Mar 12th, 2009
Posted by Will Matthews, ACLU at 2:40pm	Prisoners' Rights

From NPP to MSNBC

It's a long way from Capshaw, Ala., home of the Limestone Prison, to hosting your own national cable television program from a swanky studio in the heart of New York City.

Most everyone by now knows Rachel Maddow as the host of the nightly Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC. But long before she was basking in the limelight and adored by millions of fans across America, Maddow was doing the often unheralded work that ACLU attorneys engage in every single day — working to eradicate injustices from some of the farthest-flung corners of our country that might well otherwise go totally unnoticed.

As the keynote speaker at the ACLU of Wisconsin's annual Bill of Rights Celebration last month, Maddow devoted part of her speech to reflecting on her time six years ago as a part of the staff of the ACLU National Prison Project (NPP) which, at the time, was engaged in a campaign that Maddow says she called "No Lost Causes" — to persuade Alabama Department of Corrections officials to end their policy of segregating all Alabama HIV-positive prisoners and excluding them from participation in all the prison programs, services and privileges available to prisoners without HIV. As Maddow relates, never has she experienced "a more satisfyingly cinematic moment" then when she arrived at Limestone along with Margaret Winter, the National Prison Project's associate director, and Jackie Walker, the Project's HIV/AIDS policy coordinator (Maddow starts speaking at 3:10):

Please note that by playing this clip You Tube and Google will place a long-term cookie on your computer. Please see You Tube's privacy statement on their website and Google's privacy statement on theirs to learn more. To view the ACLU's privacy statement, click here.

Enormous strides have been made in the six years since Maddow and the ACLU took Limestone by storm. The ACLU has continued to push corrections officials in Alabama to extend equal treatment of prisoners living with HIV/AIDS, and as a result these prisoners now have access to educational and vocational training opportunities, substance abuse treatment and religious programs that previously had been denied to them. Currently the ACLU is pushing hard to end the last major remaining barrier for HIV-positive prisoners: access to work release and the other critically important early-release programs available to prisoners who don't have HIV, and from which HIV-positive prisoners are still categorically excluded.

Maddow doesn't work for the ACLU anymore, but she hasn't forgotten her roots.

Permalink |	Prisoners' Rights

Tags: Civil Liberties News

1. Vic Livingston Says:
   Mar 12th, 2009 at 2:24pm

   RACHEL MADDOW AND ACLU:

   Please work to help expose the on-going extrajudicial justice network" that is torturing and slow-killing American citizens with hi-tech microwave radiation weaponry (directed energy weapons).

   Seymour Hersh revealed what he knows about secret federal "hit squads" in the MinnPost.com (mainstream media) article linked below -- but few media outlets have picked it up.

   http://www.minnpost.com/ericblackblog/2009/03/11/7310/inves tigative_reporter_seymour_hersh_describes_executive_assassination_ring #comments_section

   ***

   TEAM OBAMA: WHAT DO YOUR BUSH HOLDOVERS KNOW ABOUT THIS:

   * Silent, covert microwave radiation weapons (directed energy weapons) assaults on innocent but "targeted" U.S. citizens;

   * Terroristic vigilante community gang stalking, surreptitious home entry, police-tolerated vandalism;

   * Secret federal "programs of personal financial destruction" that have turned the IRS into an ideologically-driven tool of "social cleansing."

   http://www.nowpublic.com/world/gestapo-usa-govt-fun ded-vigilante-network-targets-terrorizes-u-s-citizens
   http://www.nowpublic.com/world/domestic-torture-radiation-weaponry- americas-horrific-shame

   OR (if links are corrupted / disabled):

   http://www.NowPublic.com/scrivener

   ***

   Rachel Maddow (and ACLU): It's your turn.

   The victims, and democracy, can't wait for Sy Hersh's book.

2. Vic Livingston Says:
   Mar 14th, 2009 at 9:21am

   RACHEL MADDOW'S "TINFOIL HAT" SLUR:

   PLAYING INTO THE HANDS OF 'DISINFORMATION' AGENTS TRYING TO HIDE THE TRUTH ABOUT MICROWAVE RADIATION WEAPONS -- A/K/A 'DIRECTED ENERGY WEAPONS'

   Is there a "mole" inside MSNBC who is using TV show graphics to disseminate pejorative "directed messages" intended to disparage certain "targeted" views of left-leaning programs such as "The Rachel Maddow Show"?

   Before readers dismiss such speculation as paranoid (another favorite slur of the paid disinformation brigade), consider these facts:

   * Silent, injury- and illness-inducing microwave radiation weapons, which authorities reference by using the deceptively benign term "directed energy weapons," or DEW, are fast proliferating to local police departments nationwide. "Rad weapons" already are commonplace in the military, and among security and intelligence agency personnel and "operatives."

   * Victims of what has been termed the Bush-Cheney era "extrajudicial punishment network" maintain that microwave radiation weaponry has been used for years to silently inflict pain (torture), and to induce mental and physical impairment among persons "targeted" by federal agencies -- perhaps because of their politics, their lifestyle, their ethnic heritage, or because someone in a position of power considers them an "undesirable," a "mental defective," or a "dissident, " a suspected "enemy of the state."

   * Metallic foil is scientifically known to act as a reflector of electromagnetic radiation, although the literature indicates that kitchen-grade aluminum foil would afford far less protective capability in the event of pulsed-beam radiation from high-powered, military-grade directed energy weapons.

   Here is a link to known methods to mitigate the effects of various forms of electromagnetic radiation, or EMF:

   http://www.emfservices.com/emf-shielding.htm

   The army of paid disinformation agents trying to sell the public on the notion that their "directed energy weapons"' are really "non-lethals," or, to use their latest iteration, "less-lethals," often employ the image of a person wearing a tinfoil hat to disparage those who oppose these weapons as a public health hazard -- due to the fact that these instruments of human destruction are silent, and because their "fire" leaves no traditional forensic evidence ( such as shell casings or conventional entry and exit wounds).

   Radiation weaponry silently "cooks" human tissue from the inside out, in the manner of a microwave oven, often leaving no tell-tale trace, but for the onset of skin blemishes resembling sun spots, discoloration, or a rosacea-like reddening.

   Political opponents of radiation weaponry are disparaged as "crazy" or "paranoid" or "delusional," much in the way that repressive regimes throughout the nations have attempted to marginalize and neutralize those who might stand in their way.

   We who are trying to sound the warning to society must call out all attempts to conceal the truth about "DEW," including tactics aimed at blunting the message of DEW opponents.

   So please, Rachel, refrain from using this imagery in your program.

   And please inquire as to the motives of the person who suggested the graphic. I recall a period when Keith Olbermann's show was plagued by technical glitches night after night, so many that it seemed like no accident. As Alexandria Pelosi reminded you recently, the forces of the dark side have a way of insinuating their "agit-prop" messaging into various facets of American life, including the mainstream media.

   FOR MORE ON THE DANGERS OF RADIATION WEAPONRY:

   http://www.nowpublic.com/world/domestic-torture-radia tion-weaponry-americas-horrific-shame

   OR (if link is corrupted / disabled):

   http://My.NowPublic.com/scrivener

3. Vic Livingston Says:
   Mar 14th, 2009 at 9:29am

   Why does a black bar appear on the right of my screen, obstructing the copy, when I try to view the article above?

4. Brenda Polk Says:
   Mar 15th, 2009 at 4:27pm

   My husband is an offender in a Texas State Prison and is being denied medicial footwear. Years ago he had an accident in prison which required him to have surgery on the big toe of his right foot. The surgeon did a bad job and when it came to the attention of a warden that he could hardly walk he was sent to the UTMB where the doctors took one look at the job but the previous surgeon and told my husband they would have to redo the surgery and correct the error. They also told him that in order to work he would need speacial boots and other limitations. In 2006 he was given a pair of boots after my going rounds with the unit and the UTMB and now once the fight is on. The doctor at his unit told him that he doesn't qualify anymore and to learn to live with the pain and would not even issue him insoles. Right now we are waiting to hear back from the UTMB. Is there anything else I can do to help him out and get him what he is entitled to. GROUCHY_MOM@YAHOO.COM Believe me I can use all the help I can get.

5. Hawaiian style Says:
   Mar 16th, 2009 at 12:59pm

   Rachel Maddow is a shining light in a world growing darker by each passing Administrations.

   She is stainless steel in a world of greed, and corrupt plastic.

   You go girl, lady, woman.

Name

E-mail

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Homepage

• Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
• Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

More information about formatting options

CAPTCHA

This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

What code is in the image? *

Enter the characters shown in the image.