Bioterrorism Charges Brought Against Professor 611
gnetwerker writes "Wired
and others are reporting about artist Steve Kurtz, professor at Univesity of Buffalo (NY), and member of the
Critical Art Ensemble will face a Grand Jury in two weeks on bioterrorism charges over artwork that used samples of harmless bacteria to make a statement about genetic engineering and food safety. He is charged with BioTerrorism under Section 817 of the PATRIOT Act. Apparently
John Ashcroft can't tell a weapons lab from an art installation. There is more info and a
Defense Fund on the CAE Defense Fund Site."
Damn, what a bad summary. (Score:5, Informative)
He is not being held on the patriot act, but a much older late 80's U.S. Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989.
Good god. I'm not fond of Ashcroft or the PATRIOT Act, but not everything is a conspiracy, you know.
Re:Damn, what a bad summary. (Score:5, Informative)
RTFA...Again
from the usa today sorce:
"Kurtz's 45-year-old wife, Hope, died of apparent heart failure and her death is not believed related to the suspect materials, authorities said."
Dear John Ashcroft and PATRIOT Act Haters (Score:4, Informative)
(1) You would discover, in both the Wired and USA Today pieces, that Mr. Kurtz is *not* being charged under the Patriot Act. If he is charged with anything, it will be an older act related to bioterrism. He is not being charged under the Patriot Act. He is NOT being charged under the Patriot Act (did it get through?)
(2) Mr. Kurtz hasn't been formally charged with anything. He is currently the subject of a investigation brought about by the death of his wife. This investigation may or may not result in an indictment. Take this fact into consideration before forking over $$ to this "defense fund" (for which there is a VERY convienient link).
From the Wired story: "The subpoenas cited Section 175 of the U.S. Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, which prohibits the use of certain biological materials for anything other than a "prophylactic, protective, bona fide research, or other peaceful purpose."
Section 817 of the PATRIOT Act is not mentioned in either linked story.
Wow. Some people have been subpoenaed to get facts about this case. What an unheard of trampling of rights.
Someone needs to do some fact checking before posting.
Re:Damn, what a bad summary. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the wired article got it wrong, it WAS in fact the patriot act. In a subpoena, the government cites sections of the US Code, not the act that modified the US code. In this case, the 1989 act modified section 175, and the PATRIOT act later modified that same section. The 1989 act says "Whoever knowingly develops, produces, stockpiles, transfers, acquires, retains, or possesses any biological agent, toxin, or delivery system for use as a weapon" is commiting a crime. In this act, "`for use as a weapon' does not include the development, production, transfer, acquisition, retention, or possession of any biological agent, toxin, or delivery system for prophylactic, protective, or other peaceful purposes." This does not say that any other use IS "use as a weapon".
However, the PATRIOT act DOES make it bioterrorism to develop biological agents for any other reason than "reasonably justified by a prophylactic, protective, bona fide research, or other peaceful purpose," even if it is NOT use as a weapon. From the wired article:The subpoenas cited Section 175 of the U.S. Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, which prohibits the use of certain biological materials for anything other than a "prophylactic, protective, bona fide research, or other peaceful purpose."
Since "bona fide research" is not present in the 1989 act, but is present in the PATRIOT act, and the fact that the PATRIOT act overwrote what was passed in the 1989 act, it is clear that the subpoena did in fact site the PATRIOT act.
Re:Damn, what a bad summary. (Score:5, Informative)
The article doesn't say what the man is charged with. The subpoenas cite violating the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989. Nothing in that act prohibits murder. Therefore, he is not being charged with murder.
Whomever rated the above comment 5:Interesting should be banned.
Re:Excerpt of Text from Cookbook (Score:3, Informative)
~S
The legacy of the Bush Administration (Score:1, Informative)
Al Gore's speech last week touched on some of the issues here and I think he expressed them poignantly. Everyone should see this speech. video [c-span.org] or audio [rbn.com].
"President Bush is claiming the unilateral right to do that to any American citizen he believes is an "enemy combatant." Those are the magic words. If the President alone decides that those two words accurately describe someone, then that person can be immediately locked up and held incommunicado for as long as the President wants, with no court having the right to determine whether the facts actually justify his imprisonment.
Now if the President makes a mistake, or is given faulty information by somebody working for him, and locks up the wrong person, then it's almost impossible for that person to prove his innocence - because he can't talk to a lawyer or his family or anyone else and he doesn't even have the right to know what specific crime he is accused of committing. So a constitutional right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness that we used to think of in an old-fashioned way as "inalienable" can now be instantly stripped from any American by the President with no meaningful review by any other branch of government.
How do we feel about that? Is that OK?
Here's another recent change in our civil liberties: Now, if it wants to, the federal government has the right to monitor every website you go to on the internet, keep a list of everyone you send email to or receive email from and everyone who you call on the telephone or who calls you - and they don't even have to show probable cause that you've done anything wrong. Nor do they ever have to report to any court on what they're doing with the information. Moreover, there are precious few safeguards to keep them from reading the content of all your email.
Everybody fine with that?
If so, what about this next change?
For America's first 212 years, it used to be that if the police wanted to search your house, they had to be able to convince an independent judge to give them a search warrant and then (with rare exceptions) they had to go bang on your door and yell, "Open up!" Then, if you didn't quickly open up, they could knock the door down. Also, if they seized anything, they had to leave a list explaining what they had taken. That way, if it was all a terrible mistake (as it sometimes is) you could go and get your stuff back.
But that's all changed now. Starting two years ago, federal agents were given broad new statutory authority by the Patriot Act to "sneak and peak" in non-terrorism cases. They can secretly enter your home with no warning - whether you are there or not - and they can wait for months before telling you they were there. And it doesn't have to have any relationship to terrorism whatsoever. It applies to any garden-variety crime. And the new law makes it very easy to get around the need for a traditional warrant - simply by saying that searching your house might have some connection (even a remote one) to the investigation of some agent of a foreign power. Then they can go to another court, a secret court, that more or less has to give them a warrant whenever they ask.
Three weeks ago, in a speech at FBI Headquarters, President Bush went even further and formally proposed that the Attorney General be allowed to authorize subpoenas by administrative order, without the need for a warrant from any court.
What about the right to consult a lawyer if you're arrested? Is that important?
Attorney General Ashcroft has issued regulations authorizing the secret monitoring of attorney-client conversations on his say-so alone; bypassing procedures for obtaining prior judicial review for such monitoring in the rare instances when it was permitted in the past. Now, whoever is in custody has to assume that the government is always listening to consultations between them and their lawyers.
Does
Re:Where does the PATRIOT act come into this? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Dear John Ashcroft and PATRIOT Act Haters (Score:5, Informative)
Read posts further up the page; while he IS being charged under the 1989 Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act, the specific sections of said act in question were amended by the Patriot Act. Previously, it was required that the bio agent be used as a weapon; now it is not so.
Re:President Bush's erratic behavior (Score:2, Informative)
This is actually valid. (Score:4, Informative)
Also in the wired article it states: "But Kurtz's work and his beliefs are more radical than those of many of his peers. He has written proposals for releasing mutant flies into restaurants, and demonstrated methods for destroying genetically modified crops. And it is Kurtz's views, his supporters say, that have Kurtz on the wrong side of a federal investigation sparked by the death of his wife, Hope Kurtz."
This professor has talked about in papers of releasing genetically engineered flies into resurants, and destroying crops that have been genetically modified. These might be on the lower end of the terrorism totem-pole, but it is still a terroist act. And all of this was sparked by a pecular death of his wife, normally deaths are handled by local cops, unless something really weird is going on that requires the FBI.
So this is IMHO a perfectly good use of the Patriot act. Just remember, that a judge has to agree to sign the warrent inorder for the patriot act to be used. And many of the Federal judges in the past couple of months have rejected the use of the patriot act for stuff they didn't deam in the realm of what is required to warrent one. In addition Ashcroft has been rejected many times by Federal judges including a couple big ones in Chicago about doctors records. So the author of this
Take my comments at what you will, but if you want the real truth go read the patriot act on the U.S. Congress web site.
Re:OH MY GOD (Score:2, Informative)
Since when is a political statement grounds for federal charges?
Whoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully make or convey false reports or false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United States, or to promote the success of its enemies, or shall willfully make or convey false reports, or false statements, . . . or incite insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, or shall willfully obstruct . . . the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States, or . . . shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States . . . or shall willfully display the flag of any foreign enemy, or shall willfully . . . urge, incite, or advocate any curtailment of production . . . or advocate, teach, defend, or suggest the doing of any of the acts or things in this section enumerated and whoever shall by word or act support or favor the cause of any country with which the United States is at war or by word or act oppose the cause of the United States therein, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both....
US Sedition Act, May 16, 1918
Worse than the PATRIOT Act ever dreamed.
Re:OH MY GOD (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, you should get your facts straight.
The proper way to dispense of a worn out American flag is to burn it, optionally cutting it into pieces first. The purpose is to reduce it to a non-flag state. i.e. - once it's ashes, it's not a flag anymore so the detritus can simply be disposed of.
I don't know where on earth you heard or saw that you should bury a flag, but that's probably the single most disrespectful suggestion for elimintating a flag that needs retired I think I've ever seen.
Re:Get used to it... (Score:2, Informative)
George Orwell's vision had come true, in the big noisy clunky physical world, before he even wrote the book '1984.'
It was about Stalinism. I know that most of us had 'new left' influenced teachers in High School, where we were forced to study '1984,' and thus nobody mentioned the 'dirty russkies' (without heavy footnotes to 'McCarthyism, etc'), but the truth stands. Orwell was a disgruntled 'fellow traveller' of the Communists, and the world he described in '1984' was already in existence when he wrote the book.
It's almost a 'Soylent Green Is People' thing to have to bring stuff like this up, because everybody is so afraid to acknowlege what went on in Russia.
Re:OH MY GOD (Score:3, Informative)
"A lesser-known fact is that the proper way to dispose of an old and tattered flag is to burn it - something many citizens do not feel comfortable doing."
Grand Juries (Score:3, Informative)
Getting questioned by a grand jury is pretty alarming because it means someone is seeking an indictment against you for a crime. Prosecutors get indictments at a high rate because the defendant does not have a chance to present evidence or cross-examine witnesses. It's all the prosecutor's show at that point.
So yeah, getting indicted for a crime such as murder is a bad thing. You get arrested and as such. It's more than the police or DA asking you questions or holding you as a witness.
Re:The legacy of the Bush Administration (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Where does the PATRIOT act come into this? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:OH MY GOD (Score:4, Informative)
Sometimes I think I am the only person in the US who realizes this but we are NOT at war. Just because President Dumbass sez so doesn't make it so.
Section 8 of Article 1 of the US Constitution clearly states that the US Congress has the power to declare war. Not Bush. Not Ashcroft. Not any bozo bureacrat who declares a war on drugs, poverty, illiteracy, this, that or the other thing.
No war, no extra-constitutional powers, no sedition. Period.
Re:OH MY GOD (Score:2, Informative)
Just an FYI for everyone - The Sedition Act was repealed in 1921.
Rule of the law... (Score:3, Informative)
What makes referenced Patriot Act section extremely practical for political reuse is simple fact, that any chemical or biological substance could be considered as toxic, either in certain condition or in certain quantity.
Expired yoghurt? Molded bread? Can of meat forgotten on sunlight? Either of that is highly biologically dangerous material...
think about the implications, please. (Score:3, Informative)
Nice straw man, tbase. I've yet to see anyone but you say such a thing.
How about remembering that the good professor is innocent until proven guilty? I'd like to see real planning and materials pinned to the artist himself. What's being presented is petri dishes full of mold and literature, perhaps fantasy, from an organization the professor is a member of. It's all flimsy stuff that exposes problems with the Patriot Act.
Quoting Malcom X does not make you a terrorist any more than reprinting, "Give me liberty or give me death." does. Actions are what laws forbid, not thoughts.
A lab in your living room does not make you a terrorist either, but it looks like that will now get you into trouble with the Patriot act. While it seems clear that the "biological agents" found in the apartment were not harmful and not the cause of Hope's death, the lab itself is being treated as a weapon.
Where do you draw the line? If you can't breed bugs for art, what can you breed them for? Do you want to have to convince Big Brother you are politically correct when you want to grow brewer's yeast?
If you really want to be convinced of how harmless this group is, go visit their website [critical-art.net] yourself. The thing is a joke. The only thing that's disgusting is how far some prosecutor's clerk had to dig to find anything that looks threatening.
Re:I'm no luddite (Score:3, Informative)
I'm a little lazy right now but here [osu.edu] is an article/paper about managing cross pollination between GMO and non-GMO plants. I can only assume that if management of cross pollination is required then it must be possible.
What normally would end up happening with cross pollination is that only some of the genes are in the new generation so the terminator gene is not in the new plant. I you look up some of monsanto's actions in canada and mexico against farmers whose fields have been contaminated by GMO crops I think you migh come away with a different view on things.
Last but not least, Monsanto has a patent(copyright?) on all the gene sequences that they insert into their GMO. This means that if your crops get cross contaminated you owe them money. And trust me they'll come to collect.
Can we drop the tinfoil hat stuff? (Score:4, Informative)
> are not classified) if I tried that now I personally would be charged
> with obstruction of justice.
I call bullshit. There are no 'secret' sections of the PATRIOT act. We can;t be expected to obey laws we can't possibly know anything about. I work in a public library and went through all this tinfoil hat stuff already when all the Nadorites went into a frenzy. (Think I'm being extreme? Well I was AT the Texas Library Assoc Convention a few months ago and watched Mr. Nader get more standing ovations than Kerry will likely get at the Democratic Convention next month.)
> I am literally not allowed to request a warrant if the Patriot Act is
> brought up.
Wrong. Our orders are that if a Fed asks for ANYTHING we respond that we aren't authorized to do ANYTHING and to pick up the phone for our boss. She will get in touch with the city attorney (our legal representation of record) and they will handle it from there. But while that happens we should begin collecting the information, but stall on any turnover until we hear from her.
And yes they do nead a warrant to actually take anything, but it is generally considered that a Fed on site will have little problem with that detail and to assume they either already have one or soon will so go ahead and start collecting the requested info. No sense being a total asshole about it.
> Nor am I allowed to tell anyone that the request happened.
Yes, this part IS true. Not sure how I personally come down on this one, but it does make a certain sense. But the more I ponder it the potential for misuse is just fscking huge so I guess I'd prefer to see that section of PATRIOT sunset.
Re:Damn, what a bad summary. (Score:3, Informative)
The big Pizza here is the fact that he violated a law by using live bacteria in a place where it was strictly against building code and health law. The Patriot ACT is designed to prevent a sleeper implimenting a similar "art project" and summarily infecting half of it's viewers. No need to go ape-shit over references to the Patriot Act in a Grand Jury proceeding.
Re:From transgenic plants to bioterror? (Score:3, Informative)
On the contrary, it proves my point. He is not accused under any law that specifically relates to the use or release of transgenic organisms, but under a general law that almost certainly is not applicable (since the law does not actually forbid individuals from carrying out such research in their homes).
Because artificial pathogens can combine high mortality rate and high infectivity; natural pathogens don't generally have that combination because it is evolutionarily disadvantageous.
Tell it to smallpox. Or bubonic plague. There are many ways in which diseases can have this property. Many natural diseases infect multiple hosts. For example, if we are not the primary reservoir of disease, then there is not evolutionary disincentive for the disease to have a high mortality rate.
How do you think anthrax acquires antibiotics resistance? Most likely through gene transfer from some other organism.
Give me a break. It has been known for decades that microorganisms in pure cultures acquire antibiotic resistance when grown in the presence of antibiotics. The classic work of Luria and Delbruck showed that the mechanism is pre-existing mutations in the population. If you want to speed it up a bit, you can add a mutagen or irradiate the cultures. After all, how did you think the genes of different species got different to begin with? All genetic differences between species are the same kind that arise by mutation. Transgenic technology is just a convenient shortcut to achieving the same kinds of results that people have been achieving since prehistoric times by selective breeding.
Re:What is a Grand Jury? (Score:3, Informative)
The burden at such a proceedure is trivial, because all a grand jury can do is return an indictment. The common joke that a procecutor can talk a grand jury into indicting a ham sandwich is more or less correct, it's a real slap in the face for a grand jury to respond that they were not convinced the burden to get an indictment was met.
This process is done to prevent really pointless trials from even getting started.