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From the diaries -- kos)
http://www.conyersblog.us/archives/00000049.htm
Today, at 1pm, the Attorney General of the United States will testify before the House Judiciary Committee. It has been an oft-repeated claim of the Department of Justice that there have been no documented abuses of the Patriot Act.
This statement is patently untrue. While it has been difficult to get a complete accounting of the Patriot Act's misuse (largely due to the Department's own unwillingness to provide the public with the most basic information about how the Act is being used), the American Civil Liberties Union has extensively catalogued a number of abuses .
One that stands out to me is the case of Brandon Mayfield. For those unfamiliar with Mr. Mayfield's case, he is a Muslim-American lawyer from Portland, Oregon. In the wake of the terrorist bombing in Madrid, Spain, the Federal Bureau of Investigation claimed to have found Mr. Mayfield's fingerprint at the site of the bombing. They subsequently placed Mayfield under arrest as a material witness to a crime of terrorism (I would discuss what an abuse of the material witness statute this constitutes, but this would be a much longer entry if I did).
Mayfield insisted he had not visited Spain and had no knowledge or involvement in any terrorist activity. He was telling the truth. The FBI has conceded the point, and even John Ashcroft apologized publicly to him.
On June 16, 2004, I sent the Department's Inspector General a letter asking him to initiate an investigation of the errors that led to the arrest and detention of Brandon Mayfield in association with the terrorist bombing in Madrid. He responded that his office would indeed open an investigation to examine the erroneous identification of Mr. Mayfield through faulty FBI fingerprint analysis and the decision to pursue him as a material witness to that crime. That investigation is ongoing.
While we have been long aware of the injustice done to Mayfield as a result of his detention, we are just now becoming aware of the extent to which his civil liberties were otherwise violated. Just yesterday, I received a letter, sent to Mayfield's attorney by the Department, which reveals that on an undisclosed number of occasions, government agents secretly searched his apartment, copied hard drives from his computer and even seized DNA samples. This is horrifying.
Worse still, the Department still refuses to give Mayfield a full accounting of what searches were conducted, when they were conducted, and what exactly was seized. When an innocent man can't even find out the extent to which his rights have been violated, something is very very wrong with our system of checks and balances. This is law enforcement run amok.
After some back and forth yesterday, the Department at last conceded that the Patriot Act was used in the Mayfield case. Could there be a more stark example of its abuse? Today, I am asking the Inspector General to expand his probe of the Mayfield case to include these matters.
The following are some of the more chilling portions of the Department's letter to Mayfield's attorneys:
""Mr. Mayfield is hereby notified that the following property was seized, altered or reproduced during FISA searches of his residence: three hard drives of three desk top computers and one loose hard drive were copied; several documents in the residence were digitally photographed; ten DNA samples were taken and preserved on cotton swabs and six cigarette butts were seized for DNA analysis; and approximately 335 digital photographs were taken of the residence and the property therein." ..... "Mr. Mayfield is also hereby notified that he was the target of electronic surveillance and other physical searches authorized pursuant to FISA."