What's wrong with protecting terrorists?

I recently heard on NPR a Republican woman legislator say that the Democrats concern for torturing internees is the same as being more concerned about and willing to protect terrorists than our own people.

There are all kinds of reasons to protect the rights of prisoners, like for instance, if we want to guarantee our own rights we need to protect the rights of all people. Once we start sorting people into groups whose rights should be protected or denied any one of us runs the risk of ending up in the group whose rights are dispensible.

But to be honest I don't really care too much about the internees except in a theoretical sense. What I care passionately about is what kind of people we are. I want to protect us from becoming a people who torture or can live comfortably with torture being done in our name.