American Civil Liberties Union

Abdullah al-Kidd is a U.S.-born American citizen who was unlawfully arrested and detained as a material witness in March 2003. For 15 days he was treated as if he were a terrorism suspect rather than a material witness. The ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of al-Kidd charging that the federal material witness law cannot be used to preventively detain or investigate suspects and that then Attorney General Ashcroft can be held personally responsible for al-Kidd's wrongful detention.

Prior to 9/11, the federal material witness law was used sparingly – especially with U.S. citizens – to ensure that witnesses would be available to testify in criminal cases. Arrests, under the statute, took place in rare cases to secure testimony where there was hard evidence that an individual had material information but would not testify voluntarily. After 9/11, then Attorney General John Ashcroft distorted the law into a preventative detention statute, allowing the government to arrest and detain individuals for whom the government lacked probable cause to charge with criminal violations.