Dear Director Stewart :

The Arizona Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU National Prison Project, and
the ACLU Technology and Liberty Program have been contacted by many
persons about the implementation of House Bill 2376, enacted in 2000.
As we are sure you are aware, this legislation, which amended ARS 31-235
and added ARS 31-242, makes it a criminal offense for an Arizona
prisoner to "have access to the internet" ARS 31-242 (A).

Even before this legislation, Arizona prisoners had no direct access to
the internet, since they have no access to computers that are linked to
the outside world.  But House Bill 2376 goes much further and attempts
to suppress speech by free persons outside prison walls.  Prisoners may
be disciplined if they "correspond or attempt to correspond with a
communications service provider or remote computing service".  ARS
31-235
(C1). Perhaps most remarkably, a prisoner may also be disciplined if
"any person accesses the provider's or service's internet website at the
inmates request"  ARS 31-235 (C2).

Many Arizona prisoners, particularly those under sentence of death, have
information about their cases posted on websites maintained by advocacy
organizations such as the Canadian Coalition Against The Death Penalty
(www.ccadp.org). These prisoners have begun to receive letters from ADOC
threatening that "if your name/information etc has not been removed from
this WEB site...or is located on any other web site on the internet
system, disciplanary actions WILL BE administered and possible criminal
charges may result."  (emphasis in origiginal).  A copy of one such
letter, with the prisoners name and number redacted, is enclosed.

We believe that House Bill 2376, and ADOC's implementation of that
legislation, clearly violate the First Amendment.  There can be no doubt
that the purpose and effect of this legislation is to suppress the flow
of information from prisoners to the outside world, and to chill the
advocacy of CCADP and other anti-death penalty and prisoner rights
organizations.  This is not a legitimate governmental objective, and we
are confident that this statute will be swiftly invalidated by the
courts.

We are writing to ask that ADOC immediately suspend all enforcement of
this statute.  If ADOC refuses, and continues to violate the First
Amendment rights of prisoners and their correspondents pursuant to this
clearly unconstitutional legislation, we will shortly file suit to
invalidate the statute.

Thank you for your kind attention.  We look forward to hearing from you
at your earliest convenience.

Very truly yours,

Eleanor Eisenberg, Executive Director
Arizona Civil Liberties Union
 

David C Fathi, Staff Counsel
ACLU National Prison Project
 

Ann Beeson, Litigation Director
ACLU Technology and Liberty Program