Questions which prison officials must be compelled to answer:

1)       There was  a period of at least 5-6 months from October 2009 till at least May 2010, when Revolution newspaper was deemed to be "contraband" and was NOT delivered to any of the over 45 prisoner subscribers at PBSP.  PRLF has a mountain of evidence that there was such a ban.  The prison officials now say, "no ban is in effect" trying to  avoid accountability for what they did and said for many months.  The prison officials must bring to light everything that has been going on over this whole period of time and what are their justifications for it.

2)         In materials turned over by PBSP to the ACLU, there was a letter dated  October 22, 2009 from PBSP, signed by 4 ranking prison officials (assoc warden, unit captains) to have Revolution newspaper put on the statewide CDCR's "Central List of Disapproved Publications."  This is the same time period when PBSP instituted the ban at its own facility.  The ban at PBSP was in open violation of their own procedures which spell out that unless a publication is on the statewide banned list no institution can ban it. 

What happened to this October 22, 2009 letter?   Who received it?   What was the reply to it?  What was the basis for it?  (The October 22, 2009 letter states that there were 3 levels of appeals from a subscriber,  including up to the state level.   What was the content of all this?) 

3)         How did the ban spread to Chuckawalla Valley State Prison (CVSP) within days of the PBSP letter notifying the publisher of Revolutionnewspaper that it was banned at their institution? CVSP has stonewalled ACLU's request for public records, admitting nothing and turning over procedural manuals instead.  One prisoner reports retaliation for appealing about his right to literature from the PRLF (placing him in the hole and then sending him to a more restrictive prison).

4)         While the PBSP warden now implicitly admits there were no grounds to ban Revolution, he has not explained what was the basis to attempt the ban in the first place; nor has he "cleared the record" of the serious and baseless allegations made and sent to the publisher of Revolution newspaper and to the prisoner subscribers which stated,: "your periodical newspaper has been determined to be contraband because it promotes disruption and overthrow of the government and incites violence to do so'..." and further, that the newspaper "incites racial violence and promotes governmental anarchy."  

All of these questions must be answered thoroughly and immediately.