"Whoops", Says Justice IG Report

The Justice Department has been arguing since the passage of the original USA Patriot Act that there have been a negligible number of problems associated with the legislation.

It is kind of "coincidental" that less than 48 hours after congress made permanent all but two provisions of the odious law, a well-publicized screw-up by the FBI is officially blamed in a Justice IG's report on the increased law enforcement capabilities granted by the Patriot Act.

The FBI used expanded powers under the USA Patriot Act to demand information from banks and other companies as part of the investigation of Oregon lawyer Brandon Mayfield, who was wrongfully arrested in connection with the Madrid train bombings in 2004, according to a report issued yesterday.

Inspector General Glenn A. Fine also found that although FBI investigators did not abuse any of its powers in the case, the Patriot Act anti-terrorism law "amplified the consequences" of the FBI's misidentification of a fingerprint by allowing numerous agencies to share flawed information...

The full report provides many new details about the treatment of Mayfield, who was the subject of surveillance and secret searches before he was hurriedly arrested in response to media leaks about the case. FBI examiners had wrongly identified a fingerprint found on a bag of detonators as Mayfield's and then resisted the Spanish police's conclusion that the print belonged to someone else, according to the report...

One of the most notable details revealed by yesterday's report was the FBI's use of "national security letters," a form of administrative subpoena that allows agents to demand records from banks, telephone companies and other firms. The FBI's ability to use such letters was greatly expanded by the Patriot Act, which was reauthorized with some changes this week.

The FBI issued numerous such letters in Mayfield's case, although the exact number is censored in Fine's report. The report says "several" of the letters did not directly pertain to Mayfield, indicating that the FBI obtained records about other individuals as well -- a move that likely would not have been allowed before the Patriot Act reforms, the report said.

The report also details a series of covert searches of Mayfield's home and office through the use of a warrant obtained under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Mayfield is currently suing the Justice Department and the FBI over the way he was treated in this matter.

The fact that he was an American convert to Islam was not conducive to having the authorities make any great attempts to determine whether he may have been wrongly implicated in the Madrid bombing.

They assumed all along that he was a "freedom hatin' Muslim."