NetRootsMass » War on Terror

399. The cockamamie FBI investigation of the Madrid train bombings and Brandon Mayfield

Hugh — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:36:32 +0000

On March 11, 2004, a series of bombings took place in Madrid which killed 191 people and injured 2,000. A fingerprint lifted from a bag of detonator caps was erroneously identified by the FBI as belonging to Brandon Mayfield, a 37 year old lawyer in Portland, Oregon. Although Mayfield was living more than 5,000 miles away from Madrid and there was no evidence that he had been outside the country, and despite the doubts of Spanish authorities about the fingerprint match, what sealed the deal for the FBI was that Mayfield’s wife was from Egypt and he had converted to Islam and had Moslem clients. As far as they were concerned, he had to be a terrorist. As a result, the FBI began a highly intrusive surveillance of Mayfield including wiretaps and searches of his home and office which culminated in his arrest on May 6, 2004 as a material witness, a detention which lasted two weeks. As Mayfield described his ordeal

The days, weeks and months following my arrest were some of the darkest we have had to endure. I personally was subject to lockdown, strip searches, sleep deprivation, unsanitary living conditions, shackles and chains, threats, physical pain and humiliation.

It is important to realize the intensity of the government’s pressure on Mayfield. They were hanging death penalty offenses over him and generally terrorizing both him and his family. In this, the government’s investigation recalls the heavy-handedness and sloppiness of its anthrax investigations (see item 366).

Nevertheless, a January 6, 2006 report by the Justice Department’s Inspector General Glenn Fine, in a fairly typical whitewash characteristic of IG reports, found that the FBI had not misused any provisions of the Patriot Act although it noted that the government’s sharing of information on Mayfield to other agencies had amplified the effects of its “mistake”.

On November 29, 2006, the government settled with Mayfield for $2 million. It issued him an apology, and allowed his case challenging the Constitutional validity on 4th Amendment grounds of the Patriot Act to go forward.

With great power comes great responsibility. Along with understanding a lot about human nature, the Founders understood this. They knew from their own experience that there were plenty of fools and zealots who would abuse and misuse any power that was given to them. It is why they were so careful to make sure that no power went unchecked. Post-9/11, the Bush Administration went on a bender and with considerable help, or complicit silence, from the Democrats undid many of the simple lessons that the Founders struggled so hard and sacrificed so much to bequeath to us. Bush and the political leadership on both sides of the aisle thought they were considerably smarter than the Founders gave them credit for. What they did not understand was that they were the ones the Founders were warning us about.

396. Wrongdoing in the Air Marshal Service

Hugh — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:52:49 +0000

The Air Marshal Service went from 33 agents and a $4.4 million budget before 9/11 to 3,000-4,000 marshals and a $786 million budget. During this time, it has had 3 different leaders and been moved to 4 different agencies. Since its expansion, some three dozen marshals have been charged with crimes and hundreds (753 already at the time of a 2004 Inspector General’s report) accused of misconduct, everything from drug smuggling, a marshal who tried to hire a hitman to kill his ex-wife, inappropriate use of firearms, drunk driving, human trafficking, corruption, and weapons smuggling.

A November 25, 2008 report by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) reported that whistleblowers inside the Air Marshals Service were harassed for speaking out and that the Office of Special Counsel headed by the now fired Scott Bloch (item 153) did little to protect them.

This level of wrongdoing, chaos and mismanagement is pretty much what you would expect from Michael Chertoff’s Department of Homeland Security.

388. Religious profiling at the DHS

Hugh — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:26:08 +0000

In the run up to the 2004 Presidential elections the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division (ICE) of the Department of Homeland Security targeted some 2,500 foreigners living in the US. The goal was to disrupt potential pre-election terrorism. Although the government denied it, religious profiling was the primary criterion for investigation, not any suspected terrorist affiliation. 79% of those targeted came from Moslem countries. Huge resources were committed to the effort. Around 500 arrests were made, essentially for minor offenses, such as overstaying one’s visa. This had all the hallmarks of a classic DHS operation: expensive, ineffective, and intrusive.

384. Datamining: Intrusive and it doesn’t work

Hugh — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:13:07 +0000

On October 7, 2008, the National Research Council released a report solicited by the Department of Homeland Security and the National Science Foundation on the government’s datamining programs. It found that they compromised privacy rights and the Fourth Amendment with no gain in national security and called for a re-evaluation of them.

383. Active duty Army unit to be deployed for domestic operations

Hugh — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 05:23:31 +0000

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prohibited the use of military forces for law enforcement duties within the boundaries of the United States in the absence of a declaration of martial law. British soldiers exercising such functions in the colonies was one of the proximate causes for the Revolutionary War. It has been a foundational principle ever since that our military is not to be used against its own citizens except in times of crisis. In the 1807 Insurrection Act, this was taken to mean “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.” In the 2007 Defense Authorization bill, a section was slipped in written by John Warner (R-VA) and Carl Levin (D-MI) which expanded the situations covered by the 1807 act to include “natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition.” It is this “other condition” which is the problem since this can mean anything and gives the President a blank check to use federal troops for any purpose within the borders of the United States. In the 2008 Authorization Defense bill, the language was refined to permit the use of federal troops in instances of threats to Constitutional rights. This is still vague and in any case Bush in a signing statement rejected even this limitation.

This is not a theoretical discussion. A September 8, 2008 article in the Army Times reports that beginning October 1 an active duty Army combat brigade will be assigned for use within the US. Among its missions are “civil unrest and crowd control.” It is described as the “first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded” and will be equipped with bean bag bullets, tasers, spike strips, shields, and batons. What is important to realize is that this is both a reaction to the gutting of the National Guard (item 48) and a means to suppress legitimate dissent in contravention of First Amendment guarantees.