(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Over the last three-plus years, the public has been used to getting updates from J6 inmates via their social media accounts.
Infowars host Owen Shroyer was once such example of a J6 inmate getting out urgent updates to the public via social media. When he was sent to solitary confinement and the public lost touch with him, for example, his family updated the public on his status by Twitter.
UPDATE: Owen will remain in solitary confinement until 11/28 at the earliest. At that time his normal privileges will be reinstated. For now he is only able to communicate via mail. Despite 23 hours a day of lockdown, he remains in good spirits.
“I’m as mentally strong as ever.”
— Owen Shroyer (@OwenShroyer1776) November 16, 2023
Countless other inmates, including political prisoners, also get messages from the inside to the public via their families posting on social media.
But the Bureau of Prisons is looking to put a stop to that.
In a proposed rule published on Feb. 2, the BOP proposed a series of changes to “inmate discipline regulations”—including one that would ban “accessing, using, or maintaining social media, or directing others to establish or maintain social media accounts on the inmate’s behalf.”
If enacted, violating the new federal code would be considered a “High Severity Level” incident, which could punish inmates with solitary confinement, damage to parole eligibility, or fines.
House Republicans have been silent on the proposal, which would affect some of their most loyal and rabid constituents—the inmates from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill uprising. But civil liberties groups have voiced disagreement.
“Of course, the technology of social media is new, but the importance of allowing those behind bars to participate in public discourse is not,” said a letter authored by civil liberties attorneys, as reported by The Appeal.
“Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. authored his famous ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ on scraps of paper while imprisoned and gave those scraps to his attorneys to compile and circulate on the outside.”
Award-winning writer Christopher Blackwell, who’s serving a 45-year prison sentence for taking another human’s life during a drug robbery, reportedly said the proposal sounded “extremely far-reaching”.
“The First Amendment right (doesn’t) come with strings, and it’s one of the only rights prisoners still retain when they become incarcerated,” Blackwell told Context.News.
“So any attack on stripping down or boxing off how those rights are used and protected – we can’t allow that as Americans.”
According to The Appeal, the open comment period for the BOP’s proposed rule change ended some two months ago. Now, the agency will likely now proceed with developing a final rule and submitting it to the federal register, The Appeal reported.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
