WARNINGS REGARDING PRISONS [Re: [free-sklyarov] federal prisons in Oklahoma]

[Alex Fabrikant]

PLEASE read the following before trying to deal with ANY prisons:

In the following weeks, if Dmitry is not freed, we should attempt to do AS
LITTLE AS POSSIBLE TO IRRITATE PRISON OFFICIALS. That means, in
particular, PLEASE DO NOT START CALLING PRISONS YOURSELF. There are
people, myself included, who will call around and figure out his location
as soon as he's in CA, but if the prisons are swamped with phone calls
from the thousands of people that are part of our effort, they WILL be
pissed, and we WILL have a harder time dealing with them.

Repeat: PLEASE DO NOT CALL PRISONS.

SECOND ISSUE: Once the prison he is transferred to in California is known,
do NOT attempt to visit him, as he may have very limited visiting
hours. My research shows that a lot of the local prisons have limits
at about 1-2 hours per prisoner PER WEEK. Since we don't even know if
lawyer visits are included, we should NOT endanger his limited visiting
time by visits from anyone other than the people whose presence is most
crucial -- presumably his lawyers, EFF reps, and perhaps his family if
they do choose to appear in the US.

Repeat: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO VISIT HIM EVEN IF YOU KNOW OR FIND OUT WHERE HE
IS UNLESS YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY SURE THAT YOU'RE THE RIGHT PERSON FOR HIM TO
SPEND HIS LIMITED "VISITING TIME" ON.

Please keep in mind that our collective goal is, first and foremost, to
FREE DMITRY, and, based on the opinions of myself and several other people
on this list with whom I have discussed the above guidelines, those
guidelines are the optimal given our goals.

Sorry for the ALLCAPS =)

-- 
-alexf


On Sun, 29 Jul 2001, Branden Robinson wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 29, 2001 at 08:07:16PM -0700, Seth David Schoen wrote:
> > If it's allowed, we will certainly make a concerted effort to visit
> > him once he's transferred here, and be sure he's doing as well as
> > possible under the circumstances.  We already have some people (aside
> > from lawyers and Dmitry Sklyarov's friends and family) calling jails
> > in Santa Clara County regularly for status updates.
> 
> I don't know how practical this is, but I just had an idea:
> 
> Perhaps if the Bay Area protest group is large enough, you guys could set
> up a rotation so that one person every day or weekday goes to visit him.
> 
> This could serve a few purposes:
> 1) Foremost, it would help keep Dmitry's spirits up and help him keep a
> sense of connection with the outside world, which is doubtless very
> important for someone who is being held unjustly.  It would also give him a
> very clear sign that he's not going to be forgotten about.
> 2) Making such a committment would help keep the protest effort from
> fizzling out.
> 3) Such a thing might get the attention of local prison officers and
> officials, such that it becomes water cooler discussion at first, and
> perhaps eventually makes it into administrative reports.  This kind of
> thing could help win Dmitry's freedom, as it would send a message to the
> DoJ that this problem isn't just going to go away.
> 4) I don't see how this could generate anything but sympathetic press --
> very useful to combat all this moronic media subtext of "evil Russian
> hacker undermining the $American Way$."
> 
> Just a thought.  I realize this would demand a high degree of personal
> comittment from the people involved, and since I'm way over here in
> Indianapolis I'm not in a position to express disappointment in anyone if
> it's does come about.  But if several people are in this for the long haul
> and have flexible lunch hours, it may just work out.
> 
> 

-- 
-alexf