December 31, 2006 -  Wow!  I survived another year!  And what a year it was!  I feel like I've been slogging through a jungle for 365 days, being attacked left and right by all sorts of insects and beasts, and suddenly I'm seeing open space ahead.

But it could be lion country!  Are those vultures I see circling in the distance? 

The year began badly.  In January I received the first of many threats from a conspiracy theorist who said he was going to sue me just to punish me for spreading what he considered to be false information about the attack anthrax.  Later in the year, he and another conspiracy theorist began contacting scientists I knew to threaten them with being called as witnesses in the lawsuit if they continued to talk with me.  It all started around the time I began trying to get Science Magazine to retract the infamous anthrax article they had printed in November of 2003.

But that all ended in September when Dr. Douglas Beecher's anthax article was circulated.  It showed that at least one scientist at the FBI was confirming my analysis and debunking what the conspiracy theorists believed about the attack anthrax.  And the nonsensical Science magazine article was specifically mentioned by Dr. Beecher as being inaccurate and misleading.  Suddenly, what I'd been saying for 5 years and what I'd written in my book about the nature of the attack anthrax was being accepted as fact by the media.  I was contacted by at least a dozen people in the media, but only William Broad of The New York Times wrote about what I'd written in my book.

On January 1, 2006, I was hoping that the various lawsuits filed by Dr. Hatfill would be resolved or would go to trial before the end of 2006.  That didn't happen.  But it now seems it will happen in early 2007.  Dr. Hatfill's lawsuit against The New York Times is scheduled to go to trial on January 29, 2007.  His lawsuit against Don Foster, Vanity Fair magazine, Readers' Digest and Vassar College, which went into "mediation" on October 5, 2006, now has some sort of decision date set for February 5, 2007.  Dr. Hatfill's lawsuit against John Ashcroft, the FBI, the DOJ et al has been in some kind of hold status since September when everything seemed to come to a sudden and inexplicable halt, a halt which (hopefully) can't last forever, since a lot of interesting information came from reading the snippets of depositions which were made public in that case.

During 2006 we also learned that the Ames stain of anthrax was more widely distributed than previously believed, and that the powder in the envelopes may have been proven scientifically to have been made in the "northeastern U.S," a finding which, if true, would trash all the theories that the 9/11 terrorists were making anthrax in Florida or brought it with them from overseas.

During 2006, we learned a bit about how dangerous natural and unrefined anthrax can be when two drum makers on different sides of the Atlantic Ocean were infected by breathing in naturally aerosolized anthrax spores from animal hides.  The one from Brooklyn survived.  The one in Scotland did not. 

The year 2006 was also the year that the "Professors of Paranoia" began preaching their beliefs to the public about government conspiracies related to 9/11, totally ignoring facts as they collected countless followers.  Late in the year, a Left Wing law professor began telling everyone who would listen that "the FBI knows exactly who was behind these terrorist anthrax attacks upon the United States Congress in the Fall of 2001, and that the culprits were US government-related scientists involved in a criminal US government biowarfare program."  His facts were mostly wrong, but that apparently didn't matter. 

And 2006 was the year that Right Wing politicians like Republican Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa tried to second guess the FBI and push them to provide detailed briefings on the anthrax investigation, evidently with the goal of convincing the FBI that they should be following the Right Wing Republican political agenda to blame al Qaeda and/or Saddam Hussein's Iraq for the attacks. 

It appears that, if it cannot be proven who actually did sent the anthrax letters, some in the far Right will believe it's in America's best interests to blame al Qaeda or Iraq -- even if the facts say otherwise, and some in the far Left will believe it's in America's best interests to blame the Bush administration -- even if the facts say otherwise. 

It was a busy year with lots to write comments about.  I did a word count of my comments for 2006, and, including this comment, I wrote 87,291 words.  (A typical novel is 60,000 words.)  And I probably wrote at least that amount in emails during the year.  (I archived approximately 4,150 emails last year, probably a third of which are emails I wrote.)

There were 161,000 visitors to this web site in 2006.  That compares with about 133,000 visitors in 2005, about 95,000 in 2004, about 55,000 in 2003, and about 40,000 in 2002. 

However, those statistics don't necessarily mean that 4 times as many people are interested in the anthrax investigation today as where in 2002, it most likely just means that 4 times as many people know about my web site now than knew about it back in 2002.   But there is also a lot more information on the site, and that means that search engines have more words to put into their indexes.  As a result, a person can do a search for renew colon cleaner or for novasibirsk city map and get search results which show that specific pages on my site contain those words, and, if they decide to actually look at that page, it will be logged as a "visit" in the web site statistics. 

2006 was an interesting year, but I'm glad it's over.  I'm really looking forward to 2007.  It could be an extraordinary year.  I certainly wish everyone a happy New Year.

December 24, 2006 - Most of the discussion during the past week was about Dr. Boyle's conspiracy theories.  They seem to have been pulled from a time capsule, as if he developed his theories in late 2001 and hasn't learned a thing since. 

In the Hatfill v The New York Times lawsuit, the Times withdrew a Motion to depose a former vice president at SAIC who worked with Dr. Hatfill to hire William Patrick III to study the potential dangers of anthrax sent through the mail.  But Judge O'Grady denied the motion anyway.  It was apparently "a fishing expedition", as lawyers say, i.e., an attempt to question someone who has nothing to do with anything, but who might still say something that can be used in court some way.

The Times continued to file documents, and Dr. Hatfill's lawyers responded by filing 9 bound volumes of exhibits, all of which are "under seal."  That should give the Times' lawyers plenty to read over the holidays. 

Presumably, there won't be much news next week about the anthrax investigation or the Hatfill lawsuits, but I'll be checking anyway. 

December 22, 2006 - Finally, there has been an update to the Docket in the Hatfill v Don Foster, Vanity Fair magazine, Readers' Digest and Vassar College lawsuit.  Unfortunately, it just says we still have a long time to wait:

December 21, 2006 - I've said before that, when you get far enough away from reality, it's hard to tell the difference between the Radical Right and the Lunatic Left.  One conspiracy theorist on the far far Left is currently making his beliefs known to anyone who will listen.  This is from today's Free Market News: 

Dr. Francis A Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois-Champaign, and the man who wrote the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, is convinced that "9/11 was allowed to happen, the war on terror is facilitating the downfall of The Republic, and concentration camps are in place, with U.S. citizens as the targets." He also reportedly declared, during an appearance on the Alex Jones program, that the purpose of the anthrax attack was "to foment a police state by killing off opposition to hardline post-9/11 legislation."

Today, a lengthy article with many more details appeared on a Canadian web site GlobalResearch.ca.  It was titled "Impending Police State in America." 

Earlier in the week, there were similar articles in the Middle East Times,  on a web site which advertises itself as "Marxist Thought On Line," on a German site and on a site from "Occupied Iraq".  While I don't plan to help spread this line of thinking any further, it is important to know that there are people out there who think this way -- and, evidently, people who want to help them spread "the word".

December 18, 2006 -  In yesterday's comment, I neglected to mention that, while the media and conspiracy theorists keep claiming that the FBI has no suspects, or that they are looking in the wrong place for suspects, or that they are covering up for the real suspect(s), the FBI has been saying something very different:  They've been generally saying they have too many suspects.  A Washington Post article said they had "as many as 20 people who are under scrutiny at any time."  A Baltimore Sun article quotes Ari Fleischer as saying "there are still several suspects." An Associated Press article said Dr. Hatfill was "one of about 30 people being scrutinized."   Those articles were all written years ago, but that doesn't mean all those people turned out to be innocent.  It just means that we don't know how many people are currently "under scrutiny". 

December 17, 2006 -  During the past week, a documentary film maker asked me if I planned to print a revised version of my book with all the "corrections" mentioned on this web site.  My responses were: (1) There are no "corrections" to the book on this web site, there are only additions and confirmations.  As far as I know, nothing I've written about the anthrax investigation in my book has been proven wrong.  (2) No, I do not have any plans to print a revised version. Books about the anthrax investigation evidently only sell well if they promote some conspiracy theory or expose real or imagined government misdeeds in some way, and they need to be written by people with impressive credentials.  I'm just a "guy on the Internet", and all my book does is analyze the facts to see what they tell us about the culprit and the investigation.   Most of the published copies of my book are still sitting in my garage.

Coincidentally, during the past week I also discussed a review of a book which is in the news and which points to the U.S. government as being responsible for the anthrax attacks.  The book was written by a college professor with multiple doctorates and impressive credentials who is considered by some to be an "authority".  I tried to get him to defend this paragraph from the review:

Although only a "handful" of scientists had the ability to perpetrate the crime, the culprit among them may never be identified as the FBI ordered the destruction of the anthrax culture collection at Ames, IA., from which the Ft. Detrick lab got its pathogens, the authority said.

I cited known facts from The Washington Post, The New York Times, and from the Iowa State Daily which show that the Ames strain went directly from Texas A&M to Ft. Detrick and was misnamed "The Ames Strain" simply because Texas A&M used a prepaid government mailing label which had the USDA at Ames as the return address.  According to those facts, the FBI did not order the destruction of that collection.  Iowa State officials decided on their own to destroy the collection, checking with the USDA, the CDC and the FBI first, to make sure the collection had no evidentiary value. It did not.  These facts have been known for almost 5 years.  Yet, it appears that an "authority" can just ignore the facts and say what he wants to say.  His facts might be shown to be absolute nonsense, but he can still claim that his beliefs are true.  And, because he's an "authority", his book promoting an absurd conspiracy theory will sell better than any book which just analyzes the facts.

And while this was going on, I also had a discussion about beliefs expressed in a column in the Florida Sun-Sentinel titled "Anthrax investigation has no answers, but secrecy abounds."  While others in the discussion agreed with the beliefs expressed in the column, I had to disagree.  It appears to me that the columnist, Mr. Goodman, is wrong on many points:

1.  Mr. Goodman wrote: 

The five-year-old investigation is all too representative of how this administration conducts business. In secret. Giving its reasons as national security.

2.  Mr. Goodman wrote:

For all we know, [The FBI is] simply hiding its ineffectiveness or incompetence.

3.  Mr. Goodman wrote:

it was the FBI that leaked the name of Stephen Hatfield, the scientist who is suing the government for being identified in the case in 2002 as "a person of interest.

4.  Mr. Goodman also wrote:

I guess it's just too shameful for the G-Men to have to look the country in the eye and say, "Hey, we've tried and tried, but we don't know who sent the anthrax.

What if the FBI knows who sent the anthrax but cannot yet prove it in court?  What is the FBI suppose to do then?  Are they supposed to tell the country that they think Dr. Joe Blow did it, but they cannot prove it?  What would that accomplish besides setting up Dr. Joe Blow for a public lynching?  If they did that, it would be so prejudicial to the legal case that it could never go to trial.  The culprit would go free forever.  And he'd probably sue for millions.

Or should the FBI and the DOJ go to court anyway, knowing they do not have enough evidence to be reasonably certain of a conviction?   What would that accomplish?  If Dr. Blow was acquitted, he could never be tried again.  He'd go free forever.  Is that justice?  Is that what the public wants?

Is there any alternative that does not let the culprit go free forever?  Yes, there is.  The FBI can pursue the case, collecting facts and scientific evidence, UNTIL they have enough to be reasonably assured of a conviction in court.  Who can state with certainty that that is not what the FBI is currently doing?  And, if true, isn't that the best option?

December 12, 2006 (B) - In an article in today's Houston Chronicle titled "Congress demands answers on anthrax", the Associated Press is reporting that

Thirty-three members of Congress have written Attorney General Alberto Gonzales demanding that the FBI update lawmakers on the investigation into the anthrax attacks five years ago that paralyzed the nation with bio-terror fears.

December 12, 2006 (A) - People seem to be wondering if there is any significance to the fact that FBI Director Mueller refused to discuss the anthrax attacks with the Senate Judiciary Committee last week because "a grand jury investigation" is in progress.  Beats me.  It appears there has been a "grand jury investigation" underway since the very beginning.  I've seen media mentions as far back as February, 2002, and in September 2003 there was even an article which said,

A federal grand jury has been empaneled in the anthrax case under the supervision of Roscoe C. Howard Jr., U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

December 11, 2006 - Another American scientist has joined the ever growing mob of fact- and logic-challenged conspiracy theorists who see the anthrax attacks as being the work of the U.S. government.  The article describing his theory and his new book was printed in the Middle East Times using the title "Anthrax attack on US Congress made by scientists and covered up by FBI, expert says." 

December 10, 2006 - So far I haven't been able to find any copies of any of the FBI documents which The New York Times said were "made public for the first time."  Perhaps no reporter has bothered to go to the court house to view them; perhaps no reporter found anything of interest in them; or perhaps they just need time to digest. 

I also haven't been able to find Attorney General Gonzales' October 31 response to Senator Grassley's nasty letter of October 23.

The year end holidays are coming up.  I'm not expecting much new information until the new year.  There will be hearings in the Hatfill v The New York Times lawsuit right up to the Friday before Christmas, but I don't expect anything dramatic to happen.  And while it seems inexplicable that a "mediation session" could go on for three months, there's no indication that anything will happen in the Hatfill v Don Foster, Vanity Fair et al lawsuit until after the first of the year, either.  Plus, I have absolutely no idea what's going on in the Hatfill v Ashcroft et al lawsuit. 

December 8, 2006 - Someone sent me the link to the C-Span video of the grilling of FBI Director Mueller.  I found it HERE, but sometimes it seems to disappear from the list.  The entire video titled "Senate Judiciary Cmte. FBI Oversight Hearing" runs for over 2 hours, but the 11-minute section beginning at 1:21:48 and ending at 1:32:40 is the relevant part.  In that section, Senator Grassley and Senator Spector grill Mueller on the subject of the anthrax attacks.  At 1:30:05 Senator Spector asks, "Director Mueller, what is the problem with getting a briefing on this issue?"

Here's my transcription of Mueller's response:

"As set forth in the letter from the Attorney General, there are aspects of the investigation that are grand jury matters at this point.  There are aspects of the information that can't and should not be disclosed -- even to the victims.  Yes, we can give an over-arching briefing as to how many people we have at it, but you are asking for something more.  And it's the Department's policy that where you have an on-going investigation such as this -- a grand jury investigation -- that such a thorough briefing should not be given."

Although Senator Grassley never mentioned Gonzales' response, he was clearly not satisfied by it, since he's circulating another letter to various senators to get them all to ask for (or demand) a briefing.  Senator Spector referred to their legal authority to get oversight briefings on such cases.

Mueller said 17 FBI agents and 10 Postal Inspectors are still working full time on the case.

Mueller also expressed frustration at not being able to identify the FBI agents who leaked information to the New York Times, so there have been no reprimands for those leaks. 

December 7, 2006 - As part of a news summary, CNN provided the reason why FBI Director Mueller refused to provide details about the anthrax investigation to the Senate Judiciary Committee:

Mueller cited long-standing policy against disclosing sensitive criminal and grand jury investigations. "Yes, we could give you an over-arching briefing as to how many people we have at it, but you're asking for something more," Mueller said.

This September, Joseph Persichini Jr., acting assistant director of the FBI's Washington field office, acknowledged the major, if unheralded, role science is playing in the probe. Yet the FBI has said little about what science has revealed, citing the criminal nature of the case as its reason. What scientific tidbits the public has been fed come from media reports, and most of these have been incorrect or incomplete.

the FBI has clamped down on information on the probe. The embargo has been so tight that a former top military scientist who now works for a government contractor tells C&EN that he was consulted before the Leahy letter, but afterward, he could get no updates on progress being made even from friends in the FBI.

It took the media a month to publish accounts of Beecher's article, which they generally interpreted as indicating that the FBI initially had misunderstood the nature of the anthrax used in the attacks.

Given how easily the powder in the Daschle letter aerosolized, government officials, military scientists, and academic anthrax experts were quoted in the media as claiming the anthrax spores in the letter had to have been "weaponized." That is, the spores had to have been specially treated or processed—milled and coated with an additive such as silica—to make them float in the air. But in his article, Beecher, almost as an aside, dismisses this possibility.

The article tries to explain what caused the disagreements. 

At an Oct. 29, 2001, White House press briefing, Maj. Gen. John S. Parker, then-commanding general of the Army's Medical Research & Materiel Command at Fort Detrick, said silica had been found in the Daschle letter. Tom Ridge, then-director of the White House Office of Homeland Security, at a briefing a few days earlier said a binding agent had been used to make the anthrax powders.

As one of the former government officials tells C&EN, "Those judgments were premature and frankly wrong." At the height of the attacks, top government officials with no scientific background received briefings from people who also were not scientists, and "the nuances got lost," he explains.

Sometimes scientists misspoke as well, as was the case with the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. AFIP studied the anthrax powder from the Daschle letter using energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry, and a top AFIP scientist, Florabell G. Mullick, reported the presence of silica in an AFIP newsletter. Yet, the spectrum AFIP released shows a peak for the element silicon, not silicon dioxide (silica).

Harvard University molecular biologist Matthew S. Meselson, who has consulted for the FBI on the anthrax probe, dismisses these early statements as misunderstandings or misinterpretations of the scientific studies conducted on the Daschle powder. "I don't know of anybody with spore expertise who actually worked on the stuff who said the spores were coated," he says. The FBI has never publicly claimed the spores were coated with silica and, in fact, told members of Congress at classified briefings that the spores were not coated, he says.

The explanation for mischaracterizing the attack material is really quite simple, one of the former government officials says. When the attacks occurred, "there was no systematic methodology in place to evaluate a biological powder forensically." Initially, he says, the studies were "done on the fly." And quite frankly, he says, "a lot of people didn't know what they were looking for.

"The pace of the forensic investigation ground to a halt," this official says, "because there was not a lot of available expertise in the scientific toolbox."

Of great interest to me in the C&EN article was the fact that for the first time someone in the media has discussed the NBC report which stated that the attack anthrax was made in the "northeastern U.S.".  But the discussion perpetuates the misconception that there were only "20 labs worldwide" which had the Ames strain and inexplicably includes Ohio as being in the "northeastern U.S., " probably so The University of Scranton wouldn't be the only "suspect" lab.

Then the article goes into the subject of "reverse engineering".  This is one place where the article does truly provide some new information.  The article makes it very clear that Dugway did not truly try to "reverse engineer" the attack powder and did not prove that it must have been super-sophisticated as the infamous article in Science magazine suggested:

Daniel Martin, a microbiologist in Dugway's Life Sciences Division, tells C&EN that Dugway was asked "to produce materials to see how they compared with the materials the FBI had in its possession." But, Martin says, Dugway did not reverse or back engineer the attack powder. "Back engineering implies that you know exactly what the material is and can replicate the material exactly, step by step." That isn't what Dugway did, he says.

Instead, Martin says, Dugway used the Leahy powder as the culture starter to "produce several different preparations using different media, and different ways of drying and milling the preparation" that the FBI could use for comparison purposes. Dugway, he says, never analyzed the Leahy powder and did no comparative analyses between the preparations made and the Leahy powder.

Why is the FBI now allowing the release of information like that in the Beecher report, the information about reverse engineering and the information about the water used to make the spores?  Here's one suggestion from the article:

A former FBI laboratory official says the FBI may have realized that the scientific evidence is pointing to a different conclusion than initial speculation that the perpetrator had to be associated with a national program. If so, "then it is very valuable for a number of reasons to have the evidence published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, which gives it a measure of acceptance and credibility," he says.

The FBI is not talking about the perpetrator and is saying very little publicly about the science it has called upon in trying to solve the five-year-old case. What the public has been told [by the media and by non-experts with a political agenda] points to a U.S. biodefense facility as the source of the attack strain of anthrax spores that were not specially treated or engineered but were very pure—and very deadly.

Meanwhile, in today's Houston Chronicle it says that a Senate committee grilled FBI Director Mueller today about various matters.  They were anxious to find out about the Amerithrax investigation, but Mueller declined to comment on specifics of the case. 

December 5, 2006 (C) - The Docket in the Hatfill v The New York Times lawsuit contains a whole batch of new entries involving motions, declarations, objections, memorandums and orders.   Some of it is about "motions in limine" which seem to be an attempt to exclude the Kristof colums from being used as evidence.  Others seem to be about using declarations from lawyers in the Don Foster lawsuit in this case.  And there are also objections because the Judge did not fine The New York Time for failing to identify their sources.  It seems like both parties are playing hardball.

December 5, 2006 (B) - An article in yesterday's Chemical & Engineering News titled "Science aids a nettlesome FBI criminal probe" contains so much information that it may take me until tomorrow to write a detailed comment about it.  All I can say after first reading is that the author seems to have been reading this web site -- and possibly my book, too.

December 5, 2006 (A) - An article in yesterday's New York Sun tells how a reporter won a legal battle to get information on what kind of punishment was given to people in the government who were found to have leaked "classified information" to the media. 

The case wasn't about the anthrax investigation, but if the FBI employees who gave out confidential information in the anthrax investigation are identified and punished, it seems certain there will be MAJOR news stories about every aspect of it. 

December 3, 2006 - There's nothing in the Court Docket yet about the Motion filed by The New York Times to dismiss Dr. Hatfill's lawsuit.  The key issue appears to be whether or not Dr. Hatfill was a "public figure" before Nicholas Kristof's columns helped make him a public figure.  There doesn't seem to be any clear definition of what makes a person a "public figure."  Does doing a magazine interview make a person a "public figure"?  Does lecturing on a subject make a person a "public figure"?  As I, understand it, if Dr. Hatfill was a public figure before the Times made him one, then Dr. Hatfill must prove that the Times attacked him with malice.  I.e., he must prove they intended to do him harm by making statements they knew were false.  That would be extremely difficult to do.  However, it seems very unlikely to me (a non-lawyer) that, at this stage of the game, Judge Hilton would rule that Dr. Hatfill was a public figure.

According to the schedule laid down on November 16, Dr. Hatfill has until December 15 to respond.  The New York Times then has until December 22 to reply to the response.  And the Motion hearing before Judge O'Grady will be held on January 5, 2007.

Meanwhile, let's hope there is something interesting and worthwhile in the "internal F.B.I. memorandums about the inquiry" and the "e-mail messages sent to and from Mr. Kristof" which the Times could release this week (presumably with the names of the "FBI employees" deleted or blacked out).

December 2, 2006 - According to today's New York Times, yesterday the Times filed a Motion with Judge Claude Hilton to dismiss Dr. Hatfill's lawsuit:

The motion said Dr. Hatfill was a public figure because of his role in administering bioterrorism programs and speaking publicly about the issue.

The article also says

The case was initially dismissed by a trial judge who said the columns did not defame Dr. Hatfill but merely reported on the investigation. An appeals court reversed that ruling, saying a jury should decide the issue of defamation.

Meanwhile, the article also says

The legal papers filed by The Times included dozens of exhibits that made public for the first time internal F.B.I. memorandums about the inquiry, along with e-mail messages sent to and from Mr. Kristof.

November 19-20, 2006 - I can't help but wonder if Dr. Hatfill's other two lawsuits haven't been deliberately stalled while everyone waited to see how the confrontation with The New York Times played out. 

Dr. Hatfill's lawsuit against Don Foster, Vanity Fair Magazine, Readers' Digest and Vassar College has been "in mediation" since October 5.  That lawsuit might have been affected if the Judge had agreed to fine the Times $25,000 per day for not naming their confidential sources, or if the Times had tried to settle.  The fact that Dr. Hatfill seems fully prepared to go to trial could have a very sobering effect on the defendants. 

And there's been no information at all about Dr. Hatfill's lawsuit against John Ashcroft, the FBI, the DOJ et al since early September.  If the Times had named the two FBI employees who supplied confidential information about Dr. Hatfill, that could have been solid evidence that the FBI violated the Privacy Act and could have destroyed the government's case in the FBI/DOJ lawsuit.  In that lawsuit there is an even greater need to compel reporters to name their FBI sources, although it's the government who wants the media to name names.  Memorandums have been filed.   The media has argued against any motion to compel.  Perhaps, there will be a resolution of those arguments now that The New York Times has refused to name its FBI sources.  The situation seems to indicate that, before the media can be compelled to name their confidential sources, it needs to be shown that all alternatives have been explored, and it appears that all alternatives have been explored.   The situation is very different in this lawsuit, however.  The media is not a party.  So, if they refuse to indentify confidential sources it would be a very different legal situation -- at least that's the way it seems to me, a non-lawyer.

It could be interesting to see what happens next in those two other lawsuits. 

November 18, 2006 - According to an article in this morning's New York Times titled "Judge’s Ruling Bars The Times From Using Sources’ Information in Defense Against Suit", Judge O'Grady denied Dr. Hatfill's Motion to fine the Times and instead ruled that the Times could not rely in any way upon the information the Times may have obtained from two FBI employees.  An article in yesterday's New York Observer explained the implications of this ruling this way:

If the Times will not name the sources, then the newspaper "will not be able to rely on their FBI sources" in their defense, according to Charles Kimmett, an attorney for Mr. Hatfill.

According to the Associated Press in today's Newsday, 

It's unclear how much of a setback the ruling is for the Times. That would likely depend on how much other substantiation the newspaper presents to counter Hatfill's claim.

November 16, 2006 (A) - This morning the New York Sun has an article titled "Steven Hatfill Demands Fines for N.Y. Times" which explains what has been happening in the Hatfill v The New York Times lawsuit lately.  The Times refused to comply with Judge O'Grady's order that it divulge the names of the two FBI sources used in the Kristoff columns, so Dr. Hatfill is asking that the judge "fine the newspaper $25,000 a day for refusing to disclose its confidential sources and to increase the fine amount by $25,000 each month in an attempt to encourage the paper to comply."  The article also indicates that one of the three confidential sources in the Order was identified, although we still don't know who it was:

The Times also noted that 10 of the 12 sources Mr. Kristof relied on are known to Mr. Hatfill, either because they were not granted confidentiality or agreed to waive it. As a result, the names of only two sources are being withheld. Mr. Kristof has said both were FBI employees.

The Times’s lawyers also said Mr. Hatfill deliberately delayed giving his deposition in the case and that his attorneys’ bid to block further discovery by the Times is part of “a ruse designed to insulate plaintiff from giving any testimony under oath at all.”

November 14, 2006 - Another pile of Motions, Notices, Memorandums, Replies and an Order appeared on the Docket for the Hatfill v The New York Times lawsuit yesterday.

I'm no lawyer, but it seems that The Times will be allowed to depose people from SAIC, Dr. Hatfill's former employer. 

The legal term "De Bene Esse" means "conditionally" or "provisionally".  It means the depositions cannot be used IF the witness is available to testify at the trial.  The judge also allowed "one discovery deposition out of time", which presumably means that the Times will be allowed to take a deposition even though the time for such things has passed.

Strangely, there is NOTHING in these Docket entries which says anything about what happened when Judge O'Grady's ORDER for the Times to name its sources came due on November 8.  Was the Times charged with "Contempt of Court"?  Did they name names?  It doesn't say. 

November 12, 2006 -  A couple weeks ago, I was sent a transcript of comments made on NBC News on October 5, 2006.  I'd seen the broadcast, and the next day I had mentioned an error I noticed in it.  But people who believe that al Qaeda sent the anthrax letters have focused on another part of the broadcast and have been wondering why I haven't told the world about what they seem to consider an extremely significant piece of scientific information.   The piece of information is highlighted in red in these statements by NBC's Pete Williams:

The anthrax spores themselves, recovered from one of the letters found before it was opened, have yielded a surprising amount of information. Investigators tell NBC News that the water used to make them came from a northeastern U.S., not a foreign, source. Traces of chemicals found inside the spores revealed the materials used to grow them. And scientists have also mapped the entire DNA chain of the anthrax hoping to narrow down the laboratories where it came from.

But one possible clue evaporated. The FBI concluded the spores were not coated with any chemical to make them hang longer in the air.

I have previously suggested that the anthrax used in the attacks originated in a clandestine British biowarfare program. But NBC News reported on Oct. 5 that the water used in preparing the anthrax came from the Northeastern United States, which rules out a British source.

Thinking about  it, I can see how this information might be very important to others.  If the anthrax powder was made in the Northeastern United States, that poses a serious problem for those who have claimed for years that the lesion on the leg of 9/11 hijacker Ahmed Ibrahim A. Al Haznawi was cutaneous anthrax and proof that the 9/11 terrorists were involved in the anthrax attacks.   The date of Al Haznawi's arrival in the U.S. says the infection started before he arrived in America.  So, if he was overseas when he got infected, how did he get infected by spores made in the Northeastern United States?  And this finding would also complicate the belief that Mohamed Atta's "red hands" had something to do with anthrax.   Whatever Atta was doing, he was doing it in Florida, which is definitely NOT in the Northeastern U.S.

It would take a lot of rationalizing to explain how the 9/11 hijackers could have had contact with the attack anthrax if the anthrax can be proven to have been made in the Northeastern U.S.

If there is a scientific report somewhere which proves that the anthrax was made in the Northeastern United States, I haven't seen it.  But, the idea of examining isotopes in the spores to determine where the spores were made has been discussed for a long time.  The subject came up on Feb. 4, 2003, when I was sent a link to an article titled "Microbe forensics: Oxygen and hydrogen stable isotope ratios in Bacillus subtilis cells and spores."  The abstract says,

stable isotope ratio analyses may be a powerful tool for tracing the geographic point-of-origin for microbial products.

Fact #11:  There is no way that Bacillus anthracis can MAKE silicon.  That would require nuclear fusion.  So, the silicon and oxygen which were detected in the spores had to be either deliberately added or it had to come from the environment. 

Fact #12: There could be forensic information in the silicon -- for example in its isotope ratios.  There are three naturally-occurring silicon isotopes, with atomic masses approximately 29, 30 and 31.  The ratios of the different isotopes in silicon from different sources are detectably different.  This means that some sources can be ruled out and others singled out for more attention on the basis of silicon isotope ratios." 

Fact #13:  There might also be "detectably different" isotope ratios in other elements found in the spores, such as sulfur, magnesium, manganese, etc. 

Fact #14:  Utilizing specific ratios of isotopes to determine a source for anthrax (or almost anything else) would be totally new to the FBI and would require a lot of time and effort. 

I now realize I should probably have mentioned the NBC information earlier, but whether or not it can be scientifically proven changes nothing in my analysis.  If it cannot be proven, absolutely nothing changes.  If it can be scientifically proven, at most it would just mean another entry in the "New Information" section of this web site confirming my analysis that the spores were made in Central New Jersey.

November 8, 2006 - When I saw there was an update to the Docket for the Hatfill v The New York Times lawsuit today, I hoped it would be about the Motion to compel the Times to name their confidential sources.  But it wasn't about that.  Instead, I found a whole list of Motions, Declarations, Memoranda and Notices where the Times is attempting to compel discovery from non-parties The Department of Defense and SAIC.  (They previously tried the same thing with the Department of Justice and the CIA and failed.)  And there was also one Order by Judge O'Grady which denied Dr. Hatfill's motion to obtain documents stored at home by Times' employees. 

If there was any news about Judge O'Grady's Order that the Times name their sources by today, that news wasn't in the docket as of 6 p.m. Eastern time.  Like prior news on the subject, apparently it will be made public when they are ready to make it public. 

November 7, 2006 - An entry posted yesterday in the Docket for the Hatfill v Foster et al lawsuit says that the parties asked Judge Colleen McMahon to allow the status quo situation to continue during the on-going mediation session.  Judge McMahon replied, "OK - I would like to see this case settle[d] but I won't let mediation go on forever." 

November 5, 2006 - During the past month, people on the Left and Right have been attacking the FBI for failure to bring anyone to justice in the anthrax killings.  Since their reasoning seems to be based upon total ignorance of the facts, it is evidently just posturing for political purposes.  Meanwhile, the media also continues to twist the facts for political purposes, repeating the absolute nonsense about when the FBI knew that the anthrax wasn't a super-sophisticated powder and how it affected the investigation.

The anthrax case has been a political football from almost the beginning.  Hopefully, it finally touched bottom during the past few weeks. 

Today marks one month that the Hatfill v Foster lawsuit has been "in mediation," and it appears there won't be any news until after election day.  Likewise, the next deadline in the Hatfill v The York Times lawsuit is after election day. 

It might be too much to hope for, but it would be nice for a change to see some facts and information which are not distorted by political points of view. 

I know I'm always overly optimistic, but that's part of my nature.  I can't help it.  The whole investigation may have been buried under a layer of political crap during the past month, but I've got my fingers crossed that the crap may turn out to be fertilizer from which some truly interesting facts might sprout into the sunlight and blossom into actual news that might enlighten us all.   (Or maybe I've been beaten on the head so often during the past five years that I've started putting just too many metaphors in one sentence to make any sense at all.)

November 3, 2006 (C) - Now that Judge Hilton has ruled on the appeal, the Docket in the Hatfill v The New York Times lawsuit says that Judge Liam O'Grady has given The New York Times until next Wednesday (the day after election day) to "reveal the identity of Confidential Sources #2, #3 and #4" to Dr. Hatfill.

November 3, 2006 (B) - Today's Los Angeles Times contains a very interesting article titled "Many fear FBI's anthrax case is cold."  It shows how political agendas and speculation can be used to second guess a very complicated criminal investigation.  One comment nicely sums up the situation:

[Stephen] Freccero[, a former federal prosecutor], who prosecuted Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski, said that centering the anthrax probe in Washington politicized the case, making it difficult for investigators to independently pursue leads.

The case also has been slowed by the bureau's changing understanding of the quality of the anthrax used. Investigators originally believed the powder was highly refined and could only have been produced by experts with state-of-the-art technology. But the FBI eventually abandoned that idea.

Here's an example from the article showing ex-Senator Tom Daschle giving his opinion as if it were fact:

"Their public pronouncements about their confidence levels were obviously way off the mark all the way along," said Tom Daschle, the former Democratic senator from South Dakota whose Capitol Hill office was one of the targets of the attacks. "It has sort of been the domestic version of Iraq. They made a lot of assumptions that turned out not to be accurate."

Daschle, now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said he asked the FBI about a month ago for an update but was rebuffed.

"Clearly, this whole investigation has gone very cold," he said. "Because it has become so cold, they are all the more apprehensive about acknowledging that they do not have any real good evidence or leads."

The article seeks to put the FBI on the defensive.  It begins this way,

Five years after a series of deadly anthrax-laced letters rattled the nation, the FBI has offered no indication that it is any closer to solving the first major act of bioterrorism on U.S. soil, leading critics to speculate the probe has stalled and to question how well federal officials would handle future attacks.

Members of Congress and targets of the attacks — which killed five people between Oct. 5 and Nov. 21, 2001, sickened 17 and exposed thousands of others — increasingly are expressing concern that the FBI-led federal investigation, code-named Amerithrax, has been mismanaged.

And the only way the FBI can prove that the case has not been "mismanaged" is to reveal details of the investigation, which would clearly be mismanaging the case.  They will be damned if they do and damned if they don't.  That's politics.

November 3, 2006 (A) - An Associated Press article in The Washington Post and an article in this morning's New York Times don't add much to yesterday's report in the New York Sun which stated that the Times' appeals to Judge Hilton were denied (i.e., Judge O'Grady's rulings last week were upheld and affirmed).   The entries which appeared late yesterday in the Docket for the Hatfill v The New York Times lawsuit don't add much, either.  Here are the latest two entries:

November 2, 2006 - According to today's New York Sun, Judge Hilton upheld the Order by Judge O'Grady compeling The New York Times to name its confidential sources in the Hatfill lawsuit and, in effect, put The New York Times in contempt of court.  The Times is expected to continue to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court. 

November 1, 2006 (B) - More new entries just appeared in the Docket for the Hatfill v The New York Times lawsuit which indicate that there is now a transcript of Friday's proceedings available from the court reporter.  Hopefully, some reporter will obtain that transcript and clear up the mysteries.  The Docket also contains a new "mystery".  It says "order to follow".  So, there's a new order by Judge O'Grady being prepared, but no real clue as to what the order will be about. 

November 1, 2006 (A) - A new entry appeared in the Docket for the Hatfill v The New York Times lawsuit yesterday.  But it's about something that happened on Friday:

Praecipe
A written request to a court to issue a writ or otherwise require an action from a party to a suit.

October 31, 2006 - Today's Washington Post contains an article which describes one al Qaeda trail the FBI has been following in its hunt for the anthrax mailer.  While there isn't any evidence of any kind which points to Abdur Rauf as being the anthrax mailer, the fact that he wanted to make an anthrax biological weapon and the fact that he was an al Qaeda sympathizer were enough to have the FBI investigating him for years.  The FBI and other agencies have been following every trail which might lead to some al Qaeda  bioweapons program because such leads might connect to some actual bioweapons plot that might be in the works somewhere in the world.  But that apparently isn't enough for people who also want the FBI to believe that al Qaeda sent the anthrax letters.  If you don't believe al Qaeda did it, you can't be trusted to prove that al Qaeda did it.

October 30, 2006 (B) - As of 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time, there were no new entries in the Docket for the Hatfill v The New York Times lawsuit.  I have no idea what happened on Friday or why there wouldn't be some news about what happened when deadline passed for The New York Times to disclose their confidential sources.

Meanwhile, the Journal-News which serves White Plains, NY, where the Hatfill v Foster et al lawsuit is being tried by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York State, reports that the Hatfill v Foster et al lawsuit is still "in mediation": 

The White Plains case is currently in mediation, according to court records. If that fails, it will head toward trial. Foster declined to comment on the case. Hassan A. Zavareei, a lawyer for Hatfill, also declined to comment. Lawyers for the other parties did not return calls seeking comment.

Lambert, 45, in a phone interview with the News Sentinel, said he heard of the opening in the top management job at the Knoxville field office, remembered fondly the 10 years he had spent in the Nashville area as a child, and decided to try to win the Knoxville slot.

"Knoxville is considered a prime office within the FBI," Lambert said. "The work is good, the people are wonderful, the law enforcement liaison relationships are fantastic, and it's just a highly desirable and very sought-after office to be in. There's the cost of living, no state income tax, reasonable housing, and the list goes on and on and on. So Knoxville is a great place to live." 

Lambert said he could not discuss details of the anthrax investigation that he supervised during the last four years but said he is optimistic that the culprit or culprits will be identified and caught.

"I am absolutely confident that it will be solved. It does represent the worst biological attack in U.S. history," he said. 

He competed for the Knoxville job and won selection to the post, he said.

October 29, 2006 -  While waiting for further news about Dr. Hatfill's lawsuits against the media, I'm tempted to write a few thousand words about Senator Grassley's letter to Attorney General Gonzales in which the Senator tries to second-guess the FBI's investigation of the anthrax mailings.  But maybe just a few hundred words on some key points will suffice:

1.  The letter says on the first page,

There have been suggestions in the press that scientific advances have shown that the anthrax spores were less-sophisticated than was originally believed, and that this may have caused the focus on potential suspects to be too narrow for too long.

2.  At the top of the 3rd page, Senator Grassley's letter says,

The failure of the FBI to treat the case as both a criminal and intelligence matter illustrates how far the FBI is from understanding its core post-9/11 mission.

3.  Item #10 on page 4 says,

10.  (a) Other than the FBI's Amerithrax investigative team, is there anyone else in the U.S. Government tasked with examining the attack anthrax and making a judgment about their likely origin?  (b) If so, please explain.  If not, why not?

In reality, the FBI has been looking for bioweapons everywhere al Qaeda could have been or could have made the  stuff.  But, it appears that Senator Grassley believes the FBI hasn't been looking hard enough, since they haven't found what he believes to exist.

The anthrax investigation has been a political football since nearly the very beginning, and nothing has changed after five long years.  The Left wants to blame the Bush administration and the Right wants to blame foreigners.  And both sides believe the only the true facts are the facts which support their political beliefs.

October 27, 2006 - The first entries in the Docket for the Hatfill v The New York Times lawsuit for today show that Judge O'Grady is pushing to get the trial started fairly soon, probably after the first of the year.  He's still ordering that the Final Pre-Trial Conference be held on November 16.  He's extended deadlines for various final legal matters for short periods.  The Witness and Exhibit lists must be finalized by November 29, and the parties have until December 6 to file objections to those lists.

Another entry posted later in the day is simply confusing.  Here's the latest and final entry for today:

It seems to be saying the same thing as was previously said, that The New York Times has until today to name its confidential sources, except this time it's being said by Judge Hilton instead of Magistrate Judge O'Grady.  Maybe that has some great significance.  Maybe it's just a way of saying the order requiring The New York Times to identify its confidential sources is upheld.  Or maybe it's a typo.  Or maybe there'll be other entries later.  Or maybe we'll just have to wait until someone with more legal knowledge than I've got interprets this entry.  Beats me.

But, the Order to compel The New York Times to divulge its confidential sources was issued on a Friday and not made public until the following Monday.  That may explain what's happening today.

October 26, 2006 - A flurry of legal documents were filed today in the Hatfill v The New York Times lawsuit.  They seem to indicate a big showdown coming tomorrow.

October 25, 2006 (B) - If I'm reading things correctly, according to an entry just made in the Court Docket for the Hatfill v The New York Times lawsuit, the Times has only until Friday to get their appeal through the system.  Otherwise, on Friday they must name names.  Also, a Motion by The New York Times to delay the lawsuit until the Amerithrax criminal investigation is completed was DENIED.  No surprise there. 

October 25, 2006 (A) - If you need an example of how an attempt to pressure the FBI  into doing something is done, just note how Senator Grassley would do it.  This is from today's New York Sun:

Mr. Grassley said that if Mr. Gonzales does not respond, Congress could consider other approaches, such as subpoenaing the information. "I also think holding up nominations for the Justice Department is a possibility," the senator said.

October 24, 2006 (B) - NBC News is reporting that, yesterday, Republican Senator Charles E. Grassley sent "a damning six-page letter" letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales which criticizes the FBI for the lack of progress in the anthrax investigation.   The NBC article suggests that Richard L. Lambert was removed from the investigation because "he had focused too much on Hatfill."  I find that interesting, since the facts would seem to indicate that Lambert replaced Van Harp because Van Harp had spent too much time on Dr. Hatfill.  After all, it was Van Harp who began all the searches and in-your-face surveillance of Dr. Hatfill.  The facts indicate that Lambert was focused on the scientific investigation.  Maybe Senator Grassley's letter will prompt some clarification.  He includes 14 multi-part demands for answers.  But he also repeats the nonsense that the FBI didn't realize until recently that the anthax was created with a less-sophisticated process than originally believed.  So, he seems as clueless as Congressman Rush Holt.

October 24, 2006 (A) - This morning there are several new newspaper articles about Judge O'Grady's Order.  They give some additional details about the confidential sources The New York Times has been ordered to identify.

An article in The New York Times says,

At a deposition on July 13, Mr. Kristof declined to name five of his sources for the columns, but two have subsequently agreed to release him from his pledge of confidentiality. Judge O’Grady’s ruling identifies the remaining unnamed sources as two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and a former colleague or friend of Dr. Hatfill at Fort Detrick.

Hatfill's attorneys are seeking to compel [Nicholas] Kristof to reveal his sources, arguing that questioning them is vital to their case. Kristof has refused. U.S. Magistrate Judge Liam O'Grady in Alexandria sided with Hatfill and ordered the journalist to disclose the identity of the three sources by tomorrow.

"The court understands the need for a reporter to be able to credibly pledge confidentiality to his sources," O'Grady wrote in his ruling Friday. But the judge said Hatfill "needs an opportunity to question the confidential sources and determine if Mr. Kristof accurately reported information the sources provided."

The Times said yesterday that it plans to appeal, and Kristof vowed to continue protecting his sources. "We were disappointed with the decision because we believe that confidential sources are sometimes very important in covering government investigations," Kristof said in an interview. "And I'm passionate about protecting the confidentiality of my sources."

Legal experts said it is relatively common for judges to order journalists to reveal confidential sources in a libel lawsuit, but the journalist is rarely jailed for resisting.

If the journalist does refuse, a judge often strips him or her of the defense that the information was based on sources, which can expose media companies to significant liability, said Rodney A. Smolla, dean of the University of Richmond Law School and an expert on First Amendment law. "The journalist is being told you cannot have your cake and eat it, too," Smolla said. "You can't rely on the existence of this source but not let the jury and the court and the plaintiff explore the nature of the source."

When Kristof was deposed in July, two of his sources were identified -- although not by name -- as FBI employees involved in the anthrax investigation, court papers said. A third was a colleague or friend of Hatfill's. Two other sources agreed to release Kristof from his pledge of confidentiality and reveal their identities, the papers said.

If Judge Hilton upholds the order and the Times refuses to comply, the judge could fine the newspaper, take some punitive measure if the libel suit goes to trial, or jail an employee or officer of the Times for contempt.

"These days it seems courts kind of like the monetary sanction," a professor of press law at the University of Minnesota, Jane Kirtley, said. "Jail is possible, although in my experience that's pretty rare in libel cases."

Ms. Kirtley said the judge could instruct jurors to assume the sources in question did not exist, a finding that she said "essentially means" the Times would lose the suit.

Magistrate O'Grady said one reason testimony from the sources was needed is that discrepancies have arisen between sources Mr. Hatfill's legal team has been able to identify and Mr. Kristof's accounts of his conversations with those sources. According to Mr. Hatfill's lawyers, a SUNY Purchase biologist who served as a source for the columnist, Barbara Rosenberg, denied Mr. Kristof's claim that she said Mr. Hatfill was certain to have the ability to make "first-rate anthrax."

Ms. Rosenberg also initially denied having asked for confidentiality, as the Times asserted, but she later said she might have.

A spokeswoman for the Times, Catherine Mathis, said in a statement that Mr. Kristof "clearly recalls" getting information on condition of anonymity from Ms. Rosenberg. The spokeswoman also said Mr. Kristof's promise "was consistent with Times policy."

October 23, 2006 - As expected, Dr. Hatfill's motion to compel The New York Times to name their confidential sources has been GRANTED.  The Docket entries filed this morning indicate the motion was granted on Friday.   The Docket entry is as follows:

So, three sources must be identified and they must be identified no later than the day after tomorrow.  It's possible that the Times might file some sort of an appeal, but it's difficult to see what legal basis they have for an appeal.

On Friday, Dr. Hatfill also filed a Motion asking that New York Times employees who have stored relevant documents at home be compelled to produce those documents in court.  Judge Liam O'Grady will hear arguments on that Motion on Friday.

I would think that an order compelling The New York Times to name confidential sources would be BIG news, yet it seems I'm the one who is "breaking" this story. 

Later in the day today, AP released a story about this Order which was printed in The Washington Post.   The article says that the Times will appeal the Order.  That will delay things for awhile.  The article also says that two of the "confidential sources" were in the FBI.  Here's what the article says,

The order issued Friday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Liam O'Grady requires the newspaper to disclose the identities of three of Kristof's sources, including two FBI sources who allegedly provided some of the most incriminating information in Kristof's columns. The order was made public Monday.

...

Hatfill's lawyers said they need to question the sources to see if Kristof's reporting was accurate. The FBI sources told the Times that Hatfill was one of a limited number of people with the access and technical expertise to manufacture the anthrax and that he failed several lie-detector tests.

The FBI agents "are the only sources who would have the type of inside information on which the columns claim to rely," said Charles Kimmett, one of Hatfill's lawyers.

Since Kristof's columns were about the lack of progress by the FBI, it doesn't seem logical that the "confidential sources" would be in the FBI, but evidently two were. 

October 22, 2006 -  The "mediation session" which began on October 5 in the Hatfill v Don Foster et al lawsuit is evidently still going on.  I was anticipating definition #1 for the length of the "session" when I probably should have been looking at definition #2:

session: n. 1) a meeting (or "sitting") of a court for a particular period of time.  "Session"technically means one day's business (as in "today's session").  2) the term of an appeals court covering several months (as in the "Spring Term" or the "October Term").

Meanwhile, Douglas Beecher's article which said the anthrax powders mailed in the attacks of 2001 "were comprised simply of spores purified to different extents" and which mentioned the "widely circulated misconception" that the Daschle and Leahy anthrax "spores were produced using additives and sophisticated engineering" is being totally dismissed on at least one discussion forum in favor of the AFIP newsletter which stated that silica was a "key component" of the Daschle anthrax because “Silica prevents the anthrax from aggregating, making it easier to aerosolize."  They also remind everyone that General Parker of USAMRIID said in a news briefing, "We do know that we found silica in the samples."

Although Chapter 15 in my book fully clarifies this misunderstanding about additives, it seems clear that no amount of facts or reasoning will change any minds until the conflict is officially explained and resolved by someone in authority with impeccable credentials -- and maybe not even then.

October 19, 2006 - Entries which appeared this morning in the Docket for the Hatfill v The New York Times lawsuit indicate more maneuvering by the Times, this time it's a Motion to change a pretrial order, which presumably means they are looking for more time to maneuver and argue before the actual trial starts.

October 17-18, 2006 - The entries which appeared in the Docket report for the Hatfill v The New York Times lawsuit late on Tuesday, describe some legal machinations involving a "sur-reply".   A "sur-reply" is apparently just a supplemental reply to a motion.  In other words, The New York Times replied to Dr. Hatfill's motion, and then decided it had something else to add.  The judge agreed that they could add to their reply.  Evidently, the motion to compel The New York Times to identify their confidential sources is still pending a decision from Judge Liam O'Grady. 

October 15, 2006 (B) -  Significant things seem to be happening in two of the three lawsuits filed by Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, so maybe it's the right time to review those lawsuits.

As a result of a change of venue, this lawsuit is now under the jurisdiction of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (White Plains).

According to the Docket, on August 22, 2006, Dr. Hatfill's lawyers who were working on this case withdrew. Dr. Hatfill is acting as his own lawyer.  He has a couple lawyers from a small, newly established law firm assisting him. 

(Correction made to above on Oct. 16, 2006: I originally wrote that Dr. Hatfill is "now" acting as his own lawyer.  After looking back through the Docket, it seems quite possible that Dr. Hatfill has been acting as his own lawyer since April.  Acting as your own lawyer, appears to be a way around the requirement that a lawyer licensed to practice in the State of New York be the lead attorney on any case tried in New York State.  That issue was raised in February and apparently somehow settled in April.)

About the only legal matter Dr. Hatfill would appear to be qualified to handle acting as his own attorney is a settlement. 

On October 5, 2006, the parties in this lawsuit entered into a "mediation session" which could lead to such a settlement.  At last word, that "mediation session" was still in progress and Judge Colleen McMahon has agreed that the case should remain in status quo until the "mediation session" is concluded. 

Since this lawsuit appears the easiest for Dr. Hatfill to win, the facts seem to indicate that Dr. Hatfill's original attorneys from Harris Wiltshire & Grannis LLP didn't want to settle with Don Foster et al, and wanted to go to court instead.  Evidently, however, Dr. Hatfill wanted to settle, so Harris Wiltshire & Grannis LLP withdrew as his lawyers on this lawsuit rather than agree to a settlement. 

The law firm handing Dr. Hatfill's other two lawsuits is still Harris Wiltshire & Grannis LLP.   The decision to withdraw from the Foster lawsuit indicates that Harris Wiltshire & Grannis LLP were not willing to settle any of the three lawsuits, and would rather lose the settlement money on the Foster lawsuit than settle.  The Foster libel lawsuit is about an article Don Foster wrote for the October 2003 issue of Vanity Fair magazine, a full year after Dr. Hatfill's career had been destroyed.  The other two cases are much more important to the issue of Dr. Hatfill's guilt or innocence in the anthrax mailings. 

And it appears that Dr. Hatfill is still willing to go to court on the other two lawsuits to get the facts regarding his guilt or innocence presented in court and before the world.

This lawsuit is under the jurisdiction of the U.S. District Court of Eastern District of Virginia (Alexandria).

According to the Docket, on Friday October 13, 2006, Judge Liam O'Grady heard a Motion by Dr. Hatfill requesting that the New York Times be compelled to identify the confidential sources used in the columns written by Nicholas Kristof. 

This case is very important because the columns written by Kristof suggested that the FBI was not doing an adequate investigation of the anthrax killings, since they were not properly investigating an unnamed scientist ("Mr. Z")  who was later identified as Dr. Hatfill.  Depositions in the lawsuit indicate that the FBI had investigated Dr. Hatfill in November of 2001 and found no reason to suspect him. 

However, conspiracy theorists claimed that the FBI was covering up for Dr. Hatfill, and they evidently convinced people in the media and in Congress that that could be true.  The Nicholas Kristof columns in The New York Times were part of the pressure put upon the FBI to publicly investigate Dr. Hatfill. 

The Motion filed by Dr. Hatfill was not denied.  Judge O'Grady temporarily withheld his ruling and indicated on Friday that an Order would be forthcoming. 

There is no mention in the latest Docket entries about the New York Times' Motion to STAY the case.  Nor do we know why they wanted to STAY the case or for how long.  Presumably, it was some effort to avoid being compelled to name confidential sources.

Don Foster could be one of the "confidential sources".

This lawsuit is under the juridiction of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Washington, DC).

Based upon what I see in the Docket, this case is also going very well for Dr. Hatfill.  Judge Reggie B. Walton recently ruled that Dr. Hatfill can collect for emotional damages as well as monetary damages.  The government fought against that for years.  They not only lost, they lost as a result of a decision in the appeals court in the same district, which means they won't be able to appeal such a decision in their case.

The latest news was that the government was going to have a psychologist examine Dr. Hatfill to determine just how much emotional damage he suffered.  Evidently, the idea is that the psychologist might somehow be able to persuade a jury to reduce the amount of emotional damages.

At no time in the depositions or anywhere else, did the FBI indicate that it had any kind of case against Dr. Hatfill in the anthrax mailings. 

However, the Hatfill v Ashcroft lawsuit is not about whether or not Dr. Hatfill is the anthrax mailer, it's about whether the government violated Dr. Hatfill's civil rights (specifically the Privacy Act) by revealing information about Dr. Hatfill from confidential FBI files to people who were not authorized to receive such information.

The government has virtually admitted that they did violate Dr. Hatfill's rights when they gave the staffs of Senators Daschle and Leahy confidential reports on the searches of Dr. Hatfill's apartment, their surveillance of Dr. Hatfill, the results of lie detector tests, the details of search warrants, etc.  Hatfill's lawyers further indicate they are confident that they can also show that the FBI gave newspaper reporters and others confidential information from confidential files protected by the Privacy Act.

At one time, I thought it would be best for the Ashcroft et al lawsuit to be concluded first.  It could establish Dr. Hatfill's innocence, which could then destroy any defense the defendants might try to conjure up in the lawsuits against The New York Times and Don Foster, Vanity Fair, Readers' Digest, and Vassar College.

Now, it seems clear that it would be best to resolve the lawsuits against The New York Times and Don Foster first.  The New York Times lawsuit, in particular, will help show that the FBI was under a great deal of pressure to publicly investigate Dr. Hatfill.  That pressure had been applied by conspiracy theorists, the media and politicians for at least eight months before the staffs of Senators Daschle and Leahy added their weight and the public investigation by the FBI finally began in June of 2002.

Somehow, everything that happened before the first search of Dr. Hatfill's apartment on June 25, 2002, has been forgotten by the public and the media and they only recall that the FBI suddenly and inexplicably began to look at Dr. Hatfill as the anthrax mailer at that time.  Without understanding what went on before that first search and what led up to that search, the anthrax investigation cannot be truly understood.  The Amerithrax investigation was never about Dr. Hatfill.  The Dr. Hatfill "investigation" was pure politics.  That was obvious when I first stated it in August of 2002, and it's even more obvious today. 

But there could be a light at the end of this bizarre tunnel through a mountain of bad information and misunderstandings.  If the facts aren't further distorted by the media, resolutions of the Hatfill lawsuits could make it clear to everyone that the Dr. Hatfill "investigation" had nothing to do with the anthrax investigation and that Dr. Hatfill was never really a suspect.  And that might be a step in the right direction toward helping clear the way for the arrest of the real culprit(s) behind the anthrax attacks of 2001.

October 15, 2006 (A) - An opinion piece by former Senator Tom Daschle in today's Washington Post demonstrates just how difficult it will be to dig through the mountain of bad information and misunderstandings about the anthrax attacks.  The key phrase in the article is "if a recent article in The Post is any guide, questions remain in the scientific community about the composition of the anthrax and the level of technological expertise required to manufacture it".   That "recent article in The Post" is only a guide to spreading misinformation.  A dedicated effort by the media to obscure the facts due to their beliefs in conspiracy theories will undermine any new facts which come to light.  And, as long as the facts are ignored in favor of fiction and political agendas, it will be extremely difficult to bring the anthrax culprit(s) to justice. 

October 13, 2006 - Here's the Docket entry which just appeared in the Hatfill v The New York Times lawsuit:
 

I'm no lawyer, but I don't think judges issue orders to deny motions.  The motion is to compel The New York Times to name their confidential sources.

So far, there is no mention of the New York Times' motion to STAY proceedings.

October 12, 2006 - A whole bunch of new entries were on the Docket for the Hatfill v The New York Times lawsuit when I checked it today.  The Motion filed by the Times to compel discovery from the CIA and the Department of Justice was denied.  The Times filed a motion to STAY proceedings for some unspecified reason for some unspecified time.  Dr. Hatfill opposed the motion.  Judge Hilton will hear arguments on the motion tomorrow at 10 a.m., which is the same time scheduled for the hearing on Dr. Hatfill's motion to compel The New York Times to identify its confidential sources. 

October 11, 2006 - According to the Docket for the lawsuit Dr. Hatfill filed against Don Foster, Vassar College, Vanity Fair Magazine and Readers' Digest magazine, the "mediation session" which began on Thursday was still going on on Friday.  Since the docket entry was made today, presumably it's still going on today, too.  The two parties requested that the case remain in Status Quo while the mediations sessions continue.  Judge McMahon responded, "Fine.  Fine with me." 

Meanwhile, in the Hatfill v The New York Times lawsuit, a hearing is still set for the day after tomorrow to determine if Dr. Hatfill can compel The New York Times to name their confidential sources.

October 10, 2006 - While media outlets on the Left argue that innocent Muslims are being harassed by the FBI in the anthrax investigation, media outlets on the Right complain that the FBI is totally ignoring Muslims as potential suspects in the anthrax investigation.   Yesterday's Investors Business Daily had an editorial titled "How FBI Blew The Anthrax Case By Profiling Everyone But Muslims" which illustrates just how mindless people can get when their thinking is entirely dominated by politics. 

And, speaking of media outlets on the Right, someone pointed out a recent comment from U.S. News & World Report which contains this hilarious bit of bad information:

The FBI evidently put great stock in a profile developed by one Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, who said the perpetrator was a CIA contact worker and an expert in biowarfare: the lone-scientist theory.

October 9, 2006 - The courts are closed today to observe Columbus Day. 

There's an article titled "Questions on anthrax swirl anew for the FBI" in today's Newark Star-Ledger.  It contains quotes from a number of experts:

"A clever high school student" could make such a preparation, according to Ronald Atlas, former president of the American Society for Microbiology and co-director of the Center for Health Hazards Preparedness at the University of Louisville.

Richard Ebright, a Rutgers University microbiologist, still thinks the anthrax attacks were an inside job because they used a virulent form of the Ames strain of Bacillus anthracis, which only a few biodefense- or intelligence-related labs were thought to possess.

"Whoever did it is an insider," said Ayaad Assaad, a toxicologist with the Environmental Protection Agency, who formerly worked at an Army biodefense center at Fort Detrick, Md. "It started with anthrax. Now it's ricin, and God knows what's coming."

Ed Lake has tracked the case closely, self-publishing a book, "Analyzing the Anthrax Attacks, The First Three Years" and moderating a Web site. Lake is convinced the FBI knows the perpetrator but lacks evidence to prosecute. He believes the killer is a scientist from central New Jersey who wanted America to gird for an al Qaeda bioterror attack in the wake of Sept. 11.

"So he sent a warning to the media, saying this is next, there's a biological attack coming next, and be prepared: Take penicillin," said Lake, referring to hand-printed letters, bearing New Jersey postmarks, sent to NBC and the New York Post.

October 8, 2006 -  I hate to keep picking on The Washington Post, but yesterday they had an article titled "Probe of Anthrax Attacks Casts Shadow on Brothers" which seems to have been written to accuse the government of ruining more people's lives.  To accomplish that task, the article brings up an incident from nearly 5 years ago, which most people cannot even remember, and which appears to put some innocent Muslims into the media spotlight once again.  I spent most of yesterday discussing this article with various people who saw all sorts of sinister things in it. 

The most interesting comment I saw in the article is this one:

But few suspects so unequivocally lack any connection to anthrax research as do the Shaikh brothers. They have never done biowarfare research. Their attorney, former prosecutor Anthony F. List, describes a Kafkaesque maze in which federal officials argue that they cannot be expected to "clear" men who, officially, are accused of nothing.

Meanwhile, today's Hartford Courant has an article titled "Security Fears At Anthrax Labs" which contains some interesting tidbits of information:

CDC officials said there are now more than 100 university laboratories using live anthrax. Before the anthrax attacks, experts say, the total number of U.S. labs performing significant research with live anthrax was only a dozen or so.

Records also show that there are now more than 7,200 scientists or lab workers cleared to work with live anthrax, including the so-called Ames strain used in the October 2001 attacks. It is unclear how many lab workers were involved with live anthrax before the attacks, because they were not required to register with the CDC.

Laws regulating laboratories were passed in June 2002 to, among other things, keep track of the transfer of pathogens between institutions. Federal officials have acknowledged that, before 2002, there was no tracking of which laboratories were working with dangerous materials such as anthrax or who had access to them.

Scientists told of shipping each other live anthrax in the mail or packing it up and bringing it with them to a conference.

FBI agents investigating the anthrax attacks said it was difficult to trace stocks of the Ames strain because it was so easily traded among scientists, with little or no record-keeping.

FBI officials have said the anthrax might have been mailed by one or more U.S. scientists who had access to the Ames strain and wanted to throw a scare into the country and force authorities to make bioterrorism a top priority.

October 6, 2006 - So far, there has been no news of what happened in yesterday's mediation session in the Hatfill v Foster et al lawsuit.  The session was almost certainly held in some conference room, and not in any courtroom.  So, the judge will be awaiting results just as we are.

Meanwhile, the nonsense printed by The Washington Post has been repeated by USA Today.  In yesterday's article titled "Anthrax suspect as elusive as bin Laden", USA Today wrote, 

The Washington Post reported last month that federal investigators have determined that the anthrax used was not as sophisticated as the FBI originally thought, and that that discovery had widened the list of potential source labs for the deadly bacteria beyond initial suspicions. It is unclear whether that has lessened the likelihood of finding the source of the anthrax or debunked the theory that the attacks were from homegrown terrorism.

And today's South Florida Sun-Sentinel contains a Timeline for the anthrax attacks which contains a few dubious bits of information, but it's still interesting.

October 3, 2006 (B) - Congressman Rush Holt has responded to the letter written by Assistant Director of the FBI Eleini P. Kalisch with another letter.  As one would expect from a politician, the new letter admits no wrong and tries to put the FBI on the defensive again.  I like this statement, though:

There is another audience that also deserves your attention: the public.  For years, their only information about his matter has come from the news reports, the accuracy of which you call into question. 

Congressman Holt also asks that the FBI "provide an unclassified update on the status of the investigation" to the postal workers and others in New Jersey.  That could be interesting ... if it happens.  There probably isn't much unclassified information that can be said that hasn't been said in the past.   But it would be nice to have a lot of old information that the media ignored or distorted get repeated formally.  Maybe people will be willing to listen carefully this time.

Meanwhile, the Richard Jewell lawsuit against the Atlanta Constitution is in the news again.  That is another case where the FBI is generally blamed for everything, but, in reality, the media played a major role in pointing the finger at Jewell.  Jewell previously collected more than a half million dollars from NBC.

October 3, 2006 (A) - Someone sent me a copy of the letter which Assistant Director of the FBI Eleni P. Kalisch sent to Congressman Rush Holt in response to his letter wrongly accusing the FBI of various misdeeds.   Among other things, the letter says,

Contrary to your assertions in your letter, the investigation into the anthrax attacks of 2001 has made significant progress and has been one of the largest and most complex investigations ever conducted.

The information that has been developed as a result of these investigative efforts is not appropriate for disclosure at this time because the investigation remains active.  I can advise you, however, that the FBI and its partners in this investigation have never been under any misconceptions about the character of the anthrax used in the attacks. On the contrary, since the earliest months of this investigation, we have consulted with the world's foremost scientific experts on anthrax and relevant bio-forensic sciences, both inside and outside the FBI.  While there have been erroneous media reports about the character of the 2001 anthrax, the FBI's investigation has never been guided by such reports.

In closing, I believe it is important to note that many complex investigations, such as the Unabomber case and the Centennial Park bombing in Atlanta, often take years to resolve.  Like those, we intend to pursue this investigation to its conclusion and support the successful prosecution of the individual(s) responsible for these attacks.

October 1, 2006 -  As far as information about the anthrax attacks of 2001 is concerned, the past week was the most interesting week in years.  And it may be just the start.  The month of October could turn out to be the most interesting month in years.  On October 5 (the 5th anniversary of the first fatality in the attacks of 2001), Dr. Hatfill is scheduled to have a "mediation session" with the lawyers for Donald Foster, Vanity Fair Magazine and Readers' Digest Magazine.  There's no way to tell what will come out of that session, but it seems extremely unlikely that that particular lawsuit will ever go to trial.  According to an entry in the Docket dated Dec. 7, 2005, a final pre-trail order must be submitted on or before October 27, 2006.   So, the stage is set for a settlement.  And Dr. Hatfill's two other lawsuits could also make news in some way during October.

My book and this site described who was actually responsible for the public investigation of Dr. Hatfill -- and why they did it.  The stage is set for that to be verified, too. 

October is also the month which the media seems to consider the anniversary of the anthrax attacks, since the news first broke in early October, 2001.  The media has already done some 5th anniversary stories, but there could be a lot more to come.  Maybe some reporter will actually report some new information.

It may be too much to hope that some other scientist at the FBI, or some scientist who assisted the FBI with the investigation, will publis