Frank Kaplan - Slate.com (May 29, 2009)

War Stores

There Are Already 355 Terrorists in American Prisons
The preposterous arguments against allowing Gitmo detainees into the U.S.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Friday, May 29, 2009, at 5:33 PM ET

President Obama's remark that some Guantanamo detainees might be transferred to American prisons has prompted an extraordinary, and intellectually feeble, storm of protest. Former Vice President Dick Cheney kicked off the campaign when he said, during his May 21 speech at the American Enterprise Institute, that "to bring the worst terrorists inside the United States would be a cause for great danger and regret in the years to come." Sitting lawmakers—especially those from states such as Kansas and Colorado where federal prisons are based—raised the same specter and shouted the ancient cry of principled rebellion: "Not In My Back Yard!"

It makes one wonder: Do any of these legislators know who's in their backyards already, with no apparent detriment to their constituents' daily lives, much less the nation's security?

According to data provided by Traci L. Billingsley, spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, federal facilities on American soil currently house 216 international terrorists and 139 domestic terrorists. Some of these miscreants have been locked up here since the early 1990s. None of them has escaped. At the most secure prisons, nobody has ever escaped, period.

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http://www.slate.com/id/2219268/