Though the prospect of so many dangerous new neighbors may have stirred mixed feelings about the prison in any small community, the publisher of the town where the prison was built says citizens are happy with the way it worked out.

Bob Wood has been publisher of The Florence Citizen in Florence, Colo., since 1987, and he was a writer there for six years before that. As communities in Iowa and Illinois consider the possible transformation of the Thomson, Ill., prison into a federal “supermax” facility, Wood’s experiences could prove useful for analyzing the potential impacts of such a plan.

The U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, also known as ADX Florence or “The Alcatraz of the Rockies,” opened 15 years ago. It sits on 37 acres of land, contains just under 500 beds for prisoners, and is one of three correctional facilities that comprise the Florence Federal Correctional Complex, each with a different security level.

“Our area is the headquarters for the state prison system, so prisons were nothing new to us,” Wood said in a telephone interview with The Iowa Independent Thursday.

“When the Bureau of Federal Prisons originally started looking, we had an old Catholic school and monastery that had been closed down and already had a lot of classroom-type buildings and offices. Our economic development council was actively seeking somebody to fill that property. They got in touch with the bureau, but that was not deemed to be a suitable location, so they started looking at other properties here in Florence.”

The residents of Florence didn’t just actively promote their community as a good spot for the new prison, they raised money to purchase a tract of land for it. Once the land was purchased, they donated it to the Bureau of Prisons.

All of this took place, of course, before the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building and the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., when terrorism was not on most people’s minds. If citizens of Florence knew then what they know now about the types of people who could be housed in the prison, would they have put so much work into attracting it?

According to Wood, they would.

“We get questions all the time from people wanting to know if we are concerned about housing terrorism suspects. Well, we already have them,” he said. “We’ve had Timothy McVeigh, Ted Kaczynski and some of those others — Zacarias Moussaoui — have all been house there.

“Granted, [if it weren't for recent terrorist attacks like 9/11 and the OKC bombing], there wouldn’t be as many of them. But this is such a secure facility, I don’t know how they could ever possibly communicate with each other and plan something.”

Because the facility houses the most dangerous inmates in the federal prison system, most are kept in seven-by-12-foot cells for 23 hours per day. The one free hour is spent exercising alone in a separate concrete chamber that resembles an empty swimming pool. Specific architectural features, including strategic placement of windows, prevent prisoners from even knowing their exact location within the facility. In a 2007 report with CBS News, the warden described the setting as “a clean version of hell.”

To the facility’s neighbors in Florence, the hell behind the prison walls is hardly noticeable.

“It is very isolated,” Wood said. “We hear very little from it. It just really doesn’t effect the community at all. People find it hard to believe that is true, but we honestly just rarely hear from them. They handle their own medical emergencies and all of those types of things.”

The one thing Wood would tell the people of Clinton, Iowa, and other communities near Thomson as they consider a similar facility nearby is to talk to others who have been through it.

“I went to Sheridan, Oregon to assess the situation there,” he said. “I found what happened there to be very similar to what has happened here. They have the same complaints: That it did not bring immediate financial benefit, but it did, in the long-term, begin to show up.”

If the federal government moves forward with purchasing the Thomson Correctional Center, communities like Clinton and Thomson will, like Florence, see an immediate but temporary economic boost from workers hired to renovate the facility.

“We had some benefit when they were building because many of the construction workers lived in town,” Wood said. “They filled up all the rentals, most of the hotels were full, and the restaurants were always busy. But once that construction phase was over, it took a long time for any real economic impact.”

Because prison guards and other federal prison employees are promoted from within the system, Wood said it took time for locals who hoped to work at the Florence facility to make their way in. Nearly all open positions at the prison were initially filled by existing employees transferred into the area from elsewhere, but now several from the community work there.

The prison has certainly benefitted the local economy, Wood said, but not all of the promises officials made in the planning stages have come to fruition. Officials spoke of a major boon to the region in increased demand for agricultural products and laundry services, for example.

“They promoted that would happen, but I don’t think that every really happened,” Wood said.

Although many Americans would fear the possibility of having suspected terrorists from the Guantanamo Bay military prison in their backyard, Wood says that no one in Florence is concerned about that possibility. Wood also knows that the Florence prison is nearing its full capacity, so the federal government will likely have to find a home for its detainees elsewhere.

“It’s not talked about in restaurants. You can go in, have a cup of coffee and hear the conversations around you, and I’ve never heard that [there is fear],” Wood said. “The only time it seems to come up is when the New York Times or someone calls and wants to do a story about it. Then the residents are talking about the media doing the story, but I honestly don’t think people here would be intimidated by that.”

Sholom Rubashkin, who was recently found guilty of 86 charges related to money laundering and fraud in connection with the raid, was set to go back on trial Dec. 2 in Sioux Falls, S.D. on the immigration offenses.

The order for dismissal by Reade follows a request by federal prosecutors filed early Thursday morning.

According to the government’s calculation of the sentencing guidelines, due in large part to the amount of loss associated with defendant’s fraud and false statement convictions, any convictions with regard to Counts 1 through 72 would be entirely eclipsed by defendant’s recommended guideline sentence on the counts for which he has already been convicted. This is not to minimize the importance of those counts, but at least for the purposes of the advisory sentencing guideline range, any convictions on Counts 1 through 72 would have no impact upon defendant’s sentence. However, any evidence of immigration violations would be relevant conduct that the Court could consider at sentencing even without a second trial.

In the government’s estimation, now that defendant has been convicted on the most serious offenses charged in the pending indictment (in terms of potential penalties), and given that a jury has determined defendant committed crimes by making false statements about the harboring of undocumented aliens at Agriprocessors, Inc., and his knowledge of undocumented workers at Agriprocessors, Inc., dismissal without prejudice of Counts 1 through 72 and the forfeiture allegation is the most appropriate and efficient manner in which to proceed in this case. Dismissal will avoid an extended and expensive trial, conserve limited judicial and prosecutorial resources, and lessen the inconvenience to witnesses. The public interest has been substantially served because of the convictions and jury findings noted above. The government asks that such dismissal be without prejudice so criminal charges and the forfeiture allegation could be reinitiated based upon a change in circumstances or a reevaluation of present
circumstances.

According to documents filed with the court, Rubashkin’s legal team had no objection to dismissal of the charges.

Prosecutors also noted in their motion to dismiss that the current financial condition of Agriprocessors, Inc. as a company “and the fact that it is an empty shell” were justifiable reasons for not pursuing possible forfeiture charges.

Rubashkin, 50, and other senior members of the Agriprocessors management and executive team still face a state trail, currently scheduled to begin next spring, on alleged violation of child labor laws.

Currently, Rubashkin is being held by federal authorities, pending a decision in a bail hearing held Wednesday.

Jill Kozeny, communications director for Grassley, was responding to an Iowa Independent story in which Kiernan attacked the senator’s comparison of civilian trials for terror suspects to the murder trial of O.J. Simpson. Kiernan called Grassley’s comparison “fear mongering” designed to “distract from the larger national security issues facing our country.” He said Grassley was calling into question the constitutional right to a trial by jury.

While questioning U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Wednesday during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Grassley was attempting to make the point that assurances from the administration that the suspects would never be acquitted were not enough.

Holder said in response to Grassley’s questions that the likelihood of acquittal is remote, and if it were to happen, the suspects would never be released in the U.S. Justice Department officials told the New York Times that even if suspects are acquitted, the Obama administration will keep them locked up forever as a “combatant” under the laws of war.

“As Sen. Grassley revealed with the questions he asked yesterday, the administration’s argument for trying the terrorists in a federal court is a hollow one because the Attorney General pledged to keep the terrorists as enemy combatants regardless of the outcome in the courtroom,” she said. “The real questions are, why are terrorists being given more rights than U.S. service members fighting overseas, and why are Americans being subjected to an expensive security risk on U.S. soil if the terrorists could end up being held by the United States under military detention, just as they are being held today?”

Kozeny said Holder’s promise that the suspects will be convicted has “threatened the fairness of the trial by jury that is the bedrock of the U.S. Constitution,” a fact she says undermines Kiernan’s attacks.

While questioning Attorney General Eric Holder about the idea of prosecuting five men accused as co-conspirators in the Sept. 11 attacks in a federal court in New York, Grassley said assurances that they will be convicted ring hollow since “I think a lot of Americans thought O.J. Simpson ought to be convicted of murder, rather than being in jail for what he’s in jail for now. It seemed to me ludicrous.”

“I’m a farmer, not a lawyer, but I just wanted to make an observation,” Grassley said.

Kiernan said Grassley is engaging in “Karl Rove-style fear-mongering tactics” that are designed to “distract from the larger national security issues facing our country.”

“Trial by jury is the bedrock of the US Constitution,” Kiernan said. “Grassley calls this constitutional right into question and insults the American people, who every day make difficult and complicated decisions. There is simply no place for Grassley’s disrespectful politicization of this issue in today’s debate.”

After Grassley’s statement, Holder assured Iowa’s senior senator that even if acquitted terror suspects would not be released in the U.S.

Liberal blog Talking Points Memo has video of the exchange between Grassley and Holder.

When asked if the detainees would put Iowa residents in danger, Grassley indicated that people in Virginia, when faced with a similar situation, expressed safety concerns.

“From what I’ve heard from people around Virginia… that when there was some talk six months ago about housing them in Virginia, and the people of Virginia were very, very scared,” Grassley said, noting that such fears were expressed by the congressmen representing the area.

Grassley also noted that when the facility near Thomson, Ill., which is being considered as a possible detention site, was originally built there were concerns from Iowans.

“I think there was some concern among Iowans in Clinton at that particular time about the prison across the [Mississippi] River, that — even before they were talking about housing terrorists — [caused] some concern about having it there,” he said. “But they didn’t have anything to say over it, but there was some, some of that fear expressed.”

After noting that the Federal Bureau of Prisons has never had an escape from a facility such as the one they are proposing near the state line, and that there had also been no issues with external threats, a reporter on the conference call questioned Grassley if such fears were reasonable.

“Well, you know, it’s not something I’m going to worry about, because I’m opposed to these people coming here in the first place,” Grassley said.

Although Grassley was not aware at the start of the conference call of any telephone calls into his office concerning use of the facility by federal authorities, staff members informed him that he had received 10 calls just today — all of them opposed to housing detainees at Thomson.

U.S. Rep. Tom Latham has indicated that he will introduce legislation Thursday to block any attempt to house Guantanamo detainees in the Midwest.

U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley has attended a private briefing and various meetings in Thomson and wants further input from Iowa residents potentially impacted before making up his mind.

“I’m not going to engage in political fear mongering about something that is very serious to the safety and security to the people I represent,” Braley said Wednesday afternoon on a conference call with reporters.

In particular, Braley singled out Matt Strawn, chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa, as someone who appears to be engaged in politicizing the discussion. Earlier today Strawn issued a press release that called on Braley, who has not yet made a decision regarding the move of detainees to the Illinois facility, to “reverse his support for housing Guantanamo terrorist detainees on American soil and near the Iowa border.”

“My question for people like Matt Strawn is, ‘Where were you when convicted terrorists were being housed in federal prisons in the Midwest?’ There are 340 inmates, who are either connected to international or domestic terrorism, and 35 of those inmates are currently already incarcerated in federal prisons in the state of Illinois.”

One of those housed in Illinois, according to Braley, is an Al-Qaeda sleeper agent who is an inmate in a federal prison in Marion, Ill. Others include individuals convicted of being involved in international drug cartels.

“If people had taken the time like I did to travel to Thomson, Ill. and get an extensive briefing from the Federal Bureau of Prisons director, they would be aware of this fact,” he said.

Federal authorities are considering the purchase of a prison facility near the town of Thomson, Ill., located just across the Mississippi River from Clinton. The facility, which was constructed in 2001 yet never fully used by the state, would be modified and used as a maximum-security facility that is anticipated not only to house between 100 and 150 detainees from Guantanamo Bay, but also roughly 1,400 other federally convicted individuals. It is unknown at this time if the Federal Bureau of Prisons would still be interested in purchasing the facility if it were not available for housing the terrorism suspects.

On Monday, Braley traveled to Thomson to meet with local authorities and residents, and to receive a private briefing and tour of the prison facility. During the briefing, Braley said many of his questions were about the public services impact that would be experienced by Clinton, which is the largest community in the immediate geographical area.

“I wanted to know how it would impact the people I represent from both a safety/security and economic standpoint,” he said.

The area surrounding the prison in both Iowa and Illinois has been hit hard by the recent economic downturn. The projected economic impact of the facility, if the plan moves forward, is $1 billion annually, based upon the additional federal prison employees that would be hired once the facility is operational and the construction and other workers that would provide the modifications to prepare the facility.

“One of the things I made clear when I met with these officials is that I’m keeping an open mind, and that I would not make up my mind on whether or not I felt this was a good decision until I had been fully briefed and had an opportunity to share concerns that had been expressed with the constituents I represent in Iowa,” said Braley. “We are working right now with the federal officials to try to set up some type of a public meeting on the Iowa side so that residents can come, share their concerns and learn more about how this decision, if it is implemented, will impact them.”

Although details are still being worked out for the exact date of that meeting, Braley said he would like to see it held in Clinton due to the impact the facility will have on that community.

“The thing that people are forgetting is that there is going to be a very large population at the Thomson facility that are not detainees, but are very dangerous individuals — just as there are at other maximum-security federal prisons all over the county,” Braley said. “I think people need to be thinking about the implications of bringing those individuals into the area just as seriously as they are the possibility of bringing very dangerous people in from Guantanamo.”

If the facility is selected and the terrorism suspects from Guantanamo Bay are housed there, those individuals will be transported to the east coast for prosecution and trial. Also, even if they are found not guilty of their charges, none of them will ever be released on U.S. soil. Due to Congressional mandates, those individuals would need to be transported to their home country for release, or perhaps handed to a different country for further criminal prosecution.

Although housing detainees from Guantanamo on American soil has recently become a partisan issue, individuals on both sides of the political aisle have expressed their support for closing the facility, which many believe has become a recruitment rallying cry for terrorists.

Grassley, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee that unanimously approved Rose’s nomination for a full vote, said he would guess that her Senate confirmation is not in jeopardy.

“I’ve had a chance to interview her, and she’s been an assistant U.S. Attorney for a long period of time,” Grassley said during a conference call. “She’s absolutely qualified to do the job she’s been appointed to.”

Rose’s handling of any one particular case, according to Grassley, should not be used as a litmus test for her entire career as a federal prosecutor. He also note how unusual it is for someone within the office ranks to be recommended and nominate for such a post.

“Very seldom does somebody at that professional career track get selected by a U.S. senator,” he said. “They usually pick someone who has been not only a good lawyer, but also very active in the political process… I think it’s quite a feather in Sen. Harkin’s hat that he’d be willing to help someone who’s been a professional all these years to advance to be a U.S. Attorney.”

The New York Times reported Sunday that Rose’s confirmation has been the subject of growing controversy:

Eleventh-hour criticism is arising over President Obama’s nomination for United States attorney in northern Iowa of a prosecutor who had a leading role in the criminal cases against hundreds of illegal immigrants arrested in a May 2008 raid at a meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa.

[...]

Ms. Rose, a senior assistant United States attorney in the office she has been chosen to run, has also garnered support from criminal defense lawyers in Iowa, including at least 11 lawyers who defended immigrants from Postville. In those proceedings, “she exhibited a level of competence and ability that would be hard to overstate,” the lawyers wrote in a letter in April.

But some defense and immigration lawyers have said that felony identity-theft charges against the immigrants were excessively harsh, that immigration lawyers were not given adequate access to their clients, and that improper contact took place between prosecutors and one judge. They contend that possible civil rights and ethical violations by prosecutors should have been investigated.

The Wall Street Journal’s legal blog is also watching the story.

Will these concerns be enough to prevent Rose’s confirmation? Probably not. Though the national attention the story is receiving may be new, the complaints from her critics are not. If they were going to prevent Rose from getting the job for which she’s been nominated, it likely would have happened by now.

According the report, Iowa families earning less than $20,000 a year — the poorest fifth of Iowa non-elderly taxpayers — pay 11 percent of their income in state and local taxes. Middle-income families — those earning between $37,000 and $56,000 — pay 10 percent of their income in Iowa state and local taxes.

The richest Iowa taxpayers, with income averaging $989,200, pay 7.4 percent of their income in state and local taxes.

When a state tax law that allows residents to write off federal taxes on state returns is factored in, the wealthiest Iowans pay only 6 percent of their income in state and local taxes. Low-income taxpayers see no benefit from the deduction.

“No one would ever design an income tax with lower tax rates for the best-off taxpayers,” said Matthew Gardner, executive director of the D.C.-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and lead author of the report. “But that is exactly what Iowa’s tax system overall does. It allows the very wealthiest individuals to contribute less of their income, on average, than middle- and lower-income families must pay. In other words, Iowa has an unfair, regressive tax system.”

Peter Fisher, research director of the Iowa Policy Project, said the report shows the need in Iowa for dramatic income-tax reform. He said the report confirmed Iowa’s reliance on “regressive” taxes — sales, excise and property taxes — which fall heavier as a share of income on lower-income families, and the weak progressivity of the state income tax.

During the 2009 legislative session, Democrats proposed to end federal deductibility and rework the tax code to lower the overall tax rate for every citizen. However, those making more than $125,000 a year would have ended up paying slightly more under the new system, up to $1,400 a year for Iowans making $250,000 or more a year.

Fierce opposition from conservative groups like Iowans for Tax Relief ultimately killed the proposal. The Muscatine-based group, which helped derail a similar proposal in the 1980s when it was pushed by former Republican Gov. Terry Branstad, said ending federal deductibility “flies in the face of common sense Iowa values and is simply unfair.”

Iowa State University economist David Swenson told the Iowa Independent during the session that federal deductibility was an “archaic holdover from a long ago time that nobody really knows why it exists anymore.”

Iowa, Alabama and Louisiana are the only states that allow federal taxes to be deducted on state returns.

“I have heard from so many Iowans over the past few days who are rightfully concerned about the proposed location of Guantanamo Bay terrorist-detainees in our backyard,” he said.

U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, who has not said for sure whether he will support Latham’s bill, represents the portion of Iowa that is most near the Thomson Correctional Center, and he toured the facility with a federal task force on Monday. If the plan moves forward, the Federal Bureau of Prisons would purchase the now mostly-empty facility from Illinois and revamp it for use for roughly 100 terror suspects.

Following the facility tour, Braley, who was the only member of the Iowa delegation to participate, spoke about the experience:

“I wanted to be there on the ground myself to find out what types of security precautions are already in place,” he said during an Iowa Public Radio interview Monday afternoon. “I wanted to speak to representatives from the White House, Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Prisons and Department of Defense about the security implications of this proposal and ask the tough questions that are important to my constituents in the First District of Iowa.”

“My whole point throughout this conversation has been, everyone needs to take a deep breath, listen to what the plan is, and make sure there’s an opportunity for public input so people have the chance to have their concerns addressed,” he said.

He is expected to further address the situation this afternoon on a conference call with reporters.

Latham, like most Republicans in Congress, is openly critical of the Obama administration’s proposed plans to move terror suspects from a military prison at Guantanamo Bay into the United States. The legislation proposed by Latham is one more attempt by the GOP to prohibit the suspects from being held in the country, and echoes the sentiments expressed by Republicans who represent Illinois.

In contrast, Illinois Democrats like U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin and Gov. Pat Quinn view the move as an opportunity to possibly provide economic revitalization to a hard-hit portion of the state. Jerry Hebeler, who serves as mayor for the neighboring town of Thomson is also in favor, stating that the detainees “can’t be any worse than any murderer” and that the maximum-security facility was built for such a purpose.