Critics Galvanized by Oregon Lawyer's Case

The Los Angeles Times May 22, 2004

Critics Galvanized by Oregon Lawyer's Case
His arrest and release in the Madrid bombings show that the U.S. ignores civil liberties in pursuit of terrorists, some legal experts say.

SEATTLE — A federal judge's decision to release Muslim lawyer Brandon Mayfield rallied critics of the Justice Department on Friday, who decried his jailing in Oregon on dubious fingerprint evidence as a new example of government disregard for civil liberties. The decision by U.S. District Judge Robert Jones in Portland coincided with Spanish authorities' determination that the print linked to the March 11 train bombings in Madrid belonged to an Algerian suspect.

Federal authorities still consider Mayfield, a former Army lieutenant, a "material witness," according to a website administered by the judge overseeing the case.

The sudden turn in the case is "a huge embarrassment" for federal investigators, said Michael Greenberger, a former senior Justice Department official who heads the University of Maryland's Center for Health and Homeland Security. He and other critics contend the government's approach to the case was legally flawed.


More at www.latimes.com

,...their innocuous terror war. It's a "spread the fear and suspicion" Orwellian thingy.

Just wait ---these pricks have a lot of other surprises planned for us.

illegal or otherwise, who were rounded up and detained without benefit of Constitutional protections. Next they target Muslims (after all, they've demonized Muslims in the eyes of many Americans). Who will be next? PA tried to pass a law making ecologists 'terrorists', and I've heard the right wingers whine that Democrats are traitors.

Let's hope we get to November without any Repuke dirty tricks, and then on to January when Kerry in inaugurated. But I fear this will be a very scary time.