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<\/p>\nJeremy Busby is a writer and activist incarcerated in Texas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
American prisons have<\/span> never been much for the First Amendment, and now, the Trump administration is exporting prison-style censorship to the general population. In tactics that are easily recognizable to incarcerated people like me, they\u2019re doing it in the name of \u201csecurity.\u201d<\/p>\n This includes claiming antiestablishment ideologies and literature must be punished because they pose nebulous risks to those with government-approved political views. It also includes the logical next step: criminalizing efforts to keep authorities from finding out that one holds those ideologies or reads that literature.<\/p>\n Daniel \u201cDes\u201d Sanchez Estrada is set to be tried starting Tuesday on charges of corruptly concealing a document or record and conspiracy to conceal documents. He\u2019s been in custody since July and in federal prison since October (save for a brief accidental release before Thanksgiving, during which he spoke to The Intercept<\/a>). He and his codefendants were recently transferred to county jail to await trial. Supporters report<\/a> that they\u2019ve been placed in solitary confinement and are dealing with other horrid conditions.<\/p>\n In plain language, Sanchez Estrada is facing up to 20 years behind bars for allegedly moving a box of anarchist zines from his parents\u2019 house to another residence in his hometown of Dallas. His indictment came on the heels of Trump\u2019s signing an executive order to classify<\/a> \u201cAntifa\u201d as a \u201cdomestic terrorist organization\u201d and issuing National Security Presidential Memorandum 7<\/a> (NSPM-7) on Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sanchez Estrada\u2019s case originated with a July 4, 2025 anti-ICE protest his wife, Maricela Rueda, attended outside the Prairieland ICE detention center in Alvarado, Texas, where an officer was shot. (Prosecutors do not allege that Sanchez Estrada or Rueda were involved in the shooting.) The home-spun zines at issue contain no plans for any shooting, and under normal circumstances, they would clearly be deemed constitutionally protected speech under the First Amendment. But the government\u2019s concealment theory only makes sense if it views merely having the literature as criminal.\u00a0<\/p>\n While this form of censorship might seem brazenly anti-constitutional to most Americans, it has been the reality faced by incarcerated individuals for decades.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Once possessing literature is considered criminal, it opens the door to corollary charges, like transporting literature to conceal evidence or the \u201coffense\u201d of possessing it. That\u2019s what happened to Sanchez Estrada. What other crime could the magazines have incriminated Rueda of?\u00a0<\/p>\n Last month, activist Lucy Fowlkes became the 19th person indicted in connection with the same Texas protest. Fowlkes\u2019s alleged crime is using Signal, the encrypted messaging app made famous by Pete Hegseth<\/a>, telling people how to delete messages, and removing people from group chats, which government lawyers argue<\/a> amounts to \u201chinder[ing] prosecution of terrorism,\u201d a first-degree felony.\u00a0<\/p>\n The founders placed<\/span> a great premium on ensuring Americans had the right to possess and read anything that attracted their interest, even if it challenged the government.\u00a0<\/p>\n But while this form of censorship might seem brazenly anti-constitutional to most Americans, it has been the reality faced by incarcerated individuals for decades. In the name of \u201csecurity,\u201d prison officials have punished and even killed people for possessing literature they deemed suspect.<\/p>\n One such case involved Johnson Greybuffalo<\/a>, a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate tribe who dedicated himself<\/a> to studying Native American history while in custody at the Waupun Correctional Institution in Wisconsin. His studies included learning about the American Indian Movement, or AIM, a civil rights organization in the U.S. and Canada that works for equal rights for American Indians. He found information on AIM in the prison\u2019s library and took notes throughout his studies.<\/p>\n A prison volunteer also gave him a copy of a document titled \u201cWarrior Society\u201d that included a code of ethics that required Native Americans to serve the people, be honorable, kind, and not steal or be stingy. A prison guard searched his cell one day in 2005, and confiscated the AIM notes, along with the \u201cWarrior Society\u201d document. Both were classified as \u201cwritten contraband.\u201d Greybuffalo was written a disciplinary case and sentenced to 180 days in solitary confinement. The disciplinary charge was upheld in part<\/a> by a federal district court in 2010.<\/p>\n \u201cReading, writing, or sharing zines is not a crime.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n In another case, Kenneth Oliver left an article about human rights activist, philosopher, and scholar George Jackson on his bunk while he went to his California prison\u2019s dining hall in 2007. An officer searched his cell and discovered two books authored by Jackson, \u201cBlood in My Eye\u201d and \u201cSoledad Brother.\u201d As Oliver detailed<\/a> on \u201cEar Hustle<\/a>,\u201d the award-winning podcast created and produced from San Quentin State Prison, he came back to officers swarming his cell, which they had yellow-taped off like a real crime scene. Oliver was handcuffed and held in solitary confinement for the next eight years<\/a> in California. His only offense was \u201cpossessing illegal contraband,\u201d which also made him ineligible for new sentence under a 2012 California law easing life sentences on nonviolent \u201cthree strikes\u201d convictions. (Oliver was finally freed in 2019<\/a> after serving 23 years.)<\/p>\n \u201cThe guards said, \u2018We\u2019ve been told to get rid of you,’\u201d Oliver said on the podcast. \u201cThey want you to go to the SHU [solitary confinement] forever.\u201d<\/p>\n Historically, the U.S. government has always used disenfranchised populations as a test case to develop both strategy and legal precedent for infringing on constitutional rights before exporting them to society as a whole. Before incarcerated people faced retaliation for possessing books, African slaves were frequently punished for reading the Old Testament out of fear that the Exodus story might inspire them to dream of freedom. In some places, proponents of slavery reconciled their desire to convert slaves to Christianity with their fear or rebellion by creating a heavily redacted \u201cSlave Bible<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Land confiscated from Native populations eventually became eminent domain. Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover\u2019s surveillance of Black leaders during the civil rights movement gave justification for George W. Bush\u2019s invasive Patriot Act and mass surveillance of civilians. Now, the Trump administration is taking a page directly out of oppressive prison authorities\u2019 playbook.\u00a0<\/p>\n The system that gives those in charge broad power to decide what literature is a dangerous threat to \u201cnational security\u201d interests and who they can target, detain, prosecute, and punish criminally for merely possessing it. They may be starting with anarchist magazines, but anyone on the mailing list of Trump\u2019s political enemies, whether in possession of an issue of the New York Times or an op-ed written by Marjorie Taylor Green, could find themselves on the wrong end of the administration\u2019s overreach.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s all so circular. When the administration declares a political viewpoint \u201cterrorism,\u201d hiding literature espousing that viewpoint from the government is a perfectly logical response. So is using secure communications technology to communicate with others who share similar politics. But when your thoughts and reading list are deemed illegal, preventing the government from finding out what you think and read becomes a crime in and of itself \u2014 obstruction of the thought police.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cDaniel has broken no laws,\u201d Sanchez Estrada\u2019s family said in a statement to The Intercept. \u201cHe should not be in jail, should not be threatened to lose his permanent resident status as a part of this case.\u201d<\/p>\n Criminalizing possession of literature is a miscarriage of justice, whether in prison or at a protester\u2019s husband\u2019s parents\u2019 house. If the Trump administration is allowed to send Sanchez Estrada to prison for the crime of possessing literature, members of society at large can be subjected to the same pernicious rules as the incarcerated.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n
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