Justice Department's Bio-terror Mistake

destinyland writes "University professor and artist Steve Kurtz publicizes the history of chemical weapons with performance art pieces. The day his wife died of a heart attack, 911 responders mistook his scientific equipment for bioterrorism supplies. After he was detained for 22 hours, Homeland Security cordoned off his block, and a search was performed on his house in hazmat suits, they found nothing. Now they're prosecuting him for "mail fraud" for the way he obtained $256 of harmless bacteria."

Comments

This story is very very very very very very old.

[rafael_es_son]

Like three years old.

Re:Terror is winning

[Foobar of Borg]

These *really did* look just like the weapons they thought they were.

The problem is that, after they discovered that he did not have WMD, they still tried to pin something on him. Why can't they just admit that they were mistaken and let it go? Welcome to America. When the police think you have done something wrong, then come hell or high water they will try to find something they can charge you with.

Re:how did he commit fraud?

[Odin's Raven]

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.

Re:Terror is winning

[Dak RIT]

I picked Taiwan. Most of the population here is still actively fighting for ever-increasing rights.

Dickhead

[Max Littlemore]

along with some photocopied manuals in Arabic, I would have that observer drop a dime on you as fast as it falls...

And shit for brains.

Do you wonder why Americans and the "free world" are threatened with terrorist activity? I mean it obviously couldn't have anything to do with how you select arbitrary groups of people around the world, demonize them to make it appear moraly okay to rob them, persecute, terrorise them and kill them to further your interests?

Could it be that so many of your most vocal and prominant figures are so obviously either corrupt or stupid? Or the fact that you insist on challenging other nations for their transgressions with regard to international law and being the world's police force while your own agencies completely disregard the rule of law, as this case highlights?

No, it's probably because every one else is jealous of your freedom.

Big fucking rant here, but I am so sick of seeing absolute shit like that re-inforcing propaganda on a site that is supposed to be a bit more intelligent than the usual fare. Terrorist manuals are avaliable in many languages. Copies of the SAS handbook, anarchist cookbook, etc are out there and they are not in arabic.

I personally feel safer about Iran having a nuclear program than I do about the US having one. How many wars have Iran started in the last 50 years? How about the United States? In those wars, which nation has used WMDs? Which nation has supplied more WMDs to other nations to fight proxy wars? Which nation has taken a decade to go from cooperation to war with at least two former allies?

Sure, Iran has threatened Isreal, but Isreal is a state born from terrorism with a total lack of regard for international law. It is a state that continues to commit human rights abuses on the population it has displaced through the theft of land. It has developed nuclear weapons, refused to sign the NNPT and given it's total disregard for the humanity of any nation around it, and the fact that Iran supports the Palestinian people, I think it is much more likely that Isreal will be the agressor in any nuclear exchange in the middle East. I support Irans nuclear program if for no other reason than to keep Isreal in check.

Your own government commits human rights abuses and supports foreign governments that commit human rights abuses. The most extreme abuses are of course reserved for non citizens, but I believe in the rule of law and a crime is a crime. Please fuck off with your propaganda, it insults my intelligence. And don't come back with that fucking US centric democrat voting liberal shit. I don't understand your political divisions and I don't want to. My opinions are my opinions, this post is predominantly fact.

Sincerest apologies to any intelligent americans who can see through the propaganda but feel insulted by the strong language in this rant.

Re:Terror is winning

[toganet]

Jose Padilla
Yasser Esam Hamdi
Kevin James

Were born in the US, and are just a few of the US Citizens in Gitmo
I'm not saying any of these men are innocent -- just that they deserve due process under the law like any other citizen, regardless their religion or hairstyle.