Dartblog

Long known for their often overstated Guantanamo Bay concerns, the city of Denver has, in an ironic twist of fate, created a secret prison dubbed “Gitmo on the Platte” for protesters at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Looks like civil liberties might not apply to those protesting “The One”. Located on municipal property, the detention center is situated near near Steele Street and 38th Avenue. Inside the warehouse are cells created by barbed wire. Activists were enraged to find out that this secret “arrest-processing” center was kept hidden from the public, indicating that city officials knew of the uproar that such a facility would create.

One wonders the extent to which the Democratic Party is aware of the detention center. If they are, and one imagines that they must be, it exposes the hypocrisy of American politics. Liberals are often the first to scream about freedom of speech, but also the first to impose speech codes on those with whom they disagree. They routinely make a fuss about the well publicized detentions of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, but havee no qualms about preparing a secret facility for use on American citizens. It is impossible to tell the circumstances under which such a facility will be used, but it does not take a feat of the imagination to fears for the safety of America’s first black presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, running rampant. As convention organizers attempt to assure the community that the facility is simply a bigger version of their city jail, activists are skeptical.

“What’s going to happen here is police are going to detain people for an inordinate amount of time,” said Unconventional Denver organizer Ben Yager. “They’re going to use this as an excuse to keep people out of the courts and off of the streets.”