Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Unfortunately, a few innocent bystanders have been affected by the war against
terrorism. A notable example is Brandon Mayfield.
During the morning rush hour on March 11, 2004, ten bombs exploded on four
commuter trains in Madrid, Spain, killing 191 people and wounding more than 2,000
others. The Spanish government retrieved a partial fingerprint from a bag of detonators,
and the FBI linked the fingerprint to Brandon Mayfield, an attorney in Portland, Oregon
[52].
Without revealing their search warrant, FBI agents secretly entered Mayfield's home
multiple times, making copies of documents and computer hard drives, collecting ten
DNA samples, removing six cigarette butts for DNA analysis, and taking 355 digital
photographs. The FBI also put Mayfield under electronic surveillance [53]. On May
6, 2004, the FBI arrested Mayfield as a material witness and detained him for two
weeks. After the Spanish government announced that it had matched the fingerprints
to Ouhnane Daoud, an Algerian national living in Spain, a judge ordered that Mayfield
be released. The FBI publicly apologized for the fingerprint misidentification [52].
Mayfield said his detention was “an abuse of the judicial process” that “shouldn't
happen to anybody” [52]. He said, “I personally was subject to lockdown, strip searches,
sleep deprivation, unsanitary living conditions, shackles and chains, threats, physical
pain, and humiliation” [54]. The only evidence against Mayfield was a partial finger-
print match that even the Spanish police found dubious. Mayfield had not left the United
States in more than a decade, and he had no connections with any terrorist organiza-
tions. Some civil rights groups suggest Mayfield was targeted by the FBI because of his
religious beliefs. The affidavit that the FBI used to get an arrest warrant pointed out that
Mayfield “had converted to Islam, is married to an Egyptian-born woman, and had once
briefly represented a member of the Portland Seven in a child-custody case” [55]. May-
field sued the US government for continuing to investigate him after the Spanish police
had eliminated him as a suspect, and in November 2006, the government issued a formal
apology and agreed to pay him $2 million [54].
Most of the provisions of the Patriot Act have now been made permanent, but three
provisions of particular concern to civil liberties groups must be renewed periodically—
the provisions permitting the use of roving wiretaps, the surveillance of “lone wolf ”
suspects not linked to terrorist groups, and the seizure of business, medical, educational,
and library records without showing probable cause. In May 2011, President Obama
signed into law a four-year extension of these provisions [56].
Beginning in 2011, two members of the Intelligence Committee of the US Senate, Ron
Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Arizona, repeatedly spoke out against domestic
spying. In May 2011, Senator Wyden said, “I want to deliver a warning this afternoon:
when the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the
Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry” [57].
