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New Scientific Evidence Emerges In Anthrax Case
sciencehabit writes "A Science Magazine investigation uses clues from a key document unveiled last week to reconstruct the trail that led the FBI to Bruce Ivins. Among the revelations: Anthrax fingerprinting was not critical to the investigation, as many reports have suggested. Rather, brute-force genetic sequencing, with the help of the J. Craig Venter Institute, helped crack the case. New potential motivations by Ivins are also revealed."
This was a really well done article. One quote reminded me of something odd about this case:
FTA:
I keep hearing this when they interview government types. It's weird, it seems like they're trying to sow doubt about their case, because:
Ivins's lawyer (from NPR):
Response:
Weak...
OK, now you're getting somewhere! Why is it they only go to the relevant part when pressed?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
It assumes competence. I could see something on the level of say, an anthrax attack being possible to arrange with a minimum amount of people involved. Most of the other events you mention would require too many participants to enforce secrecy. I've worked in classified settings for the government, and not to denigrate my coworkers in the least, but secrecy within an organization is a joke. While external secrecy is fairly good, the secrets aren't morally outrageous. I somehow doubt people would take their oaths particularly seriously if they discovered the U.S. government organized any of the above events.
Now if you want to argue that it was a sin of inaction, that someone high up knew an attack was coming and chose to do nothing, that might be plausible, since less people would need to be involved. I wouldn't rule it out completely, though my faith in humanity would be shattered if it were the case. I'm not inclined to believe even that much.
Personally, I think the attacks were unexpected. The people you accuse of conspiracy did not aid them in any way, they just took obscene advantage of the situation.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
So if we base a clever article on a leaked document, shouldn't we first assume that the document is truthful?
When a high-profile person commits suicide because of the pressure of an investigation, the authorities will always try to justify their action. This was observed many times. I do remember a big scandal where a perfectly honest corner shop owner was investigated by the IRS and harassed in the worst possible ways. He turned out that his books were perfectly clean, but there was nevertheless an attempt at a smear campaign against the poor guy after his death.
I am sure that this suicide is embarrassing some higher-ups at the FBI and that they will do their best to avoid being blamed.
So I'd take these revelations with a grain of salt.
Fantasy: http://ferrisfantasy.blogspot.com/
Call me paranoid, but I'm instinctively suspicious when the guy who unexpectedly ends up dead and thus isn't around to defend himself is revealed by the government to be TEH GENIUS CRIMINAL MASTERMIND!!!1.
It's likely. And even makes sense. What happens when there isn't enough of an antidote for everyone and you warn the public of a possible attack? So who do you warn? Those that you need to keep the country afloat in case it really happens, for which you do have enough antidote.
The problem is that you can't even justify it later without risking an outrage. It is, from a purely intellectual point of view, the most sensible thing to do. But you can't justify it "morally" that you play god and decide who may live and who will die should it really happen.
And this is how conspiracies are born.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Not really, it only implies someone thought an attack using anthrax was possible. In other it means nothing except someone was intelligent enough to realize anthrax was a plausible biological weapon. Conspiracy theories exist because human brains are pattern matching machines and if you look enough at something you'll find some form of pattern by pure chance. Science and statistics exist because someone realized that without rigorous standards the conclusion we draw are often less than worthless.
In this case, the question to be answered is what makes us think it was Ivans rather than someone else in the lab. This part of the case is weak. It seems that many people had access. Other people likely had as strong a motive. Why him specifically?
Evidence that he went to NJ is not strictly necessary, except that so many other areas are weak. Holes don't matter if the rest of the case is very strong, but they can sink a weak case.
I realize I'm expecting a lot, but couldn't a Slashdot summary be accurate, just once.
First, its Bruce IVINS. Not IVANS. The Russians had nothing to do with this.
Second, the linked article doesn't provide any new information at all regarding IVINS' alleged motivations. It just repeats what's been reported already. And those don't make a lot of sense (the claims that he was psychologically unstable make much more sense, if those are reliable).
Third, yes anthrax fingeprinting was crucial to this case. Yes they brute forced the DNA sequencing (duh!) but the main evidence against Ivins is a statistical fingerprint based on four specific mutations in the anthrax that the FBI claims was present in the anthrax mailed to Congress critters, etc. and the anthrax in a vial that only Ivins controlled. But as the linked article points out, without knowing more you can't really conclude much from that. For example, the similarities could occur in portions of the anthrax DNA that are hypervariable which would significantly reduce their value.
So, so far it looks like the FBI case is based largely on two facts: a) Ivins began working late nights in the weeks prior to the anthrax mailings -- he apparently claimed he had trouble at home and found solace in his work which the FBI apparently found absurd; b) a statistical similarity in certain unspecified mutations among the anthrax mailed out and the anthrax in a vial that only Ivins had access to.
The Science article also suggests that the FBI assumed that because the envelopes used to mail the anthrax were purchased in Maryland or Virginia that the anthrax *had* to be produced there, so they then used as a basis for their investigation that the anthrax *had* to come from USAMRIID . . . which is why they focused on Hatfill so intensely.
Maybe Ivins was the killer, but the Science article seems to raise more questions about how solid the FBI's case really is. Maybe future, more detailed information releases will bring this more into focus, but so far this doesn't appear to be the slam dunk that the FBI has so far made it seem.
Where to start?
Well for one, it's spelled "thermite" not "thermate." And while it does indeed burn quite hot, it doesn't even remotely approach the temperature at the core of the sun. Not by a factor of more than a thousand. Also, it takes an enormous amount of heat to initiate the thermite reaction - burning jet fuel won't cut it.
The buildings coming down at freefall speed? Well duh, they're 90% air. Once the tops, which weighed half a million tons, got moving, nothing was going to stop them due to intertia.
People coming out with injuries due to explosives? Not suprising, since the planes impacting the buildings caused GIANT EXPLOSIONS that set multiple entire floors on fire.
Seriously, Bushco is guilty of plenty enough crimes that they actually committed to deserve the deaths of traitors - no need to make shit up.