{"id":1392,"date":"2007-09-27T07:28:05","date_gmt":"2007-09-27T07:28:05","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-09-27T07:28:05","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=1392","title":{"rendered":"Parts of PATRIOT Act unconstitutional for lack of probable cause"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Brandon Mayfield civil case in the District of Oregon, the judge there yesterday ruled parts of the PATRIOT Act unconstitutional for not requiring probable cause. Findlaw, via AP<\/a>: “U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled Wednesday that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as amended by the Patriot Act, ‘now permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment.'” <\/p>\n

From NYTimes.com<\/a>: <\/p>\n

\u201cFor over 200 years, this nation has adhered to the rule of law \u2014 with unparalleled success,\u201d Judge Aiken\u2019s opinion said in finding violations of the Fourth Amendment prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure. \u201cA shift to a nation based on extraconstitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill advised.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ruling is a new chapter in a legal battle that began after the Spanish police found a plastic bag with detonator caps in a van near the bombings, which killed 191 people and left 2,000 injured in the deadliest terrorist attack in Europe since World War II. <\/p>\n

Initially, the F.B.I. found no match for the fingerprints. But after reviewing a digitally enhanced set of the prints, the agency identified 20 possible matches, including Mr. Mayfield.<\/p>\n

Though Spanish officials had doubts about the match, federal agents began surveillance on him and his family, using expanded powers under the Patriot Act. Mr. Mayfield was jailed for two weeks before a federal judge threw out the case. <\/p>\n

Mr. Mayfield, 38, who was born in Oregon and brought up in a small town in Kansas, converted to Islam in 1989. He was a lawyer in a child custody case for Jeffrey Leon Battle, who had been convicted of conspiring to aid the Taliban and Al Qaeda. <\/p>\n

Mr. Mayfield said his religion and legal work had led investigators to be overzealous in connecting him to the Madrid plot.<\/p>\n

Mr. Mayfield sued the government, which apologized and agreed to a $2 million settlement last November. The settlement included an unusual condition that freed the government from future liability with one exception. Mr. Mayfield was allowed to continue a suit seeking to overturn parts of the Patriot Act. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Comment:<\/em> The first question I had was whether this is an advisory opinion, and thus no standing under Art. III, since the case was settled. The issue is highly likely to recur, but not with Mr. Mayfield.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"pingsdone","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1392\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}