Amid the backdrop of the American healthcare debate, Al-Jazeera English ran a special report on September 17, 2009 on the fate of the mentally ill in US jails and prisons. Before Al-Jazeera reporter Josh Rushing (a former US Marine public affairs officer) could illuminate this rarely-reported topic, however, controversy engulfed the investigation, sparking questions of the right to a free press.

On September 5, The Houston Chronicle reported that Jared Woodfill, Chairman of the Harris County Republican Party in Texas, admonished Democratic Sheriff Adrian Garcia for allowing Al-Jazeera into the county jail to cover a story. Harris County trails only Los Angeles and New York City for the largest daily jail population, according to Forbes and numerous other sources.

Al-Jazeera is not the only network covering this issue. For instance, a Forbes report this July notes that the Harris County jails are notoriously used to house homeless people with mental illnesses, which was the reason for Rushing’s focus on Houston. Deputy Simon Ramirez says, “Nobody wants to build a mental health hospital. They use jails to warehouse people who have mental health issues.”

The Houston Chronicle reports Woodfill saying, in his criticism of the sheriff’s decision, “We think it's odd, at best, to have Al-Jazeera going through our jails and actually interviewing folks […] Second, we don't believe our chief law enforcement officer should be promoting an organization that has been linked to Al-Qaeda and other terrorist or quasi-terrorist organizations. So we thought it was important to let our folks know what was going on.”

Sheriff Garcia’s office pointed to the lack of evidence behind Woodfill’s accusation of terrorist ties, reminding audiences that even the officials at the highest levels of the American government regularly hosted the network for reports.

“We decided that what was good enough for the Bush administration and the Pentagon was good enough for the Harris County Sheriff's Office, and we're proud to have welcomed a US Marine home to Texas so he could do this story,” said Alan Bernstein, a spokesman for Garcia. Bernstein noted that the office had “fully vetted” Al-Jazeera’s request, finding it to be entirely legitimate.

In addition to criticizing Sheriff Garcia, Woodfill reportedly urged GOP supporters to “voice concerns” to the sheriff’s office, mistakenly listing the number to call as the county’s emergency dispatch number. Woodfill later sent an email correcting the error.

Woodfill’s argument, which he repeated in a September 9 letter to the editor published in the Houston Chronicle, rests on the accusation that Al-Jazeera has ties to Al-Qaeda. [“] He cited as evidence “the numerous videos Al-Qaida’s leader, Osama Bin Laden, provided to Al-Jazeera, which with [sic] willingly played as our soldiers stood in harm’s way.” He went on to attack reporter Josh Rushing for his criticism of the Bush administration and his reports on religious extremists in the US.

Reader Lyndon Peters of Houston wrote a response to Woodfill’s letter in a September 11 letter to the editor. Peters wrote: “Al-Jazeera's status as a news organization is not invalidated just because it may not report the news the way Woodfill wants it reported. His complaints about Josh Rushing are similarly questionable.”

This was not the first such controversy instigated by Jared Woodfill. In 2007, The Houston Chronicle reports that Woodfill came out in angry opposition to the Texas Senate’s decision to allow a Muslim cleric to lead prayers around the Christian Easter holiday. "I'm shocked that the day before the Easter recess that a Muslim is leading the prayer," Woodfill said. "They should be having a celebration about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ."

Lyndon Peters’ September 11 letter to the editor in The Houston Chronicle brought up an American media network which “has done several stories about the problematic actions of evangelical Christians at the Air Force Academy. According to one 2005 story, Lt. General John Rosa, then the superintendent of the academy, admitted there were real problems around the issue.”

The network? CBS. Peters wrote, “For that, I suppose Woodfill would want CBS News banned from Harris County facilities as well.”