America's Own Hostages: Conditions At Guantanamo Bay Worsening

So says the BBC of Gitmo where Bush has kept hundreds of detainees, almost all Muslims, with only 10 people ever charged. The same detainees the Supreme Court played coward to this week knowing they could not legally protect the Bush Administration's inhumane treatment of these prisoners if they took the case for consideration.

And yet how the U.S. and Great Britain howled at the "terrible" treatment of the Brit sailor hostages Iran gave new clothes and gift bags to upon release yesterday. Yeah, we've got standing to talk about "inhumane treatment" all right.

South Carolina Prisoners: "Give Rich Folks Your Kidney And We'll Take Five Seconds Off Your Sentence... Maybe"

Posted by Jon at Pensito Review and... geez....

So not kidding:

Lawmakers are considering legislation that would let prisoners donate organs or bone marrow in exchange for time off their sentences.

A state Senate panel on Thursday endorsed creating an organ-and-tissue donation program for inmates. But legislators postponed debate on a measure to reduce the sentences of participating prisoners, citing concern that federal law may not allow it.

“I think it’s imperative that we go all out and see what we can do,” said the bills’ chief sponsor, Democratic Sen. Ralph Anderson. “I would like to see us get enough donors that people are no longer dying.”

The proposal approved by the Senate Corrections and Penology Subcommittee would set up a volunteer donor program in prisons to teach inmates about the need for donors. But lawmakers want legal advice before acting on a bill that would shave up to 180 days off a prison sentence for inmates who donate.

South Carolina advocates for organ donations said the incentive policy would be the first of its kind in the nation.

Federal law makes it illegal to give organ donors “valuable consideration.” Lawmakers want to know whether the term could apply to time off of prison sentences.

Up to a half year off a sentence seems like very "cheap" pay for robbing someone of an organ. And that's just the start of the abuse potential here.

More Of The Bushies' Fondness For Others' Right to Speak

On the heels of the story of GIs being told to zip it, the magnificent MissM brings us this:

Facility Holding Terrorism Inmates Limits Communication - washingtonpost.com

The Justice Department has quietly opened a new prison unit in Indiana that houses a hodgepodge of second-tier terrorism inmates, most of them Arab Muslims, whose ability to communicate with the outside world has been tightly restricted.

::sigh:: and grrrrrrrr.....

The Mentally Ill: "A Little Torture in Michigan"

Monkeyfister points us to this terrible - and sadly, less and less unusual - story of a man with manic depression who very quickly deteriorated and died in prison custody, presented by CBS. Solitary confinement and restraints can "break" a healthy person in a very short period of time. Yet throughout America as well as in America's "secret" prisons and Guantanamo Bay/Gitmo, often with people charged with no crime whatsoever or as in this case, a mere shoplifting charge, law enforcement and military and quasi military organizations use these techniques that result in unbelievable suffering, permanent mental illness, and, with growing frequency, death.

You wouldn't imagine these days that a mental patient could be chained to a concrete slab by prison guards until he died of thirst, but that’s how Timothy Souders died and he is not the only one.

Souders suffered from manic depression. And like a lot of mental patients in this country, he got into trouble and ended up not in a hospital, but in jail. It was a shoplifting case and he paid with his life.

As correspondent Scott Pelley reports, no one would have been the wiser, but a medical investigator working for a federal judge caught wind of Souders' death and discovered his torturous end was recorded on videotape. The tapes, which are hard to watch, open a horrifying window on mental illness behind bars.

Six months ago, Tim Souders was in solitary at the Southern Michigan Correctional Center. He was 21, serving three to five years. Though an investigation would show he needed urgent psychiatric care, Souders was chained down, hands, feet and waist, up to 17 hours at a time. By prison rules, all of it was recorded on a 24-hour surveillance camera and by the guards themselves.

The tape records a rapid descent: he started apparently healthy, but in four days Souders could barely walk. In the shower, he fell over. The guards brought him back in a wheelchair, but then chained him down again. On Aug. 6th, he was released from restraints and fell for the last time. Souders had died of dehydration and only the surveillance camera took notice.

Thanks, too, to Scott Pelley and CBS News/60 Minutes for presenting a story that would otherwise have gone unnoticed by all but those who loved this young man.