The Local newsletter is your free, daily guide to life in Colorado. For locals, by locals. Sign up today!
U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar is none too pleased with last week’s report by the Justice Department on security flaws at Supermax. He wrote a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales today asking him to fix the problems.
The Bureau of Prisons took steps to limit high-risk inmates’ mail and telephone calls after convicted terrorists at Supermax, the federal maximum-security prison in Florence, Colo., were found to have written an estimated 90 letters between 2002 and 2004 to Islamic extremists. The letters later surfaced in the hands of a terror suspect who used them to recruit suicide operatives. Among other problems, Salazar pointed out in his letter, the bureau failed to read all of the mail from the highest-risk prisoners and monitored less than half the telephone calls made by Supermax prisoners on the “alert list,” which includes convicted terrorists.
Get ahead of holiday shopping this year!Gift 12 issues of 5280 magazine for just $16 »
Salazar is requesting Gonzales to provide him with a response detailing the corrective actions taken. The Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post both have weighed in on the problem.