* The FBI has failed to produce numerous forensic tests despite requests under FOIA ; By letter dated May 11, 2015, the FBI’s David M. Hardy falsely claimed that they have been produced and that the responsive documents are located online in The FBI’s “Vault.”
Posted by DXer on May 7, 2015
CASE CLOSED ... what really happened in the 2001 anthrax attacks? 
DXer said
FBI Forensic Experts Claim Mass-Produced Jeans And Shirts Are As Distinct As Fingerprints And DNA
from the evidentiary-clown-show dept
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190118/19111041425/fbi-forensic-experts-claim-mass-produced-jeans-shirts-are-as-distinct-as-fingerprints-dna.shtml
The supply chain for denim jeans is so standardized the FBI no longer does fiber comparisons for denim fibers recovered from crime scenes. And yet, the FBI’s champion of image examining claims[PDF] wear marks and creasing in jeans is unique enough to act as supporting evidence in criminal trials. …
This isn’t science. This is jargon-laden hunchery masquerading as evidence. And despite the DOJ’s vows to dial back statements of certainty from its experts, people are still going to jail because someone with no specialized training said a pair of jeans is more distinct than a DNA strand.
Comment: In Amerithrax, none of the fiber evidence was a match to Ivins. Not only did he have an alibi that is being withheld by the FBI’s withholding of the documents sought by Dillon but none of the scientific evidence implicated Ivins.
DXer said
United States District Contreras, in his forthcoming review of the 22 page Table of Contents of the memorandum in Amerithrax, should find that the factual findings reported by former lead Amerithrax investigator Richard Lambert were not deliberative, but were segregable and factual.
… for example, the three photocopier track marks that the Task Force simply chose to forget. Or the photocopier toner analysis.
(By withholding the factual findings, the AUSA and FBI then speciously used the fact that Ivins went to the USAMRIID library to read a newspaper — where there was a photocopier — in the FBI’s Amerithrax Investigation Summary as evidence of murder.)
The FBI Says Its Photo Analysis Is Scientific Evidence. Scientists Disagree.
The bureau’s image unit has linked defendants to crime photographs for decades using unproven techniques and baseless statistics. Studies have begun to raise doubts about the unit’s methods.
by Ryan Gabrielson Jan. 17, 5 a.m. EST
https://www.propublica.org/article/with-photo-analysis-fbi-lab-continues-shaky-forensic-science-practices
“The work of image examiners is a type of pattern analysis, a category of forensic science that has repeatedly led to misidentifications at the FBI and other crime laboratories. Before the discovery of DNA identification methods in the 1980s, most of the bureau’s lab worked in pattern matching, which involves comparing features from items of evidence to the suspect’s body and belongings.
Examiners had long testified in court that they could determine what fingertip left a print, what gun fired a bullet, which scalp grew a hair “to the exclusion of all others.” Research and exonerations by DNA analysis have repeatedly disproved these claims, and the U.S. Department of Justice no longer allows technicians and scientists from the FBI and other agencies to make such unequivocal statements, according to new testimony guidelines released last year.
Though image examiners rely on similarly flawed methods, they have continued to testify to and defend their exactitude, according to a review of court records and examiners’ written reports and published articles.”
DXer said
By email dated April 6, 2016, an FBI employee, Rebecca Bronson, reported that there were 299 pages in the Interim Case Management Summary on forensics.
FBI’s Dave Hardy refuses to produce page or two from the Table of Contents that covers that section.
I guess the FBI wanted to be free to characterize the forensic findings to fit the person they decided to name.
There was no forensic evidence at all that implicated Bruce Ivins — none at all.
So to recap: First Dave Hardy (see headline of this thread) claims that the forensic reports were uploaded in the FBI’s Vault when they weren’t.
Then he says that not even the page or two referring to them in Table of Contents can be produced. Dave Hardy is hiding the fact that the forensic evidence exculpatory of Bruce Ivins who was driven to commit suicide. That’s not right.
And yes, Dave, the forensic reports bear on how the FBI conducts its business in accusing people of murder.
CYA rules the day at FBI — not the rule of law.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Innocence Project Says DOJ is Turning Dangerously Away From Ensuring that Forensic Testimony is Guided by Science Not Law Enforcement & Prosecutors
February 23, 2018
http://witnessla.com/innocence-project-says-doj-is-turning-dangerously-away-from-ensuring-that-forensic-testimony-is-guided-by-science-not-law-enforcement-prosecutors/
In the course of their research, the reporters examined thousands of pages of trial transcripts, and interviewed dozens of prosecutors, defense attorneys, and scientists, which let them to conclude there was “a startling lack of scientific support for forensic pattern-matching techniques such as toolmark analysis,” that our legal system “has failed to separate nonsense from science even in capital cases,” and that there is a consensus among prosecutors “all the way up to the attorney general’s office” that “scientifically dubious forensic techniques” should be not only protected, but expanded.
DXer said
The Intercept: The Barrett Brown Review of Arts and Letters and Prison, March 29
https://theintercept.com/2016/03/29/i-do-not-care-to-finish-reading-this-mediocre-kissinger-biography-by-niall-ferguson/
Ferguson himself may be aware that he’s promised more than he can deliver here; it may also have occurred to him that he’s just accused several people of failing to back up their allegations with evidence while he himself fails to back up this very allegation with evidence and that this sort of thing might be frowned upon in some circles, if not necessarily at the Hoover Institution. But rather than just deleting this paragraph due to one or more of the several distinct problems, which each on its own makes it worthy of deletion, Ferguson decides to just make it longer. “One left-of-center website recently accused Kissinger of having been somehow involved in the anthrax attacks of September 2001, when anthrax spores were mailed to various media and Senate offices, killing five people.”
Here we have finally been provided with something on the order of an implausible conspiracy theory emanating from the left. And we will be satisfied with this so long as we are willing to overlook the fact that Ferguson promised us that the bearers would be “influential” and yet here cannot bring himself to name the author or even the outlet, presumably in hopes that we won’t realize that both outlet and author are somewhat obscure and that this is merely the same manner of accusation that can be found on any number of minor websites about any number of powerful men.
If we check Ferguson’s endnotes again, we find that he’s referring to a piece by a certain Kevin Barrett titled “Arrest Kissinger for Both 9/11s.” If we check the URL he provides, which comes in the form of a blind bit.ly link-shortener, we find that it’s a dead link. Fair enough; perhaps it’s been taken down since then. If we simply Google the title and author (or have someone else do it for us because we’re in prison), we discover that the piece in question has appeared on a couple of sites, the most mainstream of which would seem to be presstv.ir, itself based on an Iranian host. If we go so far as to read the article, we find that the author does indeed accuse Kissinger of perpetrating the anthrax attacks. But he also accuses him of involvement in “the explosive demolition of the World Trade Center, and massacre of nearly 3,000 people in New York and Washington in 2001,” going on to denounce “Kissinger’s complicity in the coup d’état of September 11, 2001” and noting in passing that the former secretary of state was involved in “helping design the 9/11 shock-and-awe psychological warfare operation.”
One might ask why it is that Ferguson neglected to mention that this “left-of-center” website that’s supposedly mainstream enough to be worthy of inclusion in a paragraph with Zinn and Thompson actually went so far as to accuse Kissinger of involvement in 9/11 itself. After all, that would seem to be the smoking-gun proof that Kissinger really is subject to unsubstantiated allegations from influential leftists, an argument that Ferguson is plainly desperate to make. If we’re feeling gentlemanly, we might allow for the possibility that Ferguson is incapable of understanding what he’s reading — but then that would be something of a knock at Harvard, would it not? So wouldn’t it be even more polite to conclude, as is obvious anyway, that he left this out lest we realize that whatever site he’s taken pains not to name for us isn’t at all “influential” or even mainstream? Because, after all, Harvard?
DXer said
Consider how long it has been since the FBI sent the CDs by snail mail to the Army. The FBI sent the documents to (the political-minded) public affairs rather than the FOIA officer Rogers who had referred my request (and this was a second-round over the past half decade).
Now it has taken all this time when it was a simple technological matter to share them in real time to the FOIA USAMRMC officer.
This is the sort of institutional operational inefficiency that would appear to plague the FBI’s FOIA operation.
The FBI FOIA takes weeks, months and years doing what should be doable in a matter of minutes or hours.
It was the FBI’s review of Ivins’ email that delayed their production for years. MedComs John Peterson at least eventually gave the officials on the DOJ/FBI mailing list a two week deadline for the DOJ/FBI political-minded review of each batch of email. (They were reviewing it to see what they would cull from disclosure even without applicable FOIA exemption).
If you saw the emails they intentionally pulled from production, you would be shocked. The one finally coughed up on the day of mailing (which has been uploaded to the blog) is just one example.
While we wait for the next ISIS attack, the people whose job is to keep us safe would seem to be hugely inefficient — and inefficiency in combatting Al Qaeda and ISIS directly translates into murdered women and children.
There is simply no sugar coating it. There is no hyperbole. All you have to do is look at the botching of the info that the 911 had come to the United States.
All you have to do is consider Dave Hardy’s ridiculous and false suggestion that the traditional forensic tests were uploaded to The Vault.
Mr. Hardy should step down in light of the FOIA person’s recent suggestion it may take 3-4 years to produce the single Interim Case Management Summary requested by Dr. Dillon.
There are plenty of agencies where inefficiencies make less of a difference.
_______________
On a more life-affirming and pleasant note, please link and scroll down to VOTE once to support hydroponic community garden idea at site of 1964 World’s Fair in Queens. https://contest.savingplaces.org/7x8yty1x
Follow us on twitter:
https://twitter.com/HydropncGarden?lang=en
DXer said
New protocol leads to review of ‘mixed DNA’ evidence
Terri Langford, Texas Tribune4:37 p.m. CDT September 12, 2015
http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/local/texas-tribune/2015/09/12/new-protocol-leads-review-mixed-dna-evidence/72165962/
DXer said
In a May 2015 article on Bioattribution, Randall Murch, who headed the FBI’s Amerithrax scientific evidence in the first months, wrote:
“Forensic science can be defined as “the analysis and interpretation of physical evidence to determine its relevance to criminal motives, intentions, plans, events, persons of interest and perpetrators, places of interest including scenes of crime, and means to include tools, methods and processes.” Forensic science includes the proper collection, preservation, transport, storage, analysis, interpretation and reporting of evidence and the required administration, security and quality management. Classical forensic disciplines include pattern analysis (e.g. fingerprint), biology (e.g., human DNA analysis), trace evidence (e.g., hairs and fibers), toxicology (i.e., drugs and poisons), digital evidence (e.g., computer media) and pathology (i.e., manner and cause of death). Validated techniques, methods and protocols which meet or exceed both scientific and legal standards are required. In the U.S. and elsewhere some forensic science is being called into question because the science and claims about it has been found to be weak, unsupported, overstated and applied by those without proper credentials (National Research Council 2009). Hence, in at least the U.S., there is pressing interest for improvements to many areas of forensic science and practice and its use in legal processes.”
DXer said
EDITORIAL: Lousy FOIA compliance shows need for reform
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
http://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/editorial-lousy-foia-compliance-shows-need-reform
A few other agencies contacted made good-faith efforts to comply with the request and appeared to be working toward making the data available. However, 10 of the 21 agencies contacted either failed to respond or stopped responding. One of the 10, the CIA, denied the request for records associated with the processing of FOIA requests received by the agency.
This is an unacceptable compliance rate, yet a predictable result of a government that’s so large that each agency has its own operating culture and FOIA compliance process.
According to attorney Mark Zaid, a member of the National Archives and Records Administration’s FOIA Advisory Committee, this should not have been a difficult request to fulfill. The fact that some of the agencies were able to send data within days “clearly establishes this as a reasonable request.”
“So now the question is,” he asks, “why can’t the other agencies comply?’” The answer is that they just don’t want to.
***
“The government took longer to turn over files when it provided any, said more regularly that it couldn’t find documents and refused a record number of times to turn over files quickly that might be especially newsworthy,” The AP reported. “It also acknowledged in nearly one in three cases that its initial decisions to withhold or censor records were improper under the law — but only when it was challenged.”
FOIA is in need of reform. Federal records must be presumed open and the Office of Government Information Services, often referred to as FOIA ombudsman, must be strengthened. And federal agencies should face consequences for refusing to comply with FOIA requests — especially if a requester has to go to court to obtain records.
The federal government conducts the public’s business, and as such, the public should have access to government work. Without transparency, there can be no accountability.
House panel asking groups for FOIA complaints, By Mario Trujillo – 05/11/15
http://thehill.com/policy/technology/241604-house-panel-asking-groups-for-foia-complaints
The House Oversight Committee asked nearly two dozen public interest groups to share their complaints about the federal government’s compliance with requests for government documents
The committee is gearing up for a June 3 hearing on the government’s Freedom of Information Act process and is preparing an analysis of what is broken and what needs to be fixed.
DXer said
it turns out that the FBI — if this response is any indication– is just hopelessly incompetent.
Their response to my request was that they have already produced them — see Vault.
When in fact they have produced none of the requested documents.
And you expected the FBI to solve Amerithrax. Ha!
DXer said
I’ve read every page uploaded to the Vault about Amerithrax. The requested documents were not provided which is why I requested them.
DXer said
There is an interplay I believe with this FOIA request and the 2000 summary written by Rick Lambert — in that the relevant non-exempt portions of the 2000 page report addressing the specificied forensic issues should be produced. Note that the privacy act exemptions do not apply to Atta and Shukrijumah because they are dead.
Moreover, the law enforcement exemption does not apply because the case is closed.
DXer said
The “Interim Major Case Summary” is a 2,000 page prosecutive report authored by the lead Amerithrax agent Rick Lambert prior to leaving the case. That document was filed with the FBI, DOJ, the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the District of the District of Columbia and the Eastern District of Virginia. It is the IMCS which reveals the totality of evidence collected in the case regarding all “persons of interests.”
Please email if you would like a copy while I work out the logistics.
DXer said
House committee probes FBI lab problems
BY MICHAEL DOYLE
McClatchy Washington BureauMay 12, 2015
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/05/12/266368/house-committee-probes-fbi-lab.html#storylink=cpy
WASHINGTON — FBI lab problems have prompted some noteworthy action from leaders of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
In a letter Tuesday to FBI Director James Comey, the commitee’s Republican chairman and senior Democrat voiced “grave concerns” about recent revelations concerning erroneous lab results and inaccurate testimony involving microscopic hair analyses.
“The scope of this catastrophe is almost impossible to believe,” wrote Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, D-Md., adding that the recent discoveries are “shocking and obviously unacceptable.”
The two lawmakers asked Comey for a briefing by May 22, pressing seven separate questions from when the Bureau first learned of the lab problems to what disciplinary actions, if any, have been taken against the lab examiners.
The committee’s oversight actions follow up on the revelations last month that examiners’ testimony in at least 90 percent of trial transcripts the Bureau analyzed as part of its Microscopic Hair Comparison Analysis Review contained erroneous statements. Twenty-six of 28 FBI analysts provided either testimony with erroneous statements or submitted laboratory reports with erroneous statements.
“We need to understand more about these cases,” Chaffetz and Cummings wrote.
In a statement last month, Amy Hess, the executive assistant director of the FBI’s Science and Technology Branch stressed that the Justice Department and the FBI are “committed to ensuring that affected defendants are notified of past errors and that justice is done in every instance
Comment:
When was the last time that letter writing in Amerithrax — as a case study — proved noteworthy or effective? We have seen instances where letters went without answer for months — and then when addressed the responses were either meaningless or incomprehensible.
There seems to be no effective Congressional oversight of the FBI.
If members of Congress wanted to accomplish something they might consider resorting to FOIA. They could have staff submit FOIA requests on the issues specified above — and have FBI upload the responsive documents.
I do not see the wisdom in punishments relating to the vast majority of “hair analysis” cases. The issue is systemic and relates to laboratory-wide standards — the issues have counterparts across a range of technical issues.
A focus on punishment merely serves to sharpen the “CYA” instincts that so dominated Amerithrax — and resulted in the continued withholding and spinning of information.
DXer said
The letter sent by a Congressional committee to FBI Director Comey asks for information relating to
“The FBI’s effort to study the validity of other areas of forensic science to prevent further injustice based on flawed scientific theory.”
Isn’t this a joke given the FBI’s withholding of the documents relating to issues like the detection of the Ames strain in Afghanistan and the evidence supporting/debunking its “code” theory, etc. in Amerithrax?
Consider the magnitude and weight and prestige of the criticism of the FBI’s “Ivins Theory” — and the arrogance, misdirection and spin that met that criticism.
This “7” in the Committee addresses my concern above. But David Hardy’s response to my FOIA request on the above items illustrates well that the FBI is not in fact meaningfully dealing with the issue of forensics in what has been heralded as the FBI’s second largest investigation ever.
Both the GAO and NAS reviews were expressly prevented from addressing issues of guilt or innocence — the reviews avoided addressing the forensics that were probative of the FBI’s Ivins Theory.
The forensics underlying the FBI’s code theory — were as basic as magnification of the lines on a paper that was done as part of the examination of the letters.
The handwriting examinations done of Mohammed Atta’s handwriting would have taken just a few minutes also.
Rather than the waste of years, it would have taken just minutes to produce the relevant documents debunking this aspect of the FBI’s theory.
The FBI has withheld such documents because of “CYA” instincts.
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Eljiah Cummings, D-Md, should consider this: The innuendo in the Amerithrax Investigative Summary was that Ivins might have copied the anthrax letters using the photocopy machines in the library at Building 1412 at USAMRIID, in Rep. Cummings district.
Yet the lead Amerithrax investigator tells me that those photocopy machines at USAMRIID could be EXCLUDED. If you search the forensic literature, you see the evolution of the science relating to photocopy toners — some pioneered by a leading FBI scientist. Yet the FBI has not produced the forensic reports that excluded the USAMRIID machines, preferring instead to leave the innuendo about how Ivins might have been in the library photocopying the letters. If the forensic reports had been produced, then that time in the library might instead have been understood as an ALIBI, rather than suggested to be part of the evidence of his guilt.
DXer said
Now consider the presentation by microbiologist Scott Decker on what he calls “Non-Traditional Forensic Initatives” (ALL of the traditional forensic initiatives were EXCULPATORY).
http://www.biologicsecure.com/presentation.html
As the fourth item, he lists “Psychological Assessment of Mental Health Records and Email messages”
This relates to where the FBI relied on Ivins first counselor — and her annotations in the psychiatric file. That counselor wrote a book in 2009 about how during the month she met with Bruce Ivins a couple of times, she was controlled by an alien who had implanted a microchip in her butt. In her book, she says the alien gave her instructions at night. She reports she was psychotic and thought murderous astral entities were attached to the clients in her new part-time addictions counseling gig.
Scott Decker has never addressed this. Neither has the psychiatrist Greg S. Instead, Greg sold the book that the report his recruits wrote — he was the one who sought it to make it public in an orchestrated campaign to smear Ivins. The FBI even submitted it to a federal court. The FBI’s reliance on the first counselor — cited repeatedly throughout the report that was submitted to a federal district court judge — was never withdrawn.
And even to this day Scott Decker lists this as part of the “forensics” that he imagines pinpointed Ivins (and things had already gone to the dogs with the anthrax sniffing bloodhounds).
The other three items he lists limited things barely at all — to hundreds if not millions. Instead, Scott Decker should have been first in line to pull the behavior analysis report from public distribution once it was pointed out that the key witness had written a book explaining that at the time she was controlled by an alien who had implanted a microchip in her butt.
These investigators and scientists working for the FBI like Scott Decker and Vahid Majidi do great work. That’s why they were hired.
They just need an organizational incentive to promote the best and more reliable evidence (rather than an organizational incentive to engage in spin. Presently, they have an incentive to play hide-the-ball if it turns out that their earlier spin was misdirected. They need to be truth-telling experts rather than part of an CYA-motivated, e-book writing, prosecutorial team in a case where charges never even were brought. For example, if Dr. Majidi really wanted to set the record straight on Amerithrax, he would have encouraged the FBI to produce the forensic reports still being withheld. He and his fellow author Decker are the ones who withheld the relevant documents from the NAS relating to the detection of the Ames strain in Afghanistan.
There will often be missteps when a line of scientific inquiry proves unfruitful or not probative. There are bound to be mistaken theories — these are difficult mysteries that the FBI is tasked with solving. We WANT them to explore new methods of obtaining evidence of a crime — we just don’t want them to use unvalidated science to close a case when it does not warrant being closed.
The country remains at risk of a mass attack using anthrax and it is Vahid Majidis fault. He was the FBI’s WMD Director and thus bears primary responsibility for the withholding of the documents relating to the detection of Ames in Afghanistan.
As for Scott Decker, we haven’t yet seen what he has written in the manuscript on his computer. He still may turn out to be a truth teller who encourages the fullest disclosure of forensic evidence so as to get people on the same page of this difficult, unsolved mystery.
Some background on the so-called “forensics” relied upon in Amerithrax:
The Psychiatrists Are Selling A Report Relying On A Counselor Who Says She Was Granted Special Powers By An Alien Controlling Her By A Device Implanted In Her Butt, But The USG Has Taken Steps To Keep The DOJ’s Reliance On That Evidence Sealed For 5 Years
Posted on November 15, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/?s=alien
DOJ has successfully avoided deposition of Amerithrax consultant Gregory Saathoff who extensively and uncritically relied on the Ivins’ accuser who claims she was granted her psychic abilities by an alien from another planet
Posted on July 13, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/doj-has-successfully-avoided-deposition-of-amerithrax-consultant-who-extensively-and-uncritically-relied-on-the-ivins-accuser-granted-her-psychic-abilities-by-an-alien-from-another-planet/
/2014/12/23/dxer-the-fbi-before-july-2009-was-mistaken-after-that-by-failing-to-acknowledge-and-correct-mistakes-they-became-immoral-outrageous-and-pathetic/
Excerpts from David Willman’s key witness (from her book ASCENSION JOURNEY)\
Posted by Lew Weinstein on June 18, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/excerpts-from-david-willmans-key-witness-in-his-book-mirage-man/
DXer said
Click to access 2015-05-12.Chaffetz%20EEC%20to%20Comey%20re%20Microscopic%20Hair%20Analyses.pdf
DXer said
http://phys.org/news/2015-05-bacterial-forensics-microbes.html
Bacterial forensics: Tracing a suspect from the microbes on their shoes
13 hours ago
The microbial ‘signatures’ found on an individual’s personal items, such as their shoes and cell phone, could be used to determine their previous location and trace their movements, according to a small pilot study published in the open access journal Microbiome.
Bacteria found on human skin plays a role in shaping the microbial ecology of our homes, offices, hospitals and cities, through the objects we touch. Studying this microbial exchange between humans and their environment has potential applications in forensics, as microbial signatures found on personal items could be used to identify suspects in criminal investigations.
Study author Simon Lax of Argonne National Laboratory and University of Chicago, USA, said: “Human microbial signatures have already been used to match individuals to objects they’ve interacted with, such as computer keyboards. Now we’re interested in seeing how these microbial interactions change over time, and whether they could be used to track an individual’s movements. We found that even moving from one’s own living room to a friend’s living room leads to a highly detectable shift in microbial community structure on an individual’s personal items.”
Comment:
Ha! A DOJ that claimed the matching anthrax was held only in Building 1425 — and not 1412…. (see August 2008 press conference)
A DOJ that clalmed the lyophilized was available for Ivins to use in B3… (see August 2008 press conference)
A DOJ that claimed the “T” in NEXT was double-lined like the other letters… (see August 2008 press conference)
A DOJ that claimed that Ivins had no reason to be in the lab.. (see August 2008 press conference)
A DOJ that has withheld the handwriting examinations relating to Atta and Shukrijumah… (see FOIA response)
A DOJ that has withheld the documents relating to the detection of the virulent Ames strain in Al Qaeda’s Kandahar labs…. (see FOIA response and refusal to produce to NAS)
should sit on its hands and close the file on the folder of microbial forensics.
Until it gets its basic obligations right — and stops demonstrating a pattern of playing hide-the-ball, the DOJ — has lost the confidence of the American public and will not be allowed to develop new methods.
It can keep its anthrax smelling bloodhounds in the kennel — lest they scare the lady dogs at the grooming parlor.
Citation:
, Sean M Gibbons, Geórgia Barguil Colares, Daniel Smith, Jonathan A Eisen and Jack A Gilbert Forensic analysis of the microbiome of phones and shoes, Microbiome 2015. DOI: 10.1186/s40168-015-0082-9
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-05-bacterial-forensics-microbes.html#jCp
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
NYT interview of former lead Amerithrax investigator Richard Lambert: “a staggering amount of exculpatory evidence” regarding Dr. Ivins remains secret
Posted on April 9, 2015
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2015/04/09/nyt-interview-of-former-lead-amerithrax-investigator-richard-lambert-a-staggering-amount-of-exculpatory-evidence-regarding-dr-ivins-remains-secret/
PHOTOCOPIER TONER: In the hundreds of pages of photocopied exemplars taken from Dr. Bruce Ivins’ home and office, FBI Laboratory Experts determined that there was not a single piece of paper photocopied by him in which the same photocopy toner was used as in the letters containing the mailed anthrax. FBI should produce the laboratory reports to GAO on the photocopy toner used by the machine used to copy the letters without further delay.
Posted on March 9, 2012
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/photocopier-toner-in-the-hundreds-of-pages-of-photocopied-exemplars-taken-from-dr-bruce-ivins-home-and-office-fbi-laboratory-experts-determined-that-there-was-not-a-single-piece-of-pa/
TAPE: In the hundreds of pages of exemplars taken from Dr. Bruce Ivins’ home and office, FBI Laboratory Experts determined that there was not a single exemplar in which the adhesive tape used was a match with the five to nine pieces of tape affixed to each of the envelopes recovered. FBI should produce the laboratory reports to GAO on the adhesive tape used on one or more of the envelopes without further delay.
Posted on March 8, 2012
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/tape-in-the-hundreds-of-pages-of-handwritten-exemplars-taken-from-dr-bruce-ivins-home-and-office-fbi-laboratory-experts-determined-that-there-was-not-a-single-exemplar-in-which-the-adh/
INK: In the hundreds of pages of handwritten exemplars taken from Dr. Bruce Ivins’ home and office, FBI Laboratory Experts determined that there was not a single exemplar written by him in which the distinctive “fluid-like” ink used on the envelope was a match. FBI should produce the laboratory reports to GAO on the ink used in the first mailing (and the different ink used in the second mailing) without further delay.
Posted on March 8, 2012
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/in-the-hundreds-of-pages-of-handwritten-exemplars-taken-from-dr-bruce-ivins-home-and-office-fbi-laboratory-experts-determined-that-there-was-not-a-single-exemplar-written-by-him-in-which-the-dis/
DXer said
Hair Samples in Anthrax Case Don’t Match
By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 14, 2008
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/13/AR2008081303731.html
FBI agents and U.S. Postal Service inspectors analyzed the data in an effort to place Fort Detrick, Md., scientist Bruce E. Ivins at the mailbox from which bacteria-laden letters were sent to Senate offices and media organizations, the sources said.
The hair sample is one of many pieces of evidence over which researchers continue to puzzle in the case, which ended after Ivins committed suicide July 29 as prosecutors prepared to seek his indictment
DXer said
Jenifer A. L. Smith might be the best person to interview aside from Michael P. Garvey on the question of the CIA’s detection of the Ames strain in Afghanistan.
Before the NAS, in a taped presentation, the former CIA and FBI scientist urged the FBI to produce the documents.
I lobbied hard this past month to have our science museum named “Hodgins” — who after Budowie is my candidate for King of the Lab.
I lost out now to “Einspine” — which I now appreciate was the superior candidate.
DXer said
Dr. Ivins passed both polygraphs and yet the FBI has failed to produce the reports — based on an undisclosed (equally) pseudoscientific rationalization that he was just being sneaky.
DXer said
Did the Amerithrax investigation go to the dogs early on? What were the bloodhounds smelling at the Denny’s when they reportedly went nuts?
Posted by Lew Weinstein on April 12, 2010
DXer said
The CIA’s detection of the Ames strain of b. anthracis in Afghanistan was discarded by the FBI due to different testing results, sampling procedures, and methodology used by the FBI and IC (“Intelligence Community”)
Posted by Lew Weinstein on April 30, 2015
DXer said
Why did FBI Agent Darin Steele think that the “T” in NEXT was double-lined in concocting his interpretation of a code?
Posted by Lew Weinstein on June 17, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/06/17/why-did-fbi-agent-darin-steele-think-that-the-t-in-next-was-double-lined-in-concocting-his-interpretation-of-a-code/
DXer said
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150512_FBI_hair_errors_call_convictions_into_question.html
FBI hair errors call convictions into question
Philly.com – 5 hours ago
Developed by the FBI’s vaunted crime lab, microscopic hair analysis – comparing a hair found at a crime scene with one from a criminal defendant – as described in polished, confident testimony by an FBI hair analyst, could seal a guilty verdict.
Now, an ongoing FBI hair-analysis review – preliminary results were announced April 20 – recommends a wholesale look at cases in which testimony about microscopic hair analysis contributed to a guilty verdict.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150512_FBI_hair_errors_call_convictions_into_question.html#65eukGbGhzpbQIyL.99
Comment:
Look how Dr. Vahid Majidi and Dr. Jason Bannan and their colleagues avoided scrutiny of the non-case against Ivins by focusing on the four morphs issue — which had merely narrowed things from 700-1000 to 300 with access (And that was just at USAMRIID).
At the same time, they knowingly withheld the documents relating to the test results showing Ames strain from the committee reviewing the matter at the National Academy of Sciences.
This withholding of documents has constituted the obstruction of justice — all under the banner of “CYA.”
Both the learned GAO and NAS scientists were incredibly naive not to realize that the forensic issue on which they were focused was not probative of guilt or innocence.
The GAO and NAS reviewers were specifically prohibited from considering the issue of guilt or innocence. By participating under that limitation — and the withholding of documents — they made themselves part of the problem rather than the solution.
They bear as much responsibility as Majidi and Bannan —as does Michael Garvey — for one of the greatest failures in intelligence analysis in the history of the United States. All of these scientists should have supported and demanded the release of the forensic reports still knowingly being withheld by the FBI’s David Hardy.
DXer said
Former lead Amerithrax investigator Rick Lambert, for example, tells lme that the USAMRIID photocopy machines could be excluded. Now compare that to the innuendo in the Amerithrax Investigative Report.
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/gao-doesnt-the-fbis-photocopy-toner-report-exclude-the-make-and-model-of-photocopier-used-at-usamriid-but-include-the-make-and-model-used-in-the-maryland-kinkos-so-often-used-by-the-hijackers/
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com