NBC reports that experts doubt the credibility of Attorney General John Ashcroft's most recent terror threat announcement. Here's what Ashcroft said:

In warning Americans to brace for a possible attack, Ashcroft cited what he called “credible intelligence from multiple sources,” saying that “just after New Year's, al-Qaida announced openly that preparations for an attack on the United States were 70 percent complete.… After the March 11 attack in Madrid, Spain, an al-Qaida spokesman announced that 90 percent of the arrangements for an attack in the United States were complete.”

Here's what the experts are now saying:

There's no evidence a credible al-Qaida spokesman ever said that, and the claims actually were made by a largely discredited group, Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, known for putting propaganda on the Internet....The group has claimed responsibility for the power blackout in the Northeast last year, a power outage in London and the Madrid bombing. None of the claims was found to be credible.

A senior U.S. intelligence official previously told NBC News that this group has no known operational capability and may be no more than one man with a fax machine.

Ashcroft is now blaming the FBI for giving him the information.

Airports will be on extra high security this holiday weekend. If you're flying, this sounds like a good tip from FAA Administrator Marion Blakey:

One of the first things I go to is my PDA, or telephone, because now we have a brand new service, www.faa.gov/wireless , and you can go on and actually pick up what the story is at your airport before you go," she said on NBC. "Are you running into any ground delays? Is there weather to be aware of? In fact, you can go to your specific airline and see what's the story on the flight. It lets you schedule, you're more in control and it really does give you a way of understanding the situation rather than just getting there and saying, 'What's going on.'"...The same information is available on the regular FAA Internet site for people not using a wireless device such as a personal digital assistant or cell phone.

Cleared Oregon lawyer Brandon Mayfield's case provides an excellent example of the danger of the Patriot Act's Sneak and Peek" provisions--an end run around the Fourth Amendment's requirement that authorities notify the residents of a home when they have been inside to search for evidence:

Mayfield said there were obvious signs that someone was repeatedly entering the modest white house when the family was out. The Mayfields would arrive home to find window blinds adjusted much higher than any one could reach. Footprints left in the living room's plush white carpet were larger than any of those belonging to Mayfield, his wife, Mona, and his two sons.

Railing against the USA Patriot Act at a news conference Monday, Mayfield said the secret break-ins are one example of how the antiterror law threatens to rip apart constitutional rights to privacy and security. "This is the state of affairs we find ourselves in today," he said. "We find ourselves living in a climate of fear." ....Mayfield called the whole ordeal, from the home searches to his two weeks behind bars, "humiliating." Sounding weary, he added: "You can't trade your freedom for security. Because if you do, you're going to lose both."

Via Patriot Watch:

SENATOR INTRODUCES BILL TO REMOVE SUNSET PROVISIONS & MAKE PATRIOT ACT PERMANENT!! "S. 2476 was introduced by Senator Jon Kyl (R-AR), and calls for all of the sunset provisions of the Patriot to be lifted, essentially making the entire Act permanent. The bill lacks a companion measure in the House. Sixteen parts of the Patriot Act sunset or expire at the end of 2005, when they will then be subject to Congressional oversight and reauthorization."

The ACLU responds. Get on the horn and call your Senator and tell him or her to oppose this bill. It will not make us safer, only less free.

You can quickly call any of your Senators through the Senate switchboard operator, (202) 224-3121; and any of your Representatives through the House switchboard operator, (202) 225-3121.

Noah at Defense Tech introduces us to University of Buffalo Professor and biotech artist Steve Kurtz. Waking up and finding his wife dead beside him, Kurtz' troubles had only just begun:

The police arrived and, cranked up on the rhetoric of the "War on Terror," decided Kurtz's art supplies were actually bioterrorism weapons. Thus began an Orwellian stream of events in which FBI agents abducted Kurtz without charges, sealed off his entire block, and confiscated his computers, manuscripts, art supplies... and even his wife's body.

Like the case of Brandon Mayfield, the Muslim lawyer from Portland imprisoned for two weeks on the flimsiest of false evidence, Kurtz's case amply demonstrates the dangers posed by the USA PATRIOT Act coupled with government-nurtured terrorism hysteria.

Noah points out:

Kurtz is a University of Buffalo professor and artist specializing in biotechnology-inspired works: subversive remixes of big pharma corporate materials, kits to see if food is genetically modified. Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, New York's New Museum, and the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC displayed his art. The New York Times and Washington Post, among others, have looked on it favorably.

Kurtz is facing a mountain of legal fees. Donations to his legal defense can be made here.

Our eyes rolled when we heard last night about the new terror threats. We immediately wondered if this was a planned response by the Bush team to pick up his falling approval ratings if Monday's speech didn't do the trick. Then we wondered if we were being too cynical. We concluded that Bush is becoming like the little boy who cried wolf too many times. Wouldn't it be a shame if there really was a threat and none of us gave it any credence because his administration has lost so much credibility?

We decided not to report on the terror threat. Very few liberal bloggers have. But, apparently we're not the only one to have this "doubting Thomas" reaction that it's a political ploy. Steve Soto at Left Coaster says:

So let’s take inventory. Bush tanks his major speech on Iraq. Bush sees poll numbers that show new lows in his approval ratings. Bush makes a scapegoat of one of his leading generals in Iraq to cover for Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, and his vice president. So what is the Bush White House Standard Operating Procedure to shore up its gullible base and distract the public? Why, it must be time for another terrorist warning. And as usual, to show how credible and serious this threat is, it is based on no specified evidence or threat. ....the administration has no plans to raise the threat indicator......

We need a President we can trust. Bush doesn't make the cut. He isn't leading the country, he's on permanent damage control. He's sending Mueller and Ashcroft and Ridge out now to convince us. Forget it, we're no longer listening.

As James Ridgeway in the Village Voice writes, this likely made Ashcroft gag.

[FBI translator Sibel] Edmonds claimed to have translated testimony in criminal and counter-intelligence cases involving different FBI field offices, going back into the late 1990s. .... Among the Farsi translators working for the FBI, she said, it was common knowledge that a longtime, highly regarded FBI "asset" placed in Afghanistan told the agency in April 2001 that he had information from his contacts there that bin Laden was planning a major attack, involving the use of planes, in one or another of big American cities—Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York among them. The agents who took down the information from the spy wrote up reports and sent them to their superiors. That was the last the agents heard of the matter.

The Justice Department has gagged her by designating her information classified--two years after the fact and using an arcane law. Here's some background:

Update: The FBI issues a rare apology to Mayfield.

A federal judge today threw out the Government's material witness action against Oregon lawyer Brandon Mayfield, who was arrested on a material witness warrant in connection with the Spain train bombings. The FBI misidentified his fingerprint. Background here. The Court's order is here.

Brandon Mayfield, a 37-year-old American convert to Islam, was released from custody last week. But he was not altogether cleared of suspicion at the time; the government said he remained a "material witness" and put restrictions on his movements.

Those restrictions have now been lifted. "Due to the misidentification by the FBI of a fingerprint, the court orders the material witness proceeding dismissed," read a statement posted on the US District Court's website. "The court orders all property seized to be returned to the material witness."

Furthermore, the court said any copies of Mayfield's property held by the federal government were to be destroyed, and that all documents in the case would be unsealed.

Mr. Mayfield and his lawyer held a press conference this afteroon. They were justifiably critical of the material witness statute and the Patriot Act. We predict lawsuits are days away from being filed. We hope he wins big damages.

Whoops, never mind.

An American lawyer who was arrested two weeks ago in connection with the terror attacks in Spain was set free Thursday after evidence pointed to another suspect in the deadly train bombings. Brandon Mayfield, 37, was released soon after Spanish officials said fingerprints found on a bag near the bombing site were that of an Algerian. U.S. authorities had previously said the prints were Mayfield's. The bag contained detonators similar to those used in the March 11 blasts, which killed 191 people and injured 2,000 others.

In Madrid late Thursday, authorities said the fingerprints found on the plastic bag belonged to an Algerian, Ouhnane Daoud. The bag was found in a van hours after the morning rush-hour blasts. The van had been left near the train station from which three of the four bombed trains had departed.

by TChris

We know at least some of the things that happened at Abu Ghraib. We will soon know more about allegations of abuse at Camp Bucca. We've also heard about abuse at Bagram in Afghanistan. Information about abuse at Guantanamo Bay has so far been limited, but it looks like there's more to come.

A lawyer for a Syrian-born U.S. airman accused of espionage said on Tuesday that potentially damaging evidence of how detainees were treated at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba may surface during his client's court-martial hearing.

Ahmad Al Halabi's court marial is scheduled to begin in mid-June. Whether Guantanamo abuse will become an issue at the court martial, and whether that evidence will be made public, remains to be seen.

But not to worry. Donald Rumsfeld assures us that U.S. interrogation techniques neither violate the Geneva Conventions nor endanger the soldiers and civilians in Iraq (and elsewhere) who must deal with the repurcussions of prisoner abuse. Feel relieved?

by TChris

Abuse of military prisoners may not be limited to Iraq, as the U.S. is finally paying attention to reports of abused prisoners in Afghanistan.

The U.S. embassy in Kabul said an Afghan police officer, reportedly held by U.S.-led forces in the city of Gardez and the U.S. base at Bagram in 2003, said he had been stripped naked, photographed, kicked and subjected to "sexual taunting."

It is not known how many prisoners are held at Bagram or who they are. An investigation into the deaths of two prisoners while in U.S. detention in December, 2002, has yet to be completed.

In a report late last year, Amnesty International criticized the United States for its failure to make public any details of the investigation, saying it showed a "chilling disregard for human life."

by TChris

As TalkLeft reported yesterday, there's some uncertainty as to whether a fingerprint found in the van used by the persons responsible for train explosions in Madrid belongs to Brandon Mayfield, an Oregon lawyer who was arrested last week. The government arrested Mayfield before checking to see if he'd been to Spain (his family says he hasn't). It's now clear that Mayfield's activities as a lawyer contributed to his arrest.

Mayfield represented Jeffrey Battle in a child custody dispute. Battle was convicted of conspiring to help the Taliban fight against the United States. The government acknowledges that it views Mayfield's choice of clients with suspicion. An official says it would be different if the print matched "some little old lady in Peoria."

Mayfield's brother thinks Brandon is being "profiled" by the government. At the very least, Brandon Mayfield is being judged by the company he keeps -- a frightening prospect when the association is a professional one.