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This Man Was Sent to Federal Prison After Publishing a Blog on the Huffington Post

And a bold new precedent is set.
Image: If a Tree Falls screenshot

Earth Liberation Front activist Daniel McGowan has served nearly seven years in prison for arson and for what amount to major vandalism charges. But he's also in prison for scaring the crap out of the media and the federal government. He proved that again this week, when, after being transferred to a halfway house from a prison known as "little Gitmo" and successfully landing a job at a law firm, he was whisked back to prison. For blogging on the Huffington Post.

Naturally, the Huffington Post is on the story. It spoke with McGowan's wife, Jenny Synan, who said that the federal government had jailed him in response to the blog post he published on HuffPo on April 1st. In the post, McGowan "charged the Federal Bureau of Prisons, citing documents [he] had obtained, with transferring him to a high security prison unit in order to restrict his political speech during his incarceration."

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McGowan's allegation that the federal government was punishing him for speaking out angered the federal government so much that it promptly decided to punish him for speaking out:

Synan told HuffPost that she asked a BOP official why her husband had been re-imprisoned after his release to a halfway house in December. She said the official told her that the HuffPost article violated a term of his release that restricted him from interacting with the media.

Rachel Meeropol of the Center for Constitutional Rights said that "Needless to say, this is outrageous. I've never heard of a regulation limiting an individual from blogging or contacting the news media."

Perhaps Meeropol is unaware of how terrified of environmental activists the federal government is. McGowan, who was a prominent figure in ELF, and documented in the very balanced and very good "If a Tree Falls" documentary, rose to prominence in the 90s and early 00s after joining sit-ins, demonstrations, and occasionally more illegal acts against logging companies in the Pacific Northwest.

McGowan did indeed play a role in some dangerous and highly illegal activity. He helped to set fire to a ranger station and a ski resort, though the group said it ensured that no persons were harmed. But he has since been branded an eco-terrorist, a term the government now uses to place environmental activists on par with some of the most dangerous domestic criminals.

See, while the government is not all that concerned that maniacs have the ability to regularly obtain guns and go on shooting sprees, which occur roughly once every 48 hours, it is horrified at the notion that someone might inflict property damage on a logging company.

Regardless of his views or past history, however, free speech rights still apply. Even Charles Manson can do interviews with the media, and if he had access to a computer, he could write a blog post, too. But not an "eco-terrorist." Those maniacs can go to jail for submitting an opinion piece to the Huffington Post. In fact, this might mark a couple of firsts—both the first time the federal government cared what anybody wrote on the Huffington Post, and that someone was actually imprisoned for writing it. Both precedents are disturbing.