Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano attempted to assure the nation that transferring Islamic mass murders from Guantanamo Bay to U.S. shores poses no danger. “There’s no question in my mind that those detainees who would be moved to the United States would be held in such a fashion that they would not be any threat to public safety, and I say that as a former prosecutor.” I fail to see how assurances from a lawyer are more comforting than knowing Osama bin Laden’s cutthroats are cooling their heels under the watchful eyes of U.S. Marines.
One legitimate concern centers on the security at prison facilities that will eventually hold Gitmo’s killers. A recent news story provides some chilling answers.
Until recently, Michal Preclik’s, a native of the Czech Republic, was a guard at Nebraska’s Tecumseh State Correctional Institution, a maximum-security prison. That is, until it was discovered the international police agency Interpol sought Preclik on drug and fraud charges. Patrick Barker, a prison officer who worked with Preclik, told the London Daily Telegraph, “I was shocked when I found out. Here we have a guy facing drug and fraud charges and we're dealing with contraband issues at the prison.” “This is just unbelievable that the state of Nebraska is hiring international criminals,” Nebraska State Senator Heath Mello told the Associated Press. “Who's minding the store?”
Who’s minding the store, indeed? In fact, corruption among America’s prison guards is epidemic, and the contraband issue is key. In late 2008, 46 Texas prison guards were charged with smuggling 132 cell phones into Texas prisons, one to an inmate on death row. As the National Security Agency’s intercept program clearly indicates, cell phones play a vital role in terrorist operations. A 2006 ABC News story reported a “surge in the purchase of large quantities of disposable cell phones by individuals from the Middle East and Pakistan.”
Now, Obama plans to transfer the world’s most dangerous terrorists from a secure military island prison to dump into our U.S. prison population. Who would you rather have guarding these dangerous misfits – armed Marines or out-of-shape prison screws on the take?
-- Mr. Curmudgeon
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