"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons" -Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"When injustice becomes law, Resistance becomes duty" - Thomas Jefferson

" What people in power do, when they are not watched." That's a mouthful.

This is what we know. Now, imagine what we don't know. Smh.

Meanwhile, the news is focusing on the cups at Starbucks being less Christmasy this year.

When I see a talk like this, held by a person who genuinely cares and wants to change the world for the better, it inspires me more than anything else ever could. It makes me want to do the same: To fight for the greater good of all of humanity.

The sad truth is that anyone can be labeled a terrorist. Anyone whom the government doesn't like for whatever reason.

This is five years old, yet it is the first time that I have heard of it.

The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness. However, that's never the case in America, as Secrecy is the foundation of politics. Many of the benefits from keeping terrorism fear levels high are obvious. Private corporations suck up massive amounts of Homeland Security cash as long as that fear persists, while government officials in the National Security and Surveillance State can claim unlimited powers and operate with unlimited secrecy and no accountability.

Amazing. True journalism. And truly heartbreaking.

OK, it's 2020 and this is the first I'm hearing of this. TED needs to cowboy up and broadcast the important stuff.

I've been behind those mentally breaking bars, i actually cried the day I left, mourning those left behind 💔 😢, I have NEVER and will NEVER forget even one 💔 😔 😢

Wow, best TED talk i've seen in a while.

"It is the duty of the PATRIOT to PROTECT his Country from its GOVERNMENT." -Thomas Paine

"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons," Dostoevsky

One of the most important speach among TEDtalks. We should be educated more often on human issues like this one. Thank you for your work and presentation.

By the way. the short answer to why this can happen despite being illegal is: The people who organize secret prisons are either immune from lawsuit and court orders, or are simply allowed to ignore lawsuits and court orders. Here's a list of people who that applies to: The president. Every member of his or her cabinet. The governor of your state. Anyone who works for the military. Many, if not most, of the people who work in any intelligence agency. Contractors for military or intelligence agencies. Anyone who isn't officially acknowledged as working for the government. You can't sue someone for running an illegal prison if they're not officially running a prison. Anyone who's employed in these prisons, or work in law enforcement. They're just following orders, after all, and following orders is always legal. The rationale goes: If we prosecuted public officials, the government would lose legitimacy. Public officials require legitimacy to remain in power - and, of course, their power is the only thing keeping the rabble from rioting. Therefore, they don't think they should be prosecuted. And therefore, they get to break the law. Unless they admit they did it on camera, because then the media might cover it. Flagrant violations of US law, if only documented on paper, don't make interesting TV news.

The suffering incurred to prision inmates - in most of the world - is something that has always concerned me. Even though a great deal of them might be indeed guilty, I think that the kind of people that commit crimes are actually the ones who were deprived from love the most, and the ones who just need it more than anyone. Either way, locking, hurting, torturing and humiliating someone, for me, is by no means a form of rehab. Instead, at best it's a form of revenge, and at worst, a complete disregard for the rights of that person as a living being.

Thanks Will, this is proper, important news. It takes bravery, decency, intelligence and hard work. Every thing he said has been researched and can be backed up. Also unlike the cheap, simple news for the masses I feel certain that Will's only agenda is to uncover and expose things that should be in the public knowledge. I hope that enough decent people get to hear this expose and pressure the powers that be into rectifying the situation.

This is very powerful and important. I hope many more people see this video. It just goes to show that we don't live in a free country. And haven't for a very long time. Unfortunately we live in a oligarchy, plutocracy, and fascist state. Thank you.

As an African American, I’m not surprised by this information, knowing how cruel our country can be, especially when things are kept hidden. Thank you for bringing this to the light. I will share this knowledge with as many people as I can and keep these poor people in my prayers. I pray the injustice towards them will be addressed sooner rather than later.

Wow - Just when I thought the investigative journalist was an extinct species....here comes a living fossil.

Thank you so much for your talk. This was so important and I appreciate the work you do.

The Short Answer is literally; The Patriot Act.

TED shows me that there exist heros in real life. Real heros. Thank you for your work.

Great work! We all have a duty to stand up and fight injustice, wherever it may be💗🙏

But the question and most important thing is what can be done about it? The problem is we hear and see all these things but not much is being done by anyone..

Actually, I'm not surprised this is happening in the US still at all.

So I looked up this daniel mcgowan to see what exact crimes he was charged with, and as best I can tell property damage is the biggest actual crime that can be tied to him. Even if it is a high dollar amount of property damage, it's still just property damage. The type of imprisonment he experienced would barely fit for a death row serial killer in a maximum security prison, in an isolation unit.

I feel like the chances of Will Potter ending up in a CMU just rose exponentially after giving this speech...

The best take away of this video is to never get caught. It's all about staying out of the grips of the real criminals. Government is always a criminal endeavor.

“Absolute corruption corrupts absolutely”-forgot who said it, but it makes sense.

It's shocking to see the abuse of animal abuse on farms, in the fur trade, in circuses. . .It's even more shocking that someone who is compassionate about these animals could be subject to a Kafkaesque prison like the CMU. Thank you for giving this talk on TED.

Thank you for bringing this to light..

Thank you. No real surprise here. Never the less good to know you are able to get this story to the public. We have a right to know just how entrenched suppression of basic right to free 'political' speech is in this country, particularly at the Federal level ! I believe we have a right to know what are government is doing in our name and under our Constitution!

The Ministry of Love

its only the land of the free as long as you pay your taxes have alot of money and agree with the law

It is extortion and cruel and unusual what our law enforcement and legal system is doing to law abiding citizens

They don’t really care about us, MJ.

Just remember, the government can put any of you in prison at any time, for any reason... Or no reason at all.

this guy is a hero. there is no self gain for what he is doing

2.5 Million views, I guess we are all on the FBI watch list.

Ironic that the Gov can break the law by opening the prison without an official review.

I absolutely love ted talks like this, deep, thought provoking talks that make me ponder life.

Very accurate reporting. I was witness too these very unconstitutional prisons within prisons.

Thank you for your work.i have heard about these places from people in regular prisons for years.Not many even care .Thank for being human and caring.i care too

This is an excellent argument to DEFUND the system

If we paint a member of our species a monster, we become more susceptible to monstrosity.

What was Sept 11 for again? "THE PATRIOT ACT"

We're all in prison we just don't know it

I enjoy listening to your speech. I had no idea that this was going on. It hurts my heart to see this. My Gods Grace be with these Prisoners

Thank you for shining the light of day on this injustice. We all need to hear it.

We should not have any prison for profit.

The man, keep up the good work.

Thankyou brother for your boldness to tell the truth. May God bless you and protect you from the dark forces, you are in my prayers sir.

😮 What's more surprising is that this is still on Ted.

My 18 yr old son was incarcerated in a Massachusetts prison for a low level non violent drug offense. I was unable to hug him or touch him, or have any physical contact with ”my boy”. As a Dad my heart broke as we placed our hands on the thick glass, as this was as close to touching my son as I would ever have. Five hours of driving to get 30 minutes of visitation with no ability to even give him a hug. I cried on and off all the way home back to Vermont . He was held there, turning 19 in jail, for six months without formal charges ever being made. Against Massachusetts law, regardless they held him. Every call $5.00 a minute, unable to afford an attorney, my son...like many others was literally stuck in that place. Since returning he is not the same person who went in rather worse. My heart sinks knowing non violent people with addiction issues are being used as a source of income. The “Commonwealth” of Massachusetts is destroying lives for profit. And it’s not just there but across the country. We need to change our prison system, as privatization of prisons creates incentives to keep everyone incarcerated for as long as they can to boost their profits. I know some will say “hey, you do the crime you do the time”, yet I also know many of these same people would have a very different view if it were their son or daughter. Again, this was all for a non violent drug related crime, in which his addiction was the reason he was there in the first place. An addiction he could not get help for here in VT though he & we as a family tried. If you don’t have the money, you don’t get the help.

Why is the prison that has never been inspected still open

Prison sucks,but at the same time it saved my life. Glad it's over!

same things have happened in Latin America Russia north Korea china ect "The moment you refuse the human rights of just a few What happens when that few includes you?"

Well we're all on a list now.

TWO AND A HALF MILLION VIEWS ON THIS VIDEO.. that means two and half million of us are made known of this . What can we do about it?

Makes you wonder who is really running this country. Who rules the potis?

land of the free everybody

wake up people this is just a small picture of what they have been doing. ! ALL GOVERNMENTS ARE RUN BY CRIMINALS. WAKE UP NOW

He says he's not arguing their innocence yet he is.

Amazing work!!!

These are not secret prisons. This is your county jail. Everything that he just explained I've experienced at County Jail down to the solitary confinement

The simple definition of Government is... "To Control" ......

Another REAL JOURNALIST getting the word out what's really going on. Thank you Will Potter and there are any other REAL JOURNALISTS out there please come out. We would love to here what you have to say

Check out "As the Key Turns" on a 23year guard at Marion. It’s really good.

The Patriot Act allowed for all of these abuses of power.

Wow America. Arresting someone for sending medical supplies to childrens in iraq. He is not guilty of any crime. Politics should not decid that someone shall not live tomorrow just becouse they live in that contry or region. Politics is about helping each other. That man is not a criminal but the judge, the goverment and everyone involved with his imprisoment is gulty in my eyees.

Loved this one thank you

When I was in prison we was told that the new unit was CMU was controlled management unit. I was sent to the unit and spent a year in there I will tell you that you have very little Communication with any prisoner or outside world. What I hated the most was the lights are on 7 days a week and 24 hours a day

I was a prisoner in Oregon. I was held in privately owned state operated prisons I was given 3 minutes of free phone calls a month and had to pay 40 cents a minute for additional time. They make money of off prisoners and there loved ones.

Well im on some kind of list now. Hi Us government

I have a cousin who was in that prison in Illinois. He told me about another prison that he was in right before he was sent to that one you're talking about in Illinois and that was right in Chicago. This is where he was first sent until having to go to the 1 in Illinois. He said the first one he went to he didn't get to see the building he was going into which was right in the middle I've Chicago. They had a black mask over his head when entering this first building which is where you're interrogated and tortured although they never used any torture tactics on him. He said he got to talk to very few of the other prisoners. The only other prisoners he got to talk to was the inmate trustees. That's how he found out that he was in 8 story building in Downtown Chicago. He also was told that there was mainly people from the Middle East but there were also politicians, CIA and FBI agents that went rogue. The guy even told him one of the only guys he got to talk to and also one of his guards he became friendly with said there's even people in here that are dead to their families and friends. He said he was actually a bit relieved when he got to the other prison in Illinois. He said he got to talk to a little bit more people but most of them couldn't speak English nor even wanted to talk to him. He met some french guy who could speak English and many other languages. is how my cousin ended up in this place because my cousin was already working for the government as a chemist. on the side my cousin would make LSD 2 pay off his huge gambling debts. He like to bet on sports. One day once again he got into the mob or some powerful people and He was ordered to makeup big batch of Crystal LSD. Then they asked him to go and break up the crystals into liquid for them what she did. Little did Keno he was really being set up by one of those guys who got himself in trouble with the FBI. That's why they had him make it up into liquid so they could get a bigger charge. He should have known. but he made the delivery and was busted by the FBI. they got a warrant and went to his house and went through his lab. they found all this what they called a manifest where he was going to take huge supplies of LSD and Lace certain Water Supplies in Washington DC and several other locations. it also named specific targets of prominent politicians that would be Mega dose of LSD. This was really just a book that my cousin was writing. or that's what he claimed. I know it really was a story because my cousin first started coming up with this story when he was in college before he knew how to make LSD back when me and him were just dropping acid. My cousin is so thorough cuz he's so brilliant about the way he goes about everything. So when he actually told me he was going to write the story which I already had red several different drafts of what was going into this supposes story previous to him actually deciding he was going to write the story and eventually hope it would become a movie. my cousin sees the whole picture of things. so he was about three years into riding this incredible fictional story. Well it wasn't actually quite fiction because there was this guy back in the 70s who really was planning this and who told my cousin basically his plan that never came to pass. so my cousin always used to tell us the story when we were tripping of this guy he knew who had this incredible plan to dose the politicians in Washington DC. So my cousin was charged with conspiracy 2 poison the population or something like that. plus he was busted for huge amounts of LSD that would accomplish such a task. basically for some reason that my cousin won't get into believes the FBI fully set him up by having some guy come to him that he owed to make this amount of LSD to make it look like he was going to poison. Although they didn't find this supposed book or manifest until after he was busted with the acid. but later he found out that they did in fact have information because my cousin's ex-girlfriend went to the went to went to the FBI went to the FBI after finding a bunch of papers of this story and turning it in to them because they were in a heated custody battle. My cousin was in that place in Illinois for over a year-and-a-half without seeing a judge or basically not talking to anybody but continuously being interrogated over and over. when they let him go they let him go having to face the LSD charges in court. they literally told him if he told anybody when he went to court to face trial for his LSD about being in this prison and being interrogated for a year-and-a-half. that day would come back and he would never be seen again. he was told just to go 2 quart Too Faced his drug charges and that he better plead guilty. my cousin complied exactly knowing that they were 100% serious and especially after of what he just went through over a year-and-a-half. The only people my cousin has ever told was a few of his family members and Friends. he went to court pleaded guilty for the drug charges just like he was told and was given a five-year sentence for possession of a huge quantity of LSD basically an attempt to sell. since it wasn't a violent crime he was given halftime and served about 2 and 3/4 years. He says he was never tortured but he was fully psychologically tortured you can easily tell. He said how he was warned by one of the other prisoners two don't let them keep on making you repeat the story over and over. refused to tell him the story except maybe once a week or once a month. or He said Each time they sit down with you only tell them the story once and no more than once. cuz what they gets you to do by repeating the story over and over and over again. they can make you tell the story over and over as they add in suggestions so finally your story changes and you say what they want you to say. to where you're confessing to the crime. they would deprive him of food and water unless he came in and went over his stories multiple times. but he was able to withstand these techniques and literally after months of being interrogated. they finally shipped him to that prison in Illinois that the video is talking about. but my friend now out of imprisonment he is just not the same you can tell he was seriously f***** with

300 minutes a year is a lot more than than never being heard from the victim they murdered.

Msm should be in cmu's.

Can we start flying the flag upside down I feel my country is in great distress. These lawyers and judges need to be held accountable.

You get banned from Facebook for talking about this man who has not committed ANY crime !!!! Hes currently behind bars and silenced ! Please research this absolute travesty of justice and stitched up poor man 😢🥺😢 his name: T o mmy Robin SON

We need way more ppl like this guy.

No one wins when Freedom fails, the best men rot in filthy jails, and those who cried appease appease, we're hung by those they tried to please. Hiram Mann

So much for Western democracy, SMH. America has a lot to fix at home before attempting to school others.

Respect from Ireland my friend keep up the good work.

I love this piece.... would a story on PRIVATE prisons be in the works? The government paying these private companies to house individuals but the companies only using a small percentage of what is given to them and profiting the rest....

The U.S is literally a giant prison state. We have less than 5% of the world's population, yet we currently have around 25% of the world's prison population incarcerated within U.S. prisons. We have the highest incarceration rate in the world, by a good margin. It has been said that “no other society in human history has imprisoned so many of its own citizen." regardless if that's a difficult fact to verify, the true point is that the U.S. justice system is extremely flawed and needs serious reform. Again, less than 5% of the world's population yet The U.S.A imprisons around 25% of the world's prison population.. I'm far from a mathematician but those numbers don't add up right to me.

After that day he was never to be seen again...

Another example of how far humanity has yet to grow.

I retired after 25 years and the prison I was at never allowed phone calls in 12 of the housing units and none received visits hardly ever, they remained locked down 24 hours and received 1 hour of recreation every other day.

If they're going to make a movie about him I suggest Edward Norton as obvious choice :))

It really does seen like the only right Americans care about is the right to bare arms. Huh...

Innocent people should never be framed, or falsely charged and incarcerated for a crime they did not commit ... simply to close a case to the satisfaction of law enforcement or prosecution because it fits their theory. On the other hand, those who are in prison and a risk to society need to stay behind bars, including those who violate national security laws.

Wonderfully told good man!!

Wow that's just sad thank you! For exposing these inhumane places! I can tell you truly care about people? I'm very thankful that they're people like you that still care! my nephew many years ago was in a federal prison? and he doesn't speak much about it? He only said it's far worse! than any other type of prison? I have included these people in my prayers and you as well please keep doing your work!! Thank you and God bless you!🙏❤️☮️

This is happening in NYC, as they are slowly dismantling Rikers Island (one pebble at a time), and putting prisoners on barges - they've been on barges...

The reason families cannot hug or touch family is because of the potential to obtain contraband..Yes this is a real concern..I worked in a prison for over ten years and family does bring in contraband..

That guy at the end... his suit, his sneakers, his hair, his multiple pairs of glasses... definitely a fed, lol.

Wow. This was very interesting. I had no idea