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Chemistry sets aren't the only casualty in the war on access to scientific knowledge. Artist Steve Kurtz was completely railroaded by the FBI for doing artwork that used harmless e.Coli bacteria. The geneticist that got the material for him was charged with mail fraud too. All after he called 911 to report his wife's heart failure. http://www.caedefensefund.org/faq.html

The website for the defense From the site: "We anticipate going to trial in the Summer of 2008, if not sooner. Your support is needed more than ever." and "We must raise at least $90,000 in the next 10 months to defeat the DoJ's abuse of power in this precedent-setting case!" You can go here to donate.

The website for the defense From the site: "We anticipate going to trial in the Summer of 2008, if not sooner. Your support is needed more than ever." and "We must raise at least $90,000 in the next 10 months to defeat the DoJ's abuse of power in this precedent-setting case!" You can go here to donate.

What was in the package and what was claimed to have been in the package are identical... that's not fraud.

The fraud claim wasn't about the contents of the package - instead, it was based on how the order was placed. According to an article on AlterNet, "The $256 Question" :

[Steven] Ferrell, a geneticist and professor at the University of Pittsburgh, allegedly provided Kurtz the organisms for use in an artwork, rather than using them in his own research, thereby violating an agreement he had signed when he purchased the cultures for $256 from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC).

I think that's an accurate description from Kurtz's point of view, since I found the Alternet article via a link on the Critical Art Ensemble Defense Fund's press release page.

So yeah, seems like there was mail fraud, but in a technically-correct-but-really-lame sense of "fraud" that reeks of desperation to pin something - anything - on Kurtz.

The U.S. federal government does prosecute people for technology that, while harmless, may seem threatening. Please see this about Steve Kurtz, and artist who was charged with bioterrorism for art using "containing harmless forms of bacteria, and scientific equipment for testing genetically altered food." The charges have since been downgraded to mail fraud, but he has been indicted by a grand jury, and faces trial next year.

The one clear Patriot Act abuse I am aware of is the issue with Steven Kurtz whose genetically engineered artwork is considered in violation of the Patriot Act Sec. 817: Expansion of the Biological Weapons Statue.

You can read more about this case here.

The question isn't when have WE (whoever WE are) have historically allowed it - the question is whether or not it should be allowed. People who are more of a libertarian bent (I use that term in its loose, non-political sense) tend to think such things are OK, while those of a more puritanical (again a loose not political definition) bent prefer not.

but again, it boils down to should it be OK (period) and not whether or not is subject to historical analysis. If so, then we should still have slavery, because human society has had slavery a lot longer than it hasn't.

We're in a war right now (whether some people want to admit it or not), and none one has ever been censored for questioning national security. No press freedoms have been curtailed at ALL, unlike WW II, where official censors got to look at everything the press did before it was published.

I disagree with your premise. We are not in a war. We are in a historically unique situation that resembles one, but it really isn't. Imagine this: Geo Washington et al fill some dozen large boats with gunpowder and oil and all kinds of bad stuff and float then over to Lodon ca. 1775\4. There's no war, no declaration of indpendence, just some unruly colonies. They float these boats right up to the house of commons or some palace or some equally populated and politically sensitive target, and then they strap the boats together and blow themselves and everything for about a half mile around to flinders.

Geo Washington writes out a manifesto saying "I'm a rich colonist and old King George can go fsck himself. We want Britain out of North America NOW and (fill in other similar demands)." Now, did the colonies declare war on Britain? No. would Britain decide it's at war? I doubt it. It would consider Washington et al a bunch of politically motivated criminals that require a militarised response. But calling it a war, is ridiculous.

George Bush et al have used this "war" idea in order to institute the Orwellian prediction of the Permanent Wartime Economy, and he is using dupes like Des Scorp to do their fearmongering and bidding.

Was the USA correct in going into Afghanistan? Sure. And if we had bombed London as outlined above, I daresay that the Brits would have marched on Virginia in a big way - and with a great deal of support from the colonists themselves - just as the USA was easily ablle to get massive international support in thumping the Al Qaeda/Taliban regime.

Press freedoms haven't been curtailed? What rock have you been under?

With the exceptions of some things like the DMCA, tell me what freedom's we've lost that used to be written in law? Even the Patriot Act doesn't affect the vast majority of people in this country.

Oh so depriving citizens of the writ of habeus corpus is OK as long as it's not the vast majority of people? So it's OK to deny people their constitutional rights when the dimwitted tool of some right wing corporate junta says so? Read this and then tell me how our freedoms aren't being curtailed at the hands of the single most perfidious and downright evil administration that I have ever, in my 45 years of life, experienced.

Sir, YOUR post is bullshit, and the simple facts around prove so.

RS