What do Denver and Cuba have in common? Both have controversial detention facilities dubbed Gitmo. Both have raised the ire of civil liberties groups.

Only one offers orange jumpsuits, orange chicken and a Harry Potter library.

The Denver facility, though, is a holding area just in case police need room to house large numbers of detainees - for a few hours, not an indefinite time without trial. Yet activists, eager to ramp up the melodrama, have dubbed the DNC jail "Gitmo on the Platte."

It makes one wonder what they're really opposed to: a bare-bones, minimalist, old air-conditioned warehouse with large, square, chain-link cages, or the fact that police might arrest their brethren in the first place.

Yet if protests get out of control - think the "Battle of Seattle" during a 1999 meeting of the World Trade Organization- then Denver authorities will need a safe, secure place to hold and process detainees. While the right of free speech should be protected, any protesters who decide to indulge in vandalism, block traffic or do other harm to the community should be removed from the streets.

To placate activists from an aesthetic point of view, Denver agreed to nix a plan to put menacing razor wire at the tops of the cages. And if the site operates as promised - if it's needed - then there should be no legitimate complaints about detainees having to spend a few hours in processing there, as water, food and toilets will be provided.

It's hardly Colorado's version of Guantanamo.