Censored 2012 (15 page)

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has been targeting Arabs and Muslims for detention in “Communication Management Units,” which deny inmates virtually all communication with their families and the outside world, according to Sherwood Ross. Muslim prisoners in BOP facilities in Terra Haute, Indiana, and Marion, Illinois are not being punished because of terrorist acts. “The vast majority of these folks are there due to entrapment or material support convictions,” said Center for Constitutional Rights attorney Rachel Meeropol, who has communicated with most of them. These are “terrorism-related convictions that do not involve any violence or injury.” Nonetheless, under communication management, BOP authorities at the Indiana facility limit inmates to mailing one six-page letter per week, making one fifteen-minute phone call per month, and receiving only one sixty-minute visit per month. The Center for Constitutional Rights contended that BOP officials are shifting Muslim inmates to these facilities “based on their religion and/or perceived political beliefs.” The extreme nature of the BOP restrictions raises the issue of cruel and unusual punishment, forbidden by the US Constitution.

Animal rights activists constitute another group at risk of unjust incarceration and prejudicial treatment when they are imprisoned. Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, reported that Iowa and Florida have proposed new laws intended to make illegal the undercover recording of animal abuses in industrial agricultural factories. Lawmakers in both states have introduced bills to establish criminal penalties for going undercover at agricultural facilities and simply taking pictures. As Pacelle noted, corporate management of factory farms “want to prevent their very own customers, America’s consuming public, from learning about the production practices that bring food to their tables and plates.” Will Potter reported that Minnesota is following Iowa and Florida’s lead, with even stronger proposed legislation cracking down on activists who attempt to document animal suffering. Potter linked the current spate of antiactivist legislation to previous “ecoterrorism” bills and the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, and he documented how the legislators championing the Minnesota bill include the past president of the Minnesota Pork Producers.
¹²

Not all forms of incarceration restrict humans behind bars in prisons or jails. Economic servitude constitutes another indirect form of incarceration in which workers, although formally free, have little control over their own lives and health. Yvonne Yen Liu reported on a survey of the US food system that shows food workers in all phases of the system working in “sweatshop-like conditions.”
¹³
Examining the race, gender, and class of workers along the supply chain, the study by the Applied Research Center documented a significant wage gap between whites and workers of color in food production, processing, distribution, and service, and a concentration of people of color in low-wage jobs within the system. Liu concluded that, despite advances in assuring that our food is locally sourced and sustainably produced, the movement for good food must also encompass food workers, the “often-invisible labor that help bring our food to the table.”

In contrast with the global atmosphere, which is widely recognized as a commons to be protected and managed for the good of all, food has been widely accepted as a private commodity. As one commons advocate acknowledged, food is “grown, processed, packaged, and sold for a profit, usually by large corporations.”
¹⁴
However, with growing
concern over the health impacts of genetically modified (GM) foods, many environmentalists and social justice advocates now champion the inclusion of food as part of the commons. The World Health Organization has identified allergenicity, antibiotic resistance, gene transfer, outcrossing, GM genes introduced into the wild population, gene stability, susceptibility of nontarget organisms (insects), and loss of biodiversity as possible risks associated with GM seeds.
¹⁵
In response to these potential risks, countries including Japan, Australia, China, and those of the European Union require mandatory labeling for products made with genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

In sharp contrast to this precautionary approach, the United States’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Department of Agriculture (USDA) officially contend that there are no differences between GMOs and non-GMOs. In separate stories, both Mike Adams and Ethan A. Huff reported that the FDA and USDA not only oppose domestic labeling of products containing GMO ingredients, they also seek to prevent other nations from doing so. The two federal agencies have proposed to the Codex Alimentarius Commission (the United Nation’s top committee on food and agriculture) that no country should be able to require GMO labeling on food items, arguing that such labels would be “false, misleading, and deceptive.” In his report, Huff wrote that, through their appeal, the FDA and USDA are “trying to outlaw truth in labeling and are openly working to deceive the public.” Adams reported that, if successful in its Codex appeal, the FDA could “seize any products in the US that make ‘non-GMO’ claims,” and the federal government could file lawsuits through the World Trade Organization against any country that allows non-GMO labeling or claims on its products.

1
. Michel Foucault,
Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison
(New York: Norton, 1979).

2
. Richard A. Oppel Jr., “Private Prisons Found to Offer Little in Savings,”
New York Times
, May 19, 2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/us/19prisons.html
.

3
. Ken Caldeira, “How to Cool the Globe,”
New York Times
, October 24, 2007,
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/24/opinion/24caldiera.html
.

4
. Sharon Begley, “A Climate Cure’s Dark Side,”
Newsweek
, January 30, 2011,
http://www.newsweek.com/2011/01/30/a-climate-cure-s-dark-side.html
. See also “Secrets in the Sky,” WTEN, Albany, New York, May 3, 2011,
http://www.wten.com/global/story.asp?s=14547467
.

5
. Stephanie Pappas, “Did Atmosphere Give Warning of Japan Quake?” Science on
MSNBC.com
, May 18, 2011,
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43083235/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/did-atmosphere-give-warning-japan-quake/
.

6
. Barack Obama to Nancy Pelosi, Letter from the President on the Continuation of the National Emergency with Respect to Certain Terrorist Attacks, September 20, 2010,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/09/10/letter-president-continuation-national-emergency-with-respect-certain-te
.

7
. Ann Bernard and Manny Fernandez, “On Sept. 11 Anniversary, Rifts Amid Mourning,”
New York Times
, September 12, 2010,
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/nyregion/12sept11.html
.

8
. “Fatal Blast and Fire Halt Work at Chinese Plant That Makes iPads,” Bloomberg News,
New York Times
, May 20, 2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/21/technology/21foxconn.html
.

9
. Richard Norton-Taylor, “Military priorities are distorting aid budgets, says Oxfam,”
Guardian
, February 10, 2011,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/feb/10/military-aims-distorting-aid-priorities
.

10
. Peter Phillips and Andrew Roth, eds., “AFRICOM: US Military Control of Africa’s Resources,”
Censored 2008: The Top 25 Censored Stories of 2006–07
(New York: Seven Stories, 2007), 44–48.

11
. For further Project Censored coverage on this topic, see Peter Phillips, Andrew Roth, and Project Censored, eds., “Security and Prosperity Partnership: Militarized NAFTA,”
Censored 2009: The Top 25 Censored Stories of 2007–08
(New York: Seven Stories Press, 2008), 25–29.

12
. For further Project Censored coverage on this topic, see Peter Phillips and Andrew Roth, eds., “Terror Act Against Animal Activists,”
Censored 2008: The Top 25 Censored Stories of 2006–07
(New York: Seven Stories, 2007), 109–14.

13
. Jay Walljasper, “Commons for a Small Planet,” On the Commons, August 14, 2008,
http://onthecommons.org/commons-small-planet
.

14
. “20 Questions on Genetically Modified Foods,” World Health Organization,
http://www.who.int/foodsafety/publications/biotech/20questions/en/
; “GE Food,” Center for Food Safety,
http://truefoodnow.org/campaigns/genetically-engineered-foods
.

15
. For further Project Censored coverage on this topic, see Peter Phillips and Project Censored, “Dangers of Genetically Modified Food Confirmed,”
Censored 2007: The Top 25 Censored Stories of 2005–06
(New York: Seven Stories, 2006), 72–74.

Sources:

Student Researchers:
Aaron Peacock (San Francisco State University); Taylor Falbisaner (Sonoma State University)

Faculty Evaluators:
Kenn Burrows (San Francisco State University); Peter Phillips (Sonoma State University)

Sources:

Student Researchers:
Laralyn Yee (University of California, Berkeley); Allison Holt (San Francisco State University)

Faculty Evaluators:
Kenn Burrows (San Francisco State University); Mickey Huff (Diablo Valley College)

Sources: