Day 121: The Transparency Offensive
- mainemoviepirate
- 49 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Original Entry: Thursday, 10/21/21
Awake, mostly, at 7:45, skipped the H/L/R drink, hit the coffee, and worked briefly on the DOJ letter. Went to dog class, I may or may not be moving to the dog section.
LUNCH: Bone-in Chicken, (1 in reserve), BP, Veggie mix.
Finished the DOJ letter, with some minor changes, let's see what happens. I'm not sure how things can get worse but I guess I'll find out. Didn't do much else, tired all day, maybe tomorrow will be different. Maybe give the legal stuff a break for a couple days and make some progress on BarBell/ & Blood on the Sun/Null, something. Finish typing Walking Distance, now that the email back up has been set-up.
SUPPER: Steak, cheese, Roll, Chips.
[Bottom of page]
You're in my Seat:Â The Huntsman, one of those movies with the Thor guy.
Four Years Later A couple of things: This was the day I learned about Dog Row. It was the long outside edge of the CubiCells, where basically all the dog handlers lived. C.C. and E.D. both lived there; it was as far from the "Slums" of the camp as you could get. Since there were currently only two full-time dog handlers, the rest of the row was filled with older white guys and H.L. This was the working class of Camp Devens. Because the instructor was quite confident in my potential as a dog handler, she really wanted me to move there. Justin was already moving there (he currently lived on the wrong side of the camp). There were two other bonuses: the cells were twice the size of normal ones (because the dog lived with you), and most of them had a window to the outside world. And not a little, narrow SHU window, but a big, normal-sized house window. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea.
Lastly, this was the first time I mentioned actually sending out FOIAs, but the reality was I had already sent them to the Maine State Police and the Brewer Police Department. I just didn’t document it in my journal, just in case they complained to the DOJ. Since the DOJ is the big brother to the BOP... well, you get the idea. If they wanted to, they could make life more difficult for me in there. And I was just getting used to the place.
So, my reasoning for sending a FOIA to the Bangor DOJ office was that I didn’t know where else to send it, and you have to start somewhere. I had read an article about Darcie McElwee becoming the new Attorney General and how she was going to run an open, transparent department. I thought maybe she would be interested in a case that was anything but open and transparent. I was naive, but I also knew I was just getting started. If there wasn’t serious pushback or punishment while I was incarcerated, I would be sending many more. And I did. A hundred or more—or so it seemed.
Eventually, if I didn’t have at least one FOIA or actual motion pending, I felt like I was in a hopeless situation. And you know how I feel about hope. As I write this, more than four years later, I’m still filing FOIAs, and I will continue until I get the truth.
