Activists prosecuted under Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) have in several cases ended up in the "Communications Management Units" at two federal prisons. Created secretly during the Bush administration, these "experimental" units were supposedly designed to hold high-risk inmates, including terrorists, whose crimes warrant heightened monitoring of their external and internal communications. But the reality, as a current lawsuit by the Center for Constitutional Rights asserts, is that many prisoners end up in the CMUs "for their constitutionally protected religious beliefs, unpopular political views, or in retaliation for challenging poor treatment or other rights violations in the federal prison system."
Mother Jones, May 11 2011
June 14, 2011