Animal Rights Activist Jailed at Secretive Prison Gives First Account of Life Inside â€œCMUâ€

This morning Andy Stepanian and I were on Democracy Now talking about secretive political prisons called Communications Management Units. Stepanian is believed to be the first inmate ever released from one of the secretive facilities; he is one of the SHAC 7, a group of animal rights activists convicted of “animal enterprise terrorism” for running a controversial, and effective, website targeting an animal testing lab called Huntingdon Life Sciences.

I was invited back on the program to talk about my reporting on CMUs, and about the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. [The previous program focused on Daniel McGowan’s case and the Earth Liberation Front arrests of Operation Backfire.]

Thanks to Democracy Now for continuing to focus much-needed attention on these secretive prisons. The Obama administration needs to reverse the unconstitutional policies of the Bush administration, and provide accountability and transparency. Secretive political prisons have no place in a democracy.