An important challenge to parts of the federal "Patriot Act’ will be heard in Portland on Septmeber 10, 2007, by federal district judge Ann Aiken. In late November 2006 the federal government agreed to pay $2 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Brandon Mayfield, the Oregon lawyer wrongly jailed because of a completely unverified supposed "link" to the 2004 terrorist bombings in Madrid. Mayfield’s home and law office were secretly entered without warrants, files breached, photos taken. His young children were terrrified. Former- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales issued a formal apology to the Mayfield family (although it is likely Mr. Gonzales "cannot recall" those events).
(crossposted from Oregon Independent)
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Most settlements assure finality on all issues, but this settlement included an unusual provision that allowed the Mayfields to continue the lawsuit seeking to overturn parts of the Patriot Act as violating the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
The memorandum filed by the Mayfields’ legal team is worth reading.
Benjamin Franklin warned, "They that can give up essential liberty to gain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Yet there is a 200 year history of the Legislative and Executive Branch rushing to trample civil liberties in difficult times: post-Revolutionary and WWI alien and sedition acts: martial law during the Civil War; internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII; burglaries and spying on dissidents during the Viet Nam war years. Today we understand those actions to have been illegal or unconstituional and are regretted, but civil liberties remain at risk.
The Government’s postion is stated here.
BACKGROUND
On Thursday (September 6) a federal judge in New York ruled on different portions of the 2006 Patriot Act revisions, specifically the revised portions on FBI authority to issue secret "national security letters" (NSLs) to phone and internet service providers for consumer records.
The Mayfields' challenge is broader. The New York Court found that the part that gagged recipients of the NSLs from disclosing the tap unconstitutional, violating both the First and Fourth Amendments.
The case revealed previously unknown elements of data intrusion where the FBI also demanded secret taps on the target's "community of interest."
http://www.aclu.org/...