December 30, 2007 - Since everything seems quiet during the holiday season, it's a good time to summarize what I saw as the key events for each month of the past year.

In January, the Hatfill v New York Times lawsuit was dismissed by Judge Hilton on the basis that Dr. Hatfill was a "public figure."  Dr. Hatfill appealed that ruling, and the New York Times cross-appealed.  There's been no word about when the appeals will be heard by a higher court.

In February, the Hatfill v Foster lawsuit was settled.  The details of the settlement were not made public, but the fact that his lawyers were among the "satisfied parties" and they worked on a contingency basis, indicated that Dr. Hatfill received a substantial sum of money as part of the settlement. 

In March, CBS's "60 Minutes" added a major entry to the long list of inaccurate and distorted media reports about the anthrax investigation.  Totally ignoring Barbara Hatch Rosenberg's six month campaign to force the FBI to publicly investigate Dr. Hatfill, CBS made it appear that it was the FBI who suddenly decided to publicly make Dr. Hatfill a "person of interest" in July of 2002. 

In April I saw a demonstration of how important the Internet has become in reporting news.  Salon.com printed an opinion piece by Glenn Greenwald titled "The unresolved story of ABC News' false Saddam-anthrax reports" which mentioned me, and my web site was hit by the biggest flood of visitors in its entire history. 

In May, in his deposition, FBI Special Agent Bradley Garrett made a guess about who was doing the leaking in the Hatfill case, and we now know it turned out to be a most excellent guess: 

Well, I will tell you that it's been my experience that the vast majority of all leaks come from upper management, they don't come from people investigating the case.  So, my focus would probably be at the upper management levels of the field office and headquarters and the Department of Justice.

In July, the news about the Goldman Sachs threat letters was the most interesting event for me.  Although there is no direct connection to the anthrax attacks, the large amount of information made public about the 70 threat letters sent to small newspapers around the country demanded an analysis.  Things got even more interesting when, a few days after I started my analysis, the culprit wrote "explanation letters" claiming it was all just a "prank" and asking the authorities to simply forget that it happened. 

In August, Judge Walton finally issued his Order to Compel five reporters to name their confidential sources.  But all that meant was that the five reporters had one last chance to provide the names to Dr. Hatfill in depositions.

In September, the biggest event for me was the breakup of "The Core Four," a group that had been discussing and sharing information about the anthrax attacks for almost six years.  Early in the month, discussions had been getting very heated, and when one member who had been basically neutral joined the side of the conspiracy theorists, the discussions suddenly became essentially pointless.  It was clear that the views of all four individuals could not be changed except by solid new facts.  So, all discussions were put on hold until some solid new facts become known.

In October, Judge Walton issued a 55-day Stay Order in the Hatfill v FBI et al lawsuit.  Also, Kay Mereish of the United Nations seemed to join the conspiracy theorists who felt the FBI was not telling the truth about the nature of the anthrax powder used in the attacks of 2001.  But, for me, the biggest event was the creation of a new supplemental page where I addressed scientific questions about how tiny particles interact due to van der Waals forces.  I did it as an attempt to solve the coatings controversy in a totally different way.  While doing research for that page, I found a few articles which seemed to indicate that the FBI may have concluded its investigation of the anthrax attacks of 2001, but the Department of Justice may not be ready to authorize an arrest.  One key problem seems to be that there is no solid legal precedent for using the new science of microbial forensics in court.  If the judge feels a precedent is required, an premature attempt to make a case based upon that science could result in a dismissal. 

In November, as a result of an effort by a "third party" with his own agenda, I started receiving cease & desist letters from media organizations who complained about copyrights violations.  Reuters was first on November 7, followed by The Washington Post and Newsweek on November 20.  Then The Wall Street Journal on November 26.  As a result, I had to remove all articles by those news organizations from this web site.  I felt I was within "fair use" guidelines, but I cannot afford to fight the matter in court.

In December, I had a lengthy and fascinating discussion with a doctor who had been intimately involved in the investigation into the source of Kathy Nguyen's anthrax infection.  However, another event turned out to be more important:  An outstanding question about the investigation of Dr. Hatfill seemed to be answered by the release of part of the deposition of Daniel S. Seikaly.  While there was no solid proof of anything, all the facts seemed to indicate that the story printed in Newsweek about bloodhounds using scent packs taken from the anthrax letters was based upon totally bogus information created to find out who was leaking confidential information to the media.  And that leaker may have been Mr. Seikaly.  Looking back on earlier comments, it seems that some people knew for years who was leaking the information, but making it official for use in court is a very different matter. 

Although these and many other fascinating events occurred during 2007, it appears that 2008 definitely has the potential to be far more interesting.  The Hatfill v FBI et al lawsuit is reaching a point where they will either have to settle or go to trial.  The decision could be made in the status conference scheduled for January 11. 

And before that happens, on Friday of this week, January  4, Dr. Hatfill may respond to the Motions for Reconsideration filed by James Stewart and Toni Locy.  Since it appears that none of the three recently identified and deposed "confidential sources" actually used confidential information from confidential government files, it's very uncertain how these sources affect Dr. Hatfill's Privacy Act case.  Maybe his response will tell us. 

The first few weeks of 2008, at least, could be very interesting.

December 23, 2007 - A very interesting piece of the anthrax puzzle seems to have fallen into place during the past week.  It fits in the section of the anthrax puzzle that relates to Dr. Hatfill.  The piece was found in the deposition of Daniel S. Seikaly.

To understand how the piece fits (or seems to fit), you have to understand that back in 2002 & 2003 there were several investigations going on at the same time, and each had its own objectives: (1) The investigation to identify, arrest and convict the anthrax mailer was underway.  (2) In June of 2002, as a result of a campaign by a bunch of conspiracy theorists and their followers, an investigation of Dr. Hatfill was also started to see if Dr. Hatfill had anything at all to do with the anthrax attacks.  (3) There was concern within the FBI that the leaking of confidential information to the media about investigations #1 and #2 could hurt those investigations, and there was at least one additional investigation underway to find who was doing the leaking.

The new piece to the puzzle relates to investigation #3.

In August of 2002, when it became clear to me that Dr. Hatfill was an innocent man whose life had been ruined by some conspiracy theorists, I assembled a lot of pieces of information about the investigation of Dr. Hatfill and laid out those pieces in a supplemental web page called "Steven J. Hatfill And The Clueless Media."  The pieces which prompted the creation of that page were the pieces which related to the use of bloodhounds to supposedly connect Dr. Hatfill to the anthrax letters.  The "facts" described in the media seemed totally preposterous, particularly those in an August 12, 2002, Newsweek article written by Mark Miller and Daniel Klaidman.  I felt there had to be some other explanation for the use of the bloodhounds.

Unfortunately, the Newsweek article is no longer available on this site.  But there are copies elsewhere on the Internet.  One site with an on-line copy that seems clearly within the "fair use" copyrights rule is the site run by UCLA's Department of Epidemiology.  The key paragraph from that article contains this highly-questionable "information":

AGENTS PRESENTED the canines with scent packs lifted from anthrax- tainted letters mailed to Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy (long since decontaminated), hoping some faint, telltale trace of the perpetrator’s smell still remained months after the fact. The agents quietly brought the dogs to various locations frequented by a dozen people they considered possible suspects -- hoping the hounds would match the scent on the letters. In place after place, the dogs had no reaction. But when the handlers approached the Frederick, Md., apartment building of Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, an eccentric 48-year-old scientist who had worked in one of the Army’s top bioweapons-research laboratories, the dogs immediately became agitated, NEWSWEEK has learned. "They went crazy," says one law-enforcement source. The agents also brought the bloodhounds to the Washington, D.C., apartment of Hatfill’s girlfriend and to a Denny’s restaurant in Louisiana, where Hatfill had eaten the day before. In both places, the dogs jumped and barked, indicating they’d picked up the scent.

The bloodhound reports supposedly came from low-level lawyers in the  Washington Office of the Department of Justice, not from FBI agents actually investigating the case.

My analysis had indicated the Newsweek story was bogus and that the real reason the bloodhounds had been sniffing around Dr. Hatfill was because the FBI had for awhile lost the 24/7 tail they had on him.  Dr. Hatfill had apparently driven down to Baton Rouge to look around Louisiana State University where he'd just accepted a job.   And it appeared that, on the drive back to Maryland, the FBI lost track of him.  The facts indicated that they'd last seen him at the Denny's restaurant in Louisiana.  So, that's where the bloodhounds picked up the trail.  With the conspiracy theorists and their Senate staffer supporters ready to pounce on any mistake made by the FBI in their investigation of Dr. Hatfill, the FBI had to determine where Dr. Hatfill had been during the time he'd gone missing.  The bloodhounds sniffed around the driveway of the home of Dr. Hatfill's friend William Patrick III but found nothing.  They supposedly also sniffed around the storage locker Dr. Hatfill kept in Florida.  Again, nothing.  And the same with sniffings where other "persons of interest" were located.  And then, because the hunt is just a game to the bloodhounds, a game which needs to have a happy ending and a tasty treat to keep the dogs motivated for the next case, the bloodhounds were allowed to "find" Dr. Hatfill at his apartment.  According to Newsweek, "one of the dogs excitedly bounded right up to Hatfill." 

This indicates that the scent in the "scent packs" used by the bloodhounds to track Dr. Hatfill's movements was probably obtained from an item of Dr. Hatfill's clothing. 

The question is: Where did that baloney about "scent packs lifted from anthrax-tainted letters mailed to Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy" come from?

That brings us to Daniel S. Seikaly's deposition dated October 10, 2007.

The deposition begins with a "brief statement" read by Mr. Seikaly's lawyer, Eric Dubelier.  In part, that statement says,

The plaintiff in this matter has subpoenaed Mr. Seikaly to testify under oath in a deposition regarding alleged contacts between Mr. Seikaly and two members of the media.  These contacts allegedly occurred over five years ago when Mr. Seikaly served as the chief of the criminal division in the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia.

The complaint in this matter alleges violations of the Privacy Act.  While Mr. Seikaly faces no civil liability under this statute, the Privacy Act contains a criminal penalty provision that is applicable to government or former government employees.

On behalf of Mr. Seikaly, I've proffer to the United States the substance of Mr. Seikaly's testimony, were he to agree to testify in this matter.

I've also sought from the United States a representation that it has no intent to investigate or prosecute Mr. Seikaly for any alleged violation of the Privacy Act in connection with this matter.  In my communications with the United States, I have stated that, one, we do not believe there is a factual or legal basis to investigate or prosecute Mr. Seikaly; two, we do not believe that Mr. Seikaly violated the Privacy Act; three, to the extent that Mr. Seikaly made any statements to members of the media in connection with this matter, we believe Mr. Seikaly was authorized by superiors to do so; and four, Mr. Seikaly has never accessed any law enforcement database or reviewed any law enforcement documentation relating to this matter.  And finally, five, any information Mr. Seikaly may have known about this matter was verbally communicated to Mr. Seikaly and others by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Given Mr. Seikaly's long public service, combined with the facts and circumstances of this matter, we believe that the Department of Justice's refusal to make any assurance to Mr. Seikaly regarding possible prosecution for violations of the Privacy Act is unfair and repugnant.

As such, Mr. Seikaly at this time will assert his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination in response to any and all questions relating to the fact or substance of any contacts he may have had with the media, or any questions relating to knowledge he may or may not have had about the investigation that's at issue in this lawsuit until such time as the Department of Justice gives the assurances that we've requested.

I believe you told me you had a frequent experience of attending briefings with the FBI and finding the information make its way right into the press after that; is that correct?

Okay, and you believe that those leaks were coming from the FBI.

I think I said I didn't know who else would have the information other than the FBI; however, the FBI -- this is my recollection.  The FBI not only briefed United States Attorney's Office, also briefed the Department of Justice and the director of the FBI on a regular basis, sometimes seriatim, the same day.

I have no way of knowing whether or not the information that I saw in the press came from the FBI or came from anyone else the FBI was briefing.  As I said, typically it would appear several days after I learned of it, but I don't know that I ever thought through who might be leaking it.  I simply recognized it came to me from the FBI, that the FBI was conducting the information.  Whether it came from the Department of Justice or -- the larger Department of Justice or the FBI I don't think I ever thought through, but like many, I simply assumed that if I heard it from the FBI, it would be in the paper in a day or two.

Did you disclose to Mr. Klaidman that bloodhounds were used as an investigative technique in the anthrax investigation?
...

Was your disclosure to Mr. Klaidman about bloodhounds the first time that you had given Mr. Klaidman information about the anthrax investigation?
...

How many calls did you and Mr. Klaidman have leading up to the publication of Exhibit 92A?
...

Did you tell Mr. Klaidman that the bloodhound search of Dr. Hatfill's apartment occurred early in the week before Exhibit 92A hit the newsstands?
...

Did you tell Mr. Klaidman that the bloodhounds were working from scent packs that supposedly gave them the scent from the anthrax letters?
...

Did you tell Mr. Klaidman that bloodhounds were brought to locations frequented by a dozen possible suspects and that they only reacted to Dr. Hatfill's apartment, his girlfriend's apartment and a Denny's in Louisiana where he had supposedly eaten the day before?
...

Judge Walton has ordered us to recognize that bloodhounds ostensibly used for law enforcement purposes were used in the investigation.  We provided discovery responses along those lines.  To the extent that you seek to drill down further and -- about exactly how the dogs were used and in particular in connection with Dr. Hatfill, that is where the privilege is triggered, so I think everybody should understand that now.

I could be totally off base on this, but what I get out of all this is that Mr. Seikaly could have been trapped by a very common tactic used to catch leakers and spies.  When you suspect someone of leaking classified information, you give that person some false information and wait to see if it gets leaked.

That would certainly explain how such absurd information about the scent packs got to the media.  It wasn't meant to be believed.  It was meant to serve as a trap for a leaker.

If this is true, you may ask: why wasn't Mr. Seikaly prosecuted?  The answer: Prosecuted for what?  He didn't violate the Privacy Act by divulging information given to him verbally by FBI agents.  The Privacy Act is all about revealing confidential information contained in confidential files.  Repeating something you heard is NOT a violation.  Besides, bogus information used in this situation was probably not in government files -- it almost certainly wasn't in Dr. Hatfill's file.  And it was evidently part of Mr. Seikaly's job to talk with people in the media.  If he broke the law, it could be some other law about confidentiality related to his work.  And if it was a trap, doesn't that assume that entrapment can be used as a defense?

Then there's the question of which lawyer in the Department of Justice is going to prosecute another lawyer in the DOJ as a result of a sting operation set up by the FBI -- particularly if the defendant is a highly placed DOJ lawyer? 

And who would want to do this in a demoralized Department of Justice that had for years been in turmoil as a result of being led by one incompetent after another? 

And who would want to do this when the Attorney General at the time, John Ashcroft, seemingly violated every rule in the book by publicly describing Dr. Hatfill as a "person of interest" to the media?

While there's no solid proof of anything here, all the facts seem to indicate that the bogus information about scent packs printed in Newsweek was created just to trap a leaker.  And that leaker may have been Mr. Seikaly.  (Mr. Seikaly is no longer in the government.  He is currently a partner in a private law firm.)

There definitely could be other explanations for all this, but for me it's a nicely fitting piece that nicely solves another small part of a very big puzzle.

How it affects Dr. Hatfill's lawsuit is a question for which I have no answer.  Maybe there'll be an answer in Dr. Hatfill's response -- which is due on January 4, 2008.

December 20, 2007 (B) - The Associated Press has just released an article about the Hatfill case titled "Reporters Say Hatfill Partly to Blame."  The article says,

"Hatfill seeks contempt sanctions against a news reporter whose testimony he no longer needs, for a failure to testify that has done him no harm, arising from disclosures he himself instigated," attorneys for Stewart wrote.

26.  Upon being retained by Dr. Hatfill, Mr. Connolly had numerous conversations with me about the investigation, including discussions about the topics that are the subject of Dr. Hatfill's privacy claim.  Our conversations were numerous and routine and became more frequent when something developed in the anthrax investigation.  I knew, of course, that Mr. Connolly was trying to influence my reporting so that it was more favorable to plaintiff, and it was understandable for him to do so.  In that regard Mr. Connolly repeatedly told me during conversations that the government's investigation was unfair and that the investigators did not have anything on Dr. Hatfill. At no time, however, was Mr. Connolly a confidential source.

27.  In any event, I always called Mr. Connolly before one of my stories appeared in USA TODAY because I knew that he was representing Dr. Hatfill and because I wanted to be fair to Dr. Hatfill.  I also called Mr. Connolly periodically to check in to see what he might have heard about the investigation.  And, on a number of occasions, Mr. Connolly contacted me to tell me about developments.  In the past Mr. Connolly freely discussed with me issues that I believe he now claims to be violations of the Privacy Acts, such as ..... 

December 20, 2007 (A) - Toni Locy also filed a Motion for Reconsideration yesterday, along with supporting documents.  As before, she says she simply does not remember which FBI or DOJ officials gave her what information.  Her Memorandum of Law says this:

Locy has also respectfully refused to reveal the names of confidential sources who gave her information about terrorism and anthrax issues in general. Disclosing those names would implicate other articles that do not mention the plaintiff and are not part of his case, and would violate Locy’s promises of confidentiality to sources unrelated to this case. Locy has, however, reached out to those sources and tried to get them to release her from her promises of confidentiality. Two of those sources did so, and their names were promptly given to plaintiff’s counsel. At their depositions, neither recalled what information he provided to Locy. And despite these recent conversations, Locy still does not remember who provided her with the specific information about plaintiff contained in the two articles.

Edwin C. Gogswell was one of the government officials deposed.  He was an FBI employee for over 30 years, and at the time of the "leaks" he was a "public affairs specialist," whose job was to work with the media to answer questions they might have about work done by the FBI.  He was not an FBI agent and did not work cases.   The depositions were about what he told Brian Ross, Toni Locy and James Stewart during this time.  His basic answer was that he didn't recall exactly what was said to any of them.  He says he never considered himself to be a confidential source.  However, Brian Ross evidently considered him to be a "confidential source," since Ross asked Gogswell if he would sign a confidentiality waiver.

Roscoe C. Howard was another one of the government officials deposed.  He identified himself as having talked with Michael Isikoff of Newsweek and Allan Lengel of The Washington Post.  He admits to being a "confidential source."  At the time of the "leaks," he was the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.  The key point I see in his deposition is that he never saw any "leaked" information which clearly had to come from an investigator or a confidential file.  The type of "confidential information" he saw could have been "leaked" by people in positions like secretary, stenographer or just some intern with a desk close to someone who may have talked with an investigator. 

Daniel S. Seikaly was another one of the government officials deposed.   At the time of the "leaks," he was chief of the criminal division of the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia.  The depositions say that whatever he knew about the Hatfill case was verbally communicated to him by FBI officials, so he had no access to FBI confidential files and, therefore, could not have violated the Privacy Act.  However, he basically refuses to provide any information until he gets assurances from the Department of Justice that he will not be prosecuted for whatever he did or said. 

The general feeling from skimming through the depositions is that these sources didn't provide any "confidential information" about Dr. Hatfill, although what they said to reporters may have been interpreted as being "confidential information."  Or, what they said could have been put together with other things the reporter knew to create something the reporter felt was "confidential information."  Whether it was truly "confidential information" or just "pure speculation" is the big question. 

December 19, 2007 (B) - James Stewart (formerly with CBS News) has filed his "Motion for Reconsideration" in the Hatfill vs FBI lawsuit.  As I understand it from reading some of the supporting documents, basically he's saying his confidential sources have already been identified, plus there is some new legal precedent which now applies to this case.  Here's what it says in the Memorandum of Law:

First, after the Court’s decision, three different senior Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and/or FBI officials have voluntarily waived promises of confidentiality they secured from non-party reporters in this case, including Mr. Stewart. Each has now been deposed under oath: One asserted a Fifth Amendment privilege against selfincrimination in response to all questions related to whether he disclosed the information at issue to reporters; one testified that he confirmed certain such information for reporters; and a third testified that he spoke with reporters (sometimes on background, and frequently with Mr. Stewart) but could not recall what he told them about Dr. Hatfill specifically or about the anthrax investigation more generally. Taken together with (1) the previous testimony of five reporters, including Mr. Stewart, that all of the disclosures cited by Dr. Hatfill as pivotal to his case were made by at least one of these three sources, and (2) the previous testimony by three additional DOJ and/or FBI officials that they too made analogous disclosures about Dr. Hatfill to the press and public, the record in this case now contains substantial evidence that all the categories of disclosures at issue were in fact made by specifically identified employees of the defendant agencies.

Toni Locy may also have filed a response today, but, if so, it wasn't in the docket as of the time I shut down for the day. 

December 19, 2007 (A) - While doing some research, I stumbled upon an interesting article from the December 4, 2001, issue of The New York Times which I had never seen before and didn't have on this web site.  Since I'm a big fan of the TV show "House," it had a double impact.  The article describes why there were so many misdiagnoses in the early days of the anthrax attacks of 2001:

Dr. Joseph S. Pagano, emeritus director of the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of North Carolina, said recent changes in practice might lead to undetected anthrax cases. Dr. Pagano said that earlier in his career, when he was an infectious disease expert, he would have been reprimanded ''if I ever dared to put somebody on antibiotics without first obtaining a culture and making a diagnosis because that approach makes you less likely to miss something real important.''

Dr. Pagano also said he ''deplored the idea of giving a patient antibiotics for a fever without even having an idea about the possibilities that might be causing it.''

''But that type of sharp diagnostic thinking hardly goes on anymore,'' in part because doctors tend to be impatient about going through the process, Dr. Pagano said. 

December 16, 2007 - (B) - Today's Arizona Republic contains an interesting article which describes how Professor Paul Keim of Northern Arizona University was first contacted by the FBI and asked to check the DNA of the anthrax bacteria taken from Bob Stevens' spinal fluid.  It happened on the afternoon of Oct. 4, 2001.  He was contacted because his lab had the world's largest database of about 2,000 anthrax strains.   A sample was carried to him by a blonde FBI agent.  He accepted the sample from her at Flagstaff's Pulliam Airport. 

A glass tube nestled in ice held the culture from Stevens' body. Keim and a couple of his key researchers worked through the night, isolating, processing and magnifying the DNA using machines and computers similar to ones found in crime labs. In the early morning, they compared the results with their anthrax database. They found a match: a virulent type called the Ames strain. The U.S. Army developed the lab strain in the 1980s as a test for the anthrax vaccine.

Interestingly, Keim was also checked out by the FBI to see if he could have sent the letters.   But he was in Arizona at the time of the mailings.  The article also says,

He, like many others, wondered who did it.

One night he woke up as his mind raced through possible suspects. He reported his suspicion to the FBI.

"They evidently investigated this person, and it wasn't him," Keim said. He declines to say whom he suspected. 

December 16, 2007 (A) - Although the status conference in the Hatfill vs FBI lawsuit has been rescheduled to the middle of next month, the responses from news reporters Toni Locy (formerly with USA Today) and James Stewart (formerly with CBS News) to Dr. Hatfill's motion to have Judge Walton cite them for Contempt of Court are still due this week -- on Wednesday, December 19.

There's no reason to expect anything significant from the response, but the response was delayed so that the two reporters could have time to read depositions from FBI and other government officials that had been under seal.  Those depositions were unsealed for some unexplained reason on December 3. 

Toni Locy's claim in refusing to name her confidential sources is that she does not remember which FBI agents or DOJ officials gave her what information about Dr. Hatfill.  The depositions might help her to remember.

James Stewart reportedly identified one FBI source who gave him information about Dr. Hatfill but refused to name three others.  Stewart is claiming that Judge Walton is wrong in ordering him to name those three confidential sources.  That's a difficult argument to make in Judge Walton's courtroom, but it's possible that the depositions might contain the names and/or in some way eliminate the need to keep them confidential. 

Delaying the status conference until Friday, January 11, 2008, should provide enough time for all these matters to play themselves out.  That should mean that the status conference should be when Judge Walton sets a date for the start of the trial. 

The fact that the vast majority of lawsuits are settled before going to court still says that this case may also be settled, but there's been no clear indication that that will happen.  Plus, whenever politics are part of an issue, as they are in this case, the key question is always the same: What will the compromise be?

Presumably, the basic issues preventing a settlement are (1) that Dr. Hatfill wants his name cleared, and (2) the government doesn't want to release any information about why and how Dr. Hatfill became a "person of interest" in July of 2002 even though the FBI had checked out Dr. Hatfill in late 2001 and found no reason to believe he had anything to do with the anthrax attacks.

However, as I've written many times, the FBI is not a Borg Collective where everyone thinks exactly alike and everyone knows what everyone else knows.  Depositions long ago showed that some FBI agents and some DOJ officials did indeed believe that Dr. Hatfill could be the anthrax killer.  Some of those agents and officials may have been the same people who leaked confidential information about Dr. Hatfill to the media.

If we've learned anything from all the conspiracy theories obscuring the true facts of the Amerithrax investigation, if Dr. Hatfill's name is to be cleared, it isn't enough to just have Dr. Hatfill get a settlement check for an undisclosed amount and a vague apology, as happened in the Hatfill vs Foster lawsuit.  If Dr. Hatfill's name is to be truly cleared, everyone needs to know why those FBI agents believed Dr. Hatfill could be guilty even though all the facts said otherwise.

Technically, the Hatfill vs FBI lawsuit is just about whether or not government officials gave confidential information from confidential government files to news reporters in violation of the Privacy Act.  There seems little doubt that government officials did do that.  But the "truth" and a "satisfactory solution" to the lawsuit seem to depend upon a public declaration of why they did what they did.

The facts seem clear and have been known for nearly six years.  They are explained in detail on this web site and in chapters 11 & 12  of my book.  But, as countless news reports about the Amerithrax investigation have shown, in the real world, no two people seem to be able to view the facts the same way when beliefs and reputations have more value than facts.

December 13, 2008 - The Status Conference that was scheduled for tomorrow in the Hatfill vs FBI lawsuit has been postponed until January 11, 2008.  No explanation given. 

December 11, 2007 - Discussions resulting from my Sunday & Monday comments about the Kathy Nguyen case have brought to light the largely forgotten fact that the supply room where Kathy Nguyen worked at The Manhattan Eye, Ear & Throat Hospital was located in the same general area as their mail room.  According to CNN, mail from the anthrax-contaminated Morgan Station mail facility in Manhattan would have gone through the mail room near where Nguyen worked.  Tests of the area found no anthrax spores, but it's another factor which has to be taken into account when trying to figure out how Kathy Nguyen was exposed.  And since the Morgan Station facility was contaminated by the NBC, CBS, ABC and Post letters, it's another factor pointing away from Nguyen being exposed to spores from the senate mailing. 

Using Google to dig through old news articles about the Nguyen case, I found some I didn't have in my archive, including an article from the November 5, 2001, issue of Time Magazine which included this prophetic comment:

"This is new ground," says Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "Years from now, people will look at our experience and say, 'Ah, we know spores can do A, B, C, D and E, but in October 2001, they weren't sure of that.'"

December 9-10, 2007 - When a person sits down to analyze all the data about a major crime that has the scope, complexity and significance of the anthrax attacks of 2001, he or she can never tell where an important piece of new information may come from.   For six years, I have purposely argued with people who see things from totally different points of view than I in hopes that they might furnish me with something new about the case.  And there have been countless times over the years when they did provide valuable new information which they felt supported their arguments, and which I either viewed as supporting my analysis or which caused me to modify my analysis.

Many times the arguments were about things which seemingly had nothing to do with solving the case, but which might help put an end to some specific point of analytical disagreement.  I consider such arguments extremely worthwhile because there's no way to tell how or where new information will show up.  While arguing about something which has no direct bearing on solving the case, you can sometimes suddenly realize some key fact you never thought about before which does relate to the case. 

During the past week I had a long discussion with someone who was intimately involved in the 2001 investigation into how Kathy Nguyen was exposed to anthrax.  As a result of that discussion, I looked over what I'd written about the case in my book and on the web page I created about the subject and last updated on June 12, 2003.

During those discussions, I learned that the location of the New York City Department of Health laboratory that handled the NBC letter wasn't in the NYCDOH facilities on Worth Street near Chinatown, as I wrote in my book.  The NYCDOH lab that handled the letter is over 50 blocks north of Chinatown, at 455 First Avenue.  That dramatically reduces the chances of Kathy Nguyen somehow having been exposed while shopping in Chinatown, which is a possibility I discussed in my book.  And the possibility of her somehow being exposed by anthrax contaminated trash, as I discussed in my web page about Kathy Nguyen, no longer seems very likely, either. 

However, since anthrax isn't contagious, she had to have either come in contact with someone whose clothes were covered with spores -- or she had to have been exposed in some other totally unknown way.

Since I've "frozen" all the things I wrote prior to 2005, and now I'm primarily looking to see where I was right and where I was wrong back then, I'm tempted to create a new web page with a title something like "Revisiting The Kathy Nguyen Investigation."  But, I'm not sure that I have enough new material to justify creating such a page.  So, I'll just make some comments here.

While doing research into Kathy Nguyen's case as a result of the discussions last week, I found a New York Times article from November 6, 2001, that I didn't previously have on my site.  I added it.  The article said this about the Nguyen case:

Of the anthrax cases, Ms. Nguyen's stands alone in defying comprehension. She contracted a lethal dose of inhalation anthrax, but no traces of the bacteria have been found anyplace she is known to have been in her last few weeks or on any item of clothing she might have worn.
......

Investigators admit that it has been difficult pinpointing everything Ms. Nguyen did in her last days. Did she buy gum here, get coffee there? One momentary encounter might have been the only one that matters.
.....

Dr. Bradley Perkins, an anthrax expert at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a conference call with reporters yesterday that, "We do not have any very good leads as to where or how the exposure occurred."

Dr. Bradley said that, amazingly enough, even as many more samples have been tested from the hospital, her apartment, her car, along her daily subway route to work on the No. 6 train, and from other places she was known to have visited, there has not been a single positive reading for anthrax. Investigators have been running swabs over every sweater, tabletop and doorknob that Ms. Nguyen might have touched, rubbed or passed.

Authorities concede that anything is possible, including that Ms. Nguyen did in fact touch a contaminated letter. But if that is true, it would be one more surprise in a succession of anthrax surprises over recent weeks.

From what is known, Ms. Nguyen's case doesn't fit the cross-contamination pattern.

Two things struck me during last week's discussions.  First, it struck me that from what I've learned during the past six years about making anthrax powders, the two mailings almost certainly involved just two batches of anthrax.  The laboratory processes to create spores don't really have any "intermediate steps" where "a third batch" could have produced.  And there are no facts supporting some "trial and error" methodology which may have produced many different batches.   Basically, you do things one way to get the powder that was in the media letters, and you do things a different way to get the powder that was in the senate letters.  There was no reason for a third batch.  A "third batch" is just something people dream up to support some theory.

This subject of a "third batch" usually comes up when people talk about why no one got cutaneous anthrax in Florida and why no one except Kathy Nguyen got inhalation anthrax in New York City.

Why indeed.  It's a virtual certainty that the anthrax sent to The National Enquirer in Florida was just as capable of infecting people with cutaneous anthrax as the powder sent to the media organizations in New York City.  But no one in Florida got cutaneous anthrax.  Why?  The only logical explanation seems to be: That's just the way things happened. Nothing can be assumed because things just happened that way. 

And it's a virtual certainty that the individual spores in the powder sent to the media organizations in New York City were just as capable of creating inhalation anthrax as the individual spores in the powder sent to the two senators.  The only real difference is that the letters sent to the two senators contained a powder that was pure spores.  The letters sent to the media reportedly contained a powder that was only 10 percent spores.  The other 90 percent of the powder was the harmless debris that is left when you create anthrax spores without using any special laboratory equipment for refining. 

That means that if the same amount of powder escaped from the media letters as from the senate letters, 90 percent of the particles in the air around the media letters would be harmless. 

And since it takes about 8,000 spores to overwhelm the immune system in an average person and cause inhalation anthrax, who actually gets infected depends upon things like age, the state of one's health, and how many spores were actually aerosolized.  It is probably not just a coincidence that the three inhalation anthrax victims of the media mailing were the three oldest victims.
 

Age    Location   type        name               Onset 7 mos  ABC - NY   cutaneous   child              Sep. 29 23     NBC - NY   cutaneous   Casey Chamberlain  Sep. 28 27     CBS - NY   cutaneous   Claire Fletcher    Oct. 1 30     NY Post    cutaneous   Joanna Huden       Sep. 22 32     NJ PO      cutaneous   Teresa Heller      Sep. 27 34     NY Post    cutaneous   male               Oct. 19 38     NBC - NY   cutaneous   Erin O'Connor      Sep. 25 38     NY Post    cutaneous   Mark Cunningham    Oct. 23 39     NJ PO      cutaneous   Richard Morgano    Sep. 26 61     NYC        inhalation  Kathy Nguyen       Oct. 25 63     AMI - FL   inhalation  Bob Stevens        Sep. 30 73     AMI - FL   inhalation  Ernesto Blanco     Sep. 28

Mail processing equipment literally BLOWS dust around, so the environment in a postal facility would put many times more spores in the air than the simple handling of a letter in an office.  If there are enough anthrax spores in the air, the immune systems of even the youngest and healthiest people can be overwhelmed.  Whether or not age played any significant role in who got inhalation anthrax from the second mailing is another question.  Here are the ages of the victims of the second mailing: 
 

Age    Location   type        name               Onset 35     NJ PO      cutaneous   Patrick O'Donnell  Oct. 14 43     NJ PO      inhalation  female             Oct. 15 47     DC PO      inhalation  Joseph Curseen     Oct. 16 51     NJ PO      cutaneous   Linda Burch        Oct. 17 55     DC PO      inhalation  Thomas Morris      Oct. 16 56     NJ PO      inhalation  Norma Wallace      Oct. 14 56     DC PO      inhalation  unknown            Oct. 16 57     DC PO      inhalation  Leroy Richmon      Oct. 16 59     State Dept.inhalation  David Hose         Oct. 22 94     Conn.      inhalation  Ottilie Lundgren   Nov. 14

And here is the complete list of victims in order by age:
 

Age    Location   type        name               Onset 7 mos  ABC - NY   cutaneous   child              Sep. 29 23     NBC - NY   cutaneous   Casey Chamberlain  Sep. 28 27     CBS - NY   cutaneous   Claire Fletcher    Oct. 1 30     NY Post    cutaneous   Joanna Huden       Sep. 22 32     NJ PO      cutaneous   Teresa Heller      Sep. 27 34     NY Post    cutaneous   male               Oct. 19 35     NJ PO      cutaneous   Patrick O'Donnell  Oct. 14 38     NBC - NY   cutaneous   Erin O'Connor      Sep. 25 38     NY Post    cutaneous   Mark Cunningham    Oct. 23 39     NJ PO      cutaneous   Richard Morgano    Sep. 26 43     NJ PO      inhalation  female             Oct. 15 47*    DC PO      inhalation  Joseph Curseen     Oct. 16 51     NJ PO      cutaneous   Linda Burch        Oct. 17 55*    DC PO      inhalation  Thomas Morris      Oct. 16 56     NJ PO      inhalation  Norma Wallace      Oct. 14 56     DC PO      inhalation  unknown            Oct. 16 57     DC PO      inhalation  Leroy Richmon      Oct. 16 59     State Dept.inhalation  David Hose         Oct. 22 61*    NYC        inhalation  Kathy Nguyen       Oct. 25 63*    AMI - FL   inhalation  Bob Stevens        Sep. 30 73     AMI - FL   inhalation  Ernesto Blanco     Sep. 28 94*    Conn.      inhalation  Ottilie Lundgren   Nov. 14 * = Died

94-year-old Ottilie Lundgren almost certainly died from inhaling just a few spores from the millions transported on a cross-contaminated letter that passed through postal equipment in New Jersey about the same time as the anthrax letters which were sent to the two senators.  The contaminated letter was delivered to someone on her mail route.  And the mail distribution center at Wallingford, CT, was contaminated by the letter.  So, there's evidence of a cross-contaminated letter from the second mailing going to someone near Ottilie, although there was no actual contamination in her home. 

There's no evidence of any contaminated letter from either mailing going to anyone or anywhere near Kathy Nguyen. 

Why did Ms Nguyen become infected instead of someone else in New York City who was older or less healthy?  Again the answer seems to be: That's just the way things happened.  Nothing can be assumed because things just happened that way.

However, the second thing that struck me during last week's discussions was that it seems just too much of a coincidence that Ms. Nguyen worked in a hospital at a time when the news media was filled with stories about the dangers of being infected or killed by anthrax sent through the mails.  People who were worried that they might have been exposed to anthrax were visiting hospitals to get antibiotics and/or to talk to doctors about the need to take antibiotics.  I was told that Ms. Nguyen's place of employment, The Manhattan Eye, Ear & Throat Hospital doesn't have an emergency room per se, and that it would not be a likely place for anyone to go for antibiotics in such a case.  But that doesn't change the fact that Nguyen worked in a hospital.  She wasn't a nurse or doctor.  She worked in the supply room in the basement.  But, why didn't this one mysterious case affect some accountant or grocery store clerk or taxi cab driver?  Can it be "just a coincidence" that a hospital employee was infected at a time when people who were worried that they may have been exposed to anthrax were rushing to hospitals? 

While discussing this, I was reminded that the people at the media organizations were given antibiotics at their work locations, so there was no need for any of them to go to hospitals to get antibiotics.

True, but what does that mean?  Does it mean that someone worried about taking antibiotics given out at his or her workplace went to get advice from a doctor they knew at the MEE&TH?  Does it mean that someone went to the MEE&TH because the lines would be shorter there?  Does the fact that Kathy Nguyen worked in a hospital have anything at all to do with how she became infected?  Is it just a strange coincidence?

The Kathy Nguyen case is just as much a mystery today as it was six years ago.  But, like most mysteries, facts can greatly reduce the number of probabilities.  A person just needs to look at all the facts objectively.  They shouldn't merely look at the few facts which they can interpret as support for a conclusion they have already made.

And, too, even though all the facts are not yet known, that definitely does not mean that one possibility is just as good as the next.  The known facts clearly show that Kathy Nguyen was exposed to anthrax from the first mailing:

1.  She was infected in the same area and at the same time as others in the area were being infected by spores from the first mailing.  (They were searching through the trash for letters that had been thrown away.) 

2.  Cross-contamination in this situation would be a virtually random event.  The odds are nearly astronomical against a random cross-contaminated letter from the second mailing coincidentally infecting a person in that relatively small area of the world where the first mailing infected people. 

3.  Other cross-contaminated letters left behind traces and records.  There was no trace or record of any such letter connected to the second mailing going to anywhere near where Kathy Nguyen is known to have been. 

And while this doesn't seem to have anything to do with catching the person who sent the anthrax letters, it might help clear up some dangerous misconceptions about how lethal even unsophisticated anthrax preparations can be, and it helps support the idea that the culprit may have made one type of anthrax powder on the weekend following 9/11 and may have made the second type of anthrax powder on the weekend prior to Columbus Day, 2001.  All he needed was a motive, a sample of the Ames strain and unsupervised access to a good laboratory. 

December 7, 2001 - I've been accused of not being "fair" because I don't give equal time to every theory about the anthrax attacks of 2001 that shows up on the Internet, no matter how many people believe the theory.  Other people tell me I shouldn't bother discussing conspiracy theories because it gives the theorists more exposure than they deserve.  So, no matter what I do, it will upset someone.  Just a reminder: This site is not about other people's theories.  It's my analysis of the anthrax attacks of 2001. 

December 6, 2007 - The first entry since November 8 in the Docket of the Hatfill v FBI lawsuit isn't very exciting.  Basically, it just says that the sealing order expired on December 3, but the transcript for one of the witnesses did not become available until December 5.  Therefore, the attorneys for Toni Locy and James Stewart ask for an additional 2 days to respond -- until December 19, instead of December 17.  And, if Dr. Hatfill feels a need to respond to their response, he'll have until Janauary 5 to do it.

It's not exactly headline making news.  But at least we know that everyone is still on the job producing paperwork.  And, presumably, since it only has to do with third party matters, it has no effect on the December 14 status meeting date.

December 5, 2007 - There doesn't seem to be any news resulting from the end of the Stay in the Hatfill v FBI lawsuit.  But that doesn't mean that things aren't happening.  The end of the Stay just means that Toni Locy and James Stewart can now view the depositions.  It doesn't mean there will be immediate legal activity about what they find -- if anything.

There's another date looming: A Status Conference is scheduled for 9 a.m. on Friday, December 14 before Judge Walton.  Just about everything that can happen before going to trial has seemingly happened.  There doesn't seem to be much left to do except to either set a date for the start of the trial ... or to settle the case somehow. 

December 2, 2007 - Tomorrow, December 3, the Stay ends in the Hatfill v FBI lawsuit.  Supposedly, the depositions of FBI and DOJ officials that have been underway for the past couple months will then be unsealed and made available to the reporters awaiting a ruling on Dr. Hatfill's Contempt of Court Motions. 

It's probably not a good idea to expect too much from this.  But, while I can easily understand why they wanted the depositions of FBI and DOJ officials sealed, I really have to wonder why it will be okay to unseal them on Monday. 

I've got my fingers crossed in hopes that we might actually be on the verge of hearing some important news about the Hatfill lawsuit -- and possibly even some new information about the anthrax attacks of 2001.  It's been a long time since I've had any really new information to analyze.

November 29, 2007 - Yesterday, I was informed by a knowledgeable source that the anthrax letter sent to Tom Brokaw at NBC in 2001 was not taken to the New York Department of Health facilities at 125 Worth St., as stated in my book, but was instead taken to the NYC Public Health Laboratory at 455 First Avenue.  That adds to the mystery of how Kathy Nguyen was exposed to the anthrax.

November 27, 2007 - In case you have been wondering, the demands I've received from news organizations to remove articles from this web site are not the result of some effort by those organizations to muzzle me or shut down this site.  They're the work of a "third party" who believes that my web site should be run according to his beliefs about truth and justice.  He's been contacting those news organizations (and probably a lot of others) to set me straight on what is right and proper -- according to his standards. 

The type of advice I'm getting from readers of this web site can be summarized in this statement from one reader:

Copyright laws are not violated when;

1. The information is used for educational purposes
2. Proper Credit is given to the source/authors
3. There is no profit or gain from the use of such materials 

Unfortunately, I don't have the money to argue copyright violations cases in court.  As I see it, when a news organization sends me a letter saying I'm violating their rights, they have already made up their mind that I am in the wrong.  If I argue, they will simply take on a more aggressive attitude.  So, if a news organization with a staff of lawyers on retainer says I violated their copyrights, I have to capitulate immediately.  It's not about what is right, it's about what battles I can afford to fight.

November 26, 2007 - The Wall Street Journal just contacted me and instructed me to remove all Wall Street Journal articles from this web site.  I have done so.  That will create a lot more broken links.

November 25, 2007 - Back in November of 2001, when I first created this web site, I never expected it to continue for six months, much less six years. 

It was started when I found I needed a place to keep track of all the news articles about the anthrax attacks that were in the news.  I'd been discussing the subject on the alt.tv-pol-incorrect newsgroup.  As I recall, the subject came up when Bill Maher, the host of the now-defunct TV show "Politically Incorrect," had asked whether or not we should atom bomb Afghanistan if it turned out the Talaban was behind the attacks.

Initially, for reference, I just included links to news articles I found on the Net.  But that turned out to be a BIG mistake, since I soon learned that most news articles do not remain on their originating web sites forever.  Very important articles about events at the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention (BTWC) in Geneva that November just disappeared when they were no longer current.  And I was unable to find copies of those articles again.  The articles were important, because that was when Barbara Hatch Rosenberg began pointing the finger at the Bush adminstration as possibly being behind the anthrax attacks.  It created a big furor at the BTWC.  There were a lot of comments and news articles about it.

To an analyst, there's nothing much worse than losing valuable data you were using to do an analysis.  You end up without any evidence to support important findings.

Having learned a lesson, I decided to save copies of the articles on my web site and create reference entries which pointed to both my copy and the original copy.  The main link was to the original, and I followed that with "or HERE" which linked to my copy. 

That probably would have worked fine if the investigation had only lasted six months.  But it didn't.  As the months passed, most of the links to the original articles stopped working, and I had a web site filled with invalid links.  Eventually, when I needed to look up something, I just used my own links.  And when I found the time, I'd go back and remove the invalid links to replace them with links to my copies of the articles.  Then, as more time passed, it just became easier to link only to my copies. 

But there were problems with that, too.  As the years passed, my web site became bigger and bigger.  I had hundreds upon hundreds of reference articles.   And it required more and more bandwidth to let visitors to my site look at all the articles I had discussed over the years.  Many Internet host sites bill their customers based upon how much bandwidth a web site uses.  As a web site grows and grows, the added bandwidth usage can become like putting one straw after another on a camel's back. 

And, as more and more articles are assembled in one place, more and more Google and Yahoo! searches find articles which have nothing to do with my site.  For example, someone looking for "articles on general accepted accounting principles" or "maryland vehicle inspection certificate forged" will find all those words in some page on my site and they may visit to take a look.  It's a total waste of bandwidth.

So, when I was recently asked to remove all Reuters, Washington Post and Newsweek articles from this web site, it was definitely time to rethink how I link to articles. 

I can't just go back to the way I did things in November of 2001.  I need the articles for my analysis.  I can't let them simply disappear because some newspaper only keeps the current week's articles on their web site.  I just need to keep my copies of Reuters, Washington Post and Newsweek articles off the Internet.  Deleting those articles from my web site doesn't affect my ability to view such articles in my own computer. 

So, it looks like I'll be going back to the second way I did things.  I'll be showing links to the original articles, plus there'll be an equivalent of "or HERE" where I link to my copy for my own personal use in my own personal computer.  The link will just be an (X) that will only work for me.  If links to original articles stop working, they'll just stop working.  I can't do anything about it.  If I notice it, I may remove the link and leave only the title and date information.  But, if it's an important link, I may try to find the original.  We'll see how things work out.

If I can find a current link to the original source, the reference will look like this:

     The Washington Post - Oct. 27, 2002 - "FBI's Theory On Anthrax Is Doubted" (X) 

If I can't find a current link, the reference will look like this:

     The Washington Post - Nov. 5, 2002 - "Anthrax Under The Microscope" (X)

As far as I can tell, the vast majority of people who regularly visit this web site do so to read my comments, to read my analysis and/or to see if there is any recent news about the anthrax attacks of 2001.   For them, the change should be almost unnoticeable.

November 24, 2007 - Someone just advised me of a "9-11 truther" video about the anthrax attacks of 2001 that showed up on Google yesterday.  Click HERE to view it.  It may be just the standard conspiracy theory message, but it's relatively well done. 

Also, as promised in their press release, former CIA Director James Woolsey was at the news conference where a consulting firm presented three anthrax attack scenarios.  According to The Kansas City Star, Neil Livingston, who is the CEO of the consulting firm ExecutiveAction, said the report was meant to be an “educational document” for the public and to show the risks that America faces.  He also mentioned a few things about the anthrax attacks of 2001:

Livingston pointed to the mystery that still surrounds the 2001 attack that struck in Florida, Connecticut, New York and metropolitan Washington as evidence that anthrax is on the back burner.

Five people died in the attacks.

“The most alarming thing is that we have not solved the 2001 anthrax attacks,” Livingston said.

November 20, 2007 - I just received a Cease & Desist letter from The Washington Post Company asking that I remove all Washington Post and Newsweek articles from this web site.  I have done so.  That's going to cause hundreds of links to stop working. 

November 19, 2007 - Today's Frederick News-Post, which is published in Frederick, MD, home to USAMRIID and Fort Detrick, contains some interesting statements about the anthrax attacks of 2001 by columnist Katherine Heerbrandt: 

The FBI never solved the case, but eminent scientists agree that the anthrax used in the mailings was homegrown, most likely manufactured at Fort Detrick.

Now, we are expanding bio-labs that work with similarly virulent bugs to create more samples so that we can then create vaccines for them. All with no evidence that the real enemy even has the ability to make them, much less deploy them.

And with the full knowledge that we are responsible for the bioterrorism acts of October 2001. 

November 18, 2007 - Thursday of this week will be the 6th anniversary of this web site, which was started on November 22, 2001. 

Looking back at the comments from that time, I seemed to be overhauling the web site about once a week as new information was found.  There were major misconceptions back then.  For example, many people (particularly the Wall Street Journal) believed that the Tom Brokaw letter was on the European A4 size paper.  So did I.  Later, when I was able to examine large and detailed images of the letters, it became clear that the letters were all standard 8-1/2x11 copies trimmed down to various smaller sizes, and the Brokaw letter just seemed to be the longer and narrower A4 size as a result of a small photo released by the FBI.  A4 size is about 8-1/4 x 11-11/16ths.  The Brokaw letter was actually much smaller.  It was trimmed to about 6-1/2x9 inches, evidently so it would fold easily into a small envelope.

That was a very good example of something seeming to be true at the time, but which facts and better information later showed to be totally wrong.

The belief that the Ames strain came from Ames, Iowa, was something else which facts later showed to be totally wrong.

The belief that an anthrax letter had been sent to Microsoft in Reno, Nevada, was later shown to be totally wrong, although some continued to believe it for years. 

Reports by ABC news that there was bentonite in the Daschle anthrax turned out to be totally bogus reporting.

There was also a lot of talk about threatening letters (with the same handwriting as the anthrax letters) being sent from Indianapolis before 9/11.  It seemed very important at the time, but there was no verification and nothing came of it. 

The strange death of a biology professor resulted in a lot of theories, but none held water. 

And on and on it went.  Theories were born and died.  Facts replaced early incorrect beliefs.  New facts were uncovered and reported.  And I modified this web site again and again to take the new facts into consideration. 

But, for many people, initial beliefs were held firm regardless of what the facts later turned out to be.  Instead, they rationalized ways that they could still be right, even if the facts said they weren't.  The government could be manipulating the facts.  There could be facts which disprove what the government is saying, but which the government is hiding from the public -- or which the FBI just hasn't bothered to find.  Or the FBI could be totally incompetent, and the FBI could be just like a Borg Collective, mindlessly accepting some idea dreamed up by a bureaucratic profiler with no sense of reality who simply followed established and obsolete procedures.

New facts are hard to come by these days -- six years later.  You have to dig really deep for them.  Just how deep is illustrated by my new web page about "Particles, Spores & Van Der Waals Forces."  I could never have imagined six years ago that today I'd be trying to get some solid information about exactly how van der Waals forces can bind some tiny particles together while seemingly having little effect on other tiny objects like dry anthrax spores.  When you start asking questions about atomic forces on objects far too small to be seen by the human eye, you are getting really really deep into a subject.  But they are important questions.

And there are signs that they are questions which haven't been adequately addressed before by anyone.  Or, if they have, not many people know the answers.

Checking through my web site logs, I've noticed major universities and research facilities visiting my new web page, coming via Google or Yahoo! searches for information about van der Waals forces.  And the number of people looking is increasing.  In August I had no visitors looking for information about van der Waals forces.

In September there was just this one search:

van der waal

van der waals and particle size
van der waals interaction sphere and point

how to determine van der waals forces
discuss van der waals forces
force de van der waals
glucose interaction van der waal
glucose van der waals
lactose van der waals
van der waals amino acids
van der waals anthrax
van der waals attraction between spherical particles
van der waals force in molecule magnitude
van der waals force of attraction
what factors affect van der waals forces
why causes van der waal forces and surface area

So far, I've gotten no solid answers, but it's good to know that a lot of people are asking the same questions.  Maybe someone will come up with a good answer.  Hopefully, the answers are already available somewhere and we won't have to wait for the peer review process to produce something totally new.  That could take months or years. 

I'll revise this web site if the facts demand it, but I suspect the answers will not show that tens of thousands of microbiologists are part of some massive conspiracy.  It seems far more likely that a few chemists just don't understand the important differences between a spore and a manufactured particle the same size as a spore, and they prefer to believe conspiracy theories rather than do research which might show their beliefs to be wrong.

November 15, 2007 - Yesterday, in an article titled "Anthrax And Al Qaeda" on the CBS News web site, the author Michael Barone commented about an article by Ray Robison on the conservative web site "The American Thinker."  Robison wrote this:

I have also argued publicly that the 2001 anthrax attack makes a lot more sense as a continuation of the 9/11 attacks than as the plot of some embittered scientist.

It continues to strike me as highly implausible that the anthrax attacks, which occurred just days after September 11, were not an al Qaeda operation.  The FBI investigation, focusing on scientists in the United States, has produced nothing, and we are told that the FBI now concludes that the anthrax could have come from anywhere in the world.

They also claim "The FBI has ... produced nothing" in its Amerithrax investigation.  In the minds of Right Wingers, and probably in the minds of most people, if there has been no arrest, then nothing has been accomplished.  That is truly highly implausible. 

And, of course, Left Wingers continue to argue that nothing is being "accomplished" because the anthrax attacks were some kind of plot by the Bush Administration.

But how long can anyone argue that things are being "accomplished" when whatever is being done is done in secret?  I hope the FBI will provide new information before these implausible beliefs become "established facts" in the minds of most Americans. 

November 14, 2007 - David Wright, the CEO of PharmAthene Inc. has released a bizarre "monograph" titled "Spores: The Threat of a Catastrophic Anthrax Attack on America" which is getting a lot of attention among people who follow the anthrax investigation.  It deliberately mixes fact with fiction, but, unfortunately, it also seems to mix fiction with what the "monograph" indicates is supposed to be fact.

This bizarre statement is on page 64:

Less than a week after the 9/11 attacks, it is believed the perpetrator dropped two batches of envelopes into mailboxes. The first evidence of the attack appeared about two weeks later.

Then he has another bizarre statement starting at the bottom of page 65:

The source of the anthrax employed in the attacks remains a mystery. One possibility discussed in the media is a biodefense facility, which uses small volumes of the biological agent for research, including vaccines, therapeutics, protective clothing and containment, detection, alarms, and decontamination. It is postulated that someone with access to such a facility may have stolen small amounts of anthrax and decided to use it for the attacks after the Iraq war erupted.

There is a lot more in the "monograph" about coating spores, about milling, and about how Washington Post journalists disputed what top anthrax experts said, while, in reality, it was the other way around.

The monograph has something to do with a Press Conference today which is described in a Press Release titled "America Faces High Risk of a Terrorist Anthrax Attack; Six Years After 2001 Anthrax Incidents U.S. Still Largely Unprepared Warns Terrorism Expert Neil Livingstone." 

I'm as concerned about possible bioweapons attacks as anyone else, but I also think it is very important to get facts straight when talking about the subject.

November 11, 2007 - When things are slow, I tend to go back to old matters to study them again.  During the past week, I spent time thinking about the Stay Order in the Hatfill v FBI lawsuit. 

The Stay Order just says that "The Government's Motion to Stay is granted and civil proceedings shall be stayed until December 3, 2007."  But depositions can continue.

The request for extention of time filed by Toni Locy and James Stewart says in part:

The Court also ordered that transcripts of the depositions now underway be sealed until December 3.

Does that mean that after December 3, the depositions now under seal will no longer be under seal?  If so, what is the significance of Monday, December 3, 2007?  The extention of time to December 17 doesn't appear to alter the "under seal" Order.   Locy and Stewart evidently claim they need to study the transcripts after the "under seal" period ends, and that's why they requested the extention of time.

This seems to indicate that something will be done on or before December 3, 2007.  What that may be is anyone's guess. 

Meanwhile, I also got to thinking about the very odd way the writer of the Goldman Sachs threat letters wrote the letter "P" in the explanation letter sent to Newsday.  It seemed to be an example of writing while looking elsewhere.  Some checking seemed to confirm that, which also produced a thought about another "pattern" for the 70 threat letters (one to each State, plus extras to New York and New Jersey?).   While trying to figure out where to add comments about those observations to the page, I decided to overhaul the entire page to put it in a more meaningful and easy-to-read order. 

And last week I also received a couple scientific reports from a scientist who works for the Secret Service.   Answering my request, he sent me a 2005 report titled "The Effect of Electron Beam Irradiaton on Forensic Evidence.  1. Latent Print Recovery on Porous and Non-Porous Surfaces" and a 2007 report titled "The Effect of Electron Beam Irradiaton on Forensic Evidence.  2. Analysis of Writing Inks on Porous Surfaces."  Since the reports are about how the practice of irradiating mail bound for government offices (which began AFTER the 2001 anthrax attacks) affects forensic evidence, they don't really contain any significant information about the anthrax attacks.  But I can't help but wonder if they don't say something about the kind of evidence which might have been gathered from the 40 threat letters and 2 explanation letters found in the Goldman Sachs case (which weren't irradiated) even if the culprit "wore gloves when handling the letters and additionally used furniture polish to wipe down the envelopes and stamps."

November 7, 2007 (B) - As expected, Judge Walton granted the request by Toni Locy and James Stewart for more time (until Dec. 17) to respond to Dr. Hatfill's Contempt Motion in the Hatfill v FBI et al lawsuit.  There's also some cryptic legal mumbo jumbo in the "Minute Order" about this and that being "moot." 

November 7, 2007 (A) - I hope it isn't a sign of things to come, but I was just asked to remove all Reuters articles from this web site.  I deleted the page which included the Reuters articles, leaving just the references to the articles.  The request didn't come from Reuters itself, it came from some organization which has reprint rights.

November 5, 2007 (B) - Apparently the "Stay" in the Hatfill v FBI lawsuit doesn't prevent Toni Locy and James Stewart from requesting more time to review "now-sealed deposition transcripts."  They've just asked for an extention of time until December 17, 2007, and since all parties agree, they'll probably get it. 

November 5, 2007 (A) - The New Yorker magazine just published an interesting article with the misleading title "Dangerous Minds - Criminal profiling made easy."  It doesn't mention the FBI's profile of the anthrax mailer, but it's still relevant to the anthrax investigation because it seems to perpetuate a common misconception about criminal profiling  -- that if an investigative tool is not 100% reliable, it is worthless.  It even refers to one specific criminal profile as being "so full of unverifiable and contradictory and ambiguous language that it could support virtually any interpretation."

There is no mention of the very basic fact that a criminal profile is simply a tool that investigators can use if they have nothing else to work with.  It's really just an educated guess based upon knowledge of who committed such crimes in the past (e.g., a married person killed at home is most often killed by the spouse) and upon behavioral psychology that can be implied from details of the crime (e.g., mail fraud isn't typically committed by illiterate short order cooks).  If you have nothing else to work with, you need to start somewhere.  So, you start by checking out the people who fit the profile.

It's also important to understand that if the investigators find a "person of  interest" or "suspect," they do NOT change the profile, even if the profile doesn't match the "person of interest" or "suspect" in any way whatsoever.  In the anthrax investigation, even if the FBI knows exactly who sent the letters, they cannot change the profile to match that person.  A profile is only of value when you have nothing else to work with.  When you have something else to work with, the profile no longer has any value until or unless that "something else" turns out to be totally wrong or worthless.

And the FBI cannot withdraw a profile even if they know who did it but cannot yet make an arrest, because (1) if they cannot yet make an arrest, the investigation is not yet completed, and (2) they would have to explain why they withdrew the profile. 

November 4, 2007 - "If at first you don't succeed, try a different method."  That's the basic problem solving methodology I've used most of my life.  The "try, try again" methodology used in athletics and other areas doesn't seem to work very well when trying to solve problems related to changing people's minds.  It's just nagging.

If the ideal method for solving a problem requires getting the FBI to release evidence in a mass murder, which they will not or cannot do, then a different, less-than-ideal method seems worth trying.  Since anthrax spores are very similar to the spores of Bacillus thuringiensis, which are commonly used in making insecticides, it seems to me that looking at a scientific dispute about van der Waals forces could show that one argument about the anthrax powder used in the attacks of 2001 is totally wrong. 

While I am still trying to get solid answers to the questions about Spores, Particles and van der Waals forces posed on my new web page, maybe I can get some different results with a different method: examining the main argument used repeatedly in public discussions by a scientist who argues that the anthrax spores sent to Senators Leahy and Daschle must have had a sophisticated coating of silica.  He has explained many times why he believes anthrax spores will cling to each other due to van der Waals forces in a manner "almost identical" to lactose particles.  Here's what he has written: 

As you know, and as the idiot will never know even if he lived 1,000 lifetimes, polar, non-polar, dipolar or bipolar molecules are totally irrelevant to PARTICLE van der Waals forces. The ONLY thing that matters is particle size and Hamaker constant - and as we have seen, also to flexibility of the particle to some degree.

As I’ve stated hundreds of times - van der Waals forces also affect PARTICLES as well as molecules. It doesn’t matter if the particle in question is composed of gold, plutonium, carbon, gnat crap or anthrax - that particle is not immune from sticking with van der Waals forces. What will vary the force to some degree is the Hamaker constant of the particle. Since anthrax spores and lactose particles are composed of very similar molecules made from the same atoms their Hamaker constants are almost identical.

The Hamaker constant is the parameter that tells us just how strong the van der Waals adhesion is. As these authors state it ranges from about 6-150 10^-20J. The Hamaker constant for an anthrax spore is about the same as a lactose particle.

Hamakers additivity concept applies to ANY particle - and ALL particles are made of atoms, these atoms may or may not be part of a molecule and the particle may contain thousands of different molecules - as anthrax spores undoubtedly do. The Hamaker constant for an anthrax spore is roughly the same as a lactose particle - since the molecules are basically of the same composition - carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.

But any argument on my part will just be met with another statement saying exactly the same thing, making it my task to either accept or scientifically challenge what he says -- even though what he says doesn't seem even remotely logical.

Because this seems like such a basic question, I cannot believe there isn't a very simple answer out there somewhere.   Thousands of microbiologists work with spores every day.  They are able to keep dry spores from sticking together without resorting to the application of exotic silica coatings.  Yet, using silica to keep cohesive particles from clinging together is a problem which chemists and engineers endlessly address.   I don't think microbiologists know of some all-purpose solution to the problems chemists and engineers continuously struggle with.  The answer has got to be in the chemical and structural differences between a spore and a manufactured particle. 

October 28, 2007 - The most significant thing to happen to me during the past week that relates to the anthrax attacks of 2001 was a discussion on FreeRepublic.com which caused me to reread a February 15, 2005 article by S.P. Velsko of Lawrence Livermore Labs titled "Physical and Analytical Analysis: A key component of Bioforensics."  The claim in FreeRepublic message #60, which references the Velsko article, was that "Ed Lake likes disagreeing with scientists from Livermore."  In reality, I have never disagreed with "scientists from Livermore," and we have never agreed so completely as in the mentioned article, particularly where S.P. Velsko says:

The knowledge base that is required to deduce process associations from measurement data consists of two basic components. The first is a systematic understanding of the many different possible “recipes” for generating agents. While much current expertise in this area centers around archival knowledge generated by the historical U.S. biological weapons program (and to a lesser extent, knowledge about foreign BW programs) it is important to recognize that would-be bio-terrorists are likely to utilize information from a broader range of sources, including open scientific literature, the internet, underground “cookbooks”, and information that has, unfortunately, been divulged to the news media in recent years. There is no necessary presumption that this information is always accurate or leads to an effective biological weapon. But only by collecting and organizing this information (and keeping it up-to-date) can we hope to recognize the recipe used to make an agent in the widest variety of possible incidents.

The image on the left is described as a "Shake and Bake" method of coating, and the image on the right shows how spores look when coated with fumed silica.

The Velsko article is also mentioned in the Wikipedia entry on the anthrax attacks of 2001 in the section titled "Controversy over coatings and additives," as is the book "Microbial Forensics" edited by Roger Breeze, Bruce Budowle and Steven Schutzer.  That book contains similar images on page 262 and particularly on page 263, and the claim in the Wikipedia section is that "the aim of these studies is to define the forensic fingerprints of silica weaponization processes."  That claim is true -- as far as it goes.  However, as Velsko states, they also considered weaponization information that had "unfortunately been divulged to the news media in recent years."  Based upon the images, that would be information about "silica coatings," specifically the idea of coating spores with fumed silica which was described in The Washington Post.  And the statement "There is no necessary presumption that this information is always accurate or leads to an effective biological weapon" would seem to confirm that the silica coatings shown in the illustrations would not produce an effective biological weapon.

And, most significantly, there are no images in the article or the book which show silica- coated spores making an effective biological weapon.  The ONLY image which shows what might be an effective bioweapon using silica is the image at the top of page 262 where PURE SPORES are mixed with silica and there are no coatings on the spores. 

Finding that paragraph by S.P. Velsko, which I'd undoubtedly read before and had forgotten about, made my week a very good one, since I'd been saying what Velsko said, but just in different words.  And now, instead of using my own words when this subject comes up, I can simply quote S.P. Velsko.  Many thanks, Dr. Velsko!

This, of course, directly relates to the letter written by the United Nations Chief of Biological Planning and Operations to the editor of Applied and Environmental Microbiology, which I wrote about on Friday.  Although the author of the letter, Kay Mereish, makes no reference at all to silica, she is still apparently taking sides in the dispute between the misinformation a journalist wrote about silica coatings in an article which the editor of Science Magazine called a "News article" that "didn't report original research" and solid, expert observations in a scientific article written by Douglas J. Beecher of the FBI labs in Quantico, VA, in which Dr. Beecher states: 

Individuals familiar with the compositions of the powders in the letters have indicated that they were comprised simply of spores purified to different extents.

The conflicting articles in Science and in Applied and Environmental Microbiology are what my new web page "Particles, Spores & Van Der Waals Forces" is all about. 

The responses I've received to that new page were nearly all questions instead of answers.  There seemed to be some agreement that there is no reason for dry spores to bind together in any significant way, and there seemed to be some agreement that particles of different substances would bind together with different degrees of force, but no one could answer the basic question: Exactly why and how do tiny particles bind together?  Simply reciting "It's due to van der Waals forces" isn't enough if you need to explain the differences in binding force between different objects of the same size.  It's no different than saying "It's a mystical force."  And suggesting lab experiments to evaluate differences doesn't help if the problem requires an answer that won't involve new laboratory research. 

Since better questions should result in better answers, I added a few new (and hopefully better) questions to the page:

If lactose particles are made from molecules bound together by Dipole-Dipole attraction, do the particles also have some Dipole-Dipole attraction binding them together?  How does it work?

If other particles are made from molecules bound together by temporary fluctuating dipoles, can that force somehow also bind particles together?  How?

If spores are made from many types of molecules, what kind of van der Waals force would bind them together and how would that force work?  It is known that spores can cling to surfaces for a variety of reasons, but do van der Waals forces cause spores to bind to each other in any significant way?

How significant is the fact that spores exist in air while many problems with the effects of van der Waals forces on manufactured particles occur in a vacuum?

This week, however, isn't starting out very well.  This morning's emails contained a couple threats.  For the first time, I've been asked to take down an article from this web site because the author claims it is a violation of his copyrights, even though the author repeatedly asked me to put that article and others on my site.  I've deleted the article.  I'm studying the situation regarding his other threat.

October 25, 2007 - This morning it was brought to my attention that Ross Getman's web site www.anthraxandalqaeda.com shows a recent letter written by Kay Mereish at the United Nations to the editor of Applied and Environmental Microbiology.   Kay Mereish's official title is reportedly "UN Chief, Biological Planning and Operations."

Unfortunately, the image of the letter is a bit difficult to read.  Here's what it says:

LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Unsupported Conclusions on the Bacillus anthracis Spores

     Douglas J. Beecher reported on the methodology that a U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation Laboratory used to identify an intentionally anthrax-contaminated letter(s) among mail collected from a Congressional building or postal facility that server the U.S. Congress after the incident of contamination that occurred on 15 October, 2001 (1).   The described sampling strategy and initial screening and  analysis methodology using direct plating were reported to be efficient and safe. However, the data supplied in the paper could not be used as evidence for judging the quality of the spores or to support or dismiss conceptions about the presence or absence of spore additives or about the production engineering used to prepare the spores.  Furthermore, the type of sampling and analysis data presented in the paper could not be used for extrapolation of ideas concerning spore quality or the method of production.  It is possible that Dr. Beecher's laboratory has performed additional analysis and obtained data that might support such conclusions but that were not included in the paper; if that is the case, it would be more scientifically appropriate to add "unpublished data" in parentheses next to the conclusions he offered concerning the apparent lack of additives, spore quality as reflected in particle size distribution, and the production engineering. In a meeting I attended in September 2006, a presentation was made by a scientist who had worked on samples of anthrax collected from letters involved in the same incident in October 2001; that scientist described the anthrax spore as uncoated but said it contained an additive that affected the spore's electrical charges (D. Small, CBRN, Counter-Proliferation and Response, Paris, France, 18-20 September 2006; organized by SMi [www.smi-online.co.uk]).
     It would be of importance for Dr. Beecher to submit data in support of his conclusions in another paper to establish a sound scientific basis for his arguments.

REFERENCE

1. Beecher, D. J, 2006.  Forensic application of microbiological culture analysis to identify mail intentionally contaminated with Bacillus anthracis spores.   Appl. Environ. Microbio. 

Kay A. Mereish
United Nations
866 UN Plaza
New York, New York  10017

Meanwhile, I'm not sure what would satisfy such a request.  What can be learned from pictures of pure spores?  Should Dr. Beecher have described exactly how pure spores like those in the attack letters are created?  Wouldn't that do more harm than good? 

The presentation in September of 2006 most likely referred to the addition of a surfactant to the wet anthrax before drying, much like adding a capful of Downey fabric softener to the final rinse when doing laundry.  It removes the static charge created by drying.  And the surfactant mostly evaporates during the drying process.  That is totally different from additives put in spore powders to reduce clumping due to moisture. 

But, this should show a lot of people that the subject of the anthrax attacks of 2001 has not been forgotten even after 6 years.   And it should also show that my new web page "Particles, Spores & Van Der Waals Forces" is as relevant today as it would have been if I'd created it six years ago.

October 21, 2007 (B) - According to the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, this coming Tuesday will there will be a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on the anthrax scare of six years ago.  The subject will be: "Six Years After Anthrax: Are We Better Prepared to Respond to Bioterrorism?"

October 21, 2007 (A) - On October 14, I commented about a web page I was putting together to describe a "scientific problem" I'm looking to solve.  I had thought about creating a "contest," but a contest seems to require too many rules, a time limit and too many other restrictions I don't want to bother with.  So, instead, I've just created a new page asking for help in solving the problem.  The new page is titled "Particles, Spores & Van Der Waals Forces."  It seems to be a situation where the description of the question answers the question, but I keep hoping that the question can be answered in a much simpler way.  And too much of the description of the question is just more questions.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  No names will be made public without permission.

October 17, 2007 - This morning on the "Blogger News Network," I found an interesting interview with former FBI Agent Terry Turchie, who led the FBI's hunt for domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski for the final two years of that investigation, and who also spent over a year heading the manhunt for domestic terrorist Eric Rudolf.  Terry Turchie and Kathleen Puckett PhD, an FBI profiler, coauthored a book titled "Hunting The American Terrorist," which was published on May 15, 2006.  Here are the question and answer I found most interesting:

Question: Obviously 9/11 was not a ‘Lone Wolf’ endeavor but there was something that happened a little later that might be, the Anthrax packages. Do you have any thoughts?

Answer: Kathy and I immediately felt that the anthrax mailings sounded more like a domestic terrorist and that the timing was more coincidental than anything else. We had seen so many coincidences during Unabom that we were not convinced the mailings were related to international terrorism and certainly not to al-Qaeda. The trouble is that many politicians (and former CIA Director James Woolsey) started telling the public that the anthrax attacks looked like they were connected to Iraq. In hindsight, this seems to be the best proof that there were many in the U.S. government that were itching for the excuse to invade Iraq sooner rather than later. We referred Kathy’s study on the Lone Wolf to our colleagues in the Bureau at the time and the FBI stepped up to the plate and beat back the tide on this issue. Today, it appears that all the evidence supports the notion that the anthrax attacks were domestic in nature.

But, Terry Turchie also has a criticism of the Amerithrax investigation:

The only idea that has been adopted post 9/11 is the recognition of the importance of analysis to any investigation or initiative. Conversely after 9/11, major terrorist investigations are run from FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., behavioral profilers work primarily from Quantico and have seldom been assigned to work full time on just one case, local field office management has never been integrated into the role that the management team played in UNABOM, and consistency of personnel is almost unheard of. For example, there have been continuous streams of managers and agents assigned to the anthrax investigation since the attacks during the week of 9/18/01. The case is unsolved.

October 16 -17, 2007 - The San Francisco Chronicle's article titled "House OKs bill to protect reporters in U.S. courts by wide margin" also says, 

The Senate Judiciary Committee passed a similar federal shield bill earlier this month, but plans to bring it to the Senate floor have been slowed because of strong opposition from a few Republican senators. The bill's sponsors fear that one or two senators may put a hold on the bill to block its progress.

October 15, 2007 - An article in yesterday's USA Today says the Federal Shield law is likely to pass and gives details about the DOJ's opposition to the law.

October 14, 2007 - I spent much of the past few weeks putting together a web page in which I lay out a "scientific problem" related to the anthrax attacks of 2001.  The idea was that I would hold a "contest" where I would award autographed copies of my book as prizes to those who help the most in solving "the problem."  But I haven't yet gathered the nerve to put the "contest" on this site, since "the problem" seems to be too much like asking people to scientifically prove that 1+1 equals 2 only because a few individuals claim that 1+1 does not equal 2.  The "best solu