California's prison system has barred any face-to-face contact between prisoners and any member of the media. This is in effect, writes PNS commentator Michael Kroll, a new sedition law and one that has been imposed because the prisons have much to hide. Kroll, an associate editor of Pacific News Service, specializes in criminal justice and death penalty issues.

Shearwood Fleming spent 44 days in solitary confinement pending investigation of a "conspiracy to mastermind a sabotage effort" at a San Diego prison. Charles Irvin spent 44 days in solitary confinement for "attempting to impugn [the] credibility" of that prison.

Both were then transferred to other prisons as threats to the "safety and security" of the Richard J. Corcoran Correctional Facility.

Their crime?

The two men had publicly criticized a business program sponsored by the California Department of Corrections (CDC) called "CMT Blues" -- a garment sewing operation inside the prison. Fleming sewed collars. Irvin sewed hems.

Fleming charged that part of his job was to remove labels reading "Made in Honduras" from shirts and replace them with "Made in USA" labels.

Shortly after the two were put in the hole, a staffer at the prison, who has worked for the CDC for 19 years, confirmed these allegations in a phone call to the Prison Law Office, a prisoners' rights legal organization. This person asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation.

The assistant director of the joint venture program, Noreen Blonien, denies any fraud, and says CMT Blues reflects "real world work situations." But real world employers do not usually have the authority to punish a public complaint with more than six weeks in solitary confinement.

This has the ring of the "sedition acts." These laws, barring almost any public criticism of authority, were thrown out with the election of Thomas Jefferson in 1798. They have been revived since in times of war and perceived national emergency, always over the objections of those who advocate freedom of the press.

But "sedition acts" certainly describes the current policy in California's prisons. It bans face to face media contacts with any of the state's more than 160,000 prisoners, and punishes any prisoner with the temerity to criticize their keepers in the media.

This ban was put into place without public notice in 1995. A bill reversing the ban passed by large majorities in both houses of the legislature in 1997. Tom McClintock, a strong law and order Republican, supported the bill because he thinks the media should keep the public informed about the state's largest public employer. The CDC, with 33 prisons and 44,000 employees, has a budget of $4 billion, more than the Gross National Product of Honduras or Jamaica.

Even the guards' union, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, testified in favor of the bill.

But the one man who received more of the officers' political contributions than any other, Governor Pete Wilson, vetoed the bill.

The ban is still in effect. Boston Woodard, a trustee with a 15-year clean record, was stripped naked and put in solitary less than two hours before he was scheduled to give a telephone interview to a local reporter. He was then fired from his position as editor of the state's last remaining prison newspaper when he objected to the media ban. 

California is not the only state to have revived the crime of sedition for prisoners. In a survey, the Society of Professional Journalists found that few states -- ironically, including North Carolina, Texas and Utah -- still allow the media access to their prisons.

Most states impose conditions on media interviews with prisoners that go beyond security considerations. Some give full discretion to the head of the correction department. Others exclude freelance journalists, and many make judgments based on the content of interviews. "We look for compelling reasons why the interview should take place," Idaho's prison spokesperson wrote, "how will the interview benefit the department?"

Few take the total ban approach of the CDC. The state's prison spokesperson Tip Kindel has dismissed protests of the ban as the complaint of a "special interest group" unhappy at losing its "perks."

The sad truth is that California prisons have much to hide. At Corcoran itself, shortly before the ban was imposed, some guards tried to blow the whistle on colleagues who were setting up gang fights as a way to amuse the staff -- and then firing on the unarmed combatants, killing at least seven.

In addition:

• 16 California prisoners died violently last year, the highest total in more than a decade

• Del Norte County's district attorney has accused prison officials of attempting to block an investigation of eight killings in Pelican Bay in recent weeks.

• Tensions are so high at the new High Desert State Prison in Susanville that the 4,000 men imprisoned there are in virtually total lockdown most of the time.

These revelations are almost certainly just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. With more than a million people locked behind our prison walls, we can only guess how large and how ugly that iceberg really is.