Comments on: Prisoners forced to submit to radiation experiments for private foreign companies

By: Lewis King Jr

Lewis King Jr — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 23:35:04 +0000

yo i was there in big sandy for four years and the things thay tryt to inpose on the inmates r just not right at all unfortunley people on the out side just dont care unless one of there love one is there but my prayer go out to the brother in big sandy the real hard knock life shot out to my ohio player my old cellmate marcus cobb serving a 100 years that is just racism at its finest shot out to the D.C niggas my chistian brothers and to the rest of u all on the out side looking in please contiue to support the rights of the inmates we all have sin and falling short of the glory of god so to my fellow american citizens the lease we all can do is at lease honor the little rights thay do have.Written by a former inmate at Big Sandy .God Bless all u brother

By: Dr. Stewart

Dr. Stewart — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 21:43:05 +0000

If they implemented this in the airports, would they be telling everyone so that the passengers know that they are being "checked out" when they are being scanned?! I feel like this would encourage a lot of sexual problems.

By: Maria Molina

Maria Molina — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 07:16:40 +0000

Does anyone have family or information about the private prison called North fork facility in Sayre, Ok. It is run by the CCA. It seems to be a research institute. CA governor has been sending ca prisoners exspecially
inmates that they have marked as gang members. Law inforcement and the governor says they are sending inmates there to keep them away from their family and to cut off ties with associates. If this is true why are the prisoners from different parts of California being sent to this certain prison when they will have contact with each other that is still associating. That prison seems to have no visitation and they will not return our calls. I’m worried because we hardly receive calls fr our loved one and when we do they seem to have been in lockdown. Why are these inmates at a prison that’s a research institute and in the middle of no where with no visitation. My son told me the doctors there said he had an eye condition and if he did not get surgery now he would loose his eye sight. He has never had eye problems. I also read that North Fork prison recently signed a concract
with a blind school/research institute that is in Ok.

By: Cindy

Cindy — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 04:23:11 +0000

I have a loved one at Big Sandy, and he was forced to submit to one of these x-rays for no apparent reason or threatened with being put in segregated housing “The hole”. About week later he wrote to me complaining about feeling dizzy like he was going to pass out. He didn’t even know what the lockdown was about until I told him. They finally are off lockdown but now I hear that they are starting the x-rays again, and still threatening them with “the hole” and losing their jobs. My loved one just got a job with UNICOR and it would be a shame that he would be punished for standing up for his human rights. Especially since the inmates are willing to submit to a full body search. Something needs to be done about this.

By: Ann Garrison

Ann Garrison — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 19:03:34 +0000

Seems I’ve heard this story, or some version of it before, at Walla Walla Sate Prison, near the Hanford Nuclear Complex.

By: Pete

Pete — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 20:04:58 +0000

I fact-checked this article to see if I could forward it to my network and concluded that I can’t send it until you correct or explain your assertions on radiation levels, which seem unfounded. Rapiscan is claiming 10 Microrem per exam as compared to 1,000,000 Microrem for a CT scan (see epic.org/privacy/surveillance/spotlight/0605/rapiscan.pdf).

By: Tina

Tina — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 18:50:06 +0000

This facility has been on lock down for 2 months. The inmates have been unable to speak with family/friends to tell them what the lockdown was about. I must say Im not surprised to see that it is due to the inmates refusal to be used for for monetary gain. There have been years of reported violence in this facility. Never has the lockdown been as long or as secret. Please if you have family or friends there write or call the Bop. Money and power really are the root of all evil.

By: Sharon Jones

Sharon Jones — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 10:10:37 +0000

It is absolutely appalling that these atrocities are being committed against people who are imprisoned and thus even less able than the general public to freely investigate the information they are given by “the authorities” and defend themselves against harsh reprisals for even attempting to help save one another’s health and well being. The fact that America is relying more and more on giving publicly traded companies lucrative prison contracts to take over prison operations for the government bodes even worse for prisoners today than ever. See “Dillon, Read & Co. Inc. and the Aristocracy of Stock Profits” by Catherine Austin Fitts at: http://www.dunwalke.com/introduction.htm

Those who go into the prison business to make money are even more likely to have little or no scruples about what is done to increase the extent to which the imprisoned are capitalized upon by fellow human beings. Privateers have more fiscal incentives than government employees to look the other way at violations of right and merciless use of those behind bars for incidious purposes and entering a profession long known for providing opportunity to “power trip” at being deemed an authority figure in charge of a captive population. Wash’t it Kissinger who said “power is the ultimate aphrodisiac”? To my way of thinkiing there is something suspect about anyone who pursues employment in the prison system. Good old boy mentalities created and rule it. Racism is rampant and all types of abuses are epidemic. Those incarcerated are by definition cut off from communication with the outside world and locked within a microcosm of evil incarnate and anyone on site is either associated with those empowered or those unempowered. No ombudman or observer thus is there who might mitigate the potential for abuse that not only exists but has long been cultivated with impunity.

By: Person of Interest

Person of Interest — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:18:30 +0000

A little fact-checking…

First, it is not accurate to analogize the backscatter imaging devices to medical CT scanners (and worse to use CT interchangeably for backscatter through the piece). CT scanners use focused X-rays targeted in repeated shots through your body. The levels of radiation exposure in the most benign CT scan is still substantially more than (is supposed to be) in backscatter imaging.

Next, radiation ≠ radioactive. X-rays are radiation (as, incidentally, is sunshine), they are not radioactive. Radioactivity connotes energy emitted from the decay of a radioisotope. High-energy X-rays, may be radiation, but they’re not radioactive.

Backscatter imaging does use ionizing radiation, and I think it’s appropriate that it should be subject to FDA regulation. If there are quality control failures of the radiation controls of these products, there should be very serious consequences for the manufacturers.

And if a device is subject to government regulation and approvals relative to the safety of use, it is appropriate that the device get those approvals before it is used on anyone without their informed consent…visitors to a courthouse, air passengers, and prisoners.