"Our state and the Chicago Metropolitan Area will become ground zero for Jihadist terrorist plots, recruitment and radicalization," GOP House members from Illinois warned in a letter to President Barack Obama.
Rep. Don Manzullo, whose district includes the prison being purchased by the federal government, predicted "the hatred the terrorists have toward Guantanamo would transfer to Thomson, Illinois, thus creating a magnet for terrorist activity."
"What can be a more dramatic victory for terrorism than an attack on this facility with these prisoners," added Rep. Tim Johnson, another Illinois Republican who raised the specter of his state becoming "ground zero for international terrorism."
Liz Cheney cranked up the fear factor in a conference call with reporters.
"When you bring these terrorists onto U.S. soil, you give them all the rights of U.S. citizens; when you try them in civilian courts, you give them a platform to preach jihad. Once they're here, they can be released here, they can plot and plan attacks from inside federal prison, they can savagely attack their prison guards, they can radicalize the prison populations, and all of those are things that we have seen in the past," charged the former vice president's daughter, who's now with the conservative group Keep America Safe.
The Obama administration dismissed such warnings, noting that convicted terrorists are being held in other U.S. prisons without any problems. The detainees sent to Thompson would not be allowed visits from relatives or friends, would be guarded by the military and kept apart from other inmates -- and would not be released in the United States, officials told the Washington Post.
Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn said all those moved to the Illinois prison would be tried by military commissions -- which presumably would minimize the potential for grandstanding by defendants -- or would be held indefinitely without charges.
Congress will have to approve moving the detainees to this country. House Republican Leader John Boehner -- who charged that the Obama administration had "forgotten" 9/11 -- vowed to oppose it. But with Democrats controlling both chambers, approval is expected.
To civil libertarians, what's at risk isn't U.S. security, it's "the fundamental principle of the rule of law ... that people cannot be held without charge or trial," as Amnesty International's Tom Parker put it.
"What made Guantanamo such an affront to basic liberty and the rule of law was far more than symbolism, and it certainly had nothing to do with its locale," said Salon's Glenn Greenwald. "If anything, one could argue that it's now more dangerous to have within the U.S., on U.S. soil, a facility explicitly devoted to imprisoning people without charges."
While politicians and pundits argue about what's been dubbed "Gitmo North"-- a nickname that irks White House spokesman Robert Gibbs -- the people of Thomson, Ill., generally favor the prison plan because of the jobs it will create in the struggling town.
Cheney rejects the economic argument, saying voters didn't elect Obama to "usher terrorists onto the homeland and call it a jobs program." Liberal critics -- who may agree with her on nothing else -- also don't buy the idea of creating jobs based on what they see as illegal detentions.
