California Revises the 1st Amendment : Prisons: A ‘temporary’ ban on in-person inmate interviews is attributed to concerns about what is ‘legitimate’ news.

Prison officials as guardians of the 1st Amendment? A prison bureaucracy deciding which media are “legitimate” news organizations and which are the entertainment “tabloid” press? Sound like George Orwell’s “1984”? No, it’s California at the end of the 20th century.

The Wilson administration has banned the media from conducting interviews with prisoners in person. The bureaucrats and politicians argue that the ban is necessary to ensure that inmates don’t become “celebrities and heroes.” A 20-year-old rule that allows reporters to interview state inmates is being revised by the state Youth and Adult Correctional Agency; there is no indication as yet whether the “temporary” ban on face-to-face interviews will become permanent. Officials deny that their interest has anything to do with censorship or control of information. They blame the tabloid media for the current problem. Sounding like a local television critic, J.P. Tremblay, assistant secretary of the agency, justifies this change in policy on the basis that “the line between legitimate news and entertainment news . . . is getting blurred.”

His explanation might be less suspect if it were not for the fact that our prisons are overcrowded with conditions often unfit for human beings. There are now 31 prisons in California with more than 135,000 inmates. In the last year, federal courts have looked at some of those prisons and found them wanting.

Chief Justice Earl Warren once said that you can tell more about a people and a country by looking at how they treat those they imprison than by any other measure. Today, it is not fashionable to care about the conditions in our state prison system and the individuals who inhabit those institutions. Our politicians step all over each other in their law-and-order rhetoric in order to gain and retain political power. In the heat of political campaigns, prison inmates are often referred to as “animals,” less than human; they become “things,” not individuals with any rights. In this way, we justify conditions that are often brutal and inhumane.

In a day and age where the largest lobbying organization investing its money in our politicians’ reelections is the Correctional Officers Assn., and where a larger proportion of our budget is being spent on prison construction and maintenance than on higher education, the citizens of this state must be knowledgeable about how their money is being spent and what really goes on behind those secured walls.

If the press is denied access to the inhabitants of our prisons, how will we, the citizenry, ever be able to judge how well our money is being spent? If the media are denied the right to cover a vital part of our governmental structure, we, the people of California, will not be able to control that part of our government. Secrecy breeds irresponsibility. Our government is based on checks and balances. Our history has taught us that power corrupts, and unchecked power is tyrannical at best.

The media are our eyes and ears. The 1st Amendment is our protection against unconstitutional acts by our government and its bureaucracy. If the press is restricted in its access, and if the prison bureaucrats are given the power to determine who in the press may interview inmates--which of the media are “mainstream” and which are not--the people of California will lose. We cannot afford a process that allows a part of our government to make up its own version of the 1st Amendment.

It is clear that the highest court in this state has little interest in the conditions of our prisons. The Supreme Court of California routinely denies review of all these issues. It is only the federal courts that give any chance of redress. If the press is to be restricted in reporting how the public’s money is being spent and what the conditions are within the prison system, there will be even less review.

As Justice Brandeis said, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” It protects all of us against infection and disease. The press is the light that shines on the interstices of our government and its bureaucracy. When the government and its bureaucrats are given so much power over individuals citizens, we must have a free press to inform us of any corruption or tyranny. Anything less is a threat to our most deeply held democratic principles.