* PROMED post by Dr. Martin Hugh-Jones, an oft-quoted and much respected anthrax expert and PROMED moderator.

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PROMED post by Dr. Martin Hugh-Jones … 

• This [recent McClatchy] report is parallel to the evidence we — Barbara Rosenberg, Stuart Jacobsen, and myself — submitted to the NAS (National Academy of Sciences) committee last summer (2010).
• A fuller version is in the final stages of preparation for submission to a suitable journal.

The sad part about this is that Sandia provided the FBI

with key evidence on the levels of silicone in letter-content spores

in late October 2001.

• If the latter had had the wit to follow up on it at that time all this would be history and the true perpetrator(s) suitably dealt with.
• Also tracking past sales of silane and siloxane chemicals to institutes and agencies handling Bacillus anthracis would have produced a short list for immediate visits and interviews by FBI agents with search warrants, and then the names of who would have had access to the products of their polymerization research.

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Dr. Martin Hugh-Jones

Dr. Hugh-Jones is one of the foremost authorities on anthrax. He is currently Coordinator of the World Health Organization (WHO) Working Group on Anthrax Research and Control. He also has served as Chairman of the WHO/Veterinary Public Health Working Group: “Anthrax: Epidemiology and Information.” In addition, Dr. Hugh-Jones participated in the investigation of the 1979 anthrax outbreak in Sverdlovsk (now known as Yekaterinburg) in the former USSR. He was in Moscow and Yekaterinburg in 1992 when the Russian government admitted the source of the outbreak to have been an accidental spore emission from a biological warfare facility.

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see also …

* Greg Gordon (McClatchy): the apparent failure of the FBI to pursue this avenue of investigation raises the ominous possibility that the killer is still on the loose … Stuart Jacobsen: it is “outrageous” that the scientific issues haven’t been addressed.

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* Another arrogant government assertion of its right to do whatever it damn well pleases, not unlike the FBI’s unsupported accusations and subsequent stonewalling behavior in the anthrax case. National security is very important, but so are the rights of American citizens, including David House and Bruce Ivins.

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David House & Bruce Ivins

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Carol Rose, Executive Director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, writes (5/13/11) …

• Freedom of association is so vital to our democracy that the framers put it in the First Amendment, alongside freedoms of speech, press, religion, and petition.
• Defending that right for all Americans is why the ACLU today is filing a lawsuit in federal court in Boston on behalf of a 24-year-old computer programmer and Cambridge activist named David House.
• The case challenges the government’s targeting and suspicionless search and seizure at the border of David’s computer and camera, which occurred as a result of his association with the Bradley Manning Support Network.
• Initially, the ACLU sent a letter to government agencies demanding the return of David’s equipment and requesting that any copies of David’s personal information be deleted.
• Immediately after the ACLU sent the letter, the government shipped David’s hardware back to him.
• They did not address David’s request that the government delete all copies of his data and clarify whether Homeland Security had shared his data with other agencies.
• Today, David and the ACLU are filing a lawsuit in Federal Court challenging the government’s assertion that it can seize, search, copy and disseminate information seized from a personal computer or other electronic devices without a reasonable basis for suspicion. The lawsuit asks that the court “Declare that the prolonged seizure of [David’s] laptop computer and other electronic devices and the review, copying, retention and dissemination of their contents without reasonable suspicion violates the Fourth and First Amendments to the United States Constitution.”

read the entire article at … http://www.aclu.org/blog/author/Carol-Rose%2C-Executive-Director%2C-ACLU-of-Massachusetts

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LMW COMMENT …

Another arrogant government assertion of its right to do whatever it damn well pleases, not unlike the FBI’s unsupported accusations and subsequent stonewalling behavior in the anthrax case. National security is very important, but so are the rights of American citizens, including David House and Bruce Ivins.

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* “The 9/11 Anthrax Case” is addressed in “Serial Mass Murderers: A Criminology Study of Why They Kill” (Taylor & Francis, 2011)

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