Each of the fenced areas is about 5 yards by 5 yards and there is a lock on the door. A sign on the wall reads "Warning! Electric stun devices used in this facility."

Denver is expected to make an announcement about the facility next week. The ACLU of Colorado has concerns now:

The American Civil Liberties Union says it will ask the City of Denver how prisoners will get access to food and water, bathrooms, telephones, plus medical care, and if there will be a place to meet with attorneys.

As I wrote on 5280 yesterday, Denver courts will be open during the convention, " with lighter dockets to handle convention-related matter."

This is reminiscent of Manhattan's Pier 57 dubbed Guantanamo on the Hudson, during the 2004 Republican convention. It was a fiasco that ended with a judge ordering the release of 470 protesters or face fines of $1,000. per prisoner per day. Here's one detained protester's story. More details of the grimy conditions are in this AP article.

Will Denver make the same mistakes? Hopefully not, but Salinger's discovery is not promising news. There are ways to avoid this, I recapped several from the ACLU report on Pier 57 here.

On a related note, here are my pictures of the Fleet Center in Boston when the Swat Team came out to play.