Probe Eyes Faulty FBI Arrest of Lawyer (improper use of PATRIOT Act?)

[Khephra]

WASHINGTON -- 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.

Mayfield, a Muslim convert, was arrested May 6 on a material witness warrant after an FBI analysis concluded he was a match for a fingerprint found on a bag containing detonators like those used in the attacks on trains in Madrid that killed nearly 200 people and wounded 2,000.

A few weeks later, Mayfield was released after the FBI admitted it had made a mistake and that the fingerprint did not match Mayfield's.

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-justice-abuse-investigation,0,2366798.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

[krkaufman]

1. Key new info from the article....

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.

[Dover]

2. Yeah right. A fingerprint in Madrid just happened to lead to a lawyer,

in Oregon who just happened to be a Muslim convert? I'm sure they are a dime a dozen.

[coalition_unwilling]

3. Federal Bureuau of Incompetence does it again

First Wen Ho Lee, now this. Proabaly b/c they were spending so much time tailing anti-war activists prior to RNC

[The Night Owl]

4. Didn't Michael Reagan or some other Conservative jackass...

... post a reward for anyone who could show that they have been wrongly harmed by The Patriot Act? Seems like Mr. Fine could collect on that.

[The_Casual_Observer]

5. Expect a spate of these cases of false arrest and injustice

The Michigan case was just the start. It is open season on the public.