The Supreme Court is refusing to take up a constitutional challenge to provisions of the Patriot Act from a lawyer who was once wrongly suspected in deadly terrorist bombings in Spain. The justices on Monday turned down an appeal from Brandon Mayfield, the Oregon lawyer who was arrested by federal agents after they mistakenly matched him to a fingerprint from the train bombings in Madrid in 2004. It turned out the fingerprint didn't belong to Mayfield, who got an apology and $2 million from the federal government. But a federal appeals court blocked Mayfield's challenge to the Patriot Act, the post-9/11 law that was used to arrest him. The high court left the appeals court ruling in place.
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