From the Editor
John Boston is one of the foremost authorities on prisoner rights and litigation. Now retired from the Prisoner Rights Unit of the Legal Aid Society in New York City, he is well known to PLN readers as the co-author, with Dan Manville, of the Prisoners Self help Litigation Manual which the Human Right Defense Center distributes. John has just finished the manuscript of his current book, The PLRA Handbook: Law and Practice under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, which HRDC will be publishing within the next few months and which is the definitive guide to all things related to litigation under the PLRA. We will announce its availability as soon as it is available for purchase.
Last month we reported on Casey Sixkiller, the lobbyist for private prison companies, arms dealers and CIA front companies, who is running for mayor of Seattle and claiming to be the “progressive” candidate in the race. Interestingly, none of the corporate media outlets in Seattle had reported on Sixkiller’s lobbying ties and what little coverage he got did not mention the private prison clients. Or the fact that while drawing a salary as deputy mayor he was also still profiting from his lobbying firm. But that is why we have PLN: to expose these stories that the corporate media ignores.
As we regularly do, we posted news about the story on our Facebook page and to criminal justice related groups in Washington where voters might be most interested in this news. Within minutes of each posting they were removed by Facebook. Subsequent attempts to repost the news about Sixkiller has met the same fate. Adding insult to injury, not only have all the postings been removed, HRDC was placed in Facebook “jail” and not allowed to post news items for several days. It is worth noting that everything in the article about Sixkiller is true and can be verified in the public record and Sixkiller does not even bother denying their accuracy or truth. Suppressing the news and keeping voters in the dark is the way to go apparently. Even LinkedIn removed it as an attempt to influence an election.
The article is on the home page of our website, www.prisonlegalnews.org. If you are on social media please take a minute to share and post it among others who are interested in politicians trying to whitewash their pasts feeding at the police state trough and enriching themselves on the misery, oppression and brutalization of others.
As COVID in prisons and jails seems to be winding down we will be focusing on other issues impacting prisoners. That said, court rulings and similar issues related to COVID will likely be with us for years to come and we will continue reporting on those as well.
A number of prisoners have taken advantage of our introductory offers to Prison Legal News and Criminal Legal News and I would ask that you please subscribe at the regular rates as soon as possible as it cuts down on the cost and expense of having to send renewal notices. We are faced with rising costs for paper and ink and the more paid subscribers we have the lower we can keep subscription rates.
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