The news about the CIA’s secret prisons is a hot topic and comes with a warning that what has and still goes on in many of them is worse than most people imagine (1).

It comes as a horrid surprise to many Americans that secret prisons exist in the “land of the free”. What many find even more horrifying are the who, what, why and where of it all. Secret American “political” prisons are considered by the majority of Americans as just downright un-American!

According to Investigative journalist Will Potter, the secret prisons emerged during the last Bush administration in response to the 9/11 destruction of the New York Twin Towers.









America’s Secret Political Prisons Revealed

In August 2015, Potter gave a presentation to a TED audience about his visit to a Communications Management Unit (CMU). The title is as deceptive as the tactics that the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) is known for. Potter revealed that there are two CMUs operating within US prisons. One is located inside the Terre Haute, Indiana prison and the other can be found inside the Marion, Illinois prison.

Potter told the audience that both CMUs somehow bypassed “the formal review process that is required by law.” Seeing it as his mission to inform Americans of CMUs existence, Potter was quick to point out that he wasn’t advocating whether or not any of the prisoners were innocent. He has in effect donned the role of a whistleblower.

Potter told the audience, “As a journalist, I think these stories of what people in power do when no one is watching, are precisely the stories that we need to tell.” Potter also has the distinction of being the only reporter who has been allowed inside these prisons that house 60-70 “second-tier terrorists”. Potter said, “…they’re [prisoners] overwhelmingly Muslim.”

He explained further, “Prisoners are sent to a CMU because of their race, their religion or their political beliefs.” He admits to the audience that he was shocked that such permission was granted for him to visit the prison since, “I learned that the FBI has been monitoring my work… I had even learned through the, Bureau of Prisons Counterterrorism Unit, that they had been monitoring my speeches about CMUs, like this one.”

Yet, the condition of his visit was that he must interact with the prisons as a friend not a journalist; he couldn’t conduct interviews with the prisoners he met. One of the prisoners informed Potter of an official warning “by CMU officials that if I [Potter] asked any questions or published any story, that he would be punished for my reporting.” The visits were monitored and Potter was told he couldn’t talk about his visits afterwards. Of course, that goes against all that a journalist is (2).