As the first reporters and protesters begin to descend on federal Death Row in Terre Haute, Ind., prison officials said McVeigh will be limited to 300 minutes of telephone calls, lasting no more than 15 minutes a day, for the remaining month of his life. No jailhouse interviews will be permitted, and reporters will be asked to honor a ban on recording calls. Ashcroft said at a Washington news conference. Ashcroft said the U.S. Bureau of Prisons and the FBI will use encryption software and other technology to thwart any attempts to tap into a closed-circuit video feed of McVeigh's execution, which will be broadcast live over digital phone lines for survivors and relatives of the dead assembled in Oklahoma.
Federal law prohibits the broadcast from being recorded.
The heavy restrictions underscore the struggle by federal officials to provide access to an event with global interest, while remaining sensitive to victims of the deadliest terrorist act on U.S. soil. Thousands of journalists, activists and spectators are expected in Terre Haute for McVeigh's death by lethal injection, the first federal execution since 1963. Ashcroft's request, coupled with the formal announcement of the closed-circuit broadcast, was cheered by many victims of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, which killed 149 adults and 19 children. E-mail this story to a friend. All rights reserved.