The American Prospect reports:

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the Department of Homeland Security released a scathing report last Friday about the shuttered Florida concentration camp built on an abandoned airstrip known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” concluding the camp failed to meet numerous health and safety standards, and that the use of “small metal enclosures” was “unprecedented” and posed “significant risks to detainee health and safety.”

The report included photos, taken by OIG inspectors during an “unannounced” visit in January to the camp, showing a phone booth–sized cage set up outdoors under a temporary awning. Staff at the camp euphemistically described the cages as “calming areas” where detainees could “reflect on their behavior choices, manage their emotions,” and, they claimed, leave whenever they wanted. Staff records indicated 79 detainees had spent time in the cages in a two-day period, none for more than two hours, which the OIG could neither confirm nor refute, the report said.

The cage images are appalling and, at first blush, seem to confirm an Amnesty International report from last December that first alleged the use of cages at the tent prison. But a closer comparison of the two shows not agreement but evidence of a cover-up: a Potemkin Village carefully positioned to fool inspectors and hide a truth that was much, much worse. [Continue reading…]