* Kathy Nguyen died from anthrax eight years ago today … Who killed Kathy Nguyen? … We still have no credible answer

CASE CLOSED is a novel which answers the question “Why did the FBI fail to solve the 2001 anthrax case?” … click here to … buy CASE CLOSED by Lew Weinstein

Here’s what readers say about CASE CLOSED  …

“CASE CLOSED is a must read for anyone who wondered … what really happened? … Who did it? … why?” … and finally, why didn’t they tell us the truth?”

“Fiction?? Maybe?? But I don’t think so!! More likely an excellent interpretation of what may have really happened.”

******

Kathy Nguyen died from anthrax eight years ago today

Who killed Kathy Nguyen?

We still have no credible answer

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Newsweek wrote in November 2001…

The doctors in the Intensive Care Unit at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York see a lot of very sick patients, but there was something particularly ominous about the bloody fluid that was fast filling the woman’s chest cavity. She had come to the emergency room on Sunday, feverish, short of breath, complaining of aching muscles. Doctors quickly put her on a respirator.

Kathy Nguyen lay dying.

Scores of FBI agents and New York police detectives were soon retracing the steps of the kindly 61-year-old Vietnamese woman who lived alone in the Bronx. But when lab tests failed to find any traces of anthrax in her modest one-bedroom apartment or the hospital storeroom where she worked, top investigators in New York became increasingly uneasy.

The case of Kathy Nguyen remained a mystery.

read the entire article at … http://www.newsweek.com/id/76357

* NAS has still not provided any legal justification for its decision to withhold and sequester FBI-submitted documents related to the NAS review of the FBI’s anthrax science

CASE CLOSED is a novel which answers the question “Why did the FBI fail to solve the 2001 anthrax case?” … click here to … buy CASE CLOSED by Lew Weinstein

Here’s what readers say about CASE CLOSED  …

“CASE CLOSED is a must read for anyone who wondered … what really happened? … Who did it? … why?” … and finally, why didn’t they tell us the truth?”

“Fiction?? Maybe?? But I don’t think so!! More likely an excellent interpretation of what may have really happened.”

******

NAS has still not provided any legal justification

for its decision to withhold and sequester

FBI-submitted documents related to

the NAS review of the FBI’s anthrax science

******

LMW 10/30/09 email to the Deputy Executive Director &
Director of Media Relations, Office of News & Public Information
National Academy of Sciences

On September 4, 2009, you emailed me as follows …

“Lew, the NAS is a nonprofit private institution that operates under a congressional charter and the Section 15 of the Federal Advisory Committee Act which requires that material presented to our committees as part of their data gathering go in our Public Access Office files. Some material given to the anthrax committee is already in that file and I’ll ask someone from public access to send you link to list. However, the FBI case documents periodically being given to the committee will not go in the public access file until the end of the study.”

I have been asking you for the past two months to provide legal authority for the decision to sequester and withhold FBI-submitted documents until the end of the study. You have indicated twice that you had referred the matter to NAS counsel.

Now we have the NAS/FBI contract document, which provides no legal justification for withholding the FBI-submitted documents until the end of the study or for failing to provide the specific exemptions for any documents NAS is currently withholding.

Could you please provide an update on current NAS intentions by answering the following questions …

Temporarily withholding FBI-submitted documents until the end of the study.

• Does NAS still plan to withhold some or all FBI-submitted documents until the end of the study?
• If so, will NAS provide a list of withheld FBI-submitted documents?
• If NAS is planning to withhold some or all FBI-submitted documents until the end of the study but release them at that time, what legal authority does NAS cite for doing so?

Permanently withholding access to FBI-submitted documents.

• Will NAS provide a list of any FBI-submitted documents which NAS is intending to permanently restrict from access, indicating in each case the specific exemption which is being cited to justify that action?

Thanks for your assistance in this matter.

LEW

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* does the NAS/FBI contract support the sequestering of FBI-submitted documents until the end of the NAS study?

CASE CLOSED is a novel which answers the question “Why did the FBI fail to solve the 2001 anthrax case?” … click here to … buy CASE CLOSED by Lew Weinstein

Here’s what readers say about CASE CLOSED  …

“CASE CLOSED is a must read for anyone who wondered … what really happened? … Who did it? … why?” … and finally, why didn’t they tell us the truth?”

“Fiction?? Maybe?? But I don’t think so!! More likely an excellent interpretation of what may have really happened.”

.

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does the NAS/FBI contract

support the sequestering of FBI-submitted documents

until the end of the NAS study?

******

LMW COMMENTS …

The NAS/FBI contract refers to possible exemptions from FOIA disclosure requirements and states that the FBI “will mark any information provided to the Contractor (NAS) as exempt from FOIA and list one of the exemptions.”

The NAS/FBI contract also provides that “if a request for information … is requested under FOIA” the Government (???) “shall have the right to disclose any information” … “to the extent provided under the FOIA, notwithstanding any restrictive legends that may have been placed upon it in accordance with the FBI Central Record System.”

The term “Government” is not defined in the contract. The NAS is referred to as “Contractor” and the FBI is referred to as “FBI.”

The above cites are the only references to FOIA which I found in the NAS/FBI contract.

There is no reference in the NAS/FBI contract to withholding information until the end of the NAS study.

There is no reference in the NAS/FBI contract to withholding information without specific listing of a FOIA exemption.

******

* does the NAS/FBI contract permit the NAS to draw conclusions regarding the guilt or innocence of Dr. Bruce Ivins?

CASE CLOSED is a novel which answers the question “Why did the FBI fail to solve the 2001 anthrax case?” … click here to … buy CASE CLOSED by Lew Weinstein

Here’s what readers say about CASE CLOSED  …

“CASE CLOSED is a must read for anyone who wondered … what really happened? … Who did it? … why?” … and finally, why didn’t they tell us the truth?”

“Fiction?? Maybe?? But I don’t think so!! More likely an excellent interpretation of what may have really happened.”

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Extracts from NAS/FBI contract

regarding issue of guilt or innocence

******

LMW COMMENTS …

The NAS/FBI contract asks the NAS to determine whether “the FBI reached appropriate scientific conclusions” from use of various scientific approaches.

The NAS/FBI contract also says the NAS will not undertake “an assessment of the probative value of the scientific evidence” and will “offer no view on the guilt or innocence of any person(s).”

These two clauses from the NAS/FBI contract seem to be inconsistent.

Since the FBI bases its case against Dr. Ivins on the fact that he, and only he, derived the attack anthrax from Flask RMR-1029, if the NAS ultimately concludes that the scientific evidence does not lead to that conclusion, and that the scientific evidence only identifies the beaker and not the perpetrator, would that not be a conclusion regarding the provable guilt or innocence of Dr. Ivins?

******

* here is the complete NAS/FBI contract for review of FBI anthrax science

CASE CLOSED is a novel which answers the question “Why did the FBI fail to solve the 2001 anthrax case?” … click here to … buy CASE CLOSED by Lew Weinstein

Here’s what readers say about CASE CLOSED  …

“CASE CLOSED is a must read for anyone who wondered … what really happened? … Who did it? … why?” … and finally, why didn’t they tell us the truth?”

“Fiction?? Maybe?? But I don’t think so!! More likely an excellent interpretation of what may have really happened.”

.

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NAS/FBI contract for review of FBI anthrax science

******

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* independent publishing could offer an alternative to reporters who might otherwise be forced to rely on DOJ/FBI sources for Amerithrax information

CASE CLOSED is a novel which answers the question “Why did the FBI fail to solve the 2001 anthrax case?” … click here to … buy CASE CLOSED by Lew Weinstein

Here’s what readers say about CASE CLOSED  …

“CASE CLOSED is a must read for anyone who wondered … what really happened? … Who did it? … why?” … and finally, why didn’t they tell us the truth?”

“Fiction?? Maybe?? But I don’t think so!! More likely an excellent interpretation of what may have really happened.”

******

independent publishing

could offer an alternative to reporters

who might otherwise be forced to rely on

DOJ/FBI sources for Amerithrax information

******

Given that there are such widely divergent views of the solution to Amerithrax, if and when the DOJ closes the case and additional information is released under FOIA, we could collectively promptly self-publish (at zero cost) a book containing all the documents that collectively we deem most material.

That way if the DOJ is relying on any misapprehensions — such as the official and mistaken suggestion that the stamp misprint occurred only at Dr. Ivins post office rather than across states — the busy reporters will immediately have ready access to the documentary evidence.  It could perhaps be made to be fully viewable online.

See, for example … PUBLIC PETS:  GOOD ADVICE FOR EVERYDAY LIVING … at  http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/909779

So keep at the ready the documentary evidence that you think contradicts (or if you like, supports) the DOJ’s Ivins Theory.

* WMD Commission says U.S. preparedness for a bioterrorism attack is inadequate … perhaps if we knew what actually happened in the 2001 anthrax attacks we would have a better chance of preventing similar attacks in the future

CASE CLOSED is a novel which answers the question “Why did the FBI fail to solve the 2001 anthrax case?” … click here to … buy CASE CLOSED by Lew Weinstein

Here’s what readers say about CASE CLOSED  …

“CASE CLOSED is a must read for anyone who wondered … what really happened? … Who did it? … why?” … and finally, why didn’t they tell us the truth?”

“Fiction?? Maybe?? But I don’t think so!! More likely an excellent interpretation of what may have really happened.”

******

Congress established the bipartisan Commission for the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism to address the grave threat that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction poses to the United States.

In December 2008, the Commission published its report, World at Risk, which recognized that the US government has yet to fully adapt to the current circumstance of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction …

World at Risk (December 2008) – Executive Summary

• “Unless the world community acts decisively and with great urgency, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013.”

Interim Commission Report (10/21/09) – Assesses Progress in Preventing WMD Proliferation and Terrorism

• The United States is failing to address its most urgent threat—biological proliferation and terrorism
• The Commission cited a range of missteps on biosecurity that lead to its conclusion:
  • No senior-level advocate for biosecurity in the Administration
  • attempted funding “raids” on two critical biopreparedness programs
  • lack of appropriate disease surveillance.
• One recent study from the intelligence community projected that a one- to two-kilogram release of anthrax spores from a crop duster plane could kill more Americans than died in World War II.
• Clean-up and other economic costs could exceed $1.8 trillion.
• Yet the nation’s level of preparedness for dealing with the threat of bioterrorism remains far lower than that of the nuclear threat.
  • The near-term biodefense goal of the United States should be to limit the consequences of a bioweapons attack.
  • The long-term goal should be to improve post-attack capabilities for rapid recognition, response, and recovery to a level that bioterrorism would no longer be considered a weapon of mass destruction.
• These goals cannot be achieved without the proper investment today.

Report card to be issued in January 2010

In January 2010, the Commission will be releasing a report card grading the Administration and Congress on their progress in implementing the recommendations of the Commission.

read the entire article at … http://www.preventwmd.gov/the_clock_is_ticking_a_progress_report_on_americas_preparedness/

LMW COMMENT …

… to which I would add that the current lack of knowledge as to who carried out the 2001 anthrax attacks and how they did it is a serious impediment to mobilizing the resources we need to minimize our future risks from bio-terrorist attacks.

* The FBI’s continued secrecy regarding the 2001 anthrax attacks is a major impediment to developing an effective bioterrorism policy today

CASE CLOSED is a novel which answers the question “Why did the FBI fail to solve the 2001 anthrax case?” … click here to … buy CASE CLOSED by Lew Weinstein

Here’s what readers say about CASE CLOSED  …

“CASE CLOSED is a must read for anyone who wondered … what really happened? … Who did it? … why?” … and finally, why didn’t they tell us the truth?”

“Fiction?? Maybe?? But I don’t think so!! More likely an excellent interpretation of what may have really happened.”

******

The FBI’s continued secrecy

regarding the 2001 anthrax attacks

is a major impediment

to developing an effective bioterrorism policy today

******

Mimi Hall writes in USA TODAY (10/21/09) …

• The Obama administration is working hard to curb nuclear threats but failing to address the more urgent and immediate threat of biological terrorism, a bipartisan commission created by Congress is reporting today.
• The government’s efforts “have not kept pace with the increasing capabilities and agility of those who would do harm to the United States,” the report says.

read the entire article at … http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-10-21-WMD-threat_N.htm

LMW COMMENT …

I didn’t read the entire report, so I can’t say for sure it doesn’t include criticism of the FBI’s investigation of the 2001 anthrax attack, although this was not mentioned in the USA TODAY article.

• But how can we hope to understand what needs to be done to protect us from bioterrorism when the only example of an actual bioterrorist attack remains unsolved and shrouded in a veil of secrecy that extends even to the Congressional and Senate Committees who are supposed to exercise oversight responsibility over the FBI.

It is a national disgrace that the FBI continues to be allowed to defy Congress and leave the anthrax case unresolved more than a year after they stated that Dr. Bruce Ivins was the SOLE PERPETRATOR.

• If the FBI really has conclusive proof that Dr. Ivins was the SOLE PERPETRATOR or EVEN INVOLVED AT ALL, then they should close the case and make that proof available for serious review. Failing to close the case leads to speculation that they don’t have proof, or even worse, that the FBI is in fact shielding some other perpetrator(s).

The FBI’s continued secrecy regarding the 2001 anthrax attacks is a major impediment to developing an effective bioterrorism policy in 2009.

see related posts …

* it is now 442 days since the FBI said it expected to close the anthrax case “tomorrow”

* Is the FBI’s anthrax case ongoing or not? … I’ve been asking for two months … the FBI refuses to answer … here’s the email trail

* the NAS will provide FBI-submitted documents and the NAS/FBI anthrax study contract

CASE CLOSED is a novel which answers the question “Why did the FBI fail to solve the 2001 anthrax case?” … click here to … buy CASE CLOSED by Lew Weinstein

Here’s what readers say about CASE CLOSED  …

“CASE CLOSED is a must read for anyone who wondered

… what really happened? … Who did it? … why?”

… and finally, why didn’t they tell us the truth?”

******

the NAS will provide FBI-submitted documents

and the NAS/FBI anthrax study contract

******

DXer reports he has received an email from NAS clearly stating that all materials submitted to NAS by external sources will be included in the Public Access File.

• This presumably includes the FBI-submitted documents which NAS had previously said would be sequestered until the end of their anthrax study.
• In addition, NAS has indicated that the anthrax study contract between NAS and the FBI will also be made available.

NAS is to be commended for its decision.

I second DXer when he says … “Thanks again to the Public Affairs Office for their hard work in juggling many important matters on a wide range of issues.”

Here’s an extract from the email DXer received …

From: Public Access Records Office
Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 2009 9:46 AM

This project is subject to Section 15 of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA); which states that all written materials presented to the committee (at data-gathering meeting, between such meetings, or at any other time in the course of the project) by any organization (whether government or private) or by individuals who are not officials, agents, or employees of the institution are subject to public disclosure and must be listed in the Public Access File.”

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see related post … * It’s well past time for the NAS to be frank and honest about what it has agreed with the FBI regarding the sequestering of FBI-submitted documents in apparent violation of FOIA requirements

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* two postal workers died from anthrax 8 years ago today … and we still don’t know who the murderer was

CASE CLOSED is a novel which answers the question “Why did the FBI fail to solve the 2001 anthrax case?” … click here to … buy CASE CLOSED by Lew Weinstein

Here’s what readers say about CASE CLOSED  …

“CASE CLOSED reads fast and well. It could have happened just the way the author said. Full of intrigue mixed in with almost current events. The real people are just behind the fictional ones.”

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two postal workers died from anthrax

8 years ago today …

and we still don’t know

who the murderer was

******

Thomas Morris, anthrax victim

By: SCOTT MCCABE, Washington Examiner, 10/21/09

On this day, Oct. 21, in 2001, Washington postal worker Thomas Morris Jr. died after inhaling anthrax that had been delivered through the mail.

Letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to several news outlets and two U.S. senators, killing five and infecting 17 others.

Morris, 55, an employee of the Brentwood processing center, said a woman working near him found a letter with powder. A doctor checked out Morris and sent him home.

Morris called 911 just hours before his death, complaining of labored breathing and chest pains. “They never let us know whether this thing was anthrax or not,” Morris told the dispatcher.

Joseph Curseen, anthrax victim

A day after Morris died, 47-year-old co-worker Joseph Curseen also died from exposure to the bacteria.

The Brentwood station since has been named for both men.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/crime/CRIME-HISTORY–D_C_-mail-worker-8412595-65014357.html