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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."
As per the main story, the difference between 'Harmless' bacteria and deadly ones is pretty darn slim and hard to tell if you're not an expert in the field. This isn't the same as most other situations as it's organic, and organic things are complex, and complex things are hard to examine to see if they're dangerous or not. They shouldn't have been so harsh on him, or so overzealous in the raid, but I don't see any problems with them testing the stuff. He admits that he was recreating germ warfare experiments from the 50s using different bacteria. He says the bacteria isn't harmful, but his rig is similar to one used on extremely harmful ones. So...we should just trust him that the bacteria aren't dangerous? Circumstantial evidence was heavily on the government's side here, anyone preparing to recreate germ warfare experiments should be looked at closely, even if they claim to be using harmless bacteria.
Now again, they should not have handled it the way they did. They should have been a lot nicer and lest gung ho about the whole situation, but they should have, and did, handle the situation, and that's good.
As for the Mail Fraud charge...I wonder what the story behind that is. That I can see in the article he never denies that he committed fraud, nor confirms it, so it seems entirely possible that they happened across this and decided to prosecute him for it, and it's also possible that they're just trying to hit him with something to make it look like they accomplished something. There's not enough info to really tell...
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
when you can't admit that you overreacted.
They have to move forward in an attempt to stave off lawsuits.
This is indicative of our legal/law enforcement mindset (or what it's becoming) in our society. I am a staunch (and by staunch I mean I loath the current Rep party and must consider myself an independant) conservative. Anyway, some of you might have read a while back that a group of Hash runners (as in the Hash House Harriers running club) were arrested for marking their urban trail with flour. Why? Someone saw the 'white powder' on the ground and of course assumed that it was a terrorist bio-weapon attack of some sort. The HAZMAT guys were sent. The flour was discovered to be just that. The problem is, once the authorities got their teeth in this, they wouldn't let go. Rather than chuckle and go their merry way, they charged the 'offenders' with Breach of the Peace in the First Degree...a Class D felony. This whole story is known as the Hamburger Hash Affair. To contrast this, I have spent the last year and a half living in a very out of the way part of the middle east. Americans (of which I am one) are not liked here of course. One day while on a hash run, myself and the other Hare were laying track (using flour) and the local police observed us in action. They IMMEDIATELY stopped us and began rather intense questioning. Once we explained what we were doing and showed them it was okay by tasting the flour, they let us go and even wished us luck. Somehow it seems like a little role reversal here. We seem (as a society) to have adopted the "bust'em for somethin'" mentality. I don't advocate letting people get away with crimes, but this is getting ridiculous.
Hear, hear. If Feynman pulled the kind of shit today that he did during WW2 in Los Alamos, his ass would be in Guantanamo by now. What happened to the greatness of the WWII generation? Do we need a war to wake people up?
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
That's exactly what is going on (I know all of the people directly involved in this case). The federal prosecutor in Buffalo made a big deal of this case in the beginning and doesn't want to walk away without getting somebody. They couldn't make the bioterrorism charges to stick so they're going after them both for fraud.
We're from the government and we're here to help!
-- The sad thing is they butcher the government programs make them worse than having nothing... then argue that they should be disbanded because they don't work. FEMA was a fantastic agency under Clinton, on the ball and everything, they weren't posting guards to prevent help from getting to people needing help.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
There, fixed that for you
I don't therefore I'm not.
No. Terrorism has already won. I sat there on 9/11, watching the news and crying. Crying for the innocent people who were murdered, yes, but also crying for the end of freedom. The end of civil rights. I knew at that moment that "liberty" would never again be anything but a hollow mockery of itself. I knew the gov't - to "protect" us - would strip us of the entire Bill of Rights and more besides. And that is exactly what they did. What RICO began, what the "War on (Some) Drugs" carried through, we, ourselves, through our government, have completed. And don't lecture me about the Republicans did this or the Democrats did something else. Both sides of the aisle voted for these things. Both share the blame.
As Franklin observed, those who would trade their liberty for imagined security deserve neither. And now we have neither, nor are we ever going to. There are times when I look at my 10 year old son and I am consumed with guilt at what I have brought him into.
Boston doesn't drink water from the Bay, though. Yeah, yeah, I know, it was a joke. But the truth is even crazier.
They get it from four towns they flooded in the middle of Massachusetts.
Seriously. I shit you not.
Boston's solution to unfair taxes? Dump tea into the bay.
Boston's solution to water problems? Flood four towns.
Boston's solution to traffic problems? Replace the highway with a tunnel.
Boston's solution to vague terrorist threats? Punish anyone with blinking lights.
Draw your own conclusions.
No. Terrorism has already won. I sat there on 9/11, watching the news and crying. Crying for the innocent people who were murdered, yes, but also crying for the end of freedom. The end of civil rights. I knew at that moment that "liberty" would never again be anything but a hollow mockery of itself. I knew the gov't - to "protect" us - would strip us of the entire Bill of Rights and more besides. And that is exactly what they did. What RICO began, what the "War on (Some) Drugs" carried through, we, ourselves, through our government, have completed. And don't lecture me about the Republicans did this or the Democrats did something else. Both sides of the aisle voted for these things. Both share the blame.
Well, what you "knew" is just silly hyperbole. Liberty is not a "hollow mockery of itself" and the Bill of Rights is still the law of the land.
These exaggerations don't help explain what is really going on. Civil rights have been eroded to some extent, generally by well-meaning people who aim to protect US citizens—and perhaps don't mind having greater power and responsibility. The situation is certainly grave, especially when we consider other abuses that the US is meting out to foreign suspects. Balancing freedom and protection will be a pretty difficult road ahead, and it's pretty clear that so far, the govt. is doing a pretty bad job of it.
But let's just drop this silliness about liberty being a mockery of itself. There are relatively few days when we really notice the changes affecting us personally. Visits to the airport, govt. offices and tourist traps are notably less pleasant, with more intrusive security and a whole lot less courtesy. A few of us may even have become innocent suspects due to the new fear, and that's a horrible thing. And we need to do something to fix the overreaction. An overreaction in the other direction, including implications that the government is repealing the Bill of Rights under the guise of "protection", just doesn't seem all that useful to me.
Phiwum's law: anyone that names an obvious law after himself and then puts it in his own sig is just pathetic.
But, the police are the first line you encounter with 'the justice system'. They have the discretion of arresting you, warning you, or just letting you go if they find nothing wrong.
The trouble is...if they stop you or you are investigated these days....EVEN if they are mistaken, they now seem to assume they have to take you and and charge you with "something" whether it sticks or not, and now YOU have to take time, and often a good deal of $$$ these days, to go defend yourself.
This didn't really seem to be the way years ago. In the past, I've been let off for minor traffic offenses...especially as a teen. Going a little fast? "Slow it down son", and I was let off with a warning. Hell, once I'd have a few drinks...had some Taco Bell in the car and was heading home. Cop pulled me over....asked if I'd been drinking..I said no...the said don't lie to me, so I told him yes, I'd been to a party, and realized I'd not eaten, so I left, got food and was going home...and I was only blocks away from home. He asked my friend with me if he was ok to drive (actually he was maybe a bit worse than I), he saw on my license I was close to home, and told him to drive us home, and if he saw me out again that night...I was going to jail. We went straight home.
You think that would happen today???? No..they HAVE to charge you with something if they take the 'time' out of their shift to pull you over or question you. The previous example IS extreme I'll grant you, but, I'm just telling an extreme one to illustrate how lenient cops would be back in the past if you weren't really doing anything bad (rape, robbery, etc). And no, back 15-20 years ago...driving with a few drinks wasn't the uber-crime it is today...drunk driving, yes, but, they didn't do random roadblocks, and you didn't get pulled over unless you were weaving badly...or speeding (which I did to get through a yellow light at that time).
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
He could have used flourescine powder not real bacteria and just as effective a demonstration.
No, the fact that they are live makes a difference in an art piece. This isn't a science museum. The funny thing about your post, is that he could have used wild bacteria, which would have been more dangerous, but not illegal.