September 14, 2004
Federal Probe Into Treatment Of Brandon Mayfield
Possible Religious Profiling And Abuse Of PATRIOT Act
Another brief item, by way of an update on a story about which we had a lot to say when it was seriously underway. It seems that the Federal government itself has opened an investigation into how the Federal government targeted local attorney Brandon Mayfield:
The Justice Department's watchdog office has opened an investigation into the arrest of an Oregon lawyer that was based on what turned out to be faulty FBI analysis of a fingerprint linked to the deadly terrorist attack in Spain last March.
Glenn A. Fine, the department's inspector general, said the antiterrorism Patriot Act may have been improperly used in the arrest of attorney Brandon Mayfield.
The kicker for us is what Fine reveals in this bit of the story as told by the Associated Press:
The Mayfield investigation is focusing on how the fingerprint error was made and also on a complaint by Mayfield that the "FBI inappropriately conducted a surreptitious search of his home ... potentially motivated by his Muslim faith and ties to the Muslim community," according to Fine's report.
Readers who may have joined us after we covered parts of the Mayfield story would want to follow-up on that last bit by reading our items on false evidence and the smearing of Islam (an item which generated twenty-four reader comments, for whatever that's worth) and bias and profiling at the FBI even if they don't take a look at the other items we've written about this case.