“A Pentagon team tasked with finding potential alternatives inside the United States for Guantánamo captives is resuming its site survey in Colorado,” Miami Herald reports.  

“The White House notified state and congressional politicians that a team would inspect a now empty state facility, Colorado State Penitentiary II, as well as a federal prison 10 miles away adjacent to the Florence ‘supermax’ prison…now holding 405 inmates, many of them convicted terrorists. They include former Guantánamo detainee Ahmed Ghailani, 41, convicted of the East Africa embassies bombings; Ramzi Yousef, 47, the nephew of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, serving life for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; ‘Unibomber’ Ted Kaczynski, 73, and FBI agent turned spy Robert Hanssen, 71.”  

“The state facility under consideration is an empty 948-cell solitary confinement prison at Cañon City, about 10 miles northwest of Florence. It is also known as Centennial South, and has been vacant since 2012. The state closed it as unneeded surplus maximum-security cell space after a drop in the state crime rate… At this point, the effort is highly theoretical: U.S. law blocks the Pentagon from bringing Guantánamo’s captives to the United States for any reason — neither for trial nor for medical care — and the latest draft of the National Defense Authorization Act keeps that embargo, and adds additional restrictions on overseas releases. The House adopted it this week. The Senate is expected to take it up Tuesday.”