Terrorists' mail not well monitored in US prisons


Terrorists may have less cause to fear US government surveillance inside America's prisons than outside, according to a federal report that found the system does not adequately monitor prisoners' mail to and from the outside world.

The report, released Tuesday by the Department of Justice (DOJ), finds that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is "deficient in several respects" in monitoring inmate mail.

The BOP does not read all the mail for terrorist and other high-risk inmates on its mail monitoring lists, does not have enough proficient translators to translate inmate mail written in foreign languages, and does not have sufficient staff trained in intelligence techniques to evaluate whether inmate communications contain suspicious content.

Conservative legal watchdog Judicial Watch writes in its Corruption Chronicles blog that the DOJ investigation was launched in 2005 "after authorities discovered that three convicted terrorists [who participated in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing] ... had written about 90 letters to Islamic extremists, including several involved in the 2004 Madrid train bombings that killed 191 and wounded nearly 2,000. Some of those letters were later found in the possession of a terrorist who used them to recruit suicide bombers.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1004/dailyUpdate.html

Posted: Wed - October 4, 2006 at 11:11 PM          

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