Paramilitary-style guards 'are going to stay,' mining company vows

The Wisconsin State Journal reports:

Despite harsh criticism from two northern legislators and an outcry from anti-mining activists, a spokesman for Gogebic Taconite said Tuesday that armed, paramilitary-style guards will continue to patrol the site deep in the Penokee Range where the company wants to build a large open pit iron mine. Bob Seitz, a Madison lobbyist representing Gogebic, said the guards are necessary because of a confrontation between 15 to 20 protesters and an unknown number of mine workers a month ago. "The guards are going to stay," Seitz said. "We have a responsibility to provide a safe workplace." But others say they fear Gogebic Taconite's hiring of the guards only serves to escalate the already heightened tension over the company's plan to build a 4 ½-mile-long open pit iron mine in northwestern Wisconsin.

The protestors "feel" less secure knowing they can't easily destroy someone's property rights.