Hoarse Speak

On Friday as part of a required field trip for the class I am taking, we went to Central Prison in Raleigh. Central Prison is a maximum security prison which includes the only Death Row and execution chamber in the state. We got to see all of it.

Our tour guides were Lieutenant W. and Sergeant B., both of whom had worked at the prison for a significant amount of time: Lt. W. had been at Central for 12 years, while Sgt. B. had been there for 20 years. Lt. W. was a woman in her late 30s - early 40s but just gave off that aura of don't mess with me. Sgt. B. was also probably in his early 40s very large man, at least 6'8", and looked like he worked out regularly - he also had a bit of a sadistic/control streak that might come out in my descriptions. The tour began first with disallowing one of the students because she had forgotten her wallet (and ID), and making another student swap shoes with the disqualified student because she was wearing sandals as opposed to close-toed shoes. The guards made us stand single file with most of the women at the front near Lt. W. who led, with the men and our professor at the back with Sgt. B..

They took us into the prison lobby first and displayed the collection of "contraband" that had been taken off of or out of prisoners - knives, razors, drugs, bullets, guns, etc.; all of which were hidden in books, cigarette packages or persons. There were also X-ray films of a couple of prisoner's stomachs with some metallic objects inside - I don't want to know what passing that might have been like. Some of the stuff seemed particularly dated, such as a 2 barrel derringer cut into a Bible, but some of the stuff seemed modern like a bunch of pills hidden in a cigarette pack.

The first real stop was the execution chamber. Central prison is the only execution location for the State of North Carolina. Four people have been executed this year the last execution occurred on August 18th. We only entered the observation room which was a triangular room about 10' on a side with 10 - 12 numbered chairs which face a large window. The window looks into what looks like a grubby doctor's examination room, something like I'd seen in the third world, in which the most prominent feature is a gurney. The condemned prisoner is allowed from 1pm to 11pm to be with his family in a very small room (a "sallyport") off the main visitation area - the only physical contact he is and has been allowed with anyone outside the Department of Corrections since his incarceration. After 11pm they are taken away and at midnight wheeled into the execution chamber strapped to the gurney. The observers are packed together in this small room, 1 member of the press is included with the victim's and prisoner's families. Apparently the window is not sound proof, so the condemned says his ritual last words while strapped to the gurney. The entire thing was profoundly creepy and clinical.

Next stop was the visitation room which was a large room with lots of doors to very small rooms - literally 6' X 6' with two stools (which were the only new thing in the place) which faced a 1" thick plexiglass window with a 2" X 12" steel grate in it through which you could speak to the prisoner you might be visiting. Prisoners are allowed 30 minutes to 1 hour per visitation depending on their behavior. Next we went into Block I which I'll write about later.

I was looking at our Chancellor's State of the University Address which he delivered on the 6th of September as part of a project I'm working on about open source and open standards at this particular public institution. He told a great joke, you can figure out who I identify with:

A man in a hot-air balloon realized that he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. "Excuse me," he shouted. "Can you help? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The woman looked up and replied: "You are in a hot-air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You are between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude."

"You must be an engineer," said the balloonist.

"I am," replied the woman. "How did you know?"

"Well," said the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information - and the fact is, I am still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help so far."

"Well," said the woman, "you must be an administrator."

"I am," said the balloonist. "How did you know?"

"Well," said the woman, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep. And you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is that you are in exactly the same place you were before we met - but, now, somehow, it's my fault."

The Iraqi "government" has decided in its wisdom to go with moats instead of the proposed wall that our most intelligent president suggested. From the Nytimes article, Iraqis Plan to Ring Baghdad With Trenches, I'll just pull some choice quotes:

BAGHDAD, Sept. 15 — The Iraqi government plans to seal off Baghdad within weeks by ringing it with a series of trenches and setting up dozens of traffic checkpoints to control movement in and out of the violent city of seven million people, an Interior Ministry spokesman said Friday.

The effort is one of the most ambitious security projects this year, with cars expected to be funneled through 28 checkpoints along the main arteries snaking out from the capital. Smaller roads would be closed. The trenches would run across farmland or other open areas to prevent cars from evading checkpoints, said the ministry spokesman, Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf.

“We’re going to build a trench around Baghdad so we can control the exits and entrances so people will be searched properly,” he said in a telephone interview. “The idea is to get the cars to go through the 28 checkpoints that we set up.”

This is what our 'C' average fratboy-in-chief had to say:

Bush said at a news conference on Friday that the Iraqis were “building a berm around the city to make it harder for people to come in with explosive devices, for example.” Military officials said the Iraqis had considered such a project earlier, but decided to go with trenches instead.

I guess, the Iraqi's figured that Bush hadn't studied his military history. Otherwise he would have known that walled cities became obsolete with the advent of artillery of which the guerillas fighting in Iraq have plenty - as they routinely mortar (that is lob shells over walls) the green zone, U.S. bases, Iraqi police outposts, etc…

I don't know that the moat (i.e. trench) strategy will be much more effective considering the sheer area of Bagdad (60 miles in circumference) - but then considering NR's post on the CPA, they'll be creating more jobs for people!! Now that is more modern!

So at least they admit that they are really deep admirers of Josef Stalin and his methods:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush on Wednesday acknowledged previously secret CIA prisons around the world and said 14 high-value terrorism suspects — including the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks — have been transferred from the system to Guantanamo Bay for trials.

He said a small number of detainees have been kept in CIA custody including people responsible for the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 in Yemen and the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, in addition to the 2001 attacks.

'It has been necessary to move these individuals to an environment where they can be held secretly, questioned by experts and, when appropriate, prosecuted for terrorist acts,' Bush said in a White House speech. Families of some people killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks made up part of the audience.
…
Bush would not detail interrogation techniques used through the program, saying only that they are tough but do not constitute torture. He did use language that suggested its nature, saying the CIA turned to an "alternative set of procedures" that were successful after Zubaydah and others had stopped providing information.

I believe the proper term for "environment" is (and Robo could corroborate this for me) Gulags and the proper term for "alternative set of procedures" is Torture. People have been seized and without any respect for due process moved to gulags and tortured. Ok, at least they've finally admitted it. "Due process" is a key principle of legal "equality." Our system's presumption of innocence and the according of certain protections to the accused to prevent incarceration at the whim of the state is an example of a part of that principle in action. The Bush Administration has dispensed with this pesky notion and now has the audacity to say it did so in the "interests of the people."

Another principle of equality under the state is the notion of justice. It seems that accordingly, an injustice done to one member of the society is an injustice to all since it violates the notion that we will all be treated equally and under certain rules by the State. Apparently being accused of terrorism removes you from those protections, and since the government gets to determine who is a suspected terrorist based on undisclosed (i.e. secret) evidence, why wouldn't it be easier to accuse a shoplifter of terrorism and send them to a gulag then to go through the expense and inconvenience of a trial? Why not torture them while you are at it, I'm sure they'll know where UBL is. Shit, the Soviets figured out that people will tell you anything under duress.

link to AP story at NYTimes