While the ACLU of Colorado is certainly pleased with Barack Obama’s announcement regarding the closure of Guantanamo Bay’s detention center, the organization isn’t thrilled with the fact that the detainees actually got more time out of their cell at Gitmo than they’d get at the supremax prison’s solitary confinement in the United States. No duh.

While a transfer to the Supermax facility will indisputably bring the detainees under the protection of the United States justice system, overall their living conditions will not improve…

This prison is the most secure federal prison in the nation. Most individuals are kept in solitary confinement for at least 23 hours each day. They live in a 7×12 ft room with walls and furniture built almost entirely out of concrete. The single free hour is spent exercising alone in a separate concrete chamber. The federal government reserves these conditions for the worst of the worst, such as convicted terrorists Ted Kaczynski, 1993 World Trade Center bombers Omar Abdel-Rahman and Ramzi Yousef, and Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph. The cases against these men were clear, and they themselves were unapologetic in their guilt…

While at Guantánamo they endured psychological and physical torture such as waterboarding and sexual degradation, but at least they had two hours of exercise per day and some contact with others, if only by yelling from cell to cell. Waterboarding and the like won’t happen at Supermax, but for these men awaiting trial, indefinite detention in total sound and sight isolation is simply another form of torture, one which makes a mockery of “innocent until proven guilty.” To release these individuals from Guantánamo Bay, only to send them to the toughest prison in the country could well be considered a move “out of the frying pan into the fire.”

So what should we do with the Islamists suspected of terrorism? House them with old Ms. Magillicutty until their trial, where they’ll be served breakfast in bed and be able to play video games? How about we let them go out for picnics at the local park as long as they promise to be back by dinner time?