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From the Editor

In addition to PLN's own censorship litigation for prisoners we also undertake advocacy and support for prisoner rights on behalf of prisoners in other court cases. In the current supreme court term, PLN submitted an amicus brief in Goodman v. Georgia, a case involving prisoners' right to sue states for money damages under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The supreme court ruled unanimously in favor of the prisoner.

Prison Legal News was also the lead amicus in a brief submitted by various publishing groups, including Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Freedom to Read Foundation, the Association of American publishers, the Publishers Marketing Association and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression in Banks v. Beard, a lawsuit challenging a Pennsylvania prison rule barring prisoners in long term control units from receiving all non religious books and publications. That case will be decided later this term.

PLN also submitted an amicus brief in Williams v. Donald, at the district court level. The case involves a challenge to the Georgia prison system's ban on material downloaded from the internet.

We have also filed an amicus brief in a certiorari petition to the US Supreme Court on behalf of Michigan prisoners in the case of Williams v. Overton concerning the administrative exhaustion provisions of the Prison Litigation Reform Act. On March 6, 2006, the Supreme Court granted review.
This is in addition to PLN's own censorship and public records litigation. We do this with no staff attorneys or litigation budget despite the fact that it is both time and resource consuming. We recently sent out PLN's annual fundraiser and we hope you will find these efforts worth supporting. PLN gets a lot done with a very limited budget and our hardworking staff. If you can afford to make a donation, please do so. Any amount, no matter how small, helps. Wondering what to do with extra 37 cent stamps and envelopes now that postage has gone up? Send them to PLN, we send out hundreds of pieces of mail every day, stamps are always welcome.

PLN currently has a circulation of around 4,600 subscribers. I think this number is ridiculously small given the 2.2 million people now imprisoned in the US and their family members. More so since PLN is the longest publishing prisoner rights magazine with a national circulation in US history as we come up on our 16th anniversary and 190 published issues. We are undertaking sample mailings to potential subscribers. We need your help to expand our circulation. While postage and printing costs keep going up we have kept our subscription prices ridiculously low, especially given the quality and depth of the information PLN presents each month. While other magazines folded, we increased our size to bring readers more prison and jail news. One way to hold our costs down, and keep subscription rates at their current prices, is to increase our circulation so the per issue printing and postage cost goes down. If PLN can double its circulation to 10,000 subscribers in the next year we will be able to do this.

Encourage friends, attorneys, family members and people interested in the criminal justice system to subscribe. We are happy to send an information packet on request with full book and subscription details. People can learn more about us on our website at www.prisonlegalnews.org. Your friends value your opinion. If you like PLN and what we have to offer, let other like minded people know. Enjoy this issue of PLN and encourage others to subscribe.

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