in portland, mayor tom potter and the city council are considering whether to continue working with the FBI's joint-terrorist taskforce. oregon law prohibits investigating people for political and religious beliefs, and as the FBI uses oregon cops to do these things, the mayor wants clearance to know what is happening. the FBI hasn't granted this security clearance to any other city governments across the US...but portland is a bit different.
yes, we had "the portland seven," a looseknit group of muslims, some of whom tried to travel to afghanistan to join the taliban.
but portland's also home to brandon mayfield, an anglo-muslim lawyer who was "held as a material witness" in connection with the madrid train bombing. the FBI claimed that his fingerprints were found on a bag at the bombsite and kept him locked up for weeks. mayfield was also, oh-so-coincidentally, a child-custody lawyer for one of the portland seven...and an active muslim.
and then there was mike hawash, an intel computer employee held incommunicado for weeks on end, while he was investigated...he eventually plead guilty to something...anything...
portland's mayor and council have a seriously valid point. if their employees are being asked to
spy on citizens of the state of oregon, then the elected officials must follow state law. if the FBI feels the need to spy on someone, it should share its information with the local cops...and adhere to state law. if the FBI wants to go fishing for info by spying on muslims, political activists, environmentalists, socialists, whistleblowers, and other malcontents...it must solely use its own federalized agents(who can ignore state law, but not the US constitution.)
just because one suspects that there are a few malcontents in the pond doesn't give the feds the right to dragnet the entire state, store the gigareams of information, and arrest US citizens while giving them no rights to hearings or lawyers. HOORAY for our officials, in representing the concerns of the citizens...
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