and dear to nearly every American's heart. Of all the issues I've seen a stand on, the free speech advocates remain the most vocal and effective because they include most of us.

The newest proposal the Florida DOC has come up with is a ban on my freedom to use my website in any fashion I choose as long as it holds to the rules of the domain. By threatening any prisoner listed on such a page, they are attempting to blackmail me into submission.

As a webmaster, I feel a righteous anger in this blatant attempt to muffle my voice.

As a grandmother, I am offended that the DOC would purport to have a need to 'protect' me from an inmate's requests, as if, at my age, I cannot do that for myself.

As an advocate for the reform of prisons, I feel a great tension, that this is another step in a great but perverted vision of prisoners entering a system that swallows them whole, never to be heard of from the day they arrive until the day they leave.

With no outside communication for human beings repaying their debts, there will be no public control of their keepers who have already proven they can't be trusted to rehabilitate our criminals. Without penfriends, many prisoners have no outside contact and sink deeply into the ugliness of their non-rehabilitative surroundings.

Deprived of any knowledge of the world, ex-prisoners will be ill-prepared to successfully reenter it. What comes out of those silent cages could be very dangerous to our peace of mind and personal safety.

This 'rule' against freedom of speech will probably endanger prisoners, but the proposed ban will definitely endanger free speech and further weaken our constitutional protections.

And as a citizen of a free country, I despise any attempt to shred God-given and constitutionally guaranteed rights, particularly that of free speech, with which all other wrongs can be peacefully resisted!

Arizona has already stopped a similar ban, although Florida's proposed ban is significantly different from the Arizona situation in that, in Arizona the DOC wrote a law which was then passed by the state legislature prohibiting inmates from contacting the Internet in any way. It was three years later when the ACLU and CCADP challenged that legislation in court and won.

In Florida, this is not a law or a proposed law. It is only a proposed FDOC rule for internal mail handling. I don't yet know what the review procedure is or how long it takes before this rule is adopted.

I hereby make a heartfelt plea for guidance from those who know how to use the FODC's legal process to stop the proposed ban from becoming part of the DOC's philosophy of isolation.

I need to enlist the support and participation of all families of prisoners to stand against this rule by writing a letter to Mr. Joel Anderson, who appears to be spearheading this.

The public needs to understand that we are going backwards in our attempts to subdue crime if we make prisoners come out in worse shape than when they went in. The uninterrupted contact of families and friends is not a gift of the DOC. It is provably a necessary part of rehabilitation.

And if the DOC can control the speech of free people, then I don't have to imagine the world we are going to live in when the constitution is gone. It's already here.

If you can help me take a stand against this ban, contact me at:

Kay Lee

kaylee1@charter.net

4900 Olson Drive # 69

Eau Claire, WI 54703

715-831-0076

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