The so-called “Green Scare,” where the government has been accusing environmental and animal rights activists of “terrorism” and has even gone so far as to pass the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, is continuing to show how ugly the future might look.

Few people know about Communication Management Units (CMUs), which are very high-security, secretive prisons that are supposed to be holding terrorists. Communication with the outside world is heavily restricted, and many rights that prisoners at other facilities have are not allowed here.

The problem, as Will Potter writes on his blog, Green is the New Red, is that

these units have been created not for violent and dangerous “terrorists,” but for political cases that the government would like to keep out of the public spotlight and out of the press.

Potter highlights a few of the prisoners who are being kept at these CMUs, including a doctor who was arrested for violating economic sanctions by sending aid to the Iraqi people, Daniel McGowan, and Andrew Stepanian (who was recently released).

And apparently these facilities are an “experiment.” But an experiment for what? To keep dangerous criminals secure, or to keep political dissidents locked up? We are already seeing so many examples of our rights as activists being threatened, and it’s continuing to get worse. How long will it be before all forms of civil disobedience are suppressed?

GreenIsTheNewRed: Communication Management Unit Houses Environmental Activist