The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Prisons challenging the legality of the government’s use of secretive prison units known as Communication Management Units, or CMUs. The units are designed to severely restrict prisoner communication with family members, the media and the outside world. Most of the prisoners held in the CMUs have been Muslim men, but the units have also held political activists, including the environmental activist Daniel McGowan, who is being held at a CMU in Marion, Illinois. Daniel McGowan’s attorney Lauren Regan appeared on Democracy Now! in April.

Lauren Regan: “The inmates there do call Marion, Illinois, 'Little Guantanamo.' Part of the reason that they call it that is because it is a secret facility. They do feel as if they are being hidden, not only from society at large, but from other inmates in the federal system.”