What Color Is Your Jumpsuit?

Convention plan includes preparing for 3,000 arrests:

About $550,000 for a possible open-air, fenced detention facility to hold protesters next to the Ramsey County Workhouse; $1.7 million for overtime, and $62,000 for biohazard decontamination equipment.

These are among the items included in a $4.4 million budget proposal by Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher, who was told by St. Paul police to plan for 3,000 arrests during the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

If you build it, they will come. Actually they'll come either way, but it's better to be on the safe side.

It turns out that the protesters freedom of speech comes at a pretty steep price:

Also included in the projected expenses is $350,000 in riot equipment and Tasers to control protesters engaged in civil disobedience.

Fletcher said the budget includes $3.9 million for protester-related costs, including $3 million for prisoner processing and detention and $900,000 for training personnel and controlling civil disobedience.

Four mil? How much would it cost simply to pay these folks to stay away? Put me down for twenty.

Despite promises by local authorites to deal with this criminal element in as humane a manner as possible, news of the plans elicited the usual overheated reactions:

While it has not been decided, the Sheriff's Office is considering transporting arrested protesters to a fenced field with tents and temporary cooling units next to the workhouse. He said he expected most protesters would be released in two to four hours.

Told about the possible open-air detention facility, Mary Beaudoin, director of Women Against Military Madness, a local protest group, said, "It's hideous, it's terrifying. Are they going to have us wear orange jumpsuits and hoods, too? It sounds like Guantanamo Bay."

Yeah Mary, spending two hours in a fenced-in field for breaking the law is exactly like Gitmo. What size jumpsuit do you wear?