Washington Post reported last week that in September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democrat Rep. Jane Harman, was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Speaking at the fourth peace convention of the American Muslim Voice in Newark, CA, last Sunday, Sheehan reiterated that she will be running for Congress against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the congressional seat representing San Francisco.

On August 9, Cindy Sheehan announced that in 2008 she will run as an independent candidate against Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). "I dedicate my candidacy to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan," Sheehan said. Sheehan later appeared on CNN to explain that she was running because "they're not making the administration change course in Iraq. They give him more money ... to wage the war. They're not holding him accountable."

In April 2004, Sheehan's son was killed in Iraq. Sheehan said that we are occupying Iraq, we were not invited by them. "This occupation of Arab-Muslim land shows how racist we really are," she said. "If we can justify it by saying it's OK to kill a million Iraqis, but at least my family is safe. ... No, that is not OK!"

Events, coalition building and groups like the American Muslim Voice are very important to Sheehan, she said, because they allow her "to tear down the boundaries whether they are real or fake that prevent us from having true and authentic relationships with each other."

Other speakers at the convention included Brandon Mayfield, an Oregon lawyer, who received an apology and restitution from the federal government after being held in jail for weeks spoke about racial and religious profiling after Sept. 11.

Brandon Mayfield, spoke about his quest for justice, not only for himself, but for all of us through his lawsuit against the government, demanding that the PATRIOT Act be declared unconstitutional.

The Mayfield case has been an embarrassment for the federal government. Last year, the Justice Department’s internal watchdog faulted the FBI for sloppy work in mistakenly linking Mayfield to the Madrid bombings. That report said federal prosecutors and FBI agents had made inaccurate and ambiguous statements to a federal judge to get arrest and criminal search warrants against Mayfield.

The U.S. government abused at least three powers during its investigation and arrest of Mayfield: (1) the expansion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in the PATRIOT Act, (2) National Security Letters and (3) the material witness statute.

Mayfield v. United States case has profound implications for civil liberties, executive power, the Patriot Act. Consequently, on Sept. 26, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken in Portland, Oregon ruled that using the act to authorize secret searches and wiretapping to gather criminal evidence - instead of intelligence gathering - violates the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. “For over 200 years, this nation has adhered to the rule of law - with unparalleled success. A shift to a nation based on extra-constitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill-advised,” Aiken wrote.

Welcoming Judge Aikin’s decision, Elden Rosenthal said: “Judge Aiken, in striking down the challenged provisions of the Patriot Act, has upheld both the tradition of judicial independence, and our nation’s most cherished principle of the right to be secure in one’s own home. We are relieved that the Bill of Rights can be honored and preserved even in times of perceived crisis.”