Posted on 11/29/2006 3:13:08 PM PST by MovementConservative
Brandon Mayfield, the soft-spoken Muslim convert who launched a high-profile challenge to the U.S.A. Patriot Act after he was wrongly linked to the deadly Madrid bombings in 2004, reached a settlement this morning in his civil case against the federal government.
As part of the agreement, the government will pay Mayfield $2 million in damages he suffered as a result of his imprisonment for two weeks, said his lawyer, Elden Rosenthal. The agreement allows Mayfield to continue his challenge to the constitutionality of the Patriot Act.
The government also agreed to destroy all materials it seized from Mayfield's home and office.
"Although my family and I can never be made whole for the illegal and unwarranted violations of our privacy, the secret searches of our home and my law office, and the tapping of our phones, the settlement of our financial damages claim allows our case to move forward against the government on its most important issue: that the Patriot Act is unconstitutional," Mayfield said.
Mayfield hired celebrity lawyer Gerry Spence, and Rosenthal, a Portland civil rights lawyer, as well as a Newport attorney, to tackle his challenge to the Patriot Act. Mayfield will continue to pursue his challenge to key provisions of the act, including the one that allows searches without requiring the government to show probable cause that a crime has been committed.
"The Patriot Act is decidedly not patriotic for it was the first step by the Bush administration to weaken our sacred civil rights to be secure in our homes, to privacy in our offices and in our electronic communications," Rosenthal said this morning. "We will vigorously pursue this constitutional challenge to the highest courts in the country."
Mayfield said his detention as a material witness underscores the "fallacy that fingerprint identification is reliable." He said he was targeted because of his Muslim faith.
"Our freedom of religion in this country is a sacred right, and the exercise of one's beliefs in a lawful manner should never be a factor in a government investigation of any citizen.
"The power of the government to secretly search your home or business without probable cause under the guise of an alleged terrorist investigation must be stopped. I look forward to the day when the Patriot Act is declared unconstitutional, and all citizens are safe from unwarranted arrest and searches by the federal government," Mayfield said.
The government today also issued another apology to the Mayfield family, saying the United States government "acknowledges that the investigation and arrest were deeply upsetting to Mr. Mayfield, to Mrs. Mayfield and to their three young children, and the United States regrets that it mistakenly linked Mr. Mayfield to this terrorist attack."
The government's statement went onto say that the FBI has "implemented a number of measures" to ensure that what happened to Mayfield is not repeated.
FBI fingerprint analysts in March 2004 mistakenly determined that a print found on a bag of detonators near the deadly Madrid train attacks belonged to Mayfield.
FBI agents jailed Mayfield for two weeks in May on a material witness warrant after his name was leaked to the media. But when Spanish investigators linked the fingerprint to an Algerian national, Mayfield was released and given an apology by the FBI.
Mayfield sued federal officials, contending that agents targeted him because he is Muslim. The lawsuit also challenged the constitutionality of the Patriot Act.
An investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility cleared prosecutors for their actions. An investigation by the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General criticized the FBI for the fingerprint mistake but did not find any evidence that agents initially targeted Mayfield because of his religion.
Former federal prosecutor and Lewis & Clark law professor John Kroger said today's settlement is not surprising.
He added that the government would not have agreed to a financial settlement if it felt the Mayfield case posed a serious threat to the Patriot Act.
"My reaction is that the government probably views his legal challenge as relatively trivial and thus doesn' feel any real harm in letting it go forward," he said.
To read four previous stories on the case, including a profile of Mayfield from his Kansas hometown, the FBI apology, a day in court with Gary Spence and a review of the entire matter, go here
Wow, a million a week to sit in prison? Where do I sign up?!
You don't really wish that. Having been falsely accused by agents of the U.S. Government, I can tell you it is not a lark.
It looks like it worked out pretty well for him.
Keep posting on Free Republic, and come January 2009, President Clinton will be glad to help you out! (/snark)
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