The congressmen said they understand the need to create jobs and to fill the $27 million facility but that bringing in people identified as federal security threats is not worth the trade-off.

In a letter to Two Rivers, Sen. Max Baucus said "we're not going to bring Al-Qaeda to Big Sky Country - no way, not on my watch."

Sen. Jon Tester said he is "against any proposal to bring Guantanamo detainees to Montana."

Rep. Denny Rehberg said the detainees are terrorists and "we should be doing everything possible to keep them out of our country, let alone our state."

Two Rivers Executive Director Greg Smith said the responses don't surprise him but that he still thinks Hardin is a viable option.

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U.S. Marshal Dwight MacKay said he is opposed, "given the resources we have." The U.S. Marshals Service is likely to be responsible for helping to move the prisoners, he said.

MacKay's term as marshal may be running out as Obama's appointees are beginning to be named. MacKay is a Republican.

"My personal view, not speaking as marshal, I believe it would be inappropriate to consider to bring these types of prisoners to Hardin or any other community in Montana," he said.

Among MacKay's concerns is the transportation issue - not just getting detainees into Montana, but ferrying them between Hardin and Billings for what could be hundreds of pretrial motions and trials.

The James F. Battin U.S. Courthouse in Billings is not designed for the level of security needed, MacKay said, because prisoners can't be completely separated from the public. That would only get worse if more detainees - and high-risk people at that - were brought in, he said. The detainees have to be moved within a year, and a new federal courthouse in Billings won't be built for several years.

"These are not the normal Joe Six-Pack meth users," MacKay said. "This is a different league of people that can be considered a national threat. We have to take the proper steps to ensure the safety of our community, the safety of our courts, the safety of our U.S. attorneys."

He's also not sure how the judges would be able to keep up with the additional cases.

Local court officials have described Montana's federal courts as among the five busiest in the nation and have said that during some years judges here have tried more criminal jury cases than any other federal court in the nation.

Baucus said taking these cases to court would be "taxing not only our Montana federal judges but also potentially additional defense attorneys and prosecutors."

Montana Rep. Denny Rehberg wants the state to consider sending inmates to an empty jail in Hardin.

Rehberg, a Republican, wrote Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer asking him to consider utilizing the Two Rivers Detention Center to meet expected prison housing needs.

The Montana Corrections Advisory Council last week endorsed a plan for 920 new prison beds in the state. An outside consultant's report concluded that up to 3,500 beds will be needed by 2025 to house secure, treatment and community corrections populations. The council was told that the first phase of construction would cost $243 million.

"It's a little hard to understand why the state is considering building new prisons while a brand new facility sits empty in Hardin," Rehberg said in a statement. "As a Montana taxpayer, I want my tax dollars be spent efficiently, and unless we're considering every option, there is going to be duplication and waste. Hardin wants the prisoners. Apparently Montana needs the space. Let's cut through the bureaucracy and sit down together to find a workable solution."

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Rehberg [also -mith] wrote the commissioner of the Alaska Department of Corrections asking for a site visit. TRA plans to respond to a request for proposals to house Alaska inmates that are currently in Arizona. Last year he wrote the Federal Bureau of Prisons in support of Hardin's effort to house low-security federal prisoners. That contract would have required expanding the facility. He also wrote the Idaho Governor's office last year about the potential of that state needing prison space.

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UPDATE 8 a.m.
The Schweitzer administration has responded to the letter from Rep. Denny Rehberg with a letter of its own on the Hardin jail issue.

Department of Corrections Director Mike Ferriter said in a Tuesday letter that the state does not have the large number of extra prisoners right now that Hardin would need. And he said the Hardin facility is a jail, and is not suitably built for the long-term imprisonment of inmates.

Ferriter said most of the Hardin jail consists of pods designed to hold up to two dozen inmates, a layout the state says lacks the sufficient security of prison cells for one or two inmates. He said DOC consultants found the facility would need "extensive remodeling" to meet state standards.

Ferriter said Rehberg should focus his congressional efforts on persuading the federal government to house some of its inmates in Hardin.

QUESTION: If the United States -- if the United States thinks that these people should be held, why shouldn’t they be held in the United States? Why shouldn’t the U.S. take those risks, the attendant risk of holding them, since it’s the one that says they should be held?

REID: I think there’s a general feeling, as I’ve already said, that the American people, and certainly the Senate, overwhelmingly doesn’t want terrorists to be released in the United States. And I think we’re going to stick with that.

QUESTION: What about in imprisoned in the United States?

REID: If you’re...

(CROSSTALK)

REID: If people are -- if terrorists are released in the United States, part of what we don’t want is them be put in prisons in the United States. We don’t want them around the United States.

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REID: I’m saying that the United States Senate, Democrats and Republicans, do not want terrorists to be released in the United States. That’s very clear.

QUESTION: No one’s talking about releasing them. We’re talking about putting them in prison somewhere in the United States.

REID: Can’t put them in prison unless you release them.

QUESTION: Sir, are you going to clarify that a little bit? I mean (OFF-MIKE).

REID: I can’t -- I can’t -- I can’t make it any more clear than the statement I have given to you. We will never allow terrorists to be released in the United States. I think the majority -- I speak for the majority of the Senate.

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QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) because if a detainee -- if a detainee is adjudicated not to be a terrorist, could that detainee then enter the United States?

REID: Why don’t we wait for a plan from the president? All we’re doing now is nitpicking on language that I have given you. I’ve been as clear as I can. I think I’ve been pretty clear.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) what have you heard about (OFF-MIKE)

REID: What you want me to be is not very clear.

QUESTION: But Senator, Senator, it’s not that you’re not being clear when you say you don’t want them released. But could you say -- would you be all right with them being transferred to an American prison?

REID: Not in the United States.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

REID: I think I’ve had about enough of this.

This raises the difficult question: what should we do with these would-be terrorists while they await trial? And if they are convicted, what then? I assume that if it's too dangerous to move people at Guantanamo to the United States, it must be much too dangerous to allow these jihadists to run loose in our prisons. After all, they might provide financing for other jihadists from their supermax cells, or radicalize other prisoners, or use special Terrorist Mind Control Techniques to create a whole army of brainwashed convicts under their complete control.


I'd suggest killing them, cutting them into pieces, and shipping their parts to parts unknown immediately (trials? who can afford trials under these circumstances?), if I weren't afraid that some hitherto unknown al Qaeda trick might allow their reanimated body parts to slither around in search of one another and, eventually, reconstitute themselves as the Islamofascist Undead. Earlier, I thought we should send prisoners into space, but that was before I realized that that would allow them to join forces with the Klingons.

In fact, I can't think of a single thing to do that would not make matters worse.

We're doomed.

I don't understand what is so hard to follow. Perhaps you could point out what you consider the hard parts.

Yeah, you don't let Osama off because they forgot his miranda warning or they didn't have a court ordered phone tap.

Blowing up a plane al qaeda style is much more than a criminal act. It is unconventional warfare. It's conduct was not covered by the Geneva conventions nor do the US Constitution protections for citizens directly apply to foreign unconventional warriors.

Rewarding people who are deliberately flouting those rules, with those rewards, actually makes the world less civilized, not moreso.

Kumbaya

If I were an enemy combatant being taken in by Sarge I'd be a lot more worried about getting to the stockade alive than whether I got mirandized or not.

Liberals are just wrong about that. Volumes could be written and have been written making it clear why rich muslim kids from western universities and reeling from the nihilistic non-sense they are taught there, end up going back to their roots but with a whole new violent twist. Gitmo isn't building them. A confluence of the spirit and philosophies of the modern world, Saudi financed wahabi indoctrination, impotent rage and emasculation over the place of the moslem world in the current age, and Koranic end-times prophesies have infinately more to do with their motivations than does Gitmo.

I listed five.

I just connect the dots.