September 19, 2007

Brandon Mayfield

Represented by the prominent (and flamboyant) civil rights attorney Gerry Spence and Portland attorney Elden Rosenthal, Brandon Mayfeld, who was hastily and wrongfully arrested by the FBI in relation to the 2004 Madrid train bombings, is asking a federal judge to strike down UnConstitutional provisions of the PATRIOT Act.

Mayfield, who received $2 million of our taxpayer money from the federal government because of the FBI's bungling, wants the Busheviks to reveal what is in the surveillance documents about him that the government won't disclose. And he isn't stopping there.

In court, his attorneys are arguing "that the authority the Patriot Act grants is an assault on the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment, which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, without probable cause, determined by a judge, to believe that a crime has been committed."

Too bad we can't get a majority in Congress to stand up for the Constitution as Mayfield, an American lawyer who converted to Islam, is doing.

There is no crime in embracing a given religion in America. Diversity in faith, political thinking, and ideology is what is at the fundamental core of our nation's principles -- and the basis of our Constitution.

Mayfield's ongoing courage reminds us of the Ben Franklin quotation: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

As during America's revolutionary period, it is the citizens of our nation who will be the salvation of freedom, liberty, and democracy.

Brandon Mayfield is one of them -- and deserves this week's BuzzFlash Wings of Justice Award.

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