Anti-Fourth Amendment Patriot Act
Former U.S. Army Lieutenant and lawyer Brandon Mayfield may be the Patriot Act’s most prominent innocent victim. The federal government imposed warrantless surveillance and a “sneak-and-peek” search of his home upon the innocent U.S. citizen and Muslim convert and arrested him on a “material witness” warrant, even though officials never intended to have him testify in court. In fact, Mayfield was under investigation for supposedly having had a role in the 2004 Madrid train bombings, as the FBI initially identified him (using his military service fingerprints) as one of the persons whose fingerprints were on a bag of bomb parts similar to those used in the bombing.
Just days before Mayfield’s arrest, Spanish investigators told FBI officials that Mayfield’s fingerprint was not a match to the “Latent Fingerprint No. 17” and that FBI officials had erroneously linked Mayfield to the bombing. Despite being cleared by Spanish authorities (and not having traveled to Europe since 1994), the FBI arrested Mayfield anyway and held him for two weeks without charges on the bogus “material witness” warrant. In the meantime FBI officials leaked to the media that Mayfield was a Madrid bomber, proven through fingerprint “evidence,” and told his wife and family that he would be charged with crimes that qualified for the death penalty.
After unjustly imprisoning Mayfield for more than two weeks, ruining his private law practice (including taking all the confidential files of the clients he represents), and terrifying his family, the federal government was eventually forced to admit it had made a “mistake.” Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft testified about what happened to Mayfield before the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 8, 2004: “That is an unfortunate situation which I regret. Anytime any American is detained and we later find out that the detention was not necessary for the maintenance of public safety, and that someone’s liberties were offended, I think that’s something to regret.” The federal government subsequently issued a formal apology for Mayfield’s treatment and agreed to pay him $2 million in compensatory damages.
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