As Published: Mayfield case shows deceit by government

As edited and published by the Observer-Reporter:

Mayfield case shows deceit by government

Friday, June 11, 2004

The recent Brandon Mayfield incident in Portland explicitly exposes the FBI and the Department of Justice for the pack of liars they are. We are expected to believe that after a search of their fingerprint databases, which contain millions of fingerprints, Mayfield's fingerprint just happened to be the one which three FBI 'expert' examiners and a court-appointed examiner considered to be a '100 percent identification' and a match? Even though Spanish authorities almost immediately cast doubt on that judgment, the Justice Department sought Mayfield's detention anyway, based on the FBI's insistence that it had identified the right man.

What a coincidence that Mayfield, a lawyer who practices immigration and family law, also:

Is an American citizen who converted to Islam and married and Egyptian;

Is a member of and was seen driving from his home to the Bilal mosque, his place of worship;

Had represented a man in a custody dispute who later pleaded guilty to conspiring to help Al Qaida fight American forces in Afghanistan;

Placed ads for his law firm in a 'Muslim yellow page directory,' which was administered by 'Jerusalem Enterprises, Inc.' and registered to Farid Adlouni, a Portland resident who had business dealings with Osama bin Laden's former personal secretary, Wadih El Hage, who was convicted by a New York federal court of conspiring to murder U.S. citizens;

Was connected to an alleged 'telephonic contact' on Sept. 11, 2002, placed between his home and a phone number assigned to Pete Seda, director of a local Islamic charity, the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, who is on a federal terrorism watch list.

The U.S. attorney in Portland insists that religion had nothing to do with the investigation because Mayfield was not under suspicion when the FBI first analyzed the prints. It was the fingerprint match alone that led the FBI to him.

After Mayfield's release on May 20, two FBI examiners traveled to Madrid to investigate the prints again. This time, they concluded that the latent print originally linked to Mayfield was "of no value for identification purposes."

Bureau officials have said his status as a Muslim had nothing to do with the case against him, and the people in the lab looking at the fingerprint had no idea what Mayfield's background was.

The lab people may not have known his background, but others in the bureau certainly did. I believe they wanted to have a closer look at Mayfield and jumped at the chance to use a bogus fingerprint identification to obtain the warrants allowing searches and Mayfield's detention as a material witness.

It is time we true Americans, the ones who really understand why this country is great, stop accepting the lies that our federal government, and particularly this administration, dish out in the name of fighting terrorism. Mayfield said it best: "You can't trade your freedom for security, because if you do, you're going to lose both."

Bill Dawson

Washington

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