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Environmental Activist Daniel McGowan Loses Appeal for Free Speech in Prison

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by Adam Classfeld / Courthouse News Service MANHATTAN (CN) — An environmental activist thrown in solitary confinement for sharing his politics in online magazines does not have a First Amendment case against his former prison officials, the Second Circuit ruled Tuesday. Daniel McGowan, a former member of the Earth Liberation Front, was involved in the arsons of two Oregon-based lumber companies in 2001. Four years would pass, however, before McGowan’s foray into radical activism caught up with him. The FBI eventually closed the loop on McGowan’s case during “Operation Backfire,” an investigation that the bureau described as a crackdown on “eco-terrorism,” which critics cast as a green version of the Red Scare. McGowan insists that he had renounced his affiliation with the group long before authorities arrested him at work, but his later disavowal of their methods did not provide him with any mercy at his criminal prosecution. In 2007, a federal judge would apply a so-called “terrorism enhancement” in sentencing him to spend seven years in prison. Initially designated as a low security prisoner, McGowan claimed in a federal lawsuit that officials at FCI Sandstone in Minnesota assigned him to a so-called Communication Management Unit, or CMU, a year […]

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