Prison Officials Have Banned an Inmate From Reading Obama’s Books

Posted by Ian Millhiser, Think Progress at 9:25 AM on July 10, 2009.

Federal prison officials have banned an inmate from reading President Obama’s books, claiming that the books contain sensitive national security information which must be kept secret:

The federal government’s most secure prison has determined that two books written by President Barack Obama contain material “potentially detrimental to national security” and rejected an inmate’s request to read them. . . .

Prison officials cite specific pages - but not specific passages - in the books that they deem objectionable. They include one page in Obama’s 1995 book, “Dreams from My Father,” and 22 separate pages in his policy-oriented 2006 book, “The Audacity of Hope.” It was not immediately obvious what passages might have been deemed problematic, though nearly half of the pages cited are in a chapter devoted to foreign affairs.

In The Audacity of Hope, Obama writes that “the dealth penalty does little to deter crime” and explains his “basic principle that no innocent person should end up on death row.” Perhaps that’s just too sensitive for prisoners to read.

Tagged as: rights, prisoners, prison officials