Hi-
I understand that you're looking for writers for your news site, and
I'd like to be considered. I've written for a variety of print and online
news outlets and other publications, including Skeptic, PoliticalBase.com,
National Lampoon, The Onion A.V. Club, Austin Monthly, Dining Out, and The
Fortean Times, and my first book, Flock of Dodos: Behind Modern Creationism,
Intelligent Design, and the Easter Bunny was released in 2007 to praise from
Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School, Rolling Stone, and other sources.
I've also contributed to reference books by publisher Thomas Riggs and
Company.
I generally work for around twenty cents a word, although this is
negotiable.
Along with my attached resume, I've pasted a couple of samples below.
The first is a simple news summary of the sort I used to write for Political
Base, and the second is an article on new Texas prison regulations which
effectively prevent inmates from freely communicating with journalists; it
was cited by Sonoma State University's Project Censored as one of the most
important underreported stories of 2004.
Please take a look and get back to me if you're interested in
discussing the position further.
Thanks,
Barrett Bown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302
White House Legal Trouble Update
1. The CIA's covert service head who some believe to have presided
over the destruction of tapes which may depict the use of torture against
al-Qaeda operatives is requesting immunity ahead of an expected appearance
before Congress next week in which he'll be providing testimony on exactly
what went down and why. Attorneys for the White House, meanwhile, are still
urging a federal court to hold off its own investigation into the incident,
claiming that it would interfere with ongoing investigations by Congress and
the Justice Department. At any rate, they've been successful in their
efforts to convince Judge Edward Kennedy that a judicial inquiry is
unnecessary; Kennedy announced yesterday that he agrees, citing the
inability of lawyers for a group of detainees to come up with evidence that
a specific law pertaining to Guantamo captives was broken in light of
revelations that the detainees in question were actually being held in
secret prisons elsewhere at the time of the alleged abuse.
2. Allegations by the National Security Archive that the Bush
Administration is hiding millions of e-mails that it had previously claimed
were accidentally deleted has prompted a federal judge to order the White
House to make a formal response to the charges within five business days of
last Tuesday. White House spokesman Tony Fratto has thus far declined to
comment.
Texas Prisons: Silencing Inmates
by Barrett Brown
(Toward Freedom, June 2004)
In March of 2004, a jailer at an Arlington, Texas, prison confessed
that he had helped another jailer rape a female inmate the previous evening.
Israel Mouton, a prison employee since 2002, told police that he watched his
colleague commit the assault from the jail control room in order that he
might alert his colleague if anyone were to approach. According to both
Mouton and the inmate, who was questioned later by investigators, Mouton
afterward told the victim via the cell's intercom, "Don't say nothing. You
don't know nothing."
A few hours after the inmate confirmed the detailed confession,
Mouton and his colleague were arrested. But unlike the inmate whom they had
violated, both jailers were able to make bail, and in fact were released the
same evening. And despite the fact that one perpetrator had voluntarily
confessed to a second-degree felony, neither man was immediately fired;
instead, they were placed on paid administrative leave.
Later in the week, the wire services picked up the story, which ran
in every major newspaper in Texas. The timing was moderately ironic; the
Texas Board of Criminal Justice (TBCJ) was set to meet in Austin a few days
later to vote on several proposed prison policies. Given that the
corrections system had just been hit with a rather disturbing scandal, one
might have expected the TBCJ to adopt some new regulation ensuring inmates a
reliable means of reporting staff abuse to a third party assuming that one
was ignorant of Texas in general, its cultural climate in particular, and
the increasingly disturbing manner in which the nation's largest state
prison system is being administered.
Censoring the Mail
During a two-day meeting at Austin's Hyatt Regency, rather than pass
any new reporting policies to help prevent cover-ups, the TBCJ instead did
the opposite. On April 2, members passed Board Policy 03.91, by all accounts
the most drastic restriction on Texas inmate correspondence rights in more
than two decades.
Actually, the board passed two major policy changes during their
meeting. One was a ban on incoming mail containing "sexually explicit"
images, "material that shows the frontal nudity of either gender, including
the exposed female breast(s) with nipple(s) or areola(s), or the genitalia
or anus of either gender." Explaining the new policy, Texas Department of
Criminal Justice Executive Director Gary Johnson pointed out that his office
strives for "a more positive and safer environment for both staff and
offenders," adding that "the elimination of sexually explicit material helps
us move in that direction."
Because it dealt with such an attention-grabbing issue as
pornography, the new "Playboy Policy" received nearly all of the media
coverage; one Associated Press piece devoted all but two sentences to the
porn ban. The remainder consisted of a verbatim reading of the second
measure passed at the April meeting, Board Policy 03.91:
"Outgoing special or media correspondence will be opened in cases
where there have been known problems ('special correspondence' is defined as
any official of any federal, state or local law enforcement agency,
including offices of inspector general). The intent is to prohibit offenders
from sending correspondence that seeks to threaten, harass or intimidate in
any way (including anthrax hoaxes)."
In other words, Texas prison officials are now permitted to read mail
written by inmates to journalists, but only "in cases where there have been
known problems."
Unfortunately, the term "known problems" isn't defined, which may
seem odd in light of the great extent to which the board went in defining
the female breast, which, as the reader may recall, includes both nipple(s)
and areola(s). In contrast, the criteria by which media correspondence may
be read by low-level officials are left to the imagination of prison staff.
"Known problems," then, might very well include instances in which prisoners
have spoken to the press about prison conditions or other issues of
legitimate public interest.
In fact, this has already proven to be the case. In one of the few
articles that actually focused on the board's new outgoing mail censorship
provision, Houston Chronicle staffer Polly Ross Hughes described the case of
William Bryan Sorens, a convicted rapist whose sentence was extended by one
year after it was discovered he had sold Penthouse an article detailing his
prison experiences. (Texas prisoners must get permission before accepting
any payment for work they undertake while incarcerated.) In the course of
researching her article, Hughes asked TDCJ spokeswoman Michelle Lyons about
this incident; Lyons confirmed that Sorens' mail would most likely be tagged
for automatic inspection under the new policy.
But aside from deterring the extremely small percentage of Texas
inmates who run freelance writing businesses from their cells, the other
major purpose of the policy, according to Lyons, is to protect media
personnel from inmate threats and harassment. And how do journalists feel
about being thus protected? Not surprisingly, they're almost unanimously
against it.
Each of the Texas newspaper staffers I contacted regarding the case
said they would prefer that inmate correspondence to journalists be
privileged, in the same way that legal correspondence is, or rather used to
be; another provision passed by the board during its April meeting dictates
that "incoming special, legal and media correspondence will be searched for
contraband and only in the presence of the offender." This includes letters
from lawyers.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, one staffer with a major Texas
daily pointed out that, among journalists who cover the prison system, mail
is used as something of a barometer. Although reporters rarely reply to
individual inmate letters or even take their assertions at face value, a
large volume of mail detailing a specific problem often serves as the only
indication that something might be awry in the state's prisons. After all,
Texas inmates were already among the most elaborately muffled prisoners in
the US; in mostly every other state, inmates are permitted to make phone
calls whenever they please and at their own expense, whereas Texas inmates
get only one five-minute call every 60 days. And Policy 03.91 comes just a
few months after another new policy which prevents journalists from speaking
to inmates unless the journalist in question is working on a specific
deadline, thus preventing many writers from gaining in-person access to the
prisoners they may be writing about.
Lack of Concern
The "no deadline, no meetings" policy is part of the reason why few
of the journalists I contacted were surprised by the passage of 03.91. Among
Texas crime reporters, it's common knowledge that institutional procedure
has undergone major changes in the last few years. Retiring corrections
officials, they say, are often being replaced with a younger crowd possessed
of a somewhat more Draconian view of prisoner rights and public access, and
the overriding philosophy of this new breed is that the best way to deal
with a crack in the wall is to apply a fresh coat of paint.
Indeed, 03.91 and similar new policies would hardly seem as
threatening were it not for the fact that the Texas prison system is
notorious for its cracks. Nationwide, the state is perhaps most famous for
the often haphazard manner in which people are tried and executed; perhaps
the most damning account in recent years involved a man found guilty of
murder and sentenced to death during a trial in which his court-appointed
attorney fell asleep several times.
Much of the criticism has come from progressive watchdog
organizations of the sort one would expect to raise questions about such
things. But some of the most serious warnings have come from the federal
government itself. In 1998, the US House of Representatives asked the
General Accounting Office (GAO) for a report on staff-on-inmate sexual
misconduct in four of the nation's female prison jurisdictions, including
Texas. When the investigation ended in 1999, the resulting document didn't
do much to help the state's already-tarnished image.
If Texas prison officials really strived for "a more positive and
safer environment for both staff and offenders," as asserted by Johnson in
his statement to the press, they would most likely strive to compile data on
the subject to inform recommendations for further action. But this hasn't
happened. In fact, while conducting research for its 1999 report, the GAO
found that Texas, like the other three jurisdictions deemed worthy of
investigation, didn't have "readily available, comprehensive data or reports
on the number, nature, and outcomes of staff-on-inmate sexual misconduct."
Additionally, if Texas prison officials were actually concerned with
preventing inmate abuse, they might consider cracking down harder on prison
guards who have "known problems" with sexual misconduct in the same manner
in which they crack down on prisoners with "known problems" selling articles
to national magazines. But that hasn't happened, either. Many staff members
who sexually abused inmates during the four-year GAO survey were simply
suspended. In other words, they were forced to take a leave of absence, but
returned to work in the same capacity at a later date and often supervised
the same inmates they abused in the first place.
Today, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice supervises about
150,000 prisoners. Of these, nearly half have been incarcerated for
non-violent offenses ranging from possession of marijuana to writing bad
checks. Their safety and well being depends upon the good will and
competence of prison guards, some of whom have proven to be criminals
themselves. And those who run the Texas prison system, although obviously
aware of such facts, have done nearly everything possible to ensure that our
fellow citizens are unable to protect themselves in the only manner in which
a prisoner is able - to communicate with the world beyond the walls.
Thanks,
Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302