ve ever met who found either one the least bit impressive, and I’ve been working them into introductory conversations for years.) At any rate, having been raised in Mexico and speaking perfect Spanish, this gangly, bespectacled, white, Mormon-looking fellow had been accepted as one of the Paisas, with whom he sat every day to eat and watch television. Scientists cannot measure the extent to which I’m going to dominate every dinner party conversation for the rest of my life.
For a medium, Three Rivers isn’t particularly violent. The last major gang war, between the Tangos and the Paisas, was nearly a year ago; afterward the compound went on lockdown for about two weeks, itself a fairly typical gang intelligence investigation/cool-down period. In the three months since I’ve arrived, I’ve only had to “take a knee” once (inmates here are supposed to put at least one knee to the ground when officers run by screaming “Get the fuck down!” or some variation thereof as they proceed to the location of a conflict). And we’ve only been locked down in the aftermath of a fight on one occasion, for just a few hours.
This is just as well, as I’m thereby able to concentrate on the trickle of information coming in from the wicked world beyond the fence. Lately I’ve been getting garbled reports of hoverboards, as well as some sort of new fascist movement that could conceivably take control of the White House this year, though I find it difficult to believe that the boards actually float like the ones from the movie.
Meanwhile, I’m halfway through the newish first volume of Niall Ferguson’s biography of Henry Kissinger, which we shall examine in some detail next time. For now I will simply leave off with the following actual sentences from Ferguson’s introduction: “In this context, it is a strange irony of the Kissinger literature that so many of the critiques of Kissinger’s mode of operation have a subtle undertone of anti-Semitism. … This prompts the question: might the ferocity of the criticism that Kissinger has attracted perhaps have something to do with the fact that he, like the Rothschilds, is Jewish? This is not to imply that his critics are anti-Semites.” Well, the hyphens are all in their proper places, anyway.
Quote of the Day
“When the mob gains the day it ceases to be any longer the mob. It is then called the nation.”
— Napoleon
Read more by Barrett Brown, whose column received the 2016 National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary:
The Government Explains Why It Took My Email
Scathingly Hilarious!
I always thought that Barrett Brown is great fun and even knows how to write!
His not-so-surprising disgust of the NYT makes him all the more appealing (which is suprising given that the NYT is purely made by and for askholes).
Go-Brown-Go!!!
When a person cannot write as well as BB cannot write, a good editor is mandatory. This is a train wreck of bad writing and non-existent editing. He wasn’t a journalist before his felony and he isn’t one now.
DISCLAIMER:
The views of the commenter “lenk” do not reflect those of the Central Intelligence Agency or its investors. For more info or confessions, email xkeyscore@nsa.ic.gov.
My first time reading Barrett Brown. Elicited memories of Vonnegut, Thompson, Camus, and some old punk broadsides from back in early 80’s. Not that style should overshadow such relevant content…
I would advise you to go back to the archives where Barrett regales us with other excerpted passages of biographies on Kissinger: http://frontburner.dmagazine.com/2014/03/11/the-barrett-brown-review-of-arts-and-letters-and-jail-enter-the-kissinger/
It really doesn’t matter what subject he writes about, or whether he stays on it or saunters on to something equally absurd and hilarious, even in spite of the grim content. Hat’s off to Mr. Brown! However, in the meantime, and until this new exciting fascist movement takes the White House, there are many questions raised here about the lawlessness of the penal state. White guards kill black inmates and no one is punished, as was the title of a recent block-buster NY Times article, I believe. Law enforcement and prison guards need to be held accountable. We cannot call our country anything but a fascist police state until the impunity ends.
Ok, after trying to post a comment, three times, I’ve come to the conclusion either I’ve been banned or someone is trying to keep information I post here from seeing the light of day. In either case, I’m sure whoever is responsible must read them. So, to whom it concerns…fuck you, and fuck the Intercept. I see now, your original statements regarding posting comments is a goddamned lie. I’ll pursue other avenues from now on. It’s just sad to see the IT become what it has become. Should, for some reason, this comment get posted…. nevermind. Ha. All I know is I haven’t been able to post for over a month.
Holy shit… this is weird. Ok, now that this has posted…let’s try this…
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to most people here, the real raison d’être for Barrett’s conviction continues to elude investigative journalism at large as his investigation into the Stratfor files, liberated by Anonymous, revealed a convoluted story of such profound connections between various Intelligence related corporations and the USG that are of staggering implications that any further discovery and disclosure had to be stopped. Even today, journalists are too scared to dare tap into those same files. For those who are interested in digging into this truly mindboggling mystery, can start right at the beginning of the rabbit hole…Barrett’s own blog. I warn you though, tread carefully as the deeper you go, the more bizarre and dangerous it gets. All I know, is after one morning of my own following links from Barrett’s blog, I’ve now become scared of going farther, as even I have already found revelations so astounding as to make one’s skin crawl. Namely..and I don’t type this lightly.. TRAPWIRE.
http://barrettbrown.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-short-revelation-on-trapwire-cubic.html#comment-form
I totally believe, after reading many many more articles regarding Barrett’s story, he has been put away to silence him. I also believe, he doesn’t mention any of this while incarcerated because of reprisal. However, this shit needs to be disclosed. Perhaps, I’m only a Johnny-Come-Lately, but so are a lot of people here. All I know is even Michael Hastings was killed shortly before becoming involved deeper into Barrett’s story.
http://whowhatwhy.org/2013/08/07/connections-between-michael-hastings-edward-snowden-and-barrett-brown-the-war-with-the-security-state/
That is why I said ..scary. However there is much much more to this than I can post here. I leave it to you to decide how far down the rabbit hole you go. Here is how far I went…
http://www.socom.mil/Pages/AboutUSSOCOM.aspx
As sure as the sun sets in the west, there are scumbag sockpuppets right here at the Intercept who are part of USSOCOM. To them….fuck you and fuck your employer…the USAF.
As for the final link to my journey this morning….they should also recognize this, as they USE IT HERE as well as all over the net. READ IT. IF that doesn’t clue you in to what is going on…you might as well put your head back in the sand.
Should you want to dig deeper..just follow Barretts links..for starters. Good luck.
I hope you are kidding that the reason for his convition elludes everyone…while I may not agree with the reason, the reason itself is pretty simple – much like if your buddy steals a car stereo, and then you are caught with the stereo in your trunk, you are comitiing a crime – BB shared a link to stolen data, and not only was convicted, he was convicted by pleading guilty. Granted, like many others, he may not have believed in his own guilt, but cut a deal after doing the cost / benefit analysis of going to trial and losing on all charges. If the reason for him being charged / convicted was so elusive, I would guess he would have gone to trial.
Yeah. You are Johnny-Come-Lately on that score. Hastings’ murder may have had a correlation with his intentions to write about Brown, but it also could have been because he got a general fired. Even Hastings’ widow seemed to have been scared off the path to discover who killed her husband. I’m glad some people still care about all this hullabaloo, because it was covered up. The judge in Barrett’s case had a conflict of interests with law enforcement, and naturally 105 years was obviously political retaliation. The private intelligence contractors and their government colleagues wanted their pound of flesh, didn’t they? Fuck them all.
What is going on here??????????????? I just tried to post a reply to my post above, with the comment I originally tried to post..with some links, yet it still won’t let me post this information. I’m going to try it again..please stand by…
This is insane. Ok, I’m going to try one more time, to post my original comment.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to most people here, the real raison d’être for Barrett’s conviction continues to elude investigative journalism at large as his investigation into the Stratfor files, liberated by Anonymous, revealed a convoluted story of such profound connections between various Intelligence related corporations and the USG that are of staggering implications that any further discovery and disclosure had to be stopped. Even today, journalists are too scared to dare tap into those same files. For those who are interested in digging into this truly mindboggling mystery, can start right at the beginning of the rabbit hole…Barrett’s own blog. I warn you though, tread carefully as the deeper you go, the more bizarre and dangerous it gets. All I know, is after one morning of my own following links from Barrett’s blog, I’ve now become scared of going farther, as even I have already found revelations so astounding as to make one’s skin crawl. Namely..and I don’t type this lightly.. TRAPWIRE.
http://barrettbrown.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-short-revelation-on-trapwire-cubic.html#comment-form
I totally believe, after reading many many more articles regarding Barrett’s story, he has been put away to silence him. I also believe, he doesn’t mention any of this while incarcerated because of reprisal. However, this shit needs to be disclosed. Perhaps, I’m only a Johnny-Come-Lately, but so are a lot of people here. All I know is even Michael Hastings was killed shortly before becoming involved deeper into Barrett’s story.
http://whowhatwhy.org/2013/08/07/connections-between-michael-hastings-edward-snowden-and-barrett-brown-the-war-with-the-security-state/
That is why I said ..scary. However there is much much more to this than I can post here. I leave it to you to decide how far down the rabbit hole you go. Here is how far I went…
http://www.socom.mil/Pages/AboutUSSOCOM.aspx
As sure as the sun sets in the west, there are scumbag sockpuppets right here at the Intercept who are part of USSOCOM. To them….fuck you and fuck your employer…the USAF.
Should you want to dig deeper..just follow Barretts links..for starters. Good luck.
I give up. This comment section is asinine.
So, you are kind of a spammer, aren’t you
Well observed, said, and much needed. Thanks! “whether or not we should keep granting the state ever more powerful methods of surveillance until it becomes the All-Seeing God Against Whose Laws We All Have Sinned.” http://i.imgur.com/3RlXzLo.png
Congrats to Barratt Brown on his richly deserved journalism award. Shame his mean-spirited prison governor was too busy to collect it on his behalf. Prick.
Seriously, Brown’s ‘Intercept’ column is a badly needed exposé of the bloated and corrupt US prison system from the inside and should prove useful to Bernie Sanders who is rightly campaigning to reform it. Let’s hope some good comes of Barratt’s writings.
I also have to say that Barratt’s sardonic and amusing accounts of his experiences reveal an inner mental toughness in adversity that is admirable and inspiring. Many people in his position would be cast into the depths of depression and a sense of hopelessness. Not him.
Best wishes from across the pond.
My apology for posting this as a reply to your comment. This is an EXPERIMENT to see if I can get this posted, as I’ve tried three times in the main comment field to no avail. In that light…
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to most people here, the real raison d’être for Barrett’s conviction continues to elude investigative journalism at large as his investigation into the Stratfor files, liberated by Anonymous, revealed a convoluted story of such profound connections between various Intelligence related corporations and the USG that are of staggering implications that any further discovery and disclosure had to be stopped. Even today, journalists are too scared to dare tap into those same files. For those who are interested in digging into this truly mindboggling mystery, can start right at the beginning of the rabbit hole…Barrett’s own blog. I warn you though, tread carefully as the deeper you go, the more bizarre and dangerous it gets. All I know, is after one morning of my own following links from Barrett’s blog, I’ve now become scared of going farther, as even I have already found revelations so astounding as to make one’s skin crawl. Namely..and I don’t type this lightly.. TRAPWIRE.
http://barrettbrown.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-short-revelation-on-trapwire-cubic.html#comment-form
I totally believe, after reading many many more articles regarding Barrett’s story, he has been put away to silence him. I also believe, he doesn’t mention any of this while incarcerated because of reprisal. However, this shit needs to be disclosed. Perhaps, I’m only a Johnny-Come-Lately, but so are a lot of people here. All I know is even Michael Hastings was killed shortly before becoming involved deeper into Barrett’s story.
http://whowhatwhy.org/2013/08/07/connections-between-michael-hastings-edward-snowden-and-barrett-brown-the-war-with-the-security-state/
That is why I said ..scary. However there is much much more to this than I can post here. I leave it to you to decide how far down the rabbit hole you go. Here is how far I went…
http://www.socom.mil/Pages/AboutUSSOCOM.aspx
As sure as the sun sets in the west, there are scumbag sockpuppets right here at the Intercept who are part of USSOCOM. To them….fuck you and fuck your employer…the USAF.
As for the final link to my journey this morning….they should also recognize this, as they USE IT HERE as well as all over the net. READ IT.
http://www.rawstory.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/personamanagementcontract.pdf
IF that doesn’t clue you in to what is going on…you might as well put your head back in the sand.
Should you want to dig deeper..just follow Barretts links..for starters. Good luck and take care.
This is the comment I left at Reader Supported News which also has this article:
Barrett Brown is an excellent read. Such literacy on the state of prisons is of great interest. I’d like to hear what Brown has to say about Bernie’s opposition to the for profit prison system.
The for profit prison industry is a crime against anyone who is a prisoner and the families as well. Just another face of corporate robbery, really.
Thank you. Fine writing, joyous read :)
I want to know who this illustrator is, Paul Davis, who does the drawings for Barrett Brown’s columns. Not for any particular reason. I just want to know, OK?
It says below the top illustration: Paul Davis.
Sorry — I obviously did read your comment carefully.
debutart.com/Paul Davis
Thank you.
Why does the editor hyphenate “instances of Gray Lady-caliber foolishness”, and not “instances of Gray-Lady-caliber foolishness”? What does a lady-caliber foolishness of any colour have to do with it?
TUES FEB 2, 2016
Spoof Edition of NYT Distributed Across New York City
http://m.democracynow.org/headlines/2016/2/2/44116
“I’ve been fascinated by the extent to which a fellow can be a bit of a dummy, with questionable writing abilities and a penchant for making demonstrably erroneous attacks on others, and still find regular employment with the nation’s most prestigious newspaper…”
Yea that’s a feature not a glitch.
straight from the belly of the beast
“state within a state within a state” true-er words were never said
Barrett i’ve been following with you since Op MetalGear
One day you’ll be physically free
Your mind has been free for some time now
but with a different name.
straight from the belly of the beast
“state within a state within a state” true-er words were never said
Barrett i’ve been following with you since Op MetalGear
One day you’ll be physically free
Your mind has been free for some time now
First of all, can we have a guest column from Aaron LeBaron?
But seriously, why do you keep getting moved from one classification of prisons to another? It seems like crimes of this level don’t merit medium security, or anything like that. Is it something that has to do with your access to books and letters?
I’m kind of a newcomer to this column, obviously.
Yes please on the Aaron LeBaron. Or maybe if BB wants to take a break from writing about himself he could do some in depth profiles of some of his fellow inmates. I’m sure some of them have interesting stories.
I wonder how long it will take the BOP to figure out that Barrett Brown is too dangerous to be in prison? They need to let him out so that he can use his talents attacking some other target.
Similarly, authors everywhere should be petitioning the BOP to release Mr. Brown, before he gets a chance to review their work.
You rock, Barrett! Congratulations also on the well-deserved award! Hoping (along with many others) that you will be out sooner rather than later!
If any young, ambitious DOJ employee happens to read this comment, and is worried about the heat Barrett Brown’s writings might bring on his or her employer, and who also wants a quick trip up the advancement ladder, here’s the surest way to blunt Brown’s impact; … release him early. Here’s why:
If he remains in prison, his words have the added strength of being “real-time.” If his work is prevented from going to the outside world, or are censored in any manner, the work that’s already out here is magnified by rarity. If he somehow meets with an “unfortunate accident”, all hell will break loose, guaranteed.
So, the only logical and practical method to soften his DOJ-critical message is to simply make him an ex-DOJ “customer”, whose complaints can then be swept away with a simple; “Oh, that was then. We’ve improved things since he was inside.”
Simple, yes? And you’ll then be a hero for suggesting it. Win-win. Get to work.
Genius!
Congratulations on the Awards Barrett and the Intercept.
@ Barrett:
Perhaps if you mentally replace law-enforcement with a more apt descriptor such as door-to-door-through-door-revolving-door prison industrial complex salesmen {Barrett already made me self-conscious of my overuse of parenthetical phrases, hope I got the hyphens right} the book might be readable.
You’re a funny fucker Barrett-Brown.
*echoing rrheard (lawyer) below, too funny to waste squatting in the koop. From the way I hear it, ‘time-served’ may be option for someone of your mostly-peaceful talents in the near future … if you don’t mind wearing ankle bracelets for awhile.
Thanks Mr. Brown!
I’ll certainly avoid anything by Selwyn-Raab.
You never did explain to us how to make dice out of toilet paper … would you mind sharing this in case any of us sadly end up incarcerated?
You’d skip over an author or a book due to over-hyphenation and/or based on a couple sentences!?
to make dice out of toilet paper, simply take a square or two, depending upon how large you want the dice to be, wet them, and then wad it up while it is still wet. then press the edges into a cube shape as best as you can. Let the dice dry for about a day or two. Then, using a pencil or pen, depending upon which the facility allows you to have, etch the dots into them.
Toilet paper dice are OK, but to make really good dice you may use other mixtures such as the drink mix they supply. They may leave stains on your fingers, but they are harder and roll better. Toilet paper dice tend to be biased toward certain numbers due to their imperfections.
These type of die are only useful in reception or the hole (Ad-seg or the SHU). If you are on the mainline, just use the dice from a Yahtzee set, etc.
I hope that you do not end up, sadly, incarcerated and in a position to find means of mindless entertainment. Reading is a better option, though. Then you do not have to have ridiculously stupid conversations with inmates. Prison is truly the place where brain cells go to die.
One final comment–about the only difference between an inmate and a correctional officer (really, nobody calls them “guards” you want to end up on the wrong end of a stick or pepper spray) is a piece of paper with a judges signature on it. The comments in the article about prison review boards is totally on point. If you look up “kangaroo court” in the dictionary, it should have a picture of a prison review committee on it. Unfortunately, they are not a joke. They seriously impact people’s lives with no accountability whatsoever.
Are dice not allowed in prison? These kinds of questions keep me up at night.
Finally! One other person out there is tackling the tough issues :) Most of these guys on the intercept seem to we worried about inconsequential things like government surveillance, wealth inequality, the military industrial complex, etc.
If we can find a few others with similar sense of what is important, we could form a think tank. Oh wait, we have network news for that. Oh well.
OK, smartass, but you didn’t answer my question: are dice allowed in prison, or not? I just sent BB a book called “Backgammon For Blood” and I don’t see how he can play backgammon without dice. So I want to know: are dice allowed in prison or not? Also, you need dice to play D&D. Big time.
As I mentioned above, whether dice are allowed or not depends upon the facility. Yes, some lower level facilities allow dice such as those for D&D (e.g. 20-sided dice). Other facilities allow the checking out of games which have dice but the game has to be turned in. Yet other facilities expressly forbid them. The surest way to find out is to call the facility or, better yet, ask BB himself via mail, whether his facility allows them.
I am disappointed that the more serious part of the dialog was entirely missed because of my attempts at levity over a really heavy subject. I guess people read what they want to read.
I read all and understood all. I think you are very funny. “Smart ass” is a term of endearment (for me anyway). Thanks for your follow -up comment!
This comment and all of Mr Brown’s work published here remind me of one thing: being in the army. The conversations were all incredibly stupid and I read/wrote constantly to battle the boredom.
BB, don’t let the fire fizzle when you get out sir. There is plenty more to write about.
There are more parallels between the military and being locked up than I am sure many would like to admit. And even more upsetting is how many veterans wind up in there and become marginalized like everyone else. I should have added the prison industrial complex to my previous list of grossly overlooked major issues facing our nation today.
Unfortunately, many turn to gang violence or targeting others as a means to allay boredom. Thankfully, a minority also use the time in a useful productive manner to better themselves or, at the very least, avoid succumbing to institutionalization through reading, watching and playing sports, etc. Only to be released and find themselves rejected by employers or subjected to harsh parole conditions. Sad. It would be nice if measures to employ felons went further beyond “ban the box” such that HR/Legal didn’t automatically and categorically reject those with a felony record due to “liability” issues.
The system really does not encourage nor prepare the incarcerated for later success in life for those who are capable and interested being law abiding and productive citizens.
You may not ever see this (if you are like me I do not check to see if there were replies to my messages often) but if you do, google Community Action Agency when you get out. We use CSBG funds to help people get back on their feet. Most of the time it involves going back to school for job training though. A felony record will limit your choices but there are some choices.
Good to see you are still alive and uhm I guess ‘well’. Your description of the prison as “not particulary violent” is not actually reassuring at all, but then again you strike me as a resilient person…
As to the general growth of new authoritarian movements (the new fascism so to speak), it’s not only a U.S. problem, here in the EU it’s also happening. I talked about this years ago and always felt (or rather hoped to be) rather tinhatty about saying such things, but it increasingly looks like I might be less wrong than I would like to be. I guess there is hope that increased hatred of the status quo, will also increase the left….
Congratulations on your NMA, :D, your writing is very wonderful (imho it’s nearly wasted on writing about the sorry state of the real world instead of fiction, but then I am the kind of person that can only periodically inform themselves, because the world is generally speaking either rage or learned helpnessness inducing)
BTW can anyone tell me what the hell the link at ‘demonstration’ was meant to well link to? I just got a weird screen telling me I have no permission to view the document.
Apologies. Link fixed.
While you’re at it:
The author’s last name is Silverglate. http://www.cato.org/people/harvey-silverglate
Whatever happened to the remedy process for having lost his email? Surely it’s allowed to proceed despite the fact that he’s moved?
Excelente!
Hell yes – much more of a hero than anyone fighting for corporate hegemony.
UN set to announce decision on Assange’s release on Friday – WikiLeaks
Published time: 2 Feb, 2016 10:59
Edited time: 2 Feb, 2016 11:43
https://www.rt.com/news/330981-assange-release-un-announce/
If this gentleman, Barrett Brown, has access to this book he referenced, I would be delighted and appreciative of his review:
Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent Paperback – June 7, 2011
by Harvey Silverglate (Author)
http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1454440095&sr=1-1&keywords=Three+Felonies+a+Day
The inescapable imagery of prison life that Hollywood has burned into my retinas has me imagining that these award-winning rants are being dictated into a mini-cassette player… since pens and pencils are potentially lethal objects or something, and the laptops the Gates Foundation Education Initiative donated were deemed unfit for even public schools… and thus far too inferior for the BOP.
I’m not sure if it was the recent stories about tunnels coming out of the Mexican law-enforcement arena or what, but thoughts about an updated, federal-corrections version of Hogan’s Heroes have been floating around behind those seared bringers of sight.
Not sure what the “good guys” are meant to be up to in the amorphous plot line, but I do know who I would cast in the lead role.
Stay safe
A
I’m thinking more along the lines of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” The group therapy sessions can be replaced by D&D games. But every good story needs a villain, and Warden Norbal Vazquez seems too lovable to make a good Nurse Ratched.
Laughed long and gratefully at this one. Possibly your best yet! Congratulations on your continued brilliance & the award too.
Congratulations on your award Barrett. I am always interested to hear your news. Hope you are not too buried in books. Are there opportunities to take classes, like in woodworking or welding? I’d be all over that. Hope you are getting some good games in. Take good care Barrett, and don’t be so stingy with your columns!
A work of art.
Looking forward to a Brown-Greenwald collaboration. When does Brown get out of prison?
05/25/2017
The Strange Case of Barrett Brown
Amid the outrage over the NSA’s spying program, the jailing of journalist Barrett Brown points to a deeper and very troubling problem.
By Peter Ludlow
JUNE 18, 2013
[Excerpt]
It was clear to Brown that these were actions of questionable legality, but beyond that, government contractors were attempting to undermine Americans’ free speech—with the apparent blessing of the DOJ. A group of Democratic congressmen asked for an investigation into this arrangement, to no avail.
(cont.)
http://www.thenation.com/article/strange-case-barrett-brown/
Interesting, and in particular the Endgame Solutions aspect, since they’re a NSA contractor, with their main investor being Paladin Capital, a home for ex-NSA and ex-CIA executives. Endgame Solutions has been mentioned in connection with developing Stuxnet, a virus targeting industrial control systems in the nuclear industry, notably used to attack Iran’s uranium centrifuge system, but which could easily be modified to push a nuclear reactor into full-scale meltdown. Notice that the U.S. has around 100 nuclear reactors. Imagine someone secretly installing Stuxnet on all these reactor control systems, driving them all into meltdown simultaneously. So, the question is, has the NSA and its private contractors developed such attack routines, via “Tailored Access Operations?” Probably – insane, but still probable.
Behind all the dirty backroom deals involving military-industrial contracts involving the NSA, CIA and FBI, are very real issues – such as, should the U.S. government be developing offensive cyberwarfare capabilities that can be used to drive nuclear reactors into full-scale meltdowns like Chernobyl? What does this say about the safety of nuclear reactors in the United States?
In the old Soviet Union, such programs were never discussed anywhere, because the KGB would swoop down on any journalist who dared mention such problems and throw them in some Gulag like, oh, I don’t know, Fort Worth federal prison?
Yes, the American federal bureaucracy, particular the military-industrial complex division, operates much like Brezhnev’s USSR. The scale of the corruption is certainly similar – for example, government executives who leave the government and take up positions with investment groups like Paladin Capital (see: James Woolsey, CIA CEO, Chris Inglis, NSA COO, all directors of Paladin Capital, a top investor in Endgame Solutions, which pulls down multi-million dollar contracts from the NSA, contracts delivered by serving NSA officials who look forward to lucrative retirements at Paladin Capital and similar outfits) – it’s criminal corruption, no doubt about it, from the top down. Not only is it criminal, their activities – the nuclear sabotage program – are ridiculously dangerous, incredibly stupid – the kind of crap that only takes place behind closed doors, as in the old Soviet Union: a cesspool of functionaries and apparatchiks, marking time until they get their big payoff.
@ Barrett
Congratulations on your National Magazine Award. Notwithstanding your obvious sense of humor about your ordeal, I hope you are staying safe and ultimately the BOP will release you early or your lawyers find a way to force them to release you early.
The “over-criminalization” (thanks to your post I’m now starting to hyphenate, right or wrong, any words I choose in the vain-glorious hope of securing a job with that fish-rap-rag the NYT) of non-violent acts in America is a yooooooooogggg (h/t the emerging fascist with bad hair and the tele-genic wife) yoooooooooggggg problem. Please keep humanizing that reality.
As far as Ferguson’s Kissinger biography, I’ll save you the trouble of reading it: Kissinger is a sociopath/psychopath and responsible, in part, for mass-murder. It has nothing to do with him being Jewish.
Why any human being is the slightest bit interested in anything Kissinger has to say, except on trial at the Hague, is beyond me. He’s the one who should be sweating out his twilight years in a deep dark hole, not you. Save your brain-power for something more engaging than Kissinger hagiography.
Perfect.
Ditto
Pardon my ignorance, but I don’t know if he’s being facetious with “Lately I’ve been getting garbled reports of hoverboards…” or not. I was under the impression that television in prisons was ubiquitous – that not merely were they not deprived of TV, but subjected to its mindless violent babble and its Guantanamo Bay school of advertising in approximately equal proportion on a continuous basis, interrupted only (possibly) by lights-out periods. Is that not true in this case? If it is true, then surely he should know how hoverboards work (or don’t work, or explode) in fair detail.
I can only comment on what I was told by a friend who spent 11 years wrongfully incarcerated. (His verdict was unanimously overturned by the State Supreme Court).
According to him, TV was pretty ubiquitous in common areas, but control of what was on was usually decided by those who are affiliated with the strongest grouping. He said that the show most frequently watched was Cops. (Apparently it is watched both to laugh at people who got caught stupidly, and, more important, to study the tactics used.)
I’m afraid I might be the one who’s been sending him garbled reports of hoverboards. But how the hell do you even ungarble anything that can possibly be said about hoverboards at this time? Or is that hover-boards.
Great stuff Barrett!
Cue dull-toothed, slack-jawed, ankle-biting, douche-baggery, and mildly sadistic ponderings of…Nate! 4–3–2–
I wonder if my hyphens are over-done…
Enjoyed this piece. Thanks, Barrett.
Huge fan. Great to see that prison hasn’t dulled his writing prowess at all.
Stay Strong Barrett.
Huzzah! I’m so pleased you have called out such a brazen law-breaker as Raab. His ilk have been a scourge to all law-abiding, proper hyphen-importers for far too long.
Be glad u r with the feds. Been in both. Last stint I was wrongfully convicted as I believe u r, but didn’t have the $2,000 to pay for lawyer with law students who discovered it. From LA, so u know it’s all about money. Want to read a paper my daughter wrote about my son in state system for school? She interviewed him for it. Tells much. e-mail me
BB is an astute observer and reporter. Pity he is incarcerated.