The Federal Bureau of Investigation has agreed to pay Oregon lawyer Brandon Mayfield $2 million as part of a settlement for wrongfully arresting him in connection with the 2004 Madrid terror attacks.
The New York Times reports that the FBI also apologized for its actions and agreed to destroy all materials collected during its electronic surveillance of Mr. Mayfield and secret searches of his home and office. Mayfield is also allowed to continue his lawsuit that challenges the constitutionality of the Patriot Act. He charges that the antiterrorism law violates the Fourth Amendment because is allows for government searches without first establishing “probable cause” of a crime.
Mayfield, an American-born convert to Islam, was put under government surveillance after the FBI mistakenly linked him to the March bombings. He was arrested in May 2004 and held for two weeks as a terrorist suspect, despite evidence from the Spanish government that he was not connected to the attack.
In another case related to the government’s terrorism powers, a federal judge has ruled unconstitutional key portions of a presidential order that blocks financial assistance to terrorist groups. The Washington Post reports that the provisions are “impermissibly vague because they allow the president to unilaterally designate organizations as terrorist groups and broadly prohibit association with such groups.”
Bruce Fein, a Justice Department official in the Reagan years who has criticized the Bush administration’s broad assertions of executive power, said that appealing Collins’s ruling may carry more risks for the government than simply changing the executive order’s language.
“If they take this up on appeal, they risk another repudiation of this omnipotent-presidency theory that they have,” Fein said. More: Link to FBI pays $2 million to US Muslim in terror-suspect case | csmonitor.com
