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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."
Incidents like this and other such just prove that terror(ists) are winning. Post 9/11, everybody is still in panic.
I recognize the merit in, when a legal search is conducted, allowing the use of truly coincidental material found to charge someone with a crime. So long as the search was legal and reasonable. (Drumming up happens too much, of course.) That being said, this smacks heavily of abuse of the law, in a way related to the "Hoax device" BS about the Breadboard incident a few days ago: prosecutors or cops seeking to charge someone in order to justify the fact that they've detained the person, looking for a crime to charge a particular person with rather than observing a crime and charging the person responsible for it.
IANAL, but oughtn't that to be illegal?
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
Like three years old.
HAD
The "fraud" was actually probably another case of prosecuting somebody who should walk because the authority in question feels they need a conviction to justify their investigation.
It's the same stupid reason we're going to try to send a perfectly innocent college student to jail for wearing blinking lights on her shirt to the airport.
The search and investigation were probably justified. The prosecution almost certainly isn't. When did we forget that it's OK to do an investigation which turns up no evidence of guilt?
This is known as the "Boston" response.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Remember when we used to make fun of Soviet Russia? Well, in NeoCon America, Soviet Russia makes fun of you!
The tinkerer's spirit was a big part of what made this country great. Now, if you're an electronics or chemistry hobbyist, people think you're a bombmaker; if you build and fly model rockets, you're suspected of trying to produce some kind of missile; if you've got a microscope and some test tubes, you're assumed to be manufacturing anthrax.
When perfectly innocuous activities make people go totally apeshit with suspicion of their neighbors, the terrorists win.
What really grinds my gears, though, is how common sense goes right out the fucking window... if this guy had anything to hide, why would he have allowed the authorities to see it? If he was up to no good, he'd have dragged his wife's body into the yard and told them she keeled over tending to the garden or something, and never let the EMTs or whoever in the damn house. Failing that, he'd at least have taken the time to hide the dodgy stuff first before making the call-- "I was taking a nap, and when I woke up, she was dead!"
No. Instead, they're thinking, "Wow, what a lucky break, this terrorist invited us in to see all his incriminating terrorist supplies! Homeland Security FTW!"
Fucking morons.
And therein lies the story. They're still at it three years later. Riveting, no. But it is newsworthy when the government seems to abuse its' power and decides to continue to do so for years rather than admit to being wrong. Note that I said newsworthy, but not new.
You forgot:
P.S. We are still going to charge you with something.
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
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.
Why would you pay $256 for bacteria? Just buy $1 worth and let each bacterium divide eight times.
Do it again and you've got $65,536 worth of bacteria which is serious money.
Right around the time "probable cause" made it OK to ignore the constitution and [investigate|terrorize|go on a fishing expedition with] anyone the powers that be don't like.
This would also be right around the same time that the whole "double jeopardy" thing got worked around by filing state charges and then federal charges back-to-back or after losing in one arena.
The "fraud charge" gambit probably references some technicality in WHY he wanted them evil-smarty-things that no honest (stupid|docile|sheep) citizen would want.
The government's agenda for a while has been Citizen = stupid. After all, no citizen should be able to create or research or learn anything without A) A university to pay money to or B) a large corporation in which to be enslaved, right?
C.E.
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" :
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.
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.
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.
I don't therefore I'm not.
The insidious thing about counterterror efforts is the slow but steady chilling effect they are having on humor and eccentric self-expression.
Twenty-five years ago I was talking to a friend about a book I'd been reading about the Trinity atomic bomb tests. Naturally I kept saying "atomic bomb." As we happened to be in an airport at the time, and happened to be approaching security, he started to look increasingly nervous and finally said something. He was right, of course, but what's the effect?
The effect is that I am now self-conscious about what I talk about in security checkpoints... and airports in general (after all, they're monitoring book titles)... and public places in general. I obviously don't talk seriously about bombs, and by extension I certainly mustn't joke about bombs, and of course the safest thing is not to joke at all.
I'm not going to wear satirical political T-shirts at public events where Bush is speaking... in fact maybe it's just prudent not to wear satirical T-shirts at all.
I've been delighted by the emergence of cheap "blinkies," those little battery-powered LED flashers that use strong magnets and attach to clothing, earlobes, etc. Maybe it would be fun to be slightly outrageous and wear some of those just for the heck of it on New Years' Day? No, after the Boston "mooninite" scare and the MIT student who got into trouble the other day, it's probably best not to wear any blinking lights in public.
Don't do anything to tweak public officials. Since you're not sure what will tweak them, best to just shut up and behave compliantly.
Conform. Don't stand out. Wear "normal" clothing. Don't act in any way that calls attention to yourself. Don't read books in public with political or religious titles (except the Bible, of course). Play it safe. Don't joke.
In fact, best not to smile.
Just like Moscow in the days of the Soviet Union.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!